In Eden.
After a long while, Thanos rubbed his brow, looking a little weary.
"That was still a lot to take in."
His eyes served as beacons of faith. Anyone who saw them and felt worship or belief could enter into Divine Grace with him and borrow his power.
And it worked remarkably well.
To slaves with no idea what their future held, a pair of eyes could be a marvel, the eyes of a demon, or the eyes of a god.
So plenty of people took his projection for a god. In one stroke, hundreds of quadrillions of lives came to believe in him.
He supposed it was the last struggle of lives driven to despair.
Fortunately, they had encountered him, and he had given them a chance to fight back.
Though it had cost him one percent of his energy.
That one percent was not to be underestimated. It was already an incalculable amount of energy.
Measured by mass, it amounted to more than a dozen galaxy clusters.
But he could sense those lives rising up to reclaim their homes and freedom.
Some planets had begun moving toward him as well.
That made the investment worthwhile.
If those people fought hard enough, they might even tear away half a universe and merge it into Eden.
Then he could recover his investment several times over, perhaps even tenfold or more.
Even if they failed to tear the universe apart, he still would not consider it a loss.
After all, the souls of those who borrowed power through Divine Grace would belong to him when they died.
He only had to collect those souls to recover his investment, with interest.
For a lender, there was no loss unless the borrower died or ran away.
With Divine Grace, he could recover