Scorching starlight streamed in from beyond the airtight shields, casting intricate shadows across the top plaza of Sanctuary II.
Boom! The air filled with shrill screeches and the sickening stench of flesh scorched by high-temperature flames.
A torrential rain of violet-red energy beams crashed down upon Thanos beneath the ruins of the throne hall. A bit of posturing for the livestream was enough. The holy, radiant image of the demon-subduing angel would be packaged nicely by the 117th Fleet's public relations team anyway. There was no need for Selene to keep hiding.
The so-called Phoenix Force and the chaos magic flowing like blood through her veins were fully unleashed. In an instant, she shed the temperament of an all-embracing righteous envoy. Bloodlust surged, demonic flames roared sky-high—transforming from a blazing seraph of heaven into a chosen champion of Khorne.
Pfft!!!
Several of the cult guards from the flagship lunged forward without hesitation, attempting to block Selene's rampage with their own bodies to buy time for their lord. The next moment, they were nothing but pools of slurry. Muscles, nerves, bones, armor—everything shattered into filthy fragments that splattered across the Titan's plating.
Even the battle-hardened golden-armored elite who had followed Thanos across countless campaigns, even the massive bio-combat armor within the ship, exploded into clumps of gore before Selene—torn apart like rag dolls.
"'Little Titan'? What arrogance."
Recovering from the brief stasis and seizing the gap granted by his body's regeneration, Thanos flooded himself with Gemstone energy. With a violent swing of his arm, he shattered the steel wreckage pinning his shoulders. As he roared toward the heavens, the heavy armor plates covering the Eternal Titan were flung away.
"Titan has perished. What eternity remains? What Titan? I am Thanos!"
With a thunderous roar, he clenched his left fist. Violet-red energy flickered wildly as he hurled a mountain-crushing punch at Selene, who was descending slowly. Steel fragments wrapped in purple flames symbolizing 'Power' howled through the air like a barrage of cannon fire.
"Pathetic."
Clang!! Light burst from Selene's right claw blade. As casually as swatting away an annoying fly, she shattered both Thanos' application of the Power Stone's law and its steel carrier in a single motion.
Kraaang—!!
The aftershock continued onward, blasting through the ship's structure behind Selene. For several kilometers it carved a path of annihilation, neatly erasing shipyard constructs and all obstacles in its direction. Everything fractured, disintegrated amid explosions and blazing light, revealing a massive breach that opened directly into space.
Even several Chitauri motherships escorting Thanos' flagship in that direction were reduced to twisted metallic dust and molten fragments beneath the surge of violet aura, scattering into the void...
"Potential is still only potential. Little Titan of the Eternals... if you wish to become a true apostle, you are twenty thousand years too early." Selene stood proudly, like a seasoned senior lecturing a junior.
Thanos was not surprised in the slightest. The opponent was clearly like him—cultivating both physical prowess and energy projection. Not some one-trick failure who would be crippled without the Infinity Stones.
Because she was an apostle of Eternity, of course.
Boom boom boom!
Smashed in the face once more by the serpent-headed tendrils' light cannons, Thanos raised the Infinity Gauntlet. The violet radiance of the Gemstone rendered his Titan body even more indestructible.
"Old relics. You are the sinners of the universe—the remnants of a bygone era!" The Mad Titan had never been inferior to anyone in his life. Least of all in a clash of ideals. "The new era will arrive. Step down obediently. Remove your filthy, decayed hands from authority—"
"Silence!"
Before he could finish, the purple-skinned Titan was struck by a sudden gleam of fluorescent green within Selene's scarlet vertical pupils. He had no time to evade. The serpent-headed tendrils, gleaming with a murky bloodlike sheen, roared like a dragon soaring skyward. In a flash of lightning, they swallowed Thanos—his time sliced away and frozen.
Boom!
The thunderous impact resounded continuously through Sanctuary II, like meteors slamming into a planet. The ship's entire structure wailed without pause. Partition walls, countless onboard machines, and crew were blown apart, drifting and shattering amid explosions.
"Roar—!"
After who knew how many collisions, Thanos finally regained the flow of time. With a furious bellow, he adjusted his stance and halted his retreat.
Crack crack crack! His ornate armguard had already melted under the conflagration born of the Phoenix Force and other fused powers. Scalding molten metal streamed down through bloodied pores. Yet Thanos paid it no heed. With bone-visible fingers like iron clamps, he forced back the savage energy dragon head biting into him.
"He who toys with time will one day be toyed with by time."
He bared his teeth viciously, then stamped his foot. Muscles bulged. Titanic strength surged.
