"Oh... Celestials? One of the fleet commanders of the Divine Empress Order is a Celestial? A mortal of flesh and blood, granted the Empress' blessing, ascending to godhood. So true gods really do exist?!"
By the corridor observation window, Stark withdrew his gaze. With a mix of emotion and excitement, he looked at Star-Lord Peter Quill, whose complexion had returned to normal and who was basically recovered. "I heard you also have the qualifications to become a Celestial? Something your father left you..." He rubbed his hands together.
That compulsive curiosity of his was flaring up again.
"Celestials... that bastard of a dad." At the mention of it, the more toned Star-Lord let out a mocking laugh, then said decisively, "No. I will never acknowledge him, and I will never become him. My father is Yondu, not some Celestial!"
...
The sheer resentment in his voice left Stark speechless. There was no way to respond to that.
His overheated thirst for knowledge cooled instantly. It felt too familiar. He had once been the same. Stark exchanged a helpless glance with Dr. Banner. It seemed building rapport wouldn't be easy for now.
During this period of fleet assembly and defensive deployment, the two of them had, by chance, learned some information about the Guardians of the Galaxy and Star-Lord himself from a gray-skinned, red-tattooed bald giant who wasn't a mutant or part of Earth's expeditionary force—an affable, straightforward guy who acted as if he'd known them for years.
A half-human from Earth, raised by alien ravagers, had carved out such a reputation across the universe. A galactic vigilante. The Guardians of the Galaxy saving the Nova Empire's capital, Xandar. His father's aura was somewhat similar to that of the fleet commander—they were of the same kind... and so on.
After learning all that, Stark and Dr. Banner decided to pay him a visit.
Comparing horizontally, their fame and the hardships they had overcome seemed even more colorful than those of the Avengers. And he had even attempted to assassinate Thanos alone.
Then they found Star-Lord aboard a Nova Empire vessel, talking with an old acquaintance.
"If you're here to ask about anything other than Thanos, don't waste your time. I don't want to talk about anything else. Iron Man Tony Stark. The Hulk." Star-Lord waved them off, signaling for them to leave.
"Ok, ok, ok."
Stark raised both hands briskly in surrender. "Let's talk about Thanos. His legions, his lackeys, his abilities, his weaknesses, his personality... everything." That was one of Stark's main purposes. Celestials and the like were just a newly ignited obsession—too distant, too unreal. It didn't hurt to ask.
"My Anti-Thanos Armor 3.0 upgrade needs some targeted parameter references from a different perspective," he emphasized.
"It's meaningless."
"Huh?"
"It's meaningless." Star-Lord shook his head with self-mockery. He glanced at Stark. "Thanos doesn't have fixed parameters. He's a madman. I've been to Earth. I know you're smart. Your armor's cool. It upgrades fast. But do you think the Divine Empress Order made a spectacle of burning down an entire star system's planets, ripping out mineral veins, and constructing fortress worlds for nothing?"
Star-Lord pointed out the observation window—
Stark blinked.
The flagship of the Divine Empress Order's fleet hovered in low orbit above the planet. Below it, he saw a dead world wrapped in molten iron and forests of steel.
He vividly remembered how beautiful and verdant this planet had been when they first arrived a week ago. Yet the lush surface had been ignited by a single lance strike from a Divine Empress Order battlecruiser, setting the atmosphere ablaze.
On the burning, scorched land, the Divine Empress Order launched massive planetary landings without even waiting for it to cool. From orbit, the fleet deployed tens of thousands of colossal engineering machines, construction automata, forging arrays...
Once the smelting furnaces devoured every mineral vein and rare metal deposit, steel fortresses stretching hundreds of miles rose as if overnight.
One after another, towering war machines—grim and monstrous as something from legend—raised their sky-piercing cannon barrels and void shield arrays. Visible to the naked eye, thorns of steel swallowed every stretch of flat land and drove into the crevices of mountains and riverbeds.
Even the planetary core was pierced. On the surface, bastions shimmered faintly, their light pulsing as control rods were inserted into the planet's heart. Hive-city-scale mega-reactors roared to life, supplying power to every engine of war across the globe.
"This is the cold beauty of industry."
Stark sighed in admiration.
If he hadn't witnessed firsthand the Divine Empress Order's utterly exaggerated infrastructure capabilities, no one would have believed that in just one week, they could level every planet in a star system and transform it into a composite fortress world.
