Mercury burned.
The planet's blistered horizon quivered under an unending storm of force as William and Thanos collided once more, their opening impact erupting with such ferocity that molten sheets of metal tore free from the ground in cascading waves.
BOOOOOM!
A fresh crater burst into existence beneath them, or rather, beneath the blurred phantoms of their movements, as they streaked across the planet so swiftly that even Mercury's surface seemed incapable of keeping pace. Every strike was its own supernova, blazing white-hot before dissipating into churning clouds of metallic dust.
FWASH!
KRRAA-BOOOOM!
Thanos struck first, unleashing a world-rending hook that carved a kilometer-deep scar into the planet when William slipped beneath it. Mercury's crust shrieked and shattered like fragile glass beneath a hammer's blow.
William countered with a palm strike that detonated against the Titan's chest, launching him backward and gouging a radiant canyon in his path. The wound in the planet's skin instantly brimmed with seething, molten metal.
From the billowing storm of volcanic debris, Thanos emerged, roaring with exhilaration.
"YES! AGAIN!"
He surged forward.
William met him head-on, and their fists met
KRRRRRRR-THOOOOOMM!!
A shockwave devoured the horizon, crushing mountains of iron as if they were mere sandcastles swept away by a raging storm. A hemisphere-wide surge of searing light erupted outward, incinerating all in its path with flawless, expanding symmetry.
They did not relent.
POP!
BOOM!
FWOOOM!
KRAK!
Each collision carved a new crater into Mercury's tortured skin. Dozens became hundreds, a relentless chain of fresh scars etched into a world already broken. The ground quaked like a dying beast beneath their fury, molten deserts shuddering as they hurled each other through seas of blistering slag.
William blurred behind Thanos, driving a knee skyward.
BOOOOM!
A newborn crater erupted like a volcanic blossom.
Thanos answered with a hammer fist that fractured the landscape anew, tearing the planet's edge apart in a dazzling explosion of incandescent rage.
The warriors flickered, vanished, and reappeared on the far side of Mercury, then the near side, then the poles.
Every strike, every brutal meeting of flesh and force gouged deeper wounds into the iron world, reshaping it with every heartbeat, every breath, every clash.
Mercury no longer rang, it screamed, and the war had only just begun.
William's aura blazed to life once more, surging skyward like a pillar of sanctified flame. The crimson fire honed itself, tightening, compressing, into a divine crucible. His presence sharpened into a blinding, blade-thin silhouette, each movement measured, every heartbeat thrumming with concentrated divine ki.
This was no outward eruption.
It was focus incarnate.
A star imploding into something impossibly dense.
Magenta flames coiled along his limbs, dancing like sacred lacquer brushed across his skin. With every inhalation, the very fabric of space drew inward around him.
Opposite him, Thanos's grin deepened, the Infinity Gauntlet throbbing with barely contained power.
Reality twisting, Space folding, Time spiraling, Power roaring, Mind honing, Soul singing.
Six pulses.
Six infinities.
Six forces resonating in perfect unison with his relentless, unshakable will.
And then they clashed.
A mortal turned god, tempered by battle and unyielding resolve.
A titan, wielding the boundless infinite.
They vanished.
For a heartbeat, Mercury held its breath, then the universe erupted.
KRRR-BOOOOOM!!
A blinding bloom of incandescent force ripped across the barren world as William and Thanos reappeared mid-strike, fists colliding, divine ki shrieking against the prismatic blaze of the Gauntlet. The shockwave tore the crust asunder, peeling it back in molten sheets like bark from a tree.
William's jaw clenched, his body wreathed in roaring crimson-gold flames. His divine ki coiled tighter, burning with blistering intensity. The air around him warped, compressed, and shattered as he drove forward, forcing Thanos back with a primal roar.
For the span of a single breath, the Titan faltered, then the Gauntlet throbbed.
Reality cracked.
Space twisted.
Power howled.
Six infinities roared in unison, a crushing tide of cosmic force smashed into William's guard.
THOOOM!!
