The Martian air quaked beneath Ebony Maw's telekinetic dominance, each molecule vibrating as though desperate to escape his presence.
William snarled, lips curling back to bare his teeth, his entire muscular frame convulsing with raw effort against the unseen shackles that bound him.
The bones in his arms groaned under the strain, veins surging like coiled serpents, while Ki erupted around him in feral black-red torrents, lashing the air with violent intent.
Yet, for all his power, he could not break free.
Not yet.
Maw drifted closer, his long, spidery fingers dancing with deliberate, merciless precision, every subtle motion tightening the psychic vice that crushed William's body.
"Do you feel it, Saiyan?" Maw whispered, his tone a silken blade.
"The pressure of inevitability? The weight of your failure drawing ever nearer?" Murder blazed in William's golden eyes. Below, Thanos steadied himself.
His chest remained a mangled ruin, but the Stones, now attuned fully to his will, flooded him with cosmic adrenaline.
His spine straightened. His breath grew slow and measured. His expression hardened into one of unyielding resolve. "Maw…" Thanos rumbled, his voice quaking with equal parts agony and fury, "…hold him."
Maw dipped into a flawless, theatrical bow. "As you command, my lord."
Thanos advanced, each step splintering the ground beneath his feet, the Power Stone thrumming with a deep, predatory pulse.
"Did you think you had won, Saiyan?!" Thanos growled, swinging his massive right hand and driving a devastating hook into William's ribs with bone-crushing force.
POW!
"Did you truly believe you stood a chance?" His growl morphed into something darker, more malicious, as his scowl twisted into a cruel smile, Thanos was savoring the thrill of toying with his prey.
POW!
This time, his knee, charged with lethal ki, smashed into William's chin, snapping his head back violently.
POW!
POW!
POW!
A brutal hook to the side of the head, a vicious chop to the throat, and a spinning kick for good measure sent William staggering, blood spraying from his mouth. With every strike, the Mad Titan's ki battered his opponent's own, inflicting damage both inside and out.
Yet William gritted his bloodied teeth, lifting his gaze to meet Thanos' madness with defiance. The Titan failed to notice the faint golden spark deep within William's eyes, until, with a mental roar of pure killing intent, William unleashed a psychic assault that sent both Thanos and Ebony Maw hurtling away, clutching their heads in agony. Whatever horrors they saw in their minds were known only to them.
Before they could recover, William summoned forth a dense, blood-like substance in his hand. Reality itself seemed to recoil as a deep, furious red light pulsed from it, the liquid hardening into the unmistakable form of the Reality Stone.
Gripping it tightly, he released a thick crimson fog that surged outward for miles, swallowing both Thanos and Ebony Maw in a prison of raw, unyielding reality. The red mist twisted into a kaleidoscope of unnatural colors and warped shapes before solidifying into a dark, foreboding throne room, upon the throne sat an eerily beautiful woman cloaked in shadows, her billowing garment flowing like living darkness.
The throne room solidified into an unshakable reality, the swirling crimson mist collapsing into black marble floors laced with veins of molten gold. Colossal pillars, hewn from the bones of long-extinct cosmic leviathans, soared upward toward a ceiling swallowed by shadow.
Along the walls, braziers of ghostly green fire burned in unnatural reverse, their flames drawing inward instead of outward, casting a surreal and haunting glow.
At the far end of the vast hall, enthroned upon a dais of onyx and frozen entropy, sat Lady Death herself.
Her very presence stilled the air.
A vision of impossible beauty and dreadful stillness, skin pale as moon-bone, lips dark as collapsing stars, eyes vast and hollow like empty galaxies. Her midnight hair shifted like flowing liquid night, untouched by any wind.
Thanos collapsed to his knees.
Not from injury.
Not from choice.
But from longing.
The Reality Stone had conjured this place with such flawless precision that even the Mad Titan's soul bowed to its authenticity. Every fiber of his twisted devotion surged to the surface, drowning reason, focus, and sanity in a single overwhelming tide.
"...My Lady…" he whispered, his voice trembling. "You… you honor me…"
His hand reached out, quivering, yearning, reverent.
BOOM
The throne room's double doors burst inward, obliterated by a blinding column of white light. The intrusion shattered the perfect stillness, sending shockwaves rippling through the fragile illusion.
A figure emerged from the blinding radiance, a man whose silhouette was consumed by the brilliance behind him.
His stride bore no trace of hesitation, fear, or reverence, only the unshakable certainty of one who belonged. Thanos' eyes widened in disbelief.
