Clang.
Inside the chaotic cabin, where violent impacts had ruptured conduits and sent sparks and plasma steam spewing everywhere, the captain of a warship belonging to the 'Anti-Black Order Covenant Alliance' shouted, "Move—fall back this way!" He was attempting to retreat and abandon the vessel that had already been crippled by the Black Order's firepower.
The red-skinned crew in the central control room turned and ran with him. Outside the observation window, warships from the Divine Empress Order, the Shi'ar, and the Nova forces stationed and patrolling within the system immediately returned fire in overlapping crossfire.
With dull, heavy impacts, deep space glowed under the scorching wash of weapons fire.
"Damn it, those bastards in the council should all be hanged. Salaries never go up, and only now they start expanding military spending. They sit at home flapping their mouths and send us to the edge of the galaxy to fight Thanos' army... And the Shi'ar and Kree aren't any better, using us as cannon fodder."
Cursing the ancestors of those council lords in the slang of his homeworld, the alien captain nimbly avoided ruptured pipelines and sprinted toward the shuttle docked on the inner hangar deck.
Sigh... Nearly half of the known universe had issued a joint declaration to take down Thanos. There was no way Thanos could overturn the tide. That was what he believed. He had been dispatched here merely to align with the mainstream powers of the universe—to fill a seat and show support.
But Thanos had rampaged for so many years. The Mad Titan's notoriety and ill temper were well known, and he now possessed the dangerous artifact explicitly mentioned in the Joint Declaration. Heavy casualties were inevitable.
It was a thankless job for many small and medium cosmic factions. Even though he had been sent here, he did not want to die. No one wanted to become just another number in the casualty reports.
Yet he had to come. It was about choosing sides and making a statement.
Thud thud! Racing through an emergency corridor where the damaged hull structure was beginning to collapse, he had only taken a step or two onto the hangar deck when—while still muttering about his own misfortune—a ripple of invisible force burst forth and swept over the fleeing humanoid aliens, freezing their movements for a split second.
"A psychic..." A violent sensation struck the back of his head like a brick. The alarm from his anti-mind-control device made the alien captain's face change drastically. "Not good—"
Before he could finish, bang bang—searing energy beams struck his chest and head. His helmet, bones, and flesh burst apart, fragments spraying in all directions.
As his bulging eyeballs reflected their final image before hitting the floor, he saw several of his own subordinates draw their guns and shoot their commanding officer, then turn their weapons on one another. When the bloody slaughter ended, the last survivor stuffed the barrel into his mouth.
Bang! Like a watermelon exploding.
In the next instant, the deck warped and tore open. Amid the constant low humming and the cracking disintegration of the ship's structure came another explosion. The grotesque, massive Leviathan bio-ship's sharp tentacles pierced through the heavy cruiser, fixing it in place, binding it, shredding it.
Its spiral chainsaw-like teeth—crafted from semi-metallic, semi-biological cyborg organic technology—were sufficient to grind apart the armor of the vast majority of spacecraft in the universe.
"How ugly."
Like singing, a beautiful and moving female voice offered that evaluation. "Such fragile wills, and they dare resist His Majesty Thanos."
Between the rib-like exoskeletal metal armor of the Leviathan bio-ship, a blue-skinned woman flexed her fingers. Beneath her hood, her narrow eyes—pupil-less and glowing with a faint halo—shimmered coldly.
"A scattered rabble."
With effortless ease, Supergiant led her fleet to break through the patrol squadron composed of several anti-Thanos cosmic factions. The Black Order's bio-ships surged into the system like a tide.
As the temporary military intelligence hub of the 'Anti-Black Order Covenant Alliance,' the super-intelligent servitor Cortana immediately responded. One after another, Nova Corps and Shi'ar military vessels roared forward into engagement range.
In an instant, beams of faint light became blazing crimson lances, piercing through the 'dark clouds' and extending to the far edge of vision. The afterglow of plasma lingered brilliantly, delivering a head-on blow to the advancing Chitauri and other bio-ships.
For a time, the void within the system filled with smoke and energy beams crisscrossing in flashes.
"Shi'ar Royal Guard... Hmph! Insolent rebels who show disrespect to His Majesty Thanos."
The moment she saw the silver-winged lightning insignia of the Shi'ar Empire, Supergiant's expression turned icy, her voice losing its earlier softness.
