Several kilometers away from the crater at the heart of the battlefield, in Brooklyn—deep inside an underground warehouse converted from an abandoned factory, caked in dust and oil.
The darkness there was like something thick and liquid, almost congealing the air itself. Only a few emergency lights on the walls shed a faint, sickly green glow, barely outlining two shapes hidden beneath heavy dust covers—like ghostly statues lurking in the gloom.
One of those figures finally moved.
He straightened up with extreme slowness, metal joints grinding with the tiniest "click." Dark-gold armor covered his entire body, all cold, sharp lines and vicious spikes. Most unsettling of all was the massive war-blade he held in his hand, its dull metallic sheen swallowing the light. His very presence felt like that weapon—radiating a frozen, suffocating stillness, the kind of danger that made you feel your own breathing might simply stop.
Corvus Glaive.
He lifted his head. Beneath the skull-like helm, two points of ghostly green light flared to life. Like the eyes of a predator hiding in the dark, they seemed to pierce the warehouse walls and stare straight toward Manhattan.
That crushing pressure, the aftershocks that had shaken the earth… even from this distance, every cell in his body was still sending instinctive tremors of alarm.
Lord Thanos… no. That bald creature.
That power.
"How do you feel, Corvus?"
A low, rasping female voice, like metal scraping over rock, echoed through the gloom.
The other shadow stepped out from the darkness. She moved with predatory grace, clad in a tight, black combat suit traced with high-tech lines. In her hand, she gripped a strange weapon whose three-pronged tip looked halfway between a spear and some kind of gun.
There was the faintest hint of mockery and scrutiny in her tone.
"The noise of Lord Thanos getting 'cleaned up' was loud enough to shatter mortal eardrums from halfway across the planet."
Proxima Midnight.
Corvus said nothing at first. The ghostly green lights beneath his helm flickered, as if he were still digesting something that exceeded his limits of understanding. The Blade of Oblivion in his hand gave a faint, eager hum, as though it too longed for… something.
"That creature…" he said at last, his voice like a rusted hinge grinding open. "His strength… defies reason. But the grand mission must continue. The scepter… is the key."
He stepped forward. Dust swirled at his feet in tiny vortexes under the emergency lights.
"Perception restored. The Blade of Oblivion has recorded the scepter's coordinates."
His gaze seemed to bore straight through the warehouse, fixing on some point deep beneath Brooklyn.
"It… has not completely vanished. The force of that stomp, combined with the trajectory of my strike, shook it down into the depths underground."
"Ebony Maw?" Proxima asked.
"He's gone to make contact with this planet's filthiest little factions," Corvus replied, a trace of contempt in his tone. "To use their dirty little claws to search for backup resource sites. Our plan proceeds as scheduled."
He raised the Blade of Oblivion, the tip pointing toward the back of the warehouse.
"The scepter's energy pattern was badly disrupted and suppressed by the raw violence of that impact and the fracturing of the crust. But at the core, the gem's radiation… its silent whispers are still reaching us. We need to get closer to the source."
"Good."
Proxima's fingertips slid along the trident-like gun-spear. A thread of pale-blue lightning danced across its points.
"Then let's retrieve Lord Thanos's rightful gift. As for that bald one…"
She smiled, a cold curve barely visible in the dim light.
"Leave him to Ebony Maw to 'interpret.' Isn't that what his vaunted 'wisdom' is for?"
(End of Chapter)
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