The universe shuddered.
In the moment Lady Death's essence fused with Thanos, the vibrant glow of the Infinity Stones didn't just fade, it imploded, then burst outward again like a supernova trapped inside mortal form.
The massive sphere of Ki exploded into a ring of warped space, yet at its center Thanos hung still, encased in an embryonic shell of shadow and cosmic fire.
His body jerked.
A stab of pain.
A flicker of rebirth.
The transformation began.
Pieces of his battle armor were the first to go, softening, sliding away like molten gold dripping from a dying star. Shoulder plates unraveled into shimmering ribbons, the breastplate dissolved into dust that glittered like constellations, and gauntlets split into shards of metal and fading light.
With every piece that fell away, new flesh appeared, not the proud purple hide of a Titan, but something colder, unnatural, born between the realm of the living and the grasp of death.
From the bare patches, darkness oozed, not smoke, not mist, but a living, liquid night that coiled around him like a conscious shroud.
The shadows wound over his arms, curled across his shoulders, slithered down his torso in slow, deliberate patterns, trailed along his back, and slid over his legs, claiming him as if he'd always belonged to them.
Layer by layer, shadows solidified into overlapping plates of obsidian armor, each etched with faint silver veins, fragments of the Underworld struggling, yet ultimately failing, to remain apart from him.
The armor tightened, molding itself into an elegant, predatory form.
Thanos' massive frame did not diminish from weakness; instead, his bulk condensed into a form of dense, perfect lethality, pure efficiency, pure violence, a weapon meticulously forged for annihilation.
The towering giant was gone.
In his place floated a figure only marginally larger than Thor and William, yet infinitely more fearsome, a compact singularity of death-energy and cosmic authority.
Shadows crept up his neck and across his face, halting precisely at its midpoint before hardening with a crystalline bone freezing into a glassy sheen.
The right side of Thanos' face became a black, skeletal mask of obsidian bone, inscribed with runic sigils that glimmered like dying stars, a jagged grin beneath an empty socket burning with a cold, consuming flame.
The left side remained flesh, but shadow-tainted, skin darkened, taut, etched with triumph and hunger, its single eye blazing with swirling silver light, a miniature galaxy whirling in its depths.
The opposite half was an abyss so absolute that even light recoiled from its presence.
Thanos exhaled, his breath dissolving the final traces of Ki lingering in the air.
His aura ignited, not radiating outward, but collapsing inward, drawing the cosmos into himself.
Space distorted, matter trembled, and gravity twisted violently in his presence. For an instant, he ceased to resemble a living being, becoming instead the embodiment of a black hole's deepest dream.
Space-time shivered, flickered, then steadied as the oppressive shadows around him softened into stillness.
The universe seemed to release a long, uneasy breath.
The metamorphosis was complete. Thanos lifted his head with measured precision, the seamless union of bone and flesh moving in a silent, predatory grace.
He hovered effortlessly, as though even gravity acknowledged his dominion.
From the skeletal half of his mouth came a whisper forged from the echoes of a billion silenced heartbeats: "…I am reborn." One silver eye blazed like a newborn star, while the hollow socket beside it plunged into infinite darkness.
Across the solar system, Thor and William shuddered, their spirits recoiling instinctively. The foe they had once battled was gone.
In his place stood something ancient beyond reckoning, colder than the void, never meant to exist among the living. This was Thanatos, the Death-Eater.
The universe had barely begun to steady itself when Thor was the first to react.
A primal shiver of ancient instinct raced down his spine, the same dread he had only ever known in the presence of the All-Black, the Midgard Serpent, or the raw, unrestrained will of the Destroyer.
But this...this new Thanos… this Thanatos, was something far worse, an abomination the cosmos had never been meant to bear.
Thor's grip on Mjolnir tightened until the uru metal groaned in protest.
The skeletal half of Thanatos' visage turned toward him, its empty socket blazing with a cold, spectral flame, while the living side curved into a smile of quiet, predatory delight.
Thor's lips curled back in a snarl. "No more." He raised Mjolnir high, the hammer's head erupting into a searing lattice of lightning.
