Regrouping

Three hours later.

Thanos gazed coldly at the mountain of corpses and sea of blood before him, slowly retracting Tyrant's Blade.

All around him floated countless corpses, severed limbs, and broken arms.

There were so many that they were impossible to count.

Over the past three hours, he and his subordinates had surrounded and wiped out more than a million Asgardian Gods.

It was not as if they had not considered taking a few prisoners.

But these Asgardian Gods were tough as well. Not a single one had surrendered; every last one had died in battle.

At that moment, the Black Order flew over to him and dropped to one knee in midair.

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

After witnessing the battle between Thanos and Odin, they had become even more utterly devoted to him.

That world-destroying power was something they could never attain, even if they trained for centuries more.

It was power that belonged to gods.

Thanos merely gave his respectful subordinates an indifferent glance before asking, "Where is Thor's body?"

Although Odin had escaped, killing Thor would have been acceptable as well.

As soon as he spoke, the Black Order lowered their heads even further.

Seeing this, Thanos immediately frowned and said unhappily, "Don't tell me he got away."

When Corvus Glaive saw that no one else spoke, he could only force himself to answer. "My lord, we did not see Thor..."

Before he could finish, Thanos's eyes widened.

The next instant, Corvus Glaive felt enormous pressure descend upon his entire body.

It made even breathing somewhat difficult.

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

Proxima Midnight lowered her head and hurriedly said, "My lord, it was like this. Supergiant and Ebony Maw feared that the enemy would make a desperate last stand and that we would suffer heavy losses, so they chose not to seal off space and allowed the enemy to escape."

They did not yet know that Sif had already fled with Thor. They still believed the enemy had escaped because they had not sealed off space.

When Supergiant and Ebony Maw saw Proxima Midnight diverting the blame onto them, they panicked as well.

"My lord, we merely made the decision out of strategic considerations. We feared the Black Order would suffer excessive losses."

"Yes, we did not even know this Thor..."

Before the two could finish, Thanos's pressure immediately enveloped them.

The entire Black Order was forced to endure immense pressure.

Soon, cold sweat dripped from their foreheads.

After a while, Thanos saw his subordinates kneeling on the ground and trembling. Only then did he withdraw his pressure and say indifferently, "Don't talk to me about strategy. My strategy is to eliminate as many enemies as possible. Otherwise, if Odin uses the resources of an entire galaxy against us, we will have a hard time resisting."

Supergiant and Ebony Maw might have had some talent for warfare, but at the strategic level of an entire galaxy, they were still far too lacking.

Upon hearing this, the Black Order immediately understood what they had done wrong.

They were filled with regret.

Supergiant and Ebony Maw in particular wanted to slap themselves across the face.

But Thanos paid no attention to his subordinates' private thoughts. Instead, he turned to look into the distant universe and continued, "Have all fleets prepare themselves. Follow the traces left by the enemy and pursue them at once."

When spacecraft performed spatial jumps, they left behind certain spatial traces.

Thanos happened to possess the technology to track them, so he did not continue holding his subordinates accountable for their mistakes.

"Yes."

The Black Order nodded, immediately rose, and flew back to their spacecraft.

On the Asgard Continent, inside the Bifrost chamber.

Odin's face was pale as he panted continuously.

"Pant... pant... Damn Purple Potato... pant... pant..."

At that moment, Heimdall's boots clicked with "clack... clack..." as he approached Odin, concern visible in his eyes.

"Wong, are you all right?"

He had actually been secretly observing Odin's battle with Thanos all along.

Seeing Odin being beaten back by the other side had made him anxious as well.

If not for the lack of Odin's orders, he would have wanted to go help.

Odin shook his head and said with lingering fear, "Back when the Council of Gods met, I heard that there was someone called Thanos in the neighboring Panlong Galaxy who was extremely powerful.

At the time, I even mocked those people next door for being unable to suppress a single Titan. Now it seems I underestimated him."

Although he did not directly admit that he could not defeat Thanos, he had already tacitly conceded.

He still had a few trump cards, but he had already used his strongest methods. Those remaining cards would likely only cause Thanos some trouble and could not change the outcome of the battle at all.

Moreover, he was not certain that the other side had no trump cards left.

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

Fortunately, it had merely been a projection of an Infinity Stone, not the real stone.

Thinking of this, he suddenly remembered that his treasury still contained a glove forged for the Infinity Stones.

When he was young, he had once considered collecting the Infinity Stones and ruling the universe.

But he had ultimately abandoned the idea.

There had simply been no clues, making them impossible to collect.

The only stone he knew of was in that bald man's hands, and he had no way of taking it.

Shaking his head, he stopped dwelling on it.

At that moment, Heimdall suddenly raised his head toward the sky, and his pupils abruptly contracted.

A moment later, he said anxiously, "Allfather, the enemy seems to have a way to track spacecraft. They are currently following our fleet here."

Upon hearing this, Odin immediately rose to his feet with an anxious expression and headed outside.

"What? They actually possess such an ability?"

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

A while later, Odin arrived at the temple and issued a summons for the councilors.

The power structure of the Asgard Continent was rather interesting.

Aside from the Allfather at the top, there was also the House of Representatives below him, with a total of one hundred councilors.

Every councilor had to possess at least Planetary Level strength, equivalent to the Warriors Three.

Besides the strength requirement, they also had to possess territory of their own within the Milky Way, namely a Fixed Star or a Planet.

The Milky Way was so vast that it could have produced tens of millions of councilors.

Unfortunately, Odin's desire for control was far too strong. He viewed the Milky Way entirely as his private possession. Apart from the subordinates who had fought alongside him in his early campaigns and received Planets, he had never distributed any more afterward.

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

They could simply send over a hundred million Spaceships to crush him. Even Thanos would be exhausted to death.