Chapter 870: Thanos: Destiny Is Mine! — ’Gorgon’: Ah, Yes, Yes
The sky was the color of blood.
The sea of sand and barren wasteland, the mountains that once towered into the clouds—now nothing remained but naked rock, devoid of any trace of life.
Rattle—
At the very bottom of the rift, a pair of rough, purple hands stretched out from the shattered center of the massive crater.
The endless forests had long since vanished without a trace, leaving behind only scorched earth and ash. The entire unlucky planet had been torn apart by colossal fissures. Lava beneath the crust surged like demons unleashed, staining everything a charred, blistering red.
"Gorgon... fear, escape, destiny... No. I will not run. The destiny that will ultimately descend is me. You are not my fate. I... am destiny. The destiny of the universe!"
Thanos could hear the sound of his own blood dripping from his severed arm, pattering onto the utterly fractured spatial structure, leaving behind a horrifying trail as it sizzled and evaporated.
A massive oval head rose slowly. The strips of flesh clinging to the pale skull burst like blisters with soft pop sounds, only to instantly regrow and cover the bone once more. Eyeballs regenerated. Pink sinews reknit themselves together. Purple pigmentation spread.
Thanos stood again, dragging legs nearly shattered by shockwaves. His body, charred black from head to toe, stepped forward out of the lava. With every stride, his skin reformed. The naked Titan bathed beneath the scorching radiance of this dying planet.
He looked up at the sky obscured by heavy volcanic smoke. "...This will not end, Gorgon. Between you and me, there can be only one victor. The universe cannot accommodate the dreams of two apostles."
Hum.
As his words fell, Thanos raised the Infinity Gauntlet on his left arm. The Reality Stone flashed red, and in an instant, pristine golden armor enveloped his entire body.
At that moment, a wave of hot wind swept across the wasteland. A gravely wounded wizard, half his body burned, slowly descended.
"My lord, you..."
"Ebony Maw. What is the fleet’s condition?" Thanos asked in a low voice that was shockingly calm.
"...Very bad, my lord. This subordinate has failed. Sanctuary II has been destroyed in battle. The enemy fleet withdrew intact. Even the Guardians of the Galaxy, including Star-Lord Peter Quill, escaped during the chaos... Our forces suffered a crushing defeat despite holding overwhelming numerical superiority."
Bowing deeply, Ebony Maw did not even dare tend to his wounds. He lowered his head as far as it would go.
"A crushing defeat... This is my defeat as well." Thanos stepped beside Ebony Maw, who trembled and hissed in pain from his injuries. He paid no heed to his subordinate’s cautious anxiety over failure. Instead, he gazed almost intoxicated at the four Gemstones embedded in the Infinity Gauntlet.
Power, Space, Reality, Soul.
"I once believed myself the pioneer of a new era. Out of selflessness, I thought I should leave greater room for prosperity to the universe of future generations. But the rotten remnants of the old era have proven to me that such mercy is impossible. The most difficult decisions allow no sentiment. They require me to give everything."
He spoke as if to himself.
"I should have absorbed that cosmic energy earlier... the Orb. From the very beginning, I should have gone in person." Thanos’ wide-set pupils, glowing with deep violet light, narrowed as if recalling something.
Reflected in the restless lava beneath the planet’s crust, his eyes shone with a blazing, brilliant purple—like two dying violet suns. No vitality remained. No emotion. Only an obsession with realizing his ideal.
"It is not too late."
He said.
Amid the sharp howl produced by friction against the atmosphere, the Titan raised his head. A massive ring-shaped shuttle, painted gray-black like a colossal tire, roared across the low sky. Possessing super vision and super intellect, Thanos recognized the shuttle’s identification with a single glance.
It was General Corvus Glaive—the foremost of his Black Order.
Descending from the sky and kicking up waves of scorching air over the charred ravine, the gaunt, corpse-like figure clad in black battle robes and hood looked toward Ebony Maw and Thanos.
"My lord." He bowed.
"I lost the first round," Thanos said expressionlessly. There was no shame in admitting it. His subordinates were all ambitious, none more so than Corvus Glaive. Concealment would only show weakness. As long as he still lived, he feared no disloyalty. If any arose, he would simply kill them.
"What of the others’ progress?" he asked arrogantly.
