"Bohr." Lucia quickly rushed to help her teammate sit up.
Among their team, Bohr had been the last to join, and also the weakest.
"Lucia... I'm injured. Do you still have any healing items left?" Bohr asked, his voice weak.
"I do. This world's far too dangerous, I stocked up in advance." As she spoke, a pale blue scroll materialized in her hand.
She didn't notice the gleam that flashed in Bohr's eyes the moment the scroll appeared.
Suddenly, the blue scroll slipped from Lucia's hand. But she remained frozen mid-motion, completely still, like a statue, her body locked in the act of retrieving the scroll.
Next, one item after another, each with a distinct aura and size, poured out from her hand and tumbled to the ground.
"System, can you identify where this is from?" Lucius, who was currently controlling Bohr's corpse, picked up a broadsword over one and a half meters long. Its metallic sheen suggested impressive durability.
[Broadsword. D+ class item. Extremely durable; capable of slicing through the tough flesh of demons. Origin: Claymore Universe.]
Heh. Just as I thought.
Lucius had vaguely gleaned from their fragmented memories that they had visited the Claymore world. The moment he saw the sword, it looked all too familiar, sure enough, it hailed from that world of silver-eyed, blonde-haired warrior women.
Frozen stiff, Lucia continued releasing item after item from her inventory. The cascade only ceased once the entire ground around her feet was covered, hundreds of items, at least.
Due to the laws of the Dimensional Reincarnation Space, Lucius couldn't forcibly access their storage using the virus. So instead, he'd taken over Bohr's already-dead body and baited Lucia into bringing out a healing item.
The instant her inventory opened, Lucius seized control of her body and used Ruleforce to interfere with the storage, suspending its closure and forcibly pulling items out one by one.
Lucia was a semi-veteran, having survived six worlds. Thanks to her team's support, her inventory was relatively well-stocked.
Of course, as a Main Deity-level entity, Lucius had no interest in looting their meager possessions.
What mattered was that every single one of these items originated from the Dimensional Reincarnation Space, and through analyzing them, he might be able to anchor himself to the mechanics of this system.
After stripping Lucia of her gear, he put her back into unconsciousness.
Moments later, another male Reincarnator nearby began slowly regaining consciousness...
...
In the depths of space.
A massive cloud, shaped like a colossal, severed head, drifted silently through the cold void of the cosmos.
One glance at it would stir an ancient fear in the soul. Whatever this creature had once been, it must have possessed godlike power in life.
This was the severed skull of a long-dead Celestial, floating in the universe for untold eons.
Now, it had been repurposed, transformed into Knowhere, a spaceport and outpost built into its remains.
And here resided the younger brother of the Grandmaster, The Collector, who had turned the place into a fully operational cosmic service station.
At this very moment, a massive black starship appeared outside the skull, so vast that, with its extended wings, it resembled a four-winged avian creature when viewed from afar.
This was Sanctuary II, flagship of Thanos the Mad Titan.
It was the second flagship of his Black Order, the first, Sanctuary I, had been destroyed by Iron Man's nuclear strike just outside Earth's atmosphere.
That battle had been part of Lucius's previous life, during the events of the first Avengers film. Loki, leading Thanos' Chitauri army, had attacked Earth, only to be repelled by the newly-formed Avengers. In the climax, Tony Stark had flown the nuke into space and obliterated Sanctuary I, which had been observing from above.
Swoosh.
Swoosh, swoosh.
Swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh—
Sonic booms, silent in the vacuum of space, rippled as fleets emerged at lightspeed from hyperspace.
One after another, starships of various shapes and configurations dropped from subspace, forming an ever-growing web around Sanctuary II.
A hundred...
A thousand...
Ten thousand...
One hundred thousand...
One million.
The sky filled with an endless swarm of warships, completely encircling Sanctuary II.
The Kree Empire, aware of their weakness in individual combat prowess, had long focused on mass militarization. Their entire strategic doctrine, especially in cosmic warfare, revolved around starfleet formations.
Each superdreadnought was flanked by ten cruisers, their weapons triangulated to lock onto Sanctuary II from every conceivable angle.
"Lord Thanos... it's the Kree fleet," said Supergiant, one of the Black Order's generals, gulping nervously as he gazed at the encirclement.
"Why would the Kree Empire dare provoke Lord Thanos?" Ebony Maw, the most cunning of the Black Order, frowned deeply. "Signal them. Ask their intentions."
"No need," Thanos spoke at last.
"My lord?" Ebony Maw turned to the Mad Titan, the demigod warlord seated on his throne, the Infinity Gauntlet glinting on his hand.
"They've mobilized their entire military. They're not here to talk," Thanos said coolly.
The moment the words left his mouth, the Kree fleet opened fire.
In the silence of space, light exploded, brighter than a sun. The unified barrage of a million warships lit up the cosmos.
In a single second—
The flagship of the Black Order, Sanctuary II, was annihilated. Thanos's million-strong fleet disintegrated into cosmic dust.
The sheer might of the Kree Empire's military strike was overwhelming.
It was like throwing a battalion of top-tier Red Alert tanks at a lone foot soldier, utter annihilation.
Had that barrage been aimed at Earth, it would have reduced the planet to ash in an instant.
And then, the Kree fleet turned.
Their weapons re-aimed, now targeting the colossal skull-shaped nebula: Knowhere, home of the Collector.
Though Sanctuary II was vaporized, Lucius had not received any notification confirming Thanos's death. Meaning, the Mad Titan had survived.
As expected. With the Space Stone in hand, Thanos could teleport anywhere in the universe at will. The only reason he traveled by ship was to lead his Black Order's vast armada.
He had come here to seize the Reality Stone from the Collector. If he had fled via teleportation, odds were he had gone straight into Knowhere.
But whether or not he was inside, it didn't matter.
Lucius had no intention of letting anyone here walk away.
The Kree warfleet opened fire once more.
Compared to Sanctuary II, Knowhere, built within a Celestial's skull, was far more fortified.
A translucent, aquamarine shield rippled to life, absorbing the incoming energy blasts.
But it only held for a moment.
A second volley of concentrated firepower, far exceeding even nuclear arms, tore the shield apart. The Celestial's skull lay bare, now fully exposed.
BOOM!
Knowhere, still filled with air and atmosphere, exploded from within. The entire facility burst into flame.
In an instant, the place was reduced to scorched wreckage.
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