He was hurled across Mercury's horizon, carving a molten scar hundreds of miles long before grinding to a halt in a churning sea of liquefied metal. The planet convulsed beneath him, the hemisphere trembling like a struck drum.
In a flash, William surged from the crater, only to find Thanos already looming before him.
BOOOOM!
A backhand infused with the raw dominion of Power and Space folded the very air inward, warping the heavens into a fractured pane of cosmic glass. William retaliated, his fist erupting with divine fire, but the Titan's strike crashed into him with the force of a collapsing reality.
He was hurled upward, then sideways, then downward, each violent redirection coming before he could regain balance, like a pinball whipped between ravenous gravitational wells.
FWASH!
BOOM!
KRAK!
THOOM!!
Each impact tore fresh wounds into Mercury's surface.
Through the storm of molten debris, Thanos advanced, every stride splintering the ground, the Infinity Gauntlet glinting with an icy, inexorable radiance.
"Struggle harder!" he roared, voice booming with savage delight. "Your flame burns bright, but brightness is not infinity."
In a flash of crimson, William reappeared behind him, god-ki blazing so hot it scorched the planet to white ash. His aura flared, desperate and incandescent, like a star on the brink of supernova.
He drove a blazing fist into Thanos's jaw, and for the briefest heartbeat, the Titan moved.
Not staggered.
Not toppled.
Merely shifted, accepting the blow as a mountain accepts the wind.
The Gauntlet throbbed with unfathomable power.
KRMMMMM!
CHOOOOM!!
William's world turned inside out.
The Titan's counterpunch exploded into his chest, hurling him backward in a spiraling blur, skimming across molten seas like a stone skipping over water, until he slammed into a mountain of iron and blasted it into dust.
His breathing was ragged. His divine aura flickered. Yet he forced himself free, divine ki scorching the ground as he steadied his stance.
Thanos descended toward him, each breath measured, each step radiating inevitability.
"Impressive. Truly." The Titan's grin spread. "But you push against infinity as though it were a wall you could topple."
William wiped the golden, steaming blood from his chin.
"…Then I'll break through it."
He surged forward, Thanos surged to meet him.
KRRRRR-THOOOOOOOM!
Their fists collided.
This time, William did not drive Thanos back. Not even an inch.
Instead, the ground beneath them ruptured, a jagged rift tearing outward for thousands of miles, as though Mercury itself sought to wrench them apart, desperate to halt the unfathomable forces ripping it in two.
Fire, light, cosmic power, and divine ki roared into the heavens.
They stood locked in place.
The Gauntlet pressed downward, its infinite force beginning to tip the scales.
William's teeth clenched.
His aura screamed.
The planet split wider beneath them.
And for the first time, Thanos spoke softly, almost with reverence: "You are strong."
The Gauntlet blazed with intense and blinding multicolored lights.
"But not infinite."
Thanos's grin widened as he thrust his hand toward the heavens.
A shuddering ripple split the fabric of space itself.
His massive double-bladed sword tore across the horizon, cleaving through Mercury's molten winds like a silver tempest, its edges hissing with heat. It slammed into his palm with a resonant clang, the sound carrying the loyal fervor of a beast returning to its master's call.
William barely had time to realign his stance before...
FWOOOOSH!
SHINK!
The opening strike ripped through the air faster than sound, faster than thought, a streak of blackened steel wrapped in the dazzling, prismatic blaze of the Infinity Stones.
William blocked.
Mostly.
A thin, searing gash opened across his ribs, molten gold blood spraying outward only to vanish in a hiss before touching the ground.
Thanos pressed on without hesitation.
He became a whirlwind of steel and godlike force, his motions impossibly graceful for his towering frame, each swing a flawless, deadly arc guided by the infinite precision of the Gauntlet.
SHINK!
SHINK!
THOOM!
KRAK!
William ducked beneath one sweeping blade, but the follow-through caught him.
A shallow cut blazed across his shoulder, and another was burned into his thigh.
Then a deeper slash carved along his side, driving him backward with a sharp hiss of pain.
The battlefield warped around him, the world smearing into chaos.
CLANG!
BOOM!
SHINKK!
BOOOOM!