Weng—boom! Structural collapse rippled outward. Cabins shattered. Cracks split across the deck. Amid the violent tremors, Thanos tore the magnificent dragon head from his body.
"How long can you keep this up—"
"I can do this all day."
Before Thanos could switch Gemstone powers, Selene's next assault arrived.
Fast. Precise. Ruthless.
Rumble—
Explosive shockwaves shattered Thanos' guard. The mysteries of time overturned him once more. Even Sanctuary II's central deck was pierced through by brute force. Chaos erosion, the Phoenix's grand flames, the vastness of the Sentry... all engulfed the struggling Titan within a pillar of light.
His golden war-forged armor bought him only a few extra seconds before he became a burning statue.
"Is this all? Little Titan."
Selene's voice was airy and light, yet her actions were anything but gentle. With a flick of her claw blade, intersecting blazing light edges filled the interior of the ship, densely slicing toward Thanos, whose time had once again been shaved away by a hair's breadth.
Thanos was not wrong. With this Gorgon incarnation alone, Selene could only exert a fraction of the Time Stone's power—and the energy cost was immense.
This was not the observational, auxiliary usage of the Eye of Agamotto by Kamar-Taj's Sorcerer Supreme. Nor was it like Thanos borrowing the Infinity Gauntlet as an intermediary to wield the Infinity Stones. Selene held it directly in her hand and mastered it with her own being.
Short-term reversals—such as restoring 117th Fleet warships destroyed by Thanos, or the way Thanos once rewound Vision's self-destruction of the Mind Stone in another timeline—
Selene could accomplish such feats. And it was not difficult.
What was difficult was using it in combat. Especially when the target was Thanos—Thanos wielding an Infinity Gauntlet equipped with four Gemstones. The more Stones he activated, the harder it became for Selene to rewind or slice away his time.
Unfortunately, success by the Infinity Gauntlet is also failure by the Infinity Gauntlet. If you choose the shortcut, you must bear its consequences.
Before the sixth Mind Stone was set into place, Thanos could not simultaneously manipulate multiple Gemstone powers at once.
Thus, even though before facing Selene, Thanos had nearly absorbed all the cosmic energy the Black Order had plundered and excavated over the years from ruins, rifts, and alien dimensions—far surpassing his original timeline self—his ascension genes as an Eternal allowed him to continuously evolve. His development and endurance of a single Gemstone had grown ever deeper...
With the Time Stone at her back, Selene could still overwhelm this 'junior' and properly give him a lesson. A trial.
After all, everyone knew how shameless the authority of time could be.
Selene was not trying to reverse the river of time and strangle Thanos in his cradle. At their level, even a millisecond, even a fraction of a second of stasis in battle was enough to accomplish countless things.
What was more, Selene had devoured so many named power origins from across the Marvel world—everything she could rapidly gather.
All for this very moment.
Don't disappoint me, Thanos.
Great cosmic emperor.
Crack—!
Once again, his limbs were shattered under relentless, concentrated strikes. Flesh split open. Reeling, Thanos dropped to both knees.
"Grrr..." His consciousness unlocked, and he nearly ground his steel-like teeth to powder. It was suffocatingly humiliating.
Since gaining awareness, he had never fought such a stifling battle. Every time he prepared to unleash his full strength, a barrage of suppression and reinforced control smashed down upon him.
The authority of time should not remain in the mortal realm. It must be returned to the Immaterium.
I must snap my fingers. I must destroy it...
Just as Thanos silently steeled his resolve—Vwoom!—a strand of green light illuminated his frozen face once more.
Thanos: ...
In the next instant, a dark red claw blade flashing with bloodlight struck squarely into his chest. The tremendous impact felt as though it pierced him clean through. The Titan vomited blood as he was blasted backward. Crimson sprayed across the deck. White bone and multicolored viscera burst from the wound, scarlet blood jetting dozens of meters like a fountain.
"Puh—"
His armor was completely ruined. Bang! His body tilted backward under the force, smashing through partition walls and spinning several kilometers across the ship.
When time resumed, his face was twisted beyond recognition.
Sizzle...
The purple Power Stone worked ceaselessly to repair his body. Yet the corrosive chaos magic felt like thousands of chain-serpents gnawing at his skin. Meanwhile, vast quantities of ancient cosmic energy accumulated within him, waiting to be fully absorbed and digested. The tearing, swelling agony surged like tides through every Eternal cell of his Titan body.
Destruction before standing anew.
