The night passed in silence.
Lothar, back in a long-unvisited bed, had a dream. In it, he saw Mera, a woman he believed he'd never cross paths with again. She stood before him in a white gown, holding flowers, her smile sweet as she called his name: "Lothar."
Just as he wondered how Mera still knew him, another voice called from behind. Hela, clad in a black catsuit, hadn't died after all. Instead, she sat on the throne of Asgard, looking at him with equal joy.
Then, the two women saw each other, and their smiles slowly faded... Faintly, Lothar heard Hela's furious cry: I was here first! The kissing, the debts... it was all her first!
And then, they started fighting. Hela's limited edition Unlimited Blade Works clashed with an overwhelming ocean surge, jolting a frowning Lothar awake.
"Was it a dream?"
The familiar bedroom brought Lothar's consciousness back from his hazy slumber. He murmured, realizing his forehead was inexplicably slick with cold sweat. This was incredibly unusual for him.
"Good morning, Your Highness Lothar."
Gaitz, the little butler of the side hall, a robot cat created by Thanos at the same time as Woz, had waited a thousand years for Lothar's return. Now, apron tied around his waist, he pushed in Lothar's clean clothes. "Breakfast is ready for you."
"Also, Lord Thanos wishes for you to meet with Ronan the Kree today."
Gaitz's chubby little hands rubbed his apron repeatedly, and a silver light screen, unique to Gaitz, appeared before Lothar, displaying Thanos's personal command.
"The Kree?"
Lothar's impression of the Kree wasn't good. Moreover, he distinctly remembered that when he first used the Mind Stone to find his path to Super Saiyan 3, Hala, the Kree Empire's homeworld, was the sacrifice. In such circumstances, were there still Kree willing to cooperate with the Black Quadrant? Had time diluted their hatred? Or did they have other motives?
"Gaitz doesn't know the specifics. After all, Gaitz is just a robot cat responsible for Your Highness Lothar's daily life," Gaitz, who always wore a beige checkered apron, scratched his head. All external affairs were usually handled by Woz. Woz handled outside, he handled inside; their division of labor was clear, without any overstepping.
"I see. Anything else?"
"Yes, Odin's son, Loki, has already arrived on Midgard with the Mind Scepter you gave him..."
...
"Your father still hasn't arrived?"
On a desolate, remote planet in the Centauri Galaxy.
Ronan the Kree, who had bathed, changed, and even put on makeup early, had finally, after an hour of facing the wind, turned his unfriendly gaze to the woman beside him.
Nebula, Daughter of Thanos, a half-biological, half-cybernetic being.
"Father has his reasons for doing this, Ronan."
Nebula, already accustomed to all sorts of hostile gazes, remained unfazed.
"He's eroding my trust in him."
Ronan's face was grim. If he weren't still planning to leverage Thanos's power, given Thanos's initial no-show and now his tardiness, Ronan would have smashed him with his hammer already.
Don't doubt his courage. He was, after all, a ruthless individual daring enough to directly betray the colossal Kree Empire. A person who could abandon a position like "Supreme Accuser Tribunal member would certainly have the courage to strike at Thanos.
"Father is testing you, testing if you can pass this final hurdle." Nebula began spouting nonsense, relying on her understanding of Thanos. Ronan wouldn't dare strike her now, anyway.
"..." Ronan felt incredibly stifled. What should have been an equal partnership had soured due to Thanos's actions. It was as if Ronan was eagerly seeking dependence on Thanos. He was highly displeased but utterly helpless.
Thanos had been cultivating his influence in the universe for years, and the reputation of the Black Quadrant even instilled fear in the Kree Empire's artificial intelligence god, the Supreme Intelligence.
This was why Ronan had agreed to cooperate with Thanos. Having been a renegade from the Kree Empire for so long, he had vaguely heard some unfavorable rumors about himself. He needed to use Thanos's name to deter his compatriots within the Kree Empire who always disliked him. It was that simple.