Thanos tore great trenches into Mercury with each missed strike, his blade slicing through mountain-sized slabs of iron as if they were nothing but soft clay.
William answered with surges of crimson-gold ki, each burst meeting the weapon in a clash that only partly deflected its unstoppable force.
The Gauntlet magnified everything, every strike, every swing, every intent, until even a glancing blow sent waves of agony tearing through William's body.
A brutal slash raked across his abdomen, not deep enough to spill his life, but enough to make his legs tremble and nearly give way.
His divine aura sputtered, flared, then wavered like a candle fighting against a merciless wind.
Thanos noticed. He advanced, towering, the double-edged blade vibrating with apocalyptic hunger.
"You burn beautifully… but flame has limits."
Breath came to William in ragged gasps; standing was its own battle.
The world around him warped and swam, molten and shattered, his crimson aura unraveling into faint, dying wisps.
Thanos raised the massive sword high, poised for the final strike, a clean decapitation, one swing to end the god-born champion.
The blade descended.
CRRRRAAAAA-KOOOOOOOM!
Thunder.
On Mercury.
The sound was alien, impossible, a noise the scorched world had never known in its entire existence.
Thanos halted his strike a mere fraction of a centimeter from ending William's life, instinct freezing the killing blow as his gaze turned skyward.
His eyes narrowed.
Above them, the heavens, once a blinding, merciless expanse of sunlit desolation, had been swallowed by darkness.
Vast, churning clouds of deep, violent purple writhed across the sky, spiraling with divine rage, laced with searing veins of white lightning. Electricity snarled in the vacuum, warping the very laws of physics around its fury.
A second thunderclap ripped reality apart.
BOOOOOM!!!
And then, he saw him.
A figure hurtling downward at staggering speed, wreathed in torrents of raw lightning that flared outward like wings forged of living storm. The air itself ionized in his wake, burning white-hot.
His eyes…
They burned with wrath.
With storm.
With Asgard fury made manifest.
A fury older than the planet beneath them.
The figure descended, each jagged arc of lightning gouging molten fissures into Mercury's crust.
Thanos' grip shifted, his blade lowering slightly, the first glimmer of surprise shadowing his face.
William, weak and dazed, lifted his gaze, vision blurring, and knew the form that plummeted like divine retribution.
The storm incarnate.
The god of thunder himself, Thor.
Thor's fist slammed into Thanos's chest with the force of divine wrath itself.
FWOOOOOOM!
The Mad Titan hurtled across Mercury's barren expanse, carving colossal scars into the iron crust with every brutal meter of his uncontrolled flight. Towering mountains crumbled under the cataclysmic shockwaves; molten rivers erupted skyward in fiery geysers. A furious storm of dust, molten slag, and shattered fragments of the planet spiraled in his wake, blotting out the fractured horizon.
Hovering above the chaos, Thor was a living tempest, lightning writhed around him like serpents forged from the heart of storms, his eyes blazing twin cyclones of unyielding fury, his scowl etched deep as if carved in stone by the gods themselves. Each surge of power rippling from his form made the air itself shimmer, thunder reverberating through the silence of space.
He spoke no words. None were needed. His very presence was a verdict.
When Thanos finally skidded to a halt, his breath ragged and energy spilling from his wounds, Thor's gaze shifted, just slightly, toward William, who stood battered, scorched, and trembling from the brutal gauntlet-fueled clash.
"You… are still standing," Thor rumbled, his voice low yet resonating like distant thunder across the void. The lightning around him flared brighter as he drifted closer. "But understand this, what you just endured, what you fought for, it is nothing compared to the transgression I have come to avenge."
William, gasping for air, forced his eyes to focus through the fog of pain and fading adrenaline. "Thor…?" he croaked, his voice raw.
Thor's eyes narrowed again, though now tempered with a glint of shared resolve. "Moments ago, a cosmic wave of infinite power and scope tore forth from Earth. I felt it ripple through the stars. Half of all life… is gone."
William's breath caught, his eyes wide with disbelief. "Half…?"
Thor's fists clenched, alive with lightning so fierce it seemed capable of tearing Mercury itself apart.
