Thanos sat upon his floating throne as he appeared in Xandar's orbit, looking down upon the planet while his Black Order—Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, Ebony Maw, Supergiant, and Black Dwarf—cleared the way for him.
Thanos's merciless eyes silently overlooked the slaughter of Xandar's civilians and the Nova Corps at the hands of his soldiers.
Thanos and his followers had carried out planet-wide massacres like this many times before. For example, Gamora's homeworld, Zehoberei, had seen every Zehoberei slaughtered to extinction, leaving only Gamora to be adopted by Thanos.
"That will be enough," Ebony Maw said with an elegant bow.
He had been making preparations within the Nova Corps for a long time, keeping them hidden until now.
Thanos had originally intended to deal with Xandar's Nova Corps immediately after obtaining the Soul Stone. After all, the Nova Corps held the Power Stone. Since he could not guarantee he would obtain it without fail, he had planned to secure the Soul Stone first, then take the Power Stone.
But he had never expected Vivian, under He-El's command, to battle Odin, causing Vivian to detonate Xandar's original sun. Odin had directly moved Xandar 170,000 light-years away. Only after Thanos's fleet rescued Ebony Maw again and spent some time doing so did they manage to reestablish contact with their insider in the Nova Corps.
Based on the information provided by that insider, even Thanos felt that heaven was helping him, that destiny was on his side.
Xandar's chaos gave the insider room to act. Detonating Xandar's new sun and cutting off the planet's defense systems had already dealt another crushing blow to an Xandar that was already suffering disaster upon disaster, leaving it unable to withstand Thanos's sudden assault.
Large numbers of spacecraft began returning, arranging themselves in two rows before Thanos and