Spatial Corridor

Because they had strengthened the spatial blockade, it took Odin's fleet more than an hour to open the Space Rift.

The next moment, hundreds of drones vanished into space.

Clearly, they had all entered spatial jumps to scout ahead.

A dozen minutes later.

Aboard the flagship, Odin watched the dots of light representing the drones disappear one by one from the projection as they made their spatial jumps.

Even the few lucky enough to reach their destination vanished before they could transmit any images back.

Odin's face darkened further.

The enemy could clearly destroy warships in the middle of a spatial jump. Their defenses were so thorough that not a single drone had survived.

Spatial jump technology was the most important—and most critical—step for Intelligent Life venturing into the universe.

But it was not as simple as opening a Space Rift and having everyone swarm through.

Each warship had its own independent spatial passage. Once opened, the ship would be drawn into the Space Rift.

In other words, once a Space Rift opened, the spatial jump had to proceed. It could not be interrupted.

Space Rifts were also one-way. There was no return passage, nor could a Spaceship enter from the other end.

Now that the enemy could destroy unmanned warships during a spatial jump, they clearly possessed technology Odin's side knew nothing about.

"Lucy, what do we do now?"

Opening separate spatial jumps to divide the enemy's attention had been the best plan Lucy could come up with.

But the enemy clearly had a countermeasure.

Lucy could only shake her head. "Looks like there's no other way. We'll have to fight them head-on."

Thor said excitedly, "We should've fought them ages ago. All this dithering is a waste of time."

Odin shook his head helplessly, then said with resolve, "Then let's begin!"

Near the Wormhole.

Several transport warships were towing a massive asteroid into place.

It was meant to be turned into a Space Fortress.

From the start, Thanos had prepared for a long campaign.

If Odin chose to advance slowly, ten Space Fortresses would be waiting to give him a fight he would never forget.

A short while later, several large transport ships emerged from the Wormhole.

Wormlike machines streamed from both sides of the transports and flew toward the other warships. They were resupply units, delivering energy and other resources.

Everything proceeded in an orderly fashion.

Inside Sanctuary II.

Thanos still sat on the Throne, the Mind Stone resting loosely in his hand.

Little Blue's virtual projection appeared in midair.

"Master, a large number of Space Rifts have opened thirty billion kilometers from us."

Thanos opened his eyes at once.

"Oh, he finally lost patience. Right at the edge of the Fixed Star, too."

The Fixed Star where Thanos was now stationed spanned roughly ten billion kilometers.

Thirty billion kilometers put them just beyond its outer edge—not too close, not too far.

At sublight speed, it would take him more than two days to get there.

That would give the enemy Spaceships just enough time to replenish their energy.

It seemed Odin had a way to pinpoint his location.

A name soon came to mind.

Heimdall, the man who could watch over the Nine Realms.

It was probably him.

Otherwise, even Thanos's technology could not monitor something tens of thousands of light-years away, much less a few tiny warships.

"All fleets, proceed to the target location. The Black Order will stand by to provide support. Suspend construction on every Space Fortress."

He had planned to build the Space Fortresses because he had assumed Odin would not find him so quickly.

Yet he had been discovered only days after arriving in the Milky Way.

Now that a decisive battle was at hand, there was little point in building them.

If he won, he would take the fight straight to the enemy's home.

If he lost, unfinished Space Fortresses would be of no use.

He had not ordered the Black Order to join him because the spatial blockade kept them from reaching him for now.

If he had known Asgard's technology was so poor that it could not even break a spatial blockade, he would not have gone to the trouble of splitting up his forces to set ambushes nearby.

"Activate Black Photon Ray Towing. Start the faster-than-light engines."

"Open the Spatial Corridor zone. Prepare to enter faster-than-light travel."

At those commands, 2,500 Spaceships followed Sanctuary II toward their destination at a hundred times the speed of light.

If Wormholes connected galaxies and spatial jumps connected Fixed Stars, then Spatial Corridors connected planets.

A Fixed Star's domain might span only a few billion kilometers, or it might extend for several trillion.

Even at light speed, crossing such a vast distance could take years.

And spatial jumps were ill-suited to travel within a Fixed Star's domain, since they consumed too much energy. The more economical Spatial Corridor was the obvious choice.

A Spatial Corridor used powerful energy to compress space slightly, shortening the distance as though miles had shrunk to inches.

The Spaceship still traveled at sublight speed, but the result was faster-than-light travel.

The technology was highly advanced, though. Odin probably did not have it yet.

Just over half an hour later, Thanos's fleet reached its destination.

There, he found a patch of space so black that not a single star shone through.

The Space Rift was opening, blotting out even the starlight.

Little Blue was intelligent enough to begin issuing orders without waiting for Thanos.

"Destination reached. Disengage the Spatial Corridor and exit faster-than-light travel."

"Raise all Spaceship shields to full power."

"Bring engines to full thrust."

"Begin charging main and secondary laser cannons."

"Deploy space mines and spatial bombs."

"Prepare to deploy Interstellar Behemoths."

"Prepare the Black Order to move out."

"Prepare fighters for launch."

As each order went out, the vast fleet sprang into action.

The escort ships raised their shields; the attack ships charged their main and secondary cannons; support ships deployed space mines and spatial bombs. From the mother ships came the Interstellar Behemoths and the Black Order, while fighter engines roared to life.

The Interstellar Behemoths were the flying monsters that looked something like whales in the movies.

On a planet, they could only serve as transports. In space, they were formidable weapons platforms—and agile, nothing like the lumbering creatures seen in the movies.

With the battle preparations complete, Thanos stopped cultivating and quietly awaited the enemy's arrival.

Hopefully, this time I'll get a fight worth having.