"Half. Including… Loki. Including… Frigga." His voice wavered, trembling under the weight of controlled fury, each word dripping with the anguish of loss.
The very air quaked around him, thunder booming endlessly across the alien sky. "That is why I am here. That is why Thanos will pay, not for planets, not for stars, but for what he has stolen from me, from my family, from the universe!"
Bolts of lightning erupted from Thor's form, lashing against Mercury's barren surface in a storm of jagged destruction. Each strike carved deep trenches and craters, as though the planet itself answered his wrath.
The thin, alien atmosphere hissed and shimmered, heavy with the divine rage of a god betrayed. Nearby, William forced himself upright, ki sputtering faintly but refusing to falter.
With a sharp twist of his neck and the crack of his knuckles, he rose to his full height, ready to face the storm, but before he could jump into the fray, Thor held his hand out as if telling him to wait, and, in the distance, the Mad Titans' gaze turned to Thor.
Thanos's eyes narrowed, the Infinity Gauntlet pulsing with lethal intent. With a swift, commanding motion, he unleashed a blinding beam of pure Infinity energy, a radiant spear forged from every cosmic force in existence, ripping through Mercury's scorched sky.
FWOOOM!
The beam surged forward, warping space itself, vaporizing molten rock, and carving a swath of annihilation straight toward Thor.
But the God of Thunder stood ready. Mjolnir whirled in his grip at impossible speed, the Uru hammer dissolving into a blur of divine metal and seething lightning. The air around him rippled and roared, the storm above answering his power as his aura erupted in tandem with the raging heavens.
With a deep, steady breath, Thor hurled himself into the attack, spinning Mjolnir into a controlled tempest. The Uru drank in the beam's fury, scattering the boundless energies into a thousand splintering shards. Each fragment slammed into Mercury's tortured surface, gouging fresh trenches, shattering molten peaks, and igniting infernos across the planet's blistered crust.
The barrage slowed Thor, each fractured blast pounding him like the blows of a divine warhammer from the stars, yet his resolve never wavered. His eyes burned with unyielding wrath, mirroring the tempest raging above.
With one final, thunderous surge, Mjolnir drove forward, the spinning Uru smashing squarely into Thanos's chin.
KRAK-THOOOM!!
The sound of distant thunder rolled across the planet as the Mad Titan was flung back in a violent arc, tearing through the molten terrain with every bone-shattering impact. Mountains crumbled, rivers of liquid metal boiled, and a chaos of craters bloomed in the wake of his catastrophic fall.
Thor's eyes blazed with fierce brilliance, divine lightning coursing along his limbs and crackling with the unbridled fury of a thousand storms. Overhead, the clouds seemed to bow to his will, twisting and coiling, their roars echoing his power. With a deafening cry, he thrust Mjolnir toward the heavens, unleashing a single, colossal bolt of god-forged lightning that ripped through the turbulent sky.
The strike slammed into Thanos with devastating precision, the sheer force collapsing the ground beneath him and fusing the molten crust into glass in an instant of blistering heat. A violent shockwave erupted outward, scattering Mercury with a hail of incandescent shards.
For long, breathless moments, silence reigned. Dust, smoke, and molten glass churned in the suffocating haze, obscuring the horizon. Then, with a slow, almost dismissive motion, Thanos rose to his feet.
He brushed away the clinging dust and fragments of molten stone from his armor, his grin unshaken, his presence radiating the immutable confidence of one who has conquered the impossible time and again.
"Impressive," he murmured, voice calm yet edged with dangerous amusement, "but predictable."
The Infinity Gauntlet pulsed ominously, its glow rhythmic, like the heartbeat of reality itself. The ground shuddered under his weight.
Above, Thor's lightning faltered, Mjolnir trembling in his grasp as the God of Thunder readied himself, every muscle taut, his focus razor-sharp. At his side, William fought to steady the shivering blaze of his divine ki, the fractures in his aura betraying the relentless toll of the Mad Titan's onslaught.
The air between them was thick with tension, each heartbeat a drumbeat of destiny, as the clash of gods and Titans threatened to tear Mercury asunder.