Thanos nodded in quiet satisfaction when he saw that the Black Order had finally reached sub-Celestial strength.
In the battles to come, they would at least be useful.
It wouldn't end up like those ridiculous movie scenes—where someone casually steps on one of them and, boom, instant death. Thinking about it now, the Black Order in the films had been weakened to the point of parody. No, wait—Black Order Four would be more accurate. Supergiant didn't even exist.
The thought made him sigh internally.
The deaths in Avengers: Infinity War had been pure plot convenience, meticulously arranged by the director's invisible hand. And among all of them, the most laughable was Ebony Maw's.
A hole appeared in the spaceship hull, and somehow it sucked in only him. No one else. Just him. Even better, this interstellar spacecraft apparently had a single outer shell and absolutely no internal pressure barriers.
By that logic, if a ship like this suffered a breach, everyone onboard might as well sit down and wait for death.
Even the most ordinary cargo ships back on primitive oceans had multiple compartment layers. Breach one section, and the rest stayed sealed.
Aliens, apparently, were willful creatures. They insisted on single-shell spaceships. Otherwise, how would they justify selling new ones every few years?
Then there was Black Dwarf.
A towering brute—bigger than Thanos himself—killed after the Hulkbuster's left arm was torn off. Hulk grabbed the severed arm, pinned Black Dwarf with it, and flew him straight into Wakanda's energy shield, where he was… rubbed to death.
Putting aside the fact that Black Dwarf's body should've laughed off that level of friction—
If the arm really had that much kinetic energy, a single punch should've turned the enemy into paste. Why go through all that trouble?
And where, exactly, was this miraculous energy coming from? The arm was already detached from the armor. Was it running on sheer narrative enthusiasm?
Clearly, it was powered by the director's affection.
Then there was Proxima Midnight.
She had a blade pressed to Wanda's throat. One stab. That was all it would've taken.
But no—she hesitated. She refused to kill. Worse, the moment someone provoked her, she sheathed her weapon like a model citizen and charged in headfirst.
Naturally, Wanda remembered she possessed chaos magic and killed her in a single move.
Corvus Glaive was no better.
With a clean stab to Vision's chest, a slight shift upward or downward would've torn him apart.
But Corvus wouldn't do it. Instead, he carefully pulled the weapon out along the exact same path it entered, as if worried about aggravating the wound.
His movements were gentler than a surgeon's. Possibly more considerate.
By Avengers: Endgame, the Black Order's deaths became even more humiliating.
Their combat records were probably worse than those of their own underlings.
Thinking about all this, Thanos briefly considered not letting the Black Order go to Earth at all.
The thought passed quickly.
He didn't yet understand the full situation on Blue Star. Sending subordinates ahead to scout was a necessary step.
Caution prevented catastrophe. Carelessness ruined lifetimes.
"Everyone prepare," Thanos said calmly. "In one month, we march on Earth."
"Yes!"
Hela, Laufey, and the five members of the Black Order all nodded in unison.
They were confused—why be so cautious toward a planet that hadn't even reached Type I civilization? But Thanos never acted without reason, and as subordinates, they knew better than to ask.
Thanos then reviewed reports on galactic conquest, scientific research, and public welfare.
Research and civilian life were proceeding smoothly. Nothing major had gone wrong.
The expansion of the galaxy had slowed slightly, mainly because the five Black Order generals had all returned for closed-door cultivation.
Only the dwarf planet presented complications—Hela had slaughtered its entire population, and immigration was now underway to refill the territory.
After dismissing everyone, Thanos turned toward the dungeon.
It was called a dungeon, but in truth, it was simply a place you couldn't leave.
There were no rats, no cockroaches, no damp stone walls. The environment was clean—almost comfortable.
The room came fully furnished: a bed, desk, chair, wardrobe, television, air conditioner. Everything one needed for daily life.
If not for the locked doors, it would've looked like an ordinary home.
As Thanos walked forward, the echo of his footsteps rang through the corridor.
The prisoners inside immediately lowered their heads.
There weren't many criminals here—very few, in fact.
Under Thanos's rule, privacy did not exist in public spaces. Cameras were everywhere.
And crimes, unsurprisingly, were rare.
Moreover, it provided full, seamless coverage—no blind spots, no dark corners to hide in.
With layers of cutting-edge technology stacked on top of each other, there was simply no criminal clever enough to slip through the cracks. When the crime-solving rate hovered near a perfect 100%, people naturally started doing the math. Risk your life for a crime you were almost guaranteed to get caught committing? Suddenly, crime didn't seem so glamorous.
So, aside from the truly unhinged types who were ready to fight to the death, almost no one chose to cross the line.
A moment later, Thanos arrived outside Gamora's cell.
She was being held alone. Inside, she sat on the bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, head lowered, her posture closed off and rigid, like someone trying to shrink into herself. She didn't even look up when Thanos stopped at the doorway.
Even his presence didn't stir her.
It seemed the blow had been too much. Unable—or unwilling—to process it, she had chosen isolation instead.
Thanos watched her in silence for a while before finally speaking, his voice echoing softly through the room.
"Gamora…"
Despite everything, he still carried a sliver of affection for the daughter he had raised for over twenty years. Somewhere deep down, he hoped she would turn back, become the obedient child she once was—fight for him across the stars, serve his cause, and help bring what he believed was balance to the universe.
When Gamora was young, she had been so compliant. She followed his commands without hesitation, rarely questioned him, never showed unnecessary curiosity. Back then, she had been exactly what he wanted.
He never imagined it would end like this—father and daughter standing on opposite sides, irreconcilable.
Time passed. Gamora didn't move. She didn't respond. She didn't even lift her head.
At last, Thanos shook his head. The faint softness in his gaze vanished, replaced by cold resolve. He turned and walked away without looking back.
He had given her his final chance.
Since she was so determined to die, then he would not shoulder the blame.
"Deep Blue," he said flatly, "convene the Supreme Court. Sentence the five members of the Guardians of the Galaxy to death."
"Yes," the artificial intelligence replied without hesitation.
…
In the days that followed, the Obsidian Five began mobilizing their forces with alarming frequency.
The first move was relocating the ten interstellar fortresses originally stationed around the wormhole, pushing them out to the outer edge of the solar system. Then, ship after ship began gathering beyond the system's boundaries.
There was no visible limit to their numbers.
Aside from the troops required to guard territorial borders, Thanos pulled in nearly every force at his disposal. Within just ten days, the fleet had swelled to roughly one hundred thousand warships.
And that was only because the conquest of the Milky Way had been rushed, leaving many planets unconquered. Otherwise, given enough time, producing a hundred million ships within a century wouldn't have been out of the question.
Earth, meanwhile, remained blissfully unaware of the approaching storm.
People ate, drank, worked, and slept as usual, utterly ignorant of the shadow creeping closer.
More than half a month later, NASA—while observing an exoplanet—suddenly found its light source blocked by something massive. An interstellar fortress.
Only then did they realize something was very, very wrong.
As Earth's scientists scrambled to investigate, more and more black silhouettes appeared on their monitors.
Panic spread quickly to the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Yet, true to habit, the United States showed no intention of sharing this information. Instead, they chose to study it in isolation.
After all, if Americans couldn't figure it out, they reasoned, then no one else in the world stood a better chance.
.....
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