"They're here." Nebula, naturally unaware of Ronan's hidden thoughts, wasn't in the mood to figure them out anyway. The faint spaceship in the distance made her inwardly sigh with relief. If Thanos didn't show up soon, she really wouldn't be able to find any excuse—????
The relaxation in Nebula's eyebrows instantly froze. She had absolutely no impression of the warship that was now descending before her at an incredibly high speed. Its streamlined, aesthetically pleasing hull and robust, elegant lines outlined a unique spaceship, one of a kind in the entire universe. The large "L" symbol was a mark Nebula had never seen before.
"Who?!" Nebula's alarm burst out.
"Your psychological fortitude is much better than the other one's." The hatch opened, and a figure in loose black combat attire, with a red tail coiled around his waist, slowly emerged, accompanied by The Other.
"Lothar?" Nebula's expression froze as she recognized the newcomer.
"You should call me brother."
Lothar strode before Nebula and Ronan, ignoring the small squad behind Ronan.
"Brother? Thanos's son?" Ronan frowned. He had indeed heard that Thanos once had a son, but he didn't know much. After all, when Lothar was active in the universe, Ronan was just a newborn infant, not old enough to remember things. By the time he could remember, Lothar had already vanished. And what Ronan could find in the Kree Empire's information database was only a tiny bit of fringe information.
"Lo—why is it you?" Nebula, also unable to utter "brother," watched the man before her with vigilant eyes.
"Father's orders. I'm handling the Kree matter. Didn't you receive the notification?"
Nebula slowly shook her head.
"You don't have a smart assistance system?" Lothar frowned, looking at his half-mechanical, half-biological sister.
Nebula simply tapped her head, and a beam of light projected from her eyes. Information scrolled according to her will, finally revealing the command from the Black Quadrant base's intelligent system amidst a pile of dry, boring logs.
Lothar said nothing more. He figured Thanos did this because he was afraid of creating another intelligent life form that would help write self-reflections.
"Wait, you're saying I've been waiting here all this time, and Thanos sent you to talk to me?"
Ronan's hoarse voice was thick with suppressed fury. This was too much. This was utterly outrageous. Did he really think of him as a subordinate?
Standing him up before was bad enough, but now he wouldn't even show himself, sending his son instead? Why didn't he say so earlier, so Ronan could send a subordinate too? Did he have to change people at the last minute?
"?"
Lothar's gaze shifted from his sister Nebula to Ronan.
"After all these years, the Kree are still so annoying."
Ronan's face instantly darkened. The squad members behind him immediately raised their weapons, the muzzles of their Kree tech weapons all aimed at Lothar and Nebula.
"Ronan, you—" Nebula, attempting to warn Ronan, was utterly stunned by the scene unfolding before her before she could finish speaking.
Energy blasts, emerging from behind Lothar, instantly pierced through the chests of Ronan's squad members, obliterating their heads.
Father once said, to kill, one must decapitate.
The attacks were silent. By the time Ronan and Nebula reacted, only the three of them remained alive on the scene.
"..." Ronan subtly swallowed, tightening his grip on his ancestral war hammer. According to the mother who raised him, this was a weapon left by his grandfather. Ronan had tempered it several times, and now this war hammer had become one of the representative Kree tech weapons.
But...
Bang!!!
An unprecedented immense force struck, every nerve in Ronan's body instantly suffering tearing pain. His body fell limply to the ground.
Tap...
Tap...
Lothar slowly walked up to Ronan, raised his foot, and placed it on his carefully maintained makeup. The sole of his shoe rubbed against Ronan's cheek. The irresistible force caused Ronan, trying to stand, to repeatedly fail. All that was left was an impotent roar, hammering the ground: "Arghh!!!!"
"From now on..."
Boom!!!
Lothar stomped down, literally crushing Ronan's head into the barren ground!
"The plan to find the Power Stone will be led by me."
"Do you have any objections?"
With his foot planted on Ronan's face and his right elbow resting casually on his knee, Lothar looked down and asked from above.
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