Enemies meeting made tempers flare. Though the Shi'ar Empire had not personally crossed Supergiant before, they had crossed Thanos—and that was enough for her. She had once been an orphan. When she sought to end her life, it was Thanos who saved her, who gave her the will to live. That special experience made her particularly devoted—almost obsessed—with him.
Hum—
With enemies before her, every strike carried force. Supergiant's eyes widened, and a burst of white light suddenly expanded outward. The psychic shockwave that erupted forced even several supermassive Leviathan bio-ships around her to howl and instinctively pull away.
Not far away, several ship formations that had been rapidly maneuvering to withdraw—leaving space for the titans to battle—suddenly halted. Deviating from their flight paths, swaying left and right, they pushed their engines to full power and collided head-on. Energy shields flickered and overloaded. The twisted metallic blossoms of chain detonations illuminated the void.
With a malicious smile of delight, Supergiant used the mind-amplifying battle suit personally crafted for her by Thanos. With psychic prowess considered top-tier even across the universe, she forcibly crushed and controlled crew members without anti-mind-control equipment, sowing chaos, watching them slaughter one another and march toward destruction.
"Gorgon—! I have come! Fight me again!!"
At the same time, Thanos' bold declaration echoed across the cosmos. Supergiant gazed in infatuation at the enormous golden-armored Titan phantom projected from Sanctuary II.
In a flash, Thanos' palm fired a radiant path of light thousands of meters wide, pointing straight at the system's primary planet—where he sensed the Time Stone and the Mind Stone.
Layer upon layer, stacked composite energy shields—combining the technological characteristics of the Divine Empress Order, the Shi'ar Empire, the Kree Empire, the Nova Empire, and many other civilizations—rippled in response. The scorching deep-purple beam instantly swallowed nearly half the planet's visible hemisphere.
In response, boundless waves of frost surged. Even in space, Supergiant saw ice—purple ice—everywhere.
She knew this was Thanos' enemy, but still—
"His Majesty Thanos is invincible." Supergiant clasped her hands together in reverence.
"Have you lost your mind? Supergiant, restrain and control your psychic output. Don't disrupt Lord Thanos' fleet attack frequency..." Before she could smile long, Proxima Midnight's rebuke came through the communicator.
Tch, that vulgar woman.
As the only two females among the Black Order, Supergiant and Proxima Midnight did not get along. Supergiant especially disapproved of Proxima Midnight marrying the ambitious Corvus Glaive. Forming little cliques, were they?
"Are you teaching me how to do my job?"
Supergiant enunciated each word deliberately.
"Hmph. Just a reminder—don't mess up Lord Thanos' grand design." With that, Proxima Midnight cut the communication. She had plenty of complaints about Supergiant as well. A colleague was a colleague—but what was with that half-mistress attitude, acting like she was clinging to Lord Thanos and fawning over him? Trying to climb over her head?
"We'll see..."
Crushing the communicator in her hand, Supergiant narrowed her eyes toward the Divine Empress Order's warships—standing out starkly amid the golden Nova Corps vessels, the sleek, elegantly contoured Shi'ar starships, and the heavy, broad Kree warships.
Silver-gray as the base, adorned with gold and silver trim, long and shuttle-shaped with reinforced ramming prows—narrow at the front, wide at the rear, sharply angular. The aesthetics of heavy industry blended perfectly with archaic Baroque and Gothic styles, like entire castles fitted with engines.
Hum.
Her gaze sharpened. Once again, powerful psychic waves burst from Supergiant's eyes. Enhanced by the amplification equipment across her body, her mental power condensed into almost tangible tendrils, probing into the Divine Empress Order's void shield arrays—
"Urgh!" Clutching her head, she gritted her teeth and groaned, as if resisting immense pain.
When she opened her eyes again, her expression was especially grim. "Anti-psychic fields... psionic suppressors... mental defense rituals... spirit-warding obelisk arrays. Damn it, is their anti-mind-control equipment density this high?"
Psychic abilities were indeed troublesome across the universe. High-level asymmetric warfare could achieve near-zero casualties. But after so many years of cosmic development, every major empire had long suffered under psychic adversaries. Naturally, various countermeasures had emerged.
Difficult—or simple. It all came down to whether one was willing to spend money and pour in resources.
Supergiant felt like she had just been crushed under the Divine Empress Order's sheer wealth. This level of density was absurd. How much did it cost? Truly worthy of being Lord Thanos' great enemy—the old divine order that stood with the entrenched beneficiaries of the old order.