The air split with a thunderclap so colossal that shockwaves tore across the Martian sands and reverberated off the hollowed remnants of Phobos' destruction. And then, Thor summoned a power he almost never dared to call upon.
The Bifrost.
Lightning surged upward in a vortex of storm fury and prismatic refraction, spiraling ever higher as it tore through the atmosphere, carving a jagged scar into the heavens.
The sky itself ruptured, revealing a blade of pure, all-encompassing light, a spectrum so intense it scorched the eyes and seared the soul, rending the void.
This was the Bifrost, not summoned for passage across realms but unleashed as a devastating weapon.
Its radiance spilled across the solar system, draping planets and moons in spectral brilliance: Jupiter's tempests flared with otherworldly fire, Venus' clouds shimmered like burning oil, and even the Sun's surface trembled at the arrival of its ancient adversary.
For one suspended heartbeat, the cosmos beheld a rainbow-edged scythe stretching from horizon to horizon. Mjolnir absorbed the Bifrost's immeasurable force, then hurled it downward in a single, cataclysmic release.
The beam struck Thanatos with apocalyptic precision, a towering column of kaleidoscopic devastation twisting space itself, engulfing the death-forged titan in a cathedral of blinding, screaming light.
Space warped, and the void roared, gravity lurching as raw energy tore apart Mars' orbital balance.
Even from miles away, William threw an arm over his face, the Bifrost's shifting radiance, red, blue, green, gold, washing over him like the universe was flickering in his shadow.
Thor floated under the beam, jaw tight, muscles straining as he funneled every drop of Asgard's bridge-power into one target. "FALL, MONSTER!" The Bifrost screamed back, unleashing a rainbow spear so bright it scarred the dark.
Yet within the blazing torrent, a shape emerged, untouched, moving slowly and steadily.
The beam splintered as it rose, like a predator pushing through tall grass, unfazed by the firestorm all around.
Thor's eyes widened as Thanatos strode through the Bifrost.
The skeletal side of his face twisted into a jagged grin, bone fangs catching the light, while the shifting shadows of his armor tightened around him like a second skin.
The living half of his lips parted, his voice carrying both mockery and reverence: "…Asgard's bridge dares to blind Death?"
The Bifrost beam shuddered and bent as Thanatos lifted a single hand, obsidian fingers slicing through the rainbow torrent as though parting water. He advanced without pause, silent, unstoppable, regal, Death made flesh.
Thor's heart pounded as he unleashed everything: the full might of the Bifrost bestowed by Heimdall, the storms of a thousand worlds, the unyielding authority of his lineage.
The sky itself split under the strain, yet Thanatos walked on, through the beam, through the light, through the raging storm, ever closer to Thor, to William, to the living.
With each deliberate step, the universe quaked.
The Bifrost fractured and flared around Thanatos, its power failing to hinder his advance.
Thor's grip on Mjolnir tightened until his knuckles blanched, each breath shuddering in his chest.
Nothing, neither storm nor uru-forged hammer, nor even the unbridled might of the Bifrost Bridge, could impede the relentless march.
Thanatos moved forward with measured steps, each impact reverberating through the void like the tolling of a cosmic funeral bell.
Lowering Mjolnir, Thor's eyes narrowed in grim resolve. "So be it." Behind him, William drifted weakly, half-conscious, sensing a profound shift, the weight of an ancient force, older than gods themselves.
Thor lifted his free hand skyward, not in summons to storm or sky, but to something far more primordial, an entity rarely called upon and spoken of only in hushed tones among Asgardians.
The air above grew unnaturally still.
Thanatos paused, curiosity flickering in his gaze. "What are you calling, little god?"
Thor remained silent, raising his hand higher, its tremor born not of frailty, but of the gravity of his invocation.
Then, a low and distant resonance swept across the breadth of the solar system.
A low, ancient, metallic resonance reverberated through the void, reminiscent of the first breath of creation itself.
From the darkness, a hairline fracture of golden light emerged, splitting the emptiness.
The fissure expanded, blazing and igniting until the cosmos was engulfed in a colossal flare of gold, an open wound in the fabric of reality, pouring divine brilliance across the vast dark.
Even the newly formed magenta sun of Mercury paled in comparison to its overwhelming radiance.
