Thanos suddenly clenched his outstretched hands!
Boom!!!
A massive tremor spread across the heavens.
A million stars abruptly exploded, their endless stellar matter blasting into space and forming a sea of fire that spanned several light-years.
Countless ordinary beings who had not escaped in time were instantly killed by the explosions of those million stars, leaving not even bones behind.
Had Hela not been carrying Loki, he would have been severely injured even if he survived.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Heart of the Universe throbbed repeatedly, drawing in the fiery sea of a million stars like a giant whale sucking in water.
It poured directly into the Heart of the Universe through the gap in the great artery.
Thanos had abandoned the two Infinity Stones that had just been converting the stellar torrent. He no longer needed them at all.
As it absorbed more and more of the stellar torrent, the surrounding starfields were emptied.
The blazing white cosmic backdrop finally took on a faint hint of darkness.
No wonder Thanos had chosen to refine it at the center of the Milky Way.
Other than the galactic center, nowhere else had enough stars packed densely enough to feed the Heart of the Universe.
The nearby starfields had been emptied, yet the matter of a million stars could not fill even the moon-sized Heart of the Universe.
In fact, with every beat of the Heart of the Universe, it grew smaller and smaller.
In the end, it shrank to the size of a football, perfectly suited to Thanos's build.
"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" Thanos threw back his head and laughed. "I finally know what this is!"
"This is the Transcender's heart, beyond the Infinity Stones, beyond all dimensions!"
"Of course..." Thanos cast Apocalypse a disdainful glance.