Thea studied the attack for a moment and understood. The old fox hadn't contributed much of his own power at all. He was using the mirror surface to redirect energy attacks from elsewhere in the universe. The two blasts looked like planetary main-cannon grade—whether they came from one of his vassal worlds or he'd simply caught a stray battlefield in the right moment, she couldn't tell.
The Grandmaster's mastery of time and space ran deep. He'd spent his idle centuries watching other people fight. Those energy salvos might well have been plucked from some battle on a distant timeline.
With Jean and the Grandmaster both committed to ranged assault, Thea felt that lobbing fireballs or shooting arrows was a little beneath the occasion. She had no choice but to grit her teeth and close in with the blade.
A distinctive whoosh—and the most recognizable shield in any universe arced toward her. She caught it out of reflex.
"My shield will help, I'm sure of it!" Captain America was currently surrounded by three aliens, his face battered and bruised, yet he'd still hurled the shield without a second thought—anything to give Thea a better chance.
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. At this level of combat, what good was a shield? But Cap's intentions were genuine, and she couldn't bring herself to refuse. She nodded to signal she'd received it.
The shield that embodied Marvel's national spirit sat in her grip. Objectively, it was well-made: lightweight, supremely resilient, and its defensive power was nothing to scoff at.
Thea was curious to see whether the shield, supposedly carrying the fortune of this entire plane, was really that miraculous.
Shield in her left hand, Excalibur in her right. Sword-and-shield was a combination she knew intimately—Diana's signature style. Familiarity was unavoidable. Time was tight, but she struck a quick pose anyway, then charged.
A few exchanges in, something odd became apparent. Whether it was psychological or the shield genuinely carried some effect, small lucky breaks kept showing up whenever she raised it to block.
Sometimes an enemy grunt got punched into the space between them, blocking Krona's view at just the right moment. Sometimes the Grandmaster redirected a devastating energy blast that forced Krona to pull back and defend. Once, in the most absurd stroke yet, Galactus's body twitched in a pre-revival spasm—some internal structure, blood vessel or otherwise—and physically tripped Krona mid-stride. The attack that would have landed on the shield fizzled into nothing.
Thea suspected the shield was genuinely boosting her luck. Feeling good about it, she raised Excalibur and pressed the offensive.
Before long, she found an opening. Excalibur caught Krona's left leg in a lateral slash.
The two-meter-tall scientist stumbled. A chunk of calf muscle was gone, the nerves severed along with it. Mobility mattered in a fight, and he knew it. Two mechanical arms extended from his armor and set to work at blinding speed, replacing the missing tissue with precision components.
As long as he could continue his research and find the truth, substituting body parts with machinery carried no psychological burden for him.
But Thea's threat forced him to divert attention from Jean.
Their four-way engagement had been an all-out death match from the first second. Around them, the broader battle raged as the assembled heroes pushed back against overwhelming numbers. The enemy forces inside Galactus weren't numbered in tens or hundreds; they comprised several different species. Conservative estimates put them in the hundreds of thousands. The heroes couldn't clear them all in two days.
They could only form a defensive perimeter, sealing Thea's trio and Krona at the center while they held off the horde.
Buoyed by the shield's improbable luck, Thea hammered at every vulnerability she could find. When no opening presented itself, she hacked at the energy barrier instead—not wasting a single second.
Krona absolutely deserved the title of technological apex. Spilled energy was recaptured and recycled. Even the attacks from Thea, Jean, and the Grandmaster were partially converted through his internal systems and fed back into his own reserves.
After five minutes of relentless bombardment, the Phoenix Force's ceaseless barrage finally drew the first hint of fatigue from Jean. She was pushing through on willpower.
Thea ran the numbers. The outlook wasn't encouraging. Even at this intensity, they'd need at least half an hour to drain Krona's energy reserves. In practice, that was impossible—too many variables, and Jean's two partners couldn't sustain their share of the load that long.
Fortunately, she had a backup plan.
She called Scarlet Witch through the telepathic channel.
"Aim at Jean's impact point. Throw Chaos Magic."
Phoenix Force and Chaos Magic would never complement each other. They were fundamentally opposed energies.
Thea didn't need them to merge. She needed a bigger explosion—and no two energies were better suited for that than these.
On the first attempt, Scarlet Witch was a beat too slow and missed. Her reserves were far smaller than Jean's; timing had to be precise.
The second grazed the edge. The Chaos Magic was ground away by the Phoenix Force on contact.
Shielded behind America's core values, Thea felt minimal pressure on defense. She coordinated the entire battlefield—fighting, monitoring Galactus's revival state, and now directing targeting.
"Now! Fire!"
Scarlet Witch raised her hand and hurled a bolt of Chaos Magic at Krona's barrier. In the instant before magic met barrier, the Phoenix Force arrived at the same point. Two energies that despised each other collided against Krona's defense in an almost romantic encounter.
No earth-shattering explosion. No fireworks of light and dust. A fist-sized pocket of space was simply erased. No energy, no matter—just void, as though that volume had never existed.
"What is this power? Tell me! Tell me now!" Krona's excitement was palpable. He'd spent the prolonged battle partially decoding the Phoenix Force's rules. By his calculations, the Phoenix Force could be scientifically replicated—even manufactured.
But the two forces combined left him baffled. He glimpsed something grander lurking within, yet couldn't begin to analyze it.
Two ten-dimensional energies of opposing natures, tangled together—this was far beyond the limits of comprehension. Even Krona was thrown.
"Good, it's working! Keep going!... Hold on—you guys keep fighting!" Thea was mid-celebration when the entire battlefield shuddered.
Galactus was waking up. The combined detonation had hurt him worst of all—every ounce of energy spillover was coursing through his body. Thea guessed one of the five great creator entities had been jolted awake by pain.
A sustained low hum filled the chamber. Martian Manhunter and Professor X were unleashing a telepathic blast—holding on, but barely.
Thea didn't hesitate. She found a life-force node, sheathed Excalibur, drew the Nightsky Sword, and drove it home.
Divine power of death poured in, devouring the sliver of life Galactus had just recovered. The tremors faded. Galactus died a second time.