"Fighting alone is meaningless. You're called the greatest inventor of Earth's new era, Stark. Don't you own an arms company? Wouldn't it be more suitable for you to think about improving deadlier, more vicious weapons to kill Thanos and wipe out his soldiers and subordinates?"
With a snort, Star-Lord's gaze flicked over Stark's white lab coat. His tone was weary. After failing to assassinate Thanos and nearly getting his whole team killed—and losing his lover for good—he seemed like a different person. The jokes were gone. He was far more serious now.
"Word from the Master Chief—Thanos' main fleet has set out." After saying that, Star-Lord handed Stark a data drive containing a summary of his infiltration of Sanctuary II.
Sharp-tongued as he was, he still gave it. Making a living as a ravager often meant compiling experiences into intel to sell.
"Don't believe all of it. I'm still me. In a way... I'm his son-in-law." Star-Lord bitterly rubbed his forehead, then left while chatting with his slightly chubby Nova Centurion friend.
A pessimist burdened by hatred and failure.
Stark closed his fingers around the drive and thought silently.
"Tony, Thanos is coming." Having once been beaten so thoroughly by Thanos that the Hulk wouldn't even transform again, remembering only fear, Dr. Banner sounded uneasy.
"It's fine. You finished calibrating the Anti-Hulk Veronica armor, didn't you? Just use that."
Stark turned, eyes narrowing as he looked at the gold-painted Nova Empire fleet bearing the red star insignia not far beyond the window. He then glanced at the burning, machine-roaring moons and subsidiary fortress planets throughout the system.
These ships before him were absolutely not the entirety of the so-called Divine Empress Order. Of that, he was certain.
But would the other Divine Empress Order fleets join the battle?
He didn't know.
There was too much mystery surrounding the Divine Empress Order for him to dissect.
"Come on, Dr. Banner. Let's go find Mentor Avicebron. As a veteran magus and spellcaster, sticking close to him has to be safer."
...
"Give me a month, and I could turn this star system into a ring of steel."
With eagle wings spread, standing atop the observation platform at the peak of a pyramid-shaped planetary turbo-laser on one of the fortresses, Selene surveyed the results of the Empire's engineering corps, automata divisions, and Heroic Spirits working in combination over this period of 'construction.'
"Haa... The core firepower network and void energy shield field arrays are in place. What remains is stacking and stacking again—layering armor upon armor."
A gust of cold wind swept past as Esdeath descended to Selene's side. She stretched her arms behind her back and took a deep breath.
"Stacking armor is a technical skill too. Fortunately, the 117th Fleet belongs to the Inquisition's official establishment. Otherwise, trying to arm an entire star system's defensive perimeter in such a short time—even if we used Heroic Spirits like goblins in a laboratory—it would still be difficult."
Selene let out a soft laugh.
"Notify the factory-forge sub-fleet. Prioritize production of new void shield arrays. Produce one set, deploy one set. Fill this primary planet first—then stack on a few more layers."
Factory-forge ships, as the name implied, not only provided maintenance, repairs, and a certain degree of light and heavy equipment production for main battle fleets, exploration fleets, and cruising Imperial detachments, but could also devour stellar plasma from suns to replenish fuel and power the internal manufacturing apparatus.
They were, without question, the life-support and blood-generation packs of deep-space fleets.
Although auxiliary fleets of vassal legions were also equipped with them, they could not compare to the extravagance of forces directly under the Imperial Inquisition—even STCs (Standard Template Constructs) could be allocated.
Naturally, they were not the cutting-edge, large-scale masterpieces produced by full-fledged forge worlds.
Selene was not picky.
Even small ones would do. Just stack more of them. Like void shield field arrays—in theory, they could be stacked infinitely.
"So this new round of Heroic Spirit summoning specifically brought in a group of 'foremen'—all Caster-class Servants with Territory Creation skills."
The curve of Esdeath's lips was delighted. "And you even summoned their Servant bodies here as well... I'm rather curious what Thanos' sealed, forbidden destiny will look like."
"We were idle anyway." Selene looked unconcerned as her claw blade snapped lightly. "Whether you get to see it depends on whether you can hold Thanos back—or get one-shotted."
"Won't your invincible power of time be waiting to support me?"
