Rallying the Forces

Three hours later.

Thanos stared coldly at the mountain of corpses before him, then slowly lowered Tyrant's Blade.

Bodies and severed limbs floated all around him.

They were packed so densely that counting them was nearly impossible.

Over those three hours, he and his forces had hunted down more than a million Asgardians.

He had considered taking a few prisoners.

But the Asgardians had fought to the last. Not one had surrendered.

The Black Order flew over and knelt on one knee in midair.

At their head, Corvus Glaive lowered his head respectfully. "My lord."

After witnessing the battle between Thanos and Odin, they were more devoted to him than ever.

Even if they trained for centuries more, they could never attain such world-shattering power.

It was the power of gods.

Thanos merely glanced at his subordinates' show of respect. "Where is Thor's body?"

Odin had escaped, but killing Thor would still have been something.

At his question, the Black Order bowed their heads even lower.

Thanos frowned. "Don't tell me he escaped."

When none of the others spoke, Corvus Glaive had no choice but to answer. "My lord, we didn't see Thor..."

Before he could finish, Thanos glared at him.

In the next instant, crushing pressure bore down on Corvus Glaive.

He could barely breathe.

"How did you let a half-dead man escape?"

Proxima Midnight kept her head lowered and hurried to explain. "My lord, Supergiant and Ebony Maw were afraid that if we sealed off space, the enemy would fight to the death and inflict heavy losses on us. So they let them escape."

They did not know that Sif had already fled with Thor. They assumed the enemy had escaped because they had failed to seal off space.

Supergiant and Ebony Maw panicked when Proxima Midnight shifted the blame onto them.

"My lord, we were thinking strategically. We feared the Black Order would suffer too many losses."

"That's right. We didn't even know who Thor was..."

Before they could finish, Thanos's pressure engulfed them both.

Now all five members of the Black Order were bearing its crushing weight.

Soon, cold sweat trickled down their foreheads.

Only when Thanos saw them kneeling and trembling did he withdraw his pressure. "Don't talk to me about strategy. My strategy is to destroy as many enemies as possible. Otherwise, if Odin uses an entire Galaxy's resources against us, we'll have a hard time holding out."

Supergiant and Ebony Maw might have understood warfare, but when it came to strategy on the scale of an entire Galaxy, they still fell far short.

The Black Order immediately understood what they had done wrong.

Regret filled them.

Supergiant and Ebony Maw, in particular, wanted to slap themselves.

Thanos paid no attention to what his subordinates were thinking. He turned toward the depths of space and continued, "Ready every fleet. Follow the traces the enemy left behind and pursue them at once."

Spaceships left traces in space when they jumped.

Thanos happened to possess the technology to follow those traces, so he did not pursue his subordinates' mistakes any further.

"Yes, my lord."

The Black Order nodded, then rose and flew back to their Spaceships.

Inside the Bifrost's chamber on Asgard Continent.

Odin was pale and gasping for breath.

"Damn Purple Potato..." he muttered between breaths.

Heimdall approached, his boots clicking against the floor. Worry showed in his eyes.

"God King, are you all right?"

He had been watching Odin's battle with Thanos from the shadows.

Seeing Odin forced onto the defensive had filled him with alarm.

If Odin had given the order, he would have gone to help.

Odin shook his head. "At a Council of Gods meeting years ago, I heard that someone named Thanos in the neighboring Panlong Galaxy was remarkably powerful.

"Back then, I laughed at them for being unable to subdue a Titan. It seems I underestimated him."

He did not say outright that he could not defeat Thanos, but it was clear he had conceded as much.

He still had a few moves in reserve, but he had already used his strongest techniques. The rest would probably cause Thanos some trouble, not change the outcome of the battle.

Besides, he could not be sure Thanos had shown everything he had.

The Mind Stone in particular had left a deep shadow over him.

Fortunately, it had only been a projection of an Infinity Stone, not the real thing.

That reminded him of a gauntlet in his treasury, forged for the Infinity Stones.

In his youth, he too had dreamed of gathering the Infinity Stones and ruling the universe.

In the end, he had given up.

He had no leads, so collecting them was impossible.

The only Stone he knew the location of was in the hands of that bald man, and he had no way to take it.

Odin shook his head and put the thought aside.

Just then, Heimdall looked up at the sky. His pupils contracted sharply.

A moment later, he said urgently, "God King, the enemy appears to have a way to track Spaceships. They're following our fleet here."

Odin sprang to his feet and headed for the exit.

"What? They can do that too?"

Heimdall watched Odin leave, shook his head helplessly, and resumed monitoring the enemy fleet.

A short while later, Odin reached the temple and summoned the councilors.

The power structure of Asgard Continent was unusual.

Below the God King, who held supreme authority, stood the House of Representatives, made up of one hundred councilors.

Every councilor had to be at least Planetary Level, the same level as the Warriors Three.

Beyond that, each needed a territory of their own in the Milky Way, whether a Fixed Star or a Planet.

The Milky Way was vast enough to support tens of millions of councilors.

But Odin's need for control was too strong. He treated the entire Milky Way as his personal property. Only the followers who had fought beside him in the beginning had received Planets; he had granted none since.

Otherwise, he would not be helpless against a single Thanos now.

With hundreds of millions of Spaceships advancing together, even Thanos would be worn to death.