Nearly half the planet's landmass had already plunged into a hellscape of magma and earthquakes.
Mountains sank as the crust shifted, while the seabed rose. Hundreds of millions of tons of seawater poured into the chasms torn open across the land, dousing the blazing core and evaporating into endless clouds of steam that billowed upward, merging with Morton's atmosphere and giving rise to even more frenzied celestial disasters.
The colossal boulders left behind by two shattered peaks stood like reefs nailed into an ocean of lava. James Howlett stood atop one of them, golden flames coiling around his body, his fists clenched tight. The pair of savage, elongated Bone Blades protruding from his hands burned with the Eternal Flame as well.
More than a hundred meters away, Thanos crouched slightly atop another boulder, his double-bladed sword held horizontally behind him. A tangible aura of energy seeped from every inch of his dark-purple skin.
Streams of molten metal, thousands of degrees hot and spilling from the planetary core, occasionally crashed over him like waves. Yet they merely splashed into showers of tiny sparks like those from a steel furnace, leaving not even the faintest white mark on him.
James stepped toward Thanos one pace at a time atop Mystic Arts arrays formed from flame, while the "Mad Titan" simply leaped into the sea of lava and waded knee-deep through the rolling firewaves toward him. He rested his great blade on his shoulder, looking as though he was enjoying the fight immensely.
"You've been deceived, Thanos. Your mind has been clouded by that being only you may be able to see. Erasing half the life in the universe cannot bring salvation to this world. You'll only lead all life to its eventual extinction."
The battle between the "Wolf Emperor" and the "Mad