William blinked rapidly, his pupils contracting under the searing light that etched itself into his vision.
Then came the Spear, moving faster than thought, faster than light, a sun-hot arc of gold that traversed billions of miles in less than a heartbeat. It tore through space with a deafening, omnipresent roar.
THROOOOOM!
KRAKOOOOOM!!
Thunder close, thunder far, thunder resounding in every direction.
The golden spear struck Thor's outstretched hand with such overwhelming force that worlds trembled in its wake.
The impact resonated across the void, reverberating through the fabric of space-time like the beat of a celestial war drum.
In that moment, every atom across the cosmos seemed to hum in unison at its arrival.
When the searing brilliance finally faded, Thor stood gripping it, Gungnir, Odin's legendary spear, the embodiment of the All-father's authority, a weapon bound by neither the laws of gods nor the constraints of physics.
Its shaft glowed with runes predating spoken language, and its tip radiated the focused will of a thousand sovereigns.
With Mjolnir in one hand and Gungnir in the other, Thor's presence surged, his aura transforming into a tempest crowned with royal fury and divine power.
"This ends now, Thanos." With Gungnir blazing with a brilliance to challenge the stars, Thor launched himself forward, the ascended God of Thunder wielding not only his own might, but the unrelenting wrath of the All-father himself.
"Show me," the Death-Eater whispered.
Thor didn't hesitate.
Thor surged forward, Gungnir blazing into a streak of divine radiance.
Thanatos met him head-on, a tidal wave of shadow erupting from his form.
Their weapons collided with a deafening impact.
BOOOOOOM.
The cosmos shuddered.
A shockwave ripped through the void, warping nearby starlight into spirals. Vast swaths of space-time shattered: in one region, time reversed, stars flaring back to life; in another, it accelerated, meteors streaking past in unnatural haste.
Thor swung Gungnir in a vicious downward arc.
Thanatos intercepted with his forearm, shadows winding tightly around bone-etched armor. The blow unleashed another, sharper detonation, sending seismic ripples across the interstellar expanse.
They vanished.
Then it happened.
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
The darkness blazed with the staccato fury of divine and deathly fire. Each meeting of Gungnir's golden brilliance and Thanatos' death-forged claws or armor ignited another explosion, each more blinding, deafening, and violent than the last.
A thousand strikes in a heartbeat.
A million sparks of celestial and necrotic power scattering through the void.
Reality itself twisted like molten steel under the hammer of titans.
Thor roared, driving Gungnir forward with force enough to split a world.
Thanatos met it with a palm of pure night, his skeletal grin widening as he matched the blow with impossible might.
"More," Thanatos murmured.
Shadows erupted.
Thor's storm answered.
As the two combatants clashed in the distance, William awoke from his unconscious state, wincing at the sharp pain that surged through his entire body.
Yet, alongside the pain, he sensed rapid healing taking place, prompting him to ease into a state of relaxation.
Suspended cross-legged in the void, far from the erupting magenta sun that had once been Mercury, he observed the universe trembling under the cataclysmic blows exchanged between Thor and Thanatos.
Each strike unleashed shockwaves that rippled across space, bending light, distorting gravity, and warping time within localized pockets.
William felt every vibration and resonance, yet his body refused to move, still weakened, still burning with the remnants of injuries that the senzu bean had only partially repaired.
A metallic ping resonated in his mind, the system's mechanical voice cutting through the cacophony of detonating Ki: "Health: 30%. Ki stability: minimal. Vital functions nominal. Injuries regenerating at a delayed rate due to incomplete nutrient processing."
His eyes opened slowly, his breathing steady though unnaturally slow, and he exhaled with deliberate calm.
The system's voice returned, sharper, almost admonishing: "Alert: Ki reserves unstable. Recommended focus on channeling to regain core stability."
He flexed his fingers, sensing the residual warmth of energy lingering in his palms. It was not much, but it was sufficient, sufficient to begin.
Closing his eyes, he drew in a deep, measured breath, allowing the steady rhythm of his Ki to serve as an anchor against the chaos surrounding him.
The clamor of the battlefield, the prismatic fury of the Bifrost, the grating scrape of Thanatos' shadow-forged armor across the void, the resounding crash of Thor's thunderous blows, faded into the background, replaced by the subtle hum of life coursing through his body.
