Absorbing a Planet

On the other side of the Milky Way.

The Black Order was following the trail left by the Asgardians' Spaceships.

After Thanos had given them a dressing-down, they understood how serious the situation was. They threw themselves into the pursuit, not daring to rest for a second.

But before long, they noticed something wrong.

After the fourth space jump, the Asgardians' Spaceships had changed course and flown off in another direction.

After discussing it, they decided to report this to Thanos.

As soon as Thanos heard, he understood: Odin had discovered the pursuit and sacrificed his troops to save himself.

Thanos could only marvel at Odin's cold-blooded decisiveness.

Those were medium-to-large Spaceships, after all, carrying hundreds of thousands of people.

And those same people had risked their lives for Odin, fighting the Black Order to the bitter end.

Yet in the blink of an eye, he had abandoned them.

There was little Thanos could do. He ordered his subordinates to keep hunting the Asgardian Spaceships and capture their crews alive if possible.

Since these defeated soldiers were not going back, he could only hope to find the coordinates of Asgard Continent aboard their Spaceships.

Otherwise, finding that one place in the vast universe would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

As for why Thanos did not pursue them himself, he had more important matters to attend to.

He ordered his subordinates to continue building the Space Fortress beside the Wormhole and manufacturing Spaceships on the planets behind the front line.

Then he went looking for a planet where he could test his skill.

Before he knew it, another two months had passed.

More than three hundred Spaceships arrived as reinforcements, bringing Thanos's fleet back up to ten thousand.

The Black Order destroyed one Asgardian Spaceship after another, but not a single crew surrendered.

When a battle reached its end, the Asgardian warriors chose to blow themselves up.

They gave their pursuers no chance to capture them.

Thanos finally gave up on that hope and settled into conquering the Fixed Stars one by one.

Now he stood on a barren planet, purple light radiating from his hands as he steadily absorbed its energy.

After destroying his first planet, he had obtained the Star-Absorbing Technique.

But he had been focused on mastering the Mind Stone's power and had never tried the technique.

Once his battle with Odin ended, he found the barren planet beneath his feet and began using the Star-Absorbing Technique.

He also discovered its limitation: it could only draw energy from planets whose cores were still burning.

He could not draw so much as a trace of energy from dead planets with cold cores.

After two months of absorption, the planet beneath him had begun to cool at its core, and its atmosphere was gradually vanishing.

That was when he understood. The Star-Absorbing Technique drew energy from a planet's core, killing a living planet.

A low hum sounded.

He did not need to look up to know his subordinates had come for him.

It was his first time using the Star-Absorbing Technique, and he did not know when he would drain the planet or what would happen afterward. To be safe, he had ordered the Spaceships to remain a hundred thousand kilometers away in space.

Soon, a small silver-white Spaceship with a sleek, futuristic design stopped nearby.

The hatch opened, and a figure in a gray robe stepped out, their face hidden from view.

The figure stopped ten meters from Thanos and respectfully knelt on one knee.

"Lord Thanos, we believe we have found a trace of Asgard Continent."

Only then did Thanos raise his head to look at the newcomer.

This was an Executive of the Black Order, also a Cyborg, though one designed for intelligence rather than strength.

"How did you find it?"

The Black Order Executive replied calmly, "We reasoned that someone as proud as God King Odin would surely place Asgard Continent at the center of the Milky Way to proclaim his power and achievements.

"So we focused our search on the Milky Way's central region. To our surprise, we found a place that matches its appearance."

Thanos nodded approvingly. "Good. Head back first. I'll be there shortly."

"Yes, my lord."

The Black Order Executive returned to the Spaceship and left the planet, which was on the verge of breaking apart.

Thanos immediately increased the pull from his hands.

Energy poured into his body.

Then a thunderous rumbling began.

The ground shook and cracked. Volcanoes erupted. It looked like the end of the world.

But there was no life on the planet, so an apocalypse hardly mattered.

Half an hour later, he felt the flow of energy dwindle. He stopped absorbing it and flew toward the sky.

Rumble...

Explosions rolled across the planet. From space, it was clear the planet was beyond saving.

The blasts tore great masses of land free of its gravity and sent them flying into space.

Not long after Thanos left, the planet collapsed completely and exploded.

Countless fragments shot into space, leaving only a shattered core roughly a thousand kilometers in diameter.

It was the planet's remains.

The only proof a planet had ever existed there.

Out in space.

Thanos opened his personal status panel.

Physique: 42942.4

Strength: 35121.8

Agility: 29578.0

Mentality: 30448.7

Active Skill: Destructive Power

Passive Skills: Titan Bloodline, Super Recovery, Super Physique, Super Strength, Super Agility, Powerful Mentality, Tough Skin

Unique Skills: Ruler, Star-Absorbing Technique

Equipment: Tyrant's Blade, Tyrant Armor, Mind Stone

Thanos nodded in satisfaction at his stats.

Absorbing the planet had raised each of his four attributes by somewhere between one and three thousand points.

Physique had naturally gained the most.

His Mentality had also passed thirty thousand after a year spent mastering the Mind Stone.

If every planet he absorbed gave him this much, then absorbing a hundred planets would probably bring him to the late stage of Skyfather-level.

The system panel did not display levels, but after years of study, he had devised a classification based on attributes.

Ordinary Person, Strongman Level, Superhuman Level, Planetary Level, Sub-Celestial Father Level, Skyfather-level, Universal Level, Multiversal Level.

An Ordinary Person's attributes averaged one point.

At Strongman Level, they averaged two to ten points.

At Superhuman Level, they averaged ten to a hundred points.

At Planetary Level, they averaged a hundred to a thousand points.

At Sub-Celestial Father Level, they averaged one thousand to ten thousand points.

At Skyfather-level, they averaged ten thousand to a hundred thousand points.

Of course, this classification was only used by Thanos and the forces under his command. Other places naturally had their own names for the levels.