"Crack."
The second crisp snap echoed across the mountaintop.
Thanos poured every last ounce of his strength and will into the overwhelming intent to "expel the Hilling Empire."
He could feel the power of the six stones on the Infinity Gauntlet converge in an instant. A vast force capable of rewriting reality's fundamental laws was taking shape—this time, its target was no longer the random erasure of life, but the very "existence" of that otherworldly empire.
Yet just as that power was about to erupt according to his will and sweep through the entire universe—
Something changed.
The surging torrent of energy suddenly seemed to strike an impenetrable barrier the instant it touched a certain "boundary."
The stones' power still churned, and the command to "expel" was clearly returned, but the result was—unable to lock onto the target.
It was like feeding a supercomputer the command to "delete a file," only to receive the error message: "Path does not exist. Access denied."
The Hilling Empire's essential nature, informational structure, and even the way it was connected to this universe seemed to lie entirely beyond the Infinity Stones' capacity to "define" and "retrieve" under this universe's laws.
The stone energy that had built to its peak, unable to find a target for release, suddenly recoiled like a blocked volcano into Thanos's already ruined body and gauntlet!
"Pfft—!"
Thanos spat out a mouthful of purple blood mixed with fragments of organs and motes of energy. His entire body flew backward and crashed heavily into the ruins.
The cracks already covering the Infinity Gauntlet rapidly widened with piercing cracking sounds. After the six stones flickered violently, their glow abruptly dimmed, as if most of their energy had been drained.
"So... this is what Ancient One wanted me to understand..." Thanos struggled to lift