Captain America held his charging stance.
His Vibranium shield was raised in midair, his mouth slightly open.
The expression on his face was frozen somewhere between a shout of "For freedom!" and the utter confusion of "What am I looking at?"
Black Panther's claws still glimmered faintly.
But his entire body seemed to have turned into a black metal statue.
Only his eyes beneath the mask were wide open.
Thor maintained his imposing axe-swinging stance.
The energy on the Thunderfire Battleaxe still crackled.
But his lightning-filled eyes were locked onto the golden arc streaking through the air.
They were filled with—
"Who am I? Where am I? What is he doing?"
—the soul-searching questions of a lifetime.
Even Thanos himself, that massive, oppressive figure, had completely frozen.
He remained in the posture of blocking Thor's attack.
Even the five stones on the Infinity Gauntlet seemed to have dimmed somewhat.
His huge purple hand instinctively caught the flying object.
Then he lowered his head and looked at the golden, warm gem in his palm, radiating alluring mental waves.
Then he looked up at Su Ming, whose face said, "No need to thank me."
For the first time in his life, his wise and ruthless mind went completely blank, as if it had crashed.
What... was going on?
A trap?
An illusion?
A new form of attack?
Mental contamination?
Countless conspiracy theories flashed through his mind.
But all of them were shattered by the simple, absurd fact that the other side had directly thrown him the gem.
"He... what the...?"
War Machine Rhodey let out an unconscious, grammatically scrambled electronic sound from inside his armor.
"Oh, my God..."
Hawkeye Barton lowered his bow and rubbed his eyes.
"Uh—!" Wanda had gathered an enormous blast of power and was just about to throw