"Mobilizing forces from the far reaches of the universe requires time. Proxima Midnight has already led her troops to the Andromeda Galaxy. Black Dwarf is returning from the homeworld. Supergiant’s status is unknown..." Corvus Glaive hesitated briefly. "My lord, such a hasty—indeed self-destructive—mobilization will reduce years of our efforts to nothing..."
"It does not matter." Thanos waved his hand, cutting him off.
The Black Order was merely a byproduct on his path toward realizing his life’s purpose. Elevating it to the level of the universe’s foremost terrorist organization—an empire in all but name—had been incidental. Once his long-cherished wish was fulfilled, whether it lived or died meant nothing to him.
"I require only the destruction of Gorgon’s Divine Empress Order. Let the old universe turn to atomic dust. Create a new universe where life knows only gratitude for what it has been given and yearning for new hope."
He issued even harsher and more frenzied commands to his two great generals.
"Go. Gather more fleets. Produce more soldiers. Prepare for me more bio-ships equipped with ’Stellar Terminator’ ion cannons, annihilation wave reflectors, negative bombs..."
"But, my lord, that would violate universal security regulations."
Corvus Glaive froze.
This extreme?
Fleet mobilization was one thing. The ’Stellar Terminator’—a star-killing main cannon capable of annihilating a star system under certain conditions—was still within reason. But annihilation wave weapons? Negative bombs? Weapons capable of destroying stars and erasing entire systems? Using them in remote frontier systems was one matter. But in a galactic hotspot like the Andromeda Galaxy...
Was that not akin to carrying out a terrorist attack at a United Nations Security Council assembly?
That would only provoke the nerves of the true powers. The Andromeda Galaxy belonged to the Skrull Empire. Even in decline, the Skrulls remained one of the three great cosmic empires—and had once held supremacy.
Even for someone as bloodthirsty as Corvus Glaive, whose atrocities across countless campaigns could fill volumes, a single thought emerged at this moment—
Thanos had gone mad. Truly mad.
Today you dare to blow up the Andromeda Galaxy. Tomorrow you would dare to destroy the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The day after, you would dare to obliterate the Shi’ar star domain. This was the final red line of the cosmic empires. Once crossed, they would never permit your existence.
The Black Order’s current state was ideal—dancing repeatedly along the edge of that line, living quite comfortably. Corvus Glaive had even been waiting for Thanos to retire to become a farmer, so he could ascend in his place. If Thanos truly carried this out, his imperial dream would be shattered beyond repair.
"My lord, this will provoke a universe-wide war against our Order..." Corvus Glaive still attempted to offer counsel.
"Execute."
Thanos’ voice seemed to rise from the abyss itself—a command that, in every literal sense, allowed no room for questioning.
He repeated it, stopping in his tracks and turning to look down at Corvus Glaive before him. Those luminous eyes were as cold as a dead zone, devoid of any emotion.
Gulp...
Corvus Glaive’s pupils dilated to their absolute limit in an instant.
Danger!
A primal fear burst forth from the deepest part of his soul. Few understood better than Corvus Glaive how foolish it would be to defy Thanos at such a moment.
"Yes!" he answered without hesitation. He immediately returned to the shuttle and soon departed this half-shattered, dying star system, heading toward the newly opened warp-jump exit not far from the remnants of the Black Order fleet—an aperture in space that continuously disgorged newly forged steel behemoths.
...
—First phase objective of the war against the Black Order complete—
As Cortana’s crisp, mature voice rang through the communication channel of the 117th Fleet of the Demon Inquisitor Chapter, Tony Stark finally snapped back to his senses on the operations deck, shaken by the sheer spectacle of true interstellar naval warfare and the worldview-shattering clash between Titan and Angel. He let out a bitter smile.
"If even time can be manipulated, what use are ordinary mortals like us?"
Though he could neither comprehend nor observe the exquisite precision with which Selene had seized a single millisecond from Thanos, Stark had clearly seen the green light of temporal reversal that had rewound several cruisers and destroyers from the brink of catastrophic overload detonation.
How long could that reversal last? Were there irreversible side effects? How great was the energy cost?
Those were Stark’s questions.
"All right, Tony. That’s not a field we can step into for now. From a technological standpoint, we don’t even have a foundation," Dr. Banner—currently unable to transform into the Hulk—said as he repeatedly slapped the table to pull Stark back to reality. "The urgent issue is that your Veronica armor is already outdated before it even rolls off the line."
"Thor, why didn’t you join the battle?" Banner turned to the Asgardian God of Thunder beside him, who wore a foul expression, frost still clinging stubbornly to his beard and hair.