Battle—hovering infinitely close to death—was one of the primary methods by which the Eternals absorbed cosmic energy. One of the optimal solutions. It was precisely why they were the Celestials' supreme masterpiece. Irreplicable.
Sharp, pain-laced waves of cellular exhilaration washed over him again and again. Thanos trembled violently. Veins bulged grotesquely along his roaring, blood-soaked neck.
"Apostle of Etern—"
Vwoom.
Green light flashed.
Having no interest whatsoever in listening to Thanos prattle, Selene's crimson pupils shone only with curiosity.
Crack. The goddess who tempered demons seized Thanos' massive, ridged purple head. Her claw tightened. The ornamental golden helmet shattered like decoration. The dreadful scythe-like blade carved a horrifying wound across his smooth scalp, sinking deep into bone.
Selene narrowed her eyes, peering into and sensing Thanos' body.
As expected of the strongest god-crafted race beneath true cosmic gods, with theoretically limitless potential.
Aside from their near-negative reproductive capacity under celestial curse, the Eternals possessed advantages in nearly every regard.
However, he was too slow.
Within Thanos' cells, too much raw, primordial energy residue remained undigested. He had not fully absorbed his own Eternal potential. The tearing and natural replacement of old cells was too slow. The proliferation of newly transformed, stronger Eternal cells...
Required external force.
"Your tricks cannot defeat me!"
A gale roared like a tornado. His collapsed sternum almost instantly healed by more than half. Thanos recovered a millisecond faster. Clenching his left fist, a massive purple shockwave caused the already ruined deck to cave in violently. Debris and scrap metal blasted outward like artillery shells.
From outside, Sanctuary II now resembled an ammunition depot on the verge of detonation.
Nearly ten thousand meters across, the flagship—from the throne hall forged by dragging a minor celestial body onto its top deck, through the central decks, down to the lowest armor plating—was riddled with violet and crimson beams, gaseous explosive flames, and crisscrossing light blades.
It had reached its critical point.
Within the ship, after tens of thousands of collisions, Thanos finally tore free from Selene's clawed restraint. His blood-soaked face had regenerated. His severed right arm restored. Panting heavily, only a deeply detestable gravity remained reflected in the Titan's eyes.
"Relics who should have stepped aside, your ways are obsolete. No matter how many times, you will never break my will," Thanos said in a low voice, his hands never ceasing their lethal motions.
Their understanding of killing techniques collided with incomparable force, tearing and biting at each other.
Under Selene's lightning-like offensive tempo empowered by the Time Stone, he was nearly unable to use any Gemstone beyond the Power Stone.
The Power Stone's amplification of his physical offense and defense, combined with regenerative energy and bodily enhancement, was essential. Unaware of Selene's true intentions, he had to prevent her from seizing the Infinity Gauntlet.
For that reason, he had to push the Power Stone without limit, using his own extremes to strengthen the left arm that bore the Gauntlet.
Isn't this just slaughter? What cannot kill me will only make me stronger. Let's see how many times you can tear me apart. Your stamina will eventually run dry.
You endure for a day? I can endure for a year.
"Oh?"
The corner of Selene's lips curved upward.
That sweet smile, illuminated by the flames and explosions of the ruined vessel, was dazzlingly piercing. Crimson eyes glimmered with indifferent light. Laughter tinged with cruelty and malice sent chills down the spine.
This is exactly tempering you.
A thousand times. Ten thousand times. Breaking every bone in your body, tearing your muscles, ripping out your nerves and tendons, digging out your organs...
This is all for your own good.
Vwoom.
Emerald light flared in the infernal darkness. Time froze.
"Puuuuugh—!"
The bones of his torso shattered entirely. Savage force punched through even the Gemstone's protection, piercing Thanos clean through. And that force did not merely act upon his body—his thoughts, consciousness, mind, even his soul were within the scope of this 'tempering.'
"Class is in session, Thanos. I need to teach you how to respect your sensei."
You will thank me.
I will be a fine senior. A fine teacher. You called me that yourself.
Selene watched with gratification as Thanos' mangled, mud-like body bent and smashed through the flagship's keel—
Jagged bone fragments protruded. Before the shattered body could even hit the ground, it bulged grotesquely midair. Blood and minced flesh erupted, painting a twisted, artless canvas in the void—only to be incinerated in the next instant.
Rumble—!
Sanctuary II disintegrated.
Ah, Master Chief, you can shut down the livestream now. Thanos' flagship has sunk. The effect has been achieved. What comes next is not suitable for broadcast. We wouldn't want to frighten our soon-to-be exploited, wronged friends away from volunteering as expendable assets.
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