"Gafa?"
Lothar waved Ronan away, signaling him to quickly move to the escort vessel, then retrieved a pile of fragments from his wrist-mounted space.
These were the fragments of the Cosmic Switch that Jennifer had given him. During his battle with Odin on Asgard, he had desperately crushed this switch, forcibly absorbing the divinity contained within it.
"This is my way of saying thank you, Lothar."
"I guess we're friends now, right?"
"I know you'll probably say something like you don't need friends, but..."
"Take this. Consider it a parting gift between friends."
"The remaining divinity in my bone marrow, I didn't absorb it. It's all in this switch."
"..."
Memories of the past surged, and the woman he'd met on planet Gafa once again appeared before Lothar.
"Woz?"
"Your Highness, according to our data, Ms. Jennifer passed away of old age six hundred years ago." Woz, searching the information database, provided the information Lothar wanted.
The name Jennifer, at least, had appeared in Woz's mission reports. Coupled with her previous identity as a successor to the Power Stone's wielder, it was normal for Thanos's database to contain her information.
"Dead?"
"Yes, Your Highness Lothar."
Unless one transcended the laws of the universe, no one could escape the cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and death. Even powerful beings like Odin and Thanos, if they couldn't achieve transcendence, would eventually meet their natural end.
Jennifer once had an excellent opportunity, but she chose to return that divinity to Lothar. Otherwise, she wouldn't have died so early. If she had integrated the divinity, living for several millennia would have been no problem. And it was precisely because of Jennifer's gift that Lothar was able to force Odin into using spatial banishment.
A cosmic dance of cause and effect?
"What do you want to ask?"
Nebula, who had been standing behind Lothar, secretly observing him with curious eyes, flinched. "What? No, nothing." Lothar's earlier display of power had truly instilled fear in her.
"Who's your instructor?"
Lothar, who had been standing by the window gazing at the magnificent universe, turned around, a hint of dissatisfaction in his eyes. How could both of his sisters be more useless than the last? What was his father thinking?
"Corvus Glaive."
Whoosh!
A sharp whoosh of air scraped past Nebula's ear. She stared blankly at Lothar's fist, which was just an inch from her nose, her body unable to react or dodge in time.
"If this were a battle, you'd be dead now."
Lothar's cold gaze made Nebula instinctively flinch away.
"What exactly did that couple teach you?" Lothar, retracting his fist and resuming his previous posture, was extremely displeased with Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive. They had trained two useless individuals.
When it came to her and Gamora's instructors, all Nebula could do was remain silent. For her, whether it was Corvus Glaive or Proxima Midnight, they were beings she needed to respect, at least outwardly.
Although she and Gamora were Thanos's adopted daughters, their status within the Black Quadrant was not as high as Lothar's had been back then. Thanos personally tutored him, and his combat talent was clear for all to see.
Though Thanos, lacking parenting experience, had cultivated a supremely powerful Lothar, he also "nurtured" his less-than-desirable personality. Strictly speaking, Lothar, who as a child dared to bare his teeth and strike at the Black Order, was actually the true culprit behind Gamora and Nebula's current personalities.
"Your Highness, Ronan's message states that the Power Stone has already been seized by someone else."
Woz, who had directly taken control of Ronan's Kree flagship, appeared on the large central console.
"What?"
"The one who seized the Power Stone seems to have landed on Xandar."
Woz displayed a scene: several ships engaged in a chase through space.
"That's Gamora's warship." As sisters who grew up together, Nebula was exceptionally familiar with one of the warships in the image. "No, I can't contact Gamora. Her personal communication system must have been damaged during the pursuit." Nebula, also responsible for this mission, immediately grew anxious. She didn't want to lose to Gamora again.
"The Nova Corps on Xandar is strong—"
Boom!
Before Nebula could finish speaking, Ronan's former Kree flagship suddenly accelerated, directly passing through the nearest spatial jump point. Nebula, who had tumbled hard onto the warship's deck, shakily returned to her seat, gripping the edge of the central console, and buckled her seatbelt. "Why?"
"Where are we going?!"
"To Xandar, of course, Your Ladyship Nebula."
As Lothar's exclusive artificial intelligence, the robot cat standing on the central console continuously adjusted the warship's parameters.
"Xandar??? Just us???" Nebula's eyes widened, looking at the figure who remained standing calmly by the window, arms crossed, unaffected by the ship's loss of gravity control. Not sending a request for reinforcements from the Black Quadrant first? Did he think the Xandarian Nova Corps ate vegetables?
"Please don't worry, Your Ladyship Nebula."
"The current Xandarian leader, Nova Prime, is an old acquaintance of His Highness Lothar," Woz, now thriving back in the familiar cosmos, said with a smile.
"...Old acquaintance?"
It was then that Nebula remembered that her brother's active era was over a thousand years ago... By calculation of time... it seemed quite possible... he really knew her?
"Yes, I once beat her," Lothar, now unaffected by the loss of gravity, gazed at the magnificent galaxy outside the window, responding without turning his head.
"..."
"Your Highness, the Lothar ship has been fully charged and is ready for use."
The Kree warship was simply too slow; it couldn't compare to the Lothar, even with Woz still in the process of replacing its materials.
...
Xandar.
The planet's defense center, usually bustling, was now in utter chaos. All because of a single command from the current Xandarian leader, Nova Prime.
"Nova Corps members, all assemble!"
"What's happening, Nova Prime?" Rhomann Dey, who had shared hardships with Nova Prime back then, was now one of the Nova Corps' leading figures.
"Rhomann, he's back."
The aging Nova Prime brought up the images captured by the monitoring satellites. The expression on Rhomann Dey's chubby face changed dramatically!
"The Lothar?!"
"Yes, the Lothar. That man has returned."
Nova Prime nodded, her face complex. In the entire universe, no one would dare to impersonate Thanos's former son and replicate that iconic ship while Thanos was still alive.
"How is that possible... The news from Asgard said Lothar was dead?" Rhomann Dey found it hard to accept. A painful, irrecoverable memory suddenly flooded his mind.
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