She couldn't do it. She could not forcibly control the personnel inside the Divine Empress Order's command ships to create chaos. Supergiant made her judgment.
"Then I'll start by clearing out the weak."
Commanding the supreme-class Leviathan bio-ship beneath her feet, she immediately adjusted course.
Hadn't the Divine Empress Order, Shi'ar, and Kree gathered all these rabble to oppose them? Then she would wipe out those small and mid-tier forces first. They couldn't possibly be as extravagant as the Divine Empress Order.
"Haa..." At the moment Supergiant withdrew her psychic tendrils, a deep, immense presence—heavier than mass itself, even more oppressive than what she felt facing Thanos—locked onto her mental signature. Those blazing, star-like eyes were staring directly at her.
Like pushing over a pile of blocks without foundation—effortless.
"Aaaah—!" Supergiant felt as if her head were splitting apart. She couldn't utter a word, as though her skull were being shattered from within. Cold sweat poured down her face. Her unfocused eyes trembled violently, as if her brain itself were shaking.
A trace of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth, then from her eyes, ears, and nose—blood flowed from all seven orifices. With a heavy thud, her body collapsed limply at the prow of the bio-ship.
"What just happened?" On the uppermost armor deck of the 117th Fleet flagship, Selene sensed something, but this Servant body lacked expertise in psychic disciplines, and she could not pinpoint the exact location.
"Supergiant—one of Thanos' Black Order. A cosmic-level scout. A powerful psychic." Lifting eyes that glowed like plasma engine exhausts, Master Chief John spoke in a low, resonant voice.
The Mind Stone, serving as a power source to nourish the growth of the Celestial within him, had gradually increased its compatibility. Beyond pure cosmic energy, certain psychic talents had begun to open to him.
After sensing a malicious psychic force probing through the ship, he struck back decisively—severing and annihilating the tendrils, even tracing back some information about their owner.
"Did you kill her?" Selene asked.
"Not sure. Maybe."
"Then she's not dead."
From the Imperial Army's perspective, unless an enemy was obliterated completely by ship cannons—reduced to nothing—killing them in battle without seeing the corpse meant they weren't truly dead.
Especially in a universe like this—even ordinary people without abilities couldn't be trusted to be dead unless beheaded and reduced to ashes.
"Everyone, this is your task—kill her. One of Thanos' Black Order. Find opportunities to eliminate them all. If possible, capture them alive and execute them by beheading in front of Thanos."
With a nod, Selene turned and issued orders to the Servants waiting on the deck.
"After that, act freely. Slaughter Thanos' forces to the greatest extent possible and inflict fatal damage."
King Hassan, Scáthach, Karna, Arjuna, Gilgamesh, Heracles, Achilles, Cú Chulainn, Attila, Rama, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, Miyamoto Musashi, Arash, Ramses II, and others—summoned across multiple waves, possessing both assault and mobility capabilities—immediately set out.
"Karna, stay."
Grabbing Karna, who was about to transform into a blazing meteor and launch himself skyward, Selene gestured. "Those with solar divinity are temporarily prohibited from joining the battle. Prevent them from resorting to desperate measures like aging stars with a destroyer beam. Karna, Master Chief and I need you to ensure the stability of nearby stars."
"Understood." The 'little sun' nodded—ready to fill wherever needed.
"Continue." Selene turned toward Master Chief, who was still devouring the planetary core remnants of Ego, his Celestial body continuing to grow. "Summon more Heroic Spirits into the field. I need the 'Divine Empress' blessing imprints on them."
She emphasized it.
More precisely, Thanos needed it.
Thanos needed a 'Limiter.'
...
"Where is Gorgon? Have her come see me!"
"Big guy, what's the rush? Defeat me first, and you'll naturally get to meet Lady 'Gorgon.'"
Crack crack crack—
In the void, blooming crystalline ice roses spread like a dark purple tide, only to shatter and wither in an instant.
A spiraling wave of frost expanded outward. The breath of extreme cold forcibly froze the endless burning purple beam. At the very center, the violet glow extinguished in a flash.
In the collision, separating after a single exchange, the Titan—submerged within a blizzard of frost—crushed the star-shaped helmet of a Nova soldier in his grip, shattered the ice coating his body, and laughed softly.
"You, woman—what awaits you is hell."
"Hell? A vacation spot." Esdeath spoke lightly, but her tone was ferocious. "Show me what your hell looks like, big guy."
"As repayment, I'll use your filthy blood as fertilizer for my fields."
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