"If I don't support you, that's fine too. If you're gone, I'll just drag Saitama out of Earth..."
"..."
Rumble...
At this moment, Avicebron, Semiramis, and the other Caster-class Heroic Spirits either unleashed tens of millions of metal golems across the wasteland, reshaped the leylines through Territory Creation, or forged war machines through Item Construction...
Behind them, countless engineering automata operated under the unified control of the super-intelligent servitor Cortana, 3D-printing energy conduit networks, laser turret frameworks, missile launchers, and more. Then came the massive engineering equipment. Transport ships rose and fell ceaselessly, nearly emptying the munitions reserves of the logistics fleet.
Even transport vessels from the Shi'ar Empire, the Kree Empire, the Nova Empire, and countless small and mid-sized cosmic powers shuttled through the system, moving heavy interstellar anti-air weaponry produced by their respective civilizations into emplacement positions.
With the 117th Fleet's conditions—backed by the Shi'ar and Kree Empires—with support and allies, even if each harbored ulterior motives, it was simply stronger than fighting alone in many aspects.
Thinking of something, Selene ended the banter and opened a communication channel.
"Divert part of the general munitions production lines. Deploy them to the planet's subterranean mineral veins for on-site manufacturing."
"The satellites? No. There's no need to deploy production lines to the satellites or subsidiary node planets. A prolonged defense will inevitably fail. Their purpose is merely to form mutual horns and buy time. Even when Thanos' fleet arrives, continue reinforcing the system's primary planet."
As she issued orders, Selene descended slowly from the high platform. She bent down, scooped up a handful of high-temperature molten vitrified debris, and watched it trickle through her fingers.
"He should be arriving soon."
Looking at Esdeath, Selene said, "The suddenness of the Space Stone—send a warning to the Kree and the Shi'ar—"
Before she could finish, from within the deep curtain of the cosmos came a succession of piercing cracks—like glass under unbearable strain shattering violently.
The anchorage zone of the Anti-Black Order Covenant Fleet was illuminated in an instant by the dark, superluminal flash of hyperspace transition. At the nine o'clock direction relative to the Divine Empress Order fleet's bow orientation, a small patrol group responsible for defense and vigilance had already encountered the attackers.
Whoosh—whoosh—vrrr—crack—
With thunderous detonations, red, green, and blue plasma lightning beams streaked through deep space and across the smooth seam of the hyperspace exit. In a single exchange, several heavy cruisers belonging to some unnamed cosmic faction—non-Imperial design—had their energy shields overloaded by spaceborne nuclear missiles.
Magnetic cannons rained down like a storm, hammering their metal armor full of holes. Crack! Through the spreading fractures in hull plating, wounded and dying crew members screamed shrilly.
"Reinforcements! Requesting fire support! Requesting all available assistance!"
"Retreat! Requesting retreat!"
In an instant, the unlucky 'punish-the-villain' fleet of this minor power sent distress signals to Cortana and the allied command centers while simultaneously requesting withdrawal. Yet Selene saw clearly that the moment they were attacked, they were already pulling back...
A rabble.
Within the Sacred Selene Empire's military system, unauthorized retreat without orders—none of that fleet's primary commanders would survive the post-battle review. Execution.
Still, Selene understood. So-called allied forces were nothing but loose sand. How long had they even conducted joint drills? Expecting them to fight to the death was unrealistic.
They were merely small cosmic factions padding the numbers.
Seeing the Shi'ar, Kree, and Nova respond in succession—and with the Divine Empress Order exposing that the Mad Titan intended to seize at least half of all life in the universe, a claim too horrifying to ignore—they had come to swell the ranks, show their faces before two cosmic bullies, and make a token statement of position.
"Gorgon—! I have arrived! Come, fight again!!"
After crushing the armed fleet of the unnamed rabble, the Black Order's fleet poured out in oppressive waves. Almost simultaneously, Thanos' deep, powerful voice boomed like a great bell across the cosmos, as if the entire void could hear it.
"Your turn."
Calmly watching the scene, Selene patted Esdeath on the shoulder. She then turned aside, eagle wings beating as she soared toward the flagship of the 117th Fleet, where the Master Chief remained.
"The stage for the final act has been set."
—
—
40 Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon:
Patreon.com/DaoOfHeaven