Having remained with Stark in the Avicebron workshop, he had not been fully aware of the military directives.
"They said it wasn’t time for me to fight yet."
Thor crossed his arms, muttering irritably as he brushed ice crystals from his beard.
That woman called Esdeath had shown no mercy at all. He had shouted about chopping off Thanos’ head and demanded to join the fight—only to be beaten down by a group with staves and batons. When that ice-cold woman approached, the sensation had been such that one slap nearly sent him flying back to Jotunheim, the realm of frost giants among the Nine Realms.
"So in other words, they never intended to finish it in a single stroke from the beginning."
Stark surveyed the situation around the deck. Not only had the Divine Empress Order’s internal forces remained largely unmoved—even the Earth Conscription Army had not been deployed.
Aside from those special units with distinct styles and vivid personalities, the fleet strike against the mad Titan called Thanos—launched when he had just jumped into the Andromeda Galaxy and had yet to stabilize his formation—felt more like a demonstration. A hit-and-run to seize advantage.
This was not an asymmetric war against some Skrull warlord.
No boarding actions. No brilliant battleship maneuvers. No winding dogfights of interstellar fighters. From start to finish, it had been nothing but deafening barrages—void shields stacked against void shields, cannons trading fire in blunt exchanges without finesse.
What did that amount to?
The space naval war you imagine: both sides calculating, exchanging blows and sacrifices, titanic war machines forged from layers of high technology searching for flaws under the exquisite reactions and computations of machine intelligence and artificial intellect—romance in grand cannons, multi-turret doctrines, and aircraft carriers.
The reality of space naval war—muster the three services, divine an auspicious day, stack armor, max out firepower, then go all in!
It came down to whose guns were stronger, whose armor thicker, whose expendables more abundant.
Judging from the current battle, Stark tentatively concluded that the Divine Empress Order held the advantage in the first two, while the Black Order possessed an overwhelming edge in the last.
"What are they planning?" he wondered.
On the operations deck, in the section belonging to the Earth Conscription Army, Phoenix Jean Grey’s face was pale as paper.
"Cough... cough..."
Her eyes were sunken, dark circles heavy beneath them, as though all her strength had been drained—utterly exhausted, pushed to her limit.
"Jean?" Wolverine Logan looked at her with concern.
"I’m fine. Just tired..."
Jean Grey raised her hand weakly. A faint crimson glow flickered, then went out like a lighter that had run out of fuel. "Perhaps this is what Professor X meant about the uniqueness of the power within me... The aftershocks of the divine battle between Titan and Angel disrupted the force inside me. At least I don’t have to worry about losing control."
She gave a faint, self-mocking smile. "By that logic, I suppose I carry divine power too?"
"..." Cyclops remained silent.
"Frank, do you think we’ll still need to fight?" someone asked, looking toward the Punisher, who sat meticulously polishing his power blade. His tone carried disbelief. "I understand naval warfare. I understand ground assaults. But that Titan? Is that something we can even participate in? That’s time reversal. Does that mean we’re immortal?"
"Don’t indulge in wishful thinking. I trust the warning of the Old Man of the Mountain." Setting aside the polishing cloth, Frank Castle gripped the power blade. The blade shone bright. Hum! The disruptive field activated, arcs of electricity glinting beneath the lights.
...
Hum hum—
The crimson summoning recall array still shimmered with fading particles of light.
Tap tap—
"Tss..."
Appearing aboard the flagship, as the radiance of the Phoenix Force and chaos magic faded and the newborn ’Sentry Force’ remained incompletely integrated, Selene felt as though her spiritron claw blades had been hammered repeatedly. Every joint, every muscle throbbed with numbness.
"Playing the role well while nurturing him too—what a thankless task."
"Then next time, let me go instead."
Esdeath smiled as she approached and bent slightly beside Selene. She reached out, touching Selene’s claw blades, then brushed the back of her hand where Thanos’ heavy punch had struck, violet gaseous flames still smoldering.
"Sure. You can go first next time. Just don’t die too quickly. Even if you die, you must leave him with a deep enough impression. Once the momentum rises, we’ll still need to help him build on it."
"Emperor Thanos... I hope I can force him to mature. That sealed destiny—his forbidden fate—helping him unlock it is truly arduous..." Muttering, Selene asked casually, "Where’s the Master Chief?"
"You drained him dry."
"Huh?"
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