Chapter 341: On Your Left!
"You think the two of you can actually beat me? Beat the entire army standing behind me?" Thanos said. The Crimson Bands still had him bound for the moment, but he clearly considered them nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
The sky above went dark all at once. Countless beams of light streaked down from beneath Thanos's warship like a shower of falling stars.
The beams lit up the entire battlefield like fireworks, each one a small herald of the devastation and resolve behind them.
Wherever a beam touched down, it resolved instantly into an armored alien soldier, weapons already in hand, falling into formation with terrifying speed.
Within moments, the entire battlefield was blanketed in Thanos's army.
Their numbers stretched out like an endless field of stars, nearly impossible to count.
Their arrival thickened the tension in the air until it felt like the atmosphere itself had frozen solid.
"That's right — Ethan, you two should go. This is our universe's fight. You shouldn't have to pay for it. The God of Thunder hasn't lost yet!" Thor said, slowly climbing back to his feet, urging them to leave.
"He's right, Mr. Ethan. You've already done so much just lending us the Infinity Stones. What's left is between us and Thanos." Banner, now missing one arm, added his own voice to the plea.
"Yeah — go home. If I'm still breathing when this is over, I'll come find you and pay you back properly, Ethan." Clint said, raising his bow.
Every one of them had already made peace with dying here. They understood exactly what kind of fight this was.
Clint's wife and daughter were both alive again now. He had nothing left to regret. His only remaining wish was to help beat Thanos and protect this universe.
Thanos, though, had no intention of giving them that chance.
He looked over the group with total contempt, the way one might look at a swarm of ants. "Hand over the Infinity Stones, and I'll let the two of you go home."
Ethan smiled faintly. "I'm not weak enough to need protecting by this bunch. Besides — these are our universe's Stones. Why exactly would I hand them to you? Aren't you worried about what your own universe's version of Thanos might do to you for it?"
"Stubborn to the end. There's nothing left worth saying. You've used up the last of my mercy."
With that, he tore himself free of the Crimson Bands with a single violent motion.
He raised his massive blade and swung it hard, straight at Ethan.
In the next instant, the entire Thanos army surged forward in a mad, unified charge.
They came like a rising tide, unstoppable, threatening to swallow the entire battlefield whole.
Facing down an army stretching across the whole horizon, the Avengers — resolved to die if it came to it — couldn't help but feel a flicker of despair all the same.
But fear or not, they threw themselves into the fight without hesitation.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa — this is no joke. There's more of them here than the last battle I fought." Strange kept talking, but his hands never stopped casting.
"Form of Ikonn!"
"Armor of shielding!"
"Field of endless barriers!"
"Turn to stone, all of you!"
"Blazing inferno!"
"Shatter into dust!"
Strange fired off spell after spell without pause, and every incantation was met with a fresh chorus of screams and death-rattles from Thanos's soldiers.
Under the relentless barrage of Strange's magic, enemy after enemy fell.
Foes that had once looked unbreakable crumbled instantly against his spellwork.
"Gotta say — this new magic I picked up hits a lot harder than anything Kamar-Taj ever taught me." Strange watched the enemies drop around him, a flicker of genuine satisfaction settling in. All those all-nighters spent cramming new spells hadn't been for nothing.
Every Avenger fighting alongside him watched Strange's rampage with open astonishment.
"I don't remember our world's Strange having this many tricks up his sleeve."
"Not the time to be chatting — we're outnumbered a hundred to one out here!"
Even with Strange thinning out a huge chunk of the alien horde, his effort barely made a dent against Thanos's total numbers — enough to slow the tide, not stop it.
Thanos's army kept coming, wave after wave, while Thor was locked in his own one-on-one duel with Thanos.
Steve had even picked up Thor's discarded hammer, pairing it with his shield for a quick combo strike against Thanos.
Meanwhile, Ethan's presence on the battlefield had become genuinely impossible to ignore.
A glow of black and white light radiated off his body — black as deep and unfathomable as the abyss, white as brilliant as an aurora. The fusion of his dark magic and Ultra Instinct, working together inside him.
His dark magic summoned the Shadow Legion — spectral soldiers woven from raw dark energy, drifting through the battlefield like phantoms, harvesting the lives of Thanos's army one by one.
Ultra Instinct, meanwhile, let Ethan wield his own power with total, effortless precision, offense and defense both reaching heights he'd never touched before.
As Ethan's power radiated outward, the entire battlefield seemed to tremble under its weight.
Thanos, though, showed no sign of backing down. With a casual flick of his wrist, he knocked Steve and Thor both flat again.
He turned to face Ethan and Strange, something between surprise and genuine interest flickering in his eyes.
"Remarkable strength," Thanos said quietly. "I've never faced an opponent quite like this." His gaze shifted back and forth between the two of them, as if searching for a weakness.
"It seems," Thanos said suddenly, breaking into a laugh, "that you'll make for a truly worthy opponent!" He blurred forward, charging straight at Ethan.
His massive blade gleamed with cold light, as though it could cleave through anything standing in its way.
Ethan saw it coming and gathered his power into his palm instantly, bracing to meet the strike.
The shockwave from their collision alone kept the rest of the Avengers from getting anywhere close.
Seeing this, the Avengers turned their attention back to the alien horde instead, throwing themselves into the fight against Thanos's army.
Tony flew over to Strange, genuine amazement in his voice. "Your Ethan's really that strong? I'm jealous — you guys have a teammate you can actually count on."
The strength Ethan was showing had rattled Tony to his core. This wasn't within the realm of what an ordinary human could do — this wasn't something science could explain anymore.
Tony himself had taken a single hit from Thanos and nearly been sent home in pieces for it. Ethan was trading blows with him evenly.
Strange just gave a faint smile. "You haven't seen anything yet. Ethan's got a lot more in the tank than this. But now's really not the time to talk about it — we've got some serious company arriving."
Strange's gaze had drifted to a set of very familiar faces appearing in the distance: the Black Order, the same five generals Ethan had already killed back in Manhattan days ago.
"...God, this just doesn't end." Steve panted, gripping his shattered shield, staring out at the endless sea of Thanos's forces.
That was exactly when a familiar voice crackled through Steve's earpiece.
"Cap, can you hear me?"
"Cap, it's Sam. You copy?"
"...static..."
"On your left..."
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