"No…" he whispered, his voice dripping with horror that curdled into jealousy.
"NO…" The man strode down the endless aisle, each step echoing like hammer strikes against eternity. Without pause, he mounted the dais and stepped into Lady Death's presence as though it were an act long rehearsed.
Thanos attempted to command reality itself to obey him, but no power answered.
The man leaned forward, pressing a soft, almost reverent kiss to Lady Death's flawless, pale cheek. She did not resist. She welcomed him.
The Mad Titan's scream tore through existence, a raw eruption of heartbreak and fury that shattered marble, reversed the green flame's burn, and split the very air under the weight of his cosmic despair.
"YOU DARE!!" His roar fractured the throne, the pillars, the sky itself, until the grand chamber collapsed in on itself, dissolving into shards of crimson mist.
The illusion shattered.
Reality reasserted itself in an instant.
Thanos stood once more amidst the scarred Martian wasteland, sucking in wild, uneven, desperate gulps of the planet's thin air.
His gaze locked on William, still blazing in his formidable Super Saiyan 4 form.
In William's grip, dangling like worthless refuse, was Ebony Maw. The telekinetic's eyes bulged in terror, limbs jerking feebly as his once-formidable psychic power sputtered and failed.
William turned his head with slow, deliberate precision, locking eyes with the Mad Titan, a feral, predatory smirk curling across his lips.
SNAP...
Ebony Maw's neck gave way with the unthinking ease of snapping a dry twig, and his lifeless body crumpled into the red dust.
Thanos' grief combusted into pure, incandescent fury, and William stepped forward, his aura surging like a raging solar storm, ready to collide with it.
"YOU DAAAARRREE?!"
The Martian horizon trembled as Thanos's roar ripped through the fragile atmosphere, a sound forged from fury, heartbreak, and the wrath of a god-like being.
Black ki, laced with writhing golden threads, erupted from his flesh like volcanic veins exploding in unison. The ground beneath him crumbled into drifting clouds of crimson dust.
William did not hesitate.
His aura erupted into a maelstrom of black, gold, and searing red, carving molten trenches deep into the planet's crust. Jagged bone spikes along his elbows and knuckles gleamed with lethal purpose, while the Mind Stone and Reality Stone throbbed within his ki like twin hearts poised to shatter the world.
They struck in unison.
BOOOOM!!!
The collision blasted a three-mile crater into existence, launching torrents of superheated soil thousands of meters skyward. William's fist slammed into Thanos's knuckles with force enough to rend tectonic plates, shockwaves crackling outward like lightning imprisoned in scarlet stone.
And then, silence.
Only thunder lingered.
High above the rust-red skies of Mars, a sonic boom shattered the thin atmosphere as both warriors reemerged in a blur of motion, only for William to pivot sharply, whip his tail with lethal precision, and send Thanos hurtling through a raging dust storm with a thunderous CRACK.
The Mind Stone surged within him, sharpening his killing intent into a psychic blade that slashed mercilessly through the Titan's thoughts, seeking to unbalance his mind. But Thanos snarled in defiance, igniting the Soul Stone. Golden spectral tendrils erupted from his body, anchoring his soul and tearing apart the Mind Stone's invasive grip.
His focus honed to a razor's edge. "You will not break my mind, Saiyan." In the blink of an eye, space folded, and he materialized before William, knee poised like a loaded cannon.
WHAM!
The brutal strike crushed into William's abdomen, folding him in two and hurling him back through the upper air. Before he could be flung more than a kilometer, Thanos bent reality with the Space Stone, twisting the very air into a suffocating vice.
Black-and-gold ki radiated from him in violent waves as he advanced, striking without mercy, blow after devastating blow, a relentless engine of cosmic destruction.
William roared, golden-red-black ki erupting in a blinding vortex that shattered the air itself. His aura ripped through Thanos's spatial prison, shredding warped dimensions like fragile silk, and in an instant, he materialized behind the Titan.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!!
Fists struck faster than light, elbow spikes cleaving arcs of silvered death, bone-knuckled blows pounding Thanos's armor until fragments flew with each savage impact.
Thanos answered with equal ferocity.
Power Stone.
Soul Stone.
Space Stone.
Time Stone.
Four cosmic forces wove around him, forming a golden-black constellation of raw authority.
He seized William's fist mid-strike.
"Die."
A vortex of collapsing time ignited between his palm and William's chest, detonating with apocalyptic force. The blast carved a canyon across Mars that reached the horizon. William's howl of defiance shook the thin atmosphere as he was hurled across half the planet, leaving a molten trench blazing in his wake.
