"Um, Lord Thanos, now that we've shut down the stealth system, the radar must have detected us."
A technician aboard the helicarrier spoke softly to Thanos, who sat in the captain's seat.
"So they detected us. So what? Are they going to attack us for no reason...?"
Thanos sounded perfectly calm. He gazed through the screen at the world ahead, which looked much like District 11, his expression utterly unchanged.
Grimmjow, Death Death, Harribel, Demigorous, and the others had each formed scout teams and headed out in all directions, with the helicarrier at their center.
According to the maps left behind by the Witch Church, they had yet to find anything of value in the surrounding area.
Some worlds were barren wastelands; others were chaotic seas. Of the inhabited worlds they had found, the most common by far were zombie worlds.
There were all sorts of zombie worlds, as well as worlds with dried-out zombies whose age was anyone's guess.
These two worlds, joined together as they were, were actually quite promising.
Just as Thanos was mulling this over, a targeting alert suddenly sounded aboard the ship, its warning lights flashing nonstop.
"Lord Thanos, we've been locked onto by a fire-control radar."
The radar operator, wearing a headset, spoke in a low voice.
A normal radar sweep used a fixed frequency to scan in a circle. But when the radar kept illuminating them, it meant they had been locked onto by a fire-control radar.
For the first time, a hint of interest showed on Thanos's otherwise expressionless face.
"Oh? They've locked onto us?"
"They've already launched missiles!"
The warning alarm rang incessantly. Several surface-to-air missiles, each traveling at multiple times the speed of sound, raced toward them—seven or eight in a single salvo!
But once their type had been identified,