He pictured his energy as a faint radiance emanating from his core, pulsing outward, stabilizing, and knitting together the fractured threads of power that the senzu bean had only partially restored.
Another notification chimed.
"Health: 32%. Ki resonance rising by 2% per interval. Energy feedback: moderate."
A slight smirk curved William's lips.
The process was slow, deliberate, and exacting, but it was progress, nonetheless.
He would not remain a mere observer for long.
He had once tasted the essence of godly Ki, and though it now threatened to slip away, he was certain he could seize it again, if only a shard, enough to endure the tempest born of Thanatos and Thor's collision.
William's eyes stayed shut, his form suspended in the void, every nerve taut, every muscle drawn tight with intent.
Deep within, the faint shimmer of magenta godly Ki pulsed in his core, stubborn, elusive, like a phantom slipping through the currents of an unseen stream.
He could sense it clearly, yet each attempt to seize it proved futile.
It was like plunging hands into rushing water, where the very act of reaching displaced the prize, sending it twisting away, just beyond his grasp. Each breath, each beat of his own Ki, seemed only to drive the divine essence further from him.
Still, he would not relent.
Sweat burned his eyes, his limbs trembled, and a low, resonant hum filled his chest as his will anchored him in place.
His mind narrowed, thought and focus compressed into a single, unwavering point.
Gradually, with deliberate care, he began to bend his aura around the godly Ki, not with force, but with patient enclosure.
His energy formed a quiet barrier, a cage of resolve around the flickering magenta flame.
It resisted, recoiled, and screamed in silence, raw power pressing against the fragile boundaries of his mortal shell.
Yet William endured.
Bit by bit, he wove his own Ki into the magenta spark, allowing it to mingle like water merging into molten glass, coaxing it toward balance instead of control.
The strain was immense, a ceaseless pull between urgency and restraint, but slowly, the fusion began to take hold.
A faint warmth spread through him as the magenta light deepened, curving protectively around his core rather than fleeing.
It pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, a powerful resonance that both revitalized and demanded control.
His own Ki ignited, forming a golden lattice of energy that linked to the godly spark, binding them together in a delicate, ever-shifting balance.
William's breath hitched when the energy began to respond, its earlier volatility easing into a rhythm he could follow.
Each thought and point of focus became a channel, drawing the magenta essence deeper into his being without shattering him or letting it slip away.
The void surrounding him seemed to still, the chaos of Thor and Thanatos' clash fading to the edges of awareness as he concentrated on the task at hand.
A single, resonant vibration emanated from his core, a silent affirmation that the energy was no longer resisting but cooperating.
A faint smirk touched his lips. He was far from whole, yet he had taken the first step.
The magenta spark of godly Ki, once wild and unyielding, had recognized him.
William Conwell would not relinquish it. Drawing a slow, deliberate breath, he felt the fused energy coil around him, radiating a subtle yet potent glow.
It was fragile, just a fragment of the divine power he had once commanded, but it was enough, enough to endure, enough to fight.
As Thor and Thanatos' struggle shook the very fabric of the cosmos, William's fingers flexed, and his aura flickered faintly, a quiet but resolute vow.
As the dust of a shattered cosmos began to settle and the roar of gods faded into an uneasy silence, a question hung over the void, heavy and impossible to dismiss.
Could William Conwell, poised between mortal limitation and divine spark, truly harness this fragment of celestial Ki?
Or would the tempest conjured by Thanatos and Thor's unyielding might prove insurmountable, tearing him apart before he could rise to confront it?
The universe itself seemed to hold its breath, watching and waiting. With every pulse of magenta light flickering deep within William's core came a shadow of doubt, a whisper of danger. One misstep, one wavering thought, and the delicate balance could shatter, plunging all into annihilation.
Yet for now, he endured, a fragile beacon amidst an infinite storm, a mortal hand clutching at godly fire. Within that precarious grasp lay both hope and peril, coiled together in anticipation of the next heartbeat.
Will he ascend to meet the trial before him? Or will the encroaching darkness consume him before he can strike? Only time, and the inevitable clash of titans yet to come, holds the answer.