Before William could rise from the smoking crater, Thanos materialized above him, the Space Stone blazing as his fist plummeted like a falling star.
CRASH!!!
The impact obliterated an entire mountain range, vaporizing red stone in an instant. A colossal shockwave tore across the planet, rattling Olympus Mons to its core.
Through the inferno, William ascended like a demon clawing his way out of hellfire, his fur crackling with arcs of electricity, silver streaks burning like shards of starlight.
And then, he vanished.
The Reality Stone warped light and distance to his will, reshaping the battlefield into a place where no angle was unreachable. From a dozen directions he struck at once, each blow an illusion solidified into brutal truth.
Thanos caught one.
Two.
Then five.
But the sixth...
KRA-KOOOM!!!
William's knee rocketed into the Titan's jaw, snapping his head back with an explosive shockwave that fractured the crust beneath them.
Thanos countered instantly, arresting William's momentum by twisting the timestream itself, slowing his movements to a crawl.
But William had changed.
Grown.
Evolved.
The Mind Stone blazed, aligning his perception with the altered flow of time, matching Thanos beat for beat in the frozen moment.
The Saiyan struck with blinding swiftness, a blur in the stillness, before his fist slammed into Thanos's ribcage with earth-shattering force.
THOOM!!!
The impact hurled the Mad Titan across the Martian landscape at such incredible velocity that the ground behind him erupted into flame, the friction igniting the surface in his wake and leaving a blazing trail of plasma that split the red horizon.
They tore across the planet like warring comets, blazing trails of destruction in their wake. Thanos blinked through space, teleporting in bursts of cosmic power, while William ripped open the very fabric of reality, bending it to match the Titan's every move.
Time itself seemed to slow at Thanos's command, yet William warped the world to keep pace, the clash of their wills shaking the land. Each collision toppled mountains, each impact summoned violent storms.
The fragile atmosphere ripped apart and stitched itself together again with every bone-shattering blow.
At the frozen poles, William intercepted Thanos mid-teleport, slamming him into a sheet of solid CO₂ ice that shattered like brittle glass, the sudden cold exploding into a geyser of steam. In an instant, Thanos gripped William by the tail and hurled him skyward.
Twisting in mid-flight, ki blazing, William's bone spike arced down.
SLASH!.
Searing a glowing trench along Thanos's arm, drawing a roar of agony from the Titan.
The Soul Stone flared, conjuring thousands of spectral arms that raked at William's mind and spirit, but his blazing aura incinerated them like wildfire through dry bone.
He dove, elbow spike aimed to end it. Thanos braced, both arms raised, the Power Stone erupting and the Space Stone folding reality around him.
They collided.
KAAAAA-THOOOOOMMMM!
The Martian sky erupted in an explosion so fierce it birthed a second sun, burning bright over the crimson horizon.
Both warriors hovered above the fractured, molten wasteland of Mars, their ki blazing with the intensity of colliding galaxies.
Thanos snarled, his face contorted by pure rage. "Saiyan… you are NOTHING compared to destiny!"
William's lips curled into a savage grin. "Funny. I was about to say the same thing."
The atmosphere between them thickened until it was almost tangible. Lightning tore across the sky, and dimensional fractures spread like spiderwebs across the battlefield.
Then, with a roar that shook the very fabric of reality, they charged.
Their fists crashed together with such ferocity that the sound barrier itself disintegrated into nothingness.
Punch.
Block.
Counter.
Bone spike.
Ki blast.
Teleport.
Reality warp.
Each strike flowed seamlessly into the next, a relentless dance of devastation.
Thanos drove William into the earth with a titanic hammer fist, the Power Stone crackling with raw cosmic might.
William surged upward in an instant, slamming his head into Thanos with such force that the Titan's nose erupted in a burst of violet fire.
Thanos answered with an uppercut that fractured the ground like glass.
William retaliated with a soaring kick that split the clouds above.
The battle spiraled into a spectacle of pure, unbridled destruction.
Thanos clamped his massive hand around William's face, the Power Stone flaring with unrestrained fury. William countered in an instant, gripping Thanos's wrist as the Reality Stone warped momentum itself.
In retaliation, Thanos unleashed the Time Stone, freezing William's arm in a temporal vise.
But with a surge of sheer, murderous will, William shattered the time lock in a psychic detonation.
Their roars shook the air as their auras ignited into colliding supernovas.
The ensuing cataclysm swallowed the landscape, carving a crater so vast and deep that it bared the molten heart beneath Mars's crust.