The Power Stone

Black, dark power surged around Ronan's body. He raised his Kree Warhammer and swung it at Star-Lord.

Star-Lord had no time to marvel at it. He immediately dodged aside.

Boom!

Ronan's blow left a crater ten meters deep in the ground.

Soon, thunderous crashes rang out one after another.

Ronan's strength lay in raw power, not agility. Star-Lord, on the other hand, was exceptionally nimble, and he narrowly evaded attack after attack.

After a while, Ronan realized his ordinary attacks couldn't hit him. His anger flared.

"Die!"

Dark power surged through his body and gathered around the Warhammer.

He leaped up and brought it crashing down on the ground.

Boom!

The ground cracked across a kilometer-wide area, as though an earthquake had struck.

Distant mountains collapsed, and lava erupted from several volcanic craters.

It was a scene out of the end of the world.

At the center of the blast, Star-Lord was hurled away by the shockwave and slammed into a boulder.

He coughed twice, clutched his chest, which felt as though it had split open, and staggered to his feet.

Damn it. That guy isn't human. He's a monster.

Ronan drew back his Warhammer and looked toward Star-Lord in the distance. Then he leaped, raising his weapon.

The fight had apparently convinced him that Star-Lord's earlier burst of power had come from some piece of equipment. Star-Lord himself was no threat, so Ronan intended to end it quickly.

Fear rose in Star-Lord's heart.

He had never faced an enemy this powerful. Ronan's physical blows alone rivaled a Spaceship's firepower.

Forcing himself through the pain wracking his body, he dodged aside again.

But while still in midair, Ronan conjured a huge hand of black smoke from his dark power and seized Star-Lord.

Star-Lord's pupils contracted.

As the Warhammer drew closer, he felt the terror of impending death.

Just then, a mysterious power inside him erupted once more.

A flash of blue light threw off the black hand, and Star-Lord lunged forward, escaping Ronan's strike.

That confirmed to Ronan that Star-Lord was no ordinary person. Aboard Sanctuary II, Thanos also sensed exactly where the power had come from.

Thanos quickly looked up toward a point in the universe.

Tens of thousands of light-years away, a man looked up toward Thanos's location.

It was as though distance meant nothing and the two could see each other.

In truth, neither could see the other. Each merely felt as though someone was watching him.

Meanwhile, down below.

Ronan did not attack again. Instead, he asked gravely, "Who are you? Why are you here?"

Star-Lord struggled up from the ground. His body felt as though it had fallen apart, every muscle and bone groaning under the strain.

"My name is Star-Lord. I'm an adventurer."

He certainly wasn't going to admit he was a Ravager.

After all, the Ravagers had a worse reputation throughout the universe than pirates.

The Pirate Alliance imposed at least some rules on pirates, so they showed a measure of restraint. The Ravagers, however, were scum through and through. For money, they would do anything.

His adoptive father, Yondu, had once belonged to the Pirate Alliance. After breaking its rules and getting expelled, he had formed the Ravagers.

Well-traveled as he was, Ronan knew Star-Lord was lying. He did not call him out, though. He merely said, "Hand over whatever you found here, and we'll let you leave."

To Ronan, someone at their level of power had no reason to discuss money. It was nothing but a number.

After all, being a Sub-Skyfather brought power and status that money could never measure.

Star-Lord saw it differently.

To him, money was life. Aside from his companions, nothing in the world mattered more.

And now this guy wanted him to surrender what he had found without paying a single credit? He would sooner die.

"Sorry, I'm just here to explore. I didn't take anything."

Ronan narrowed his eyes, raised his Warhammer, and charged.

Star-Lord's Sub-Celestial Father Level power made him wary, but Ronan possessed power at that level too.

He had wanted to avoid a pointless fight. That did not mean he was afraid.

Seeing Ronan attack without another word, Star-Lord immediately regretted his answer.

I should've handed over any old thing.

Giving up the Cosmic Orb, of course, was out of the question. Someone had offered him a price he simply couldn't refuse.

For that price, he had even cheated his dear adoptive father.

Star-Lord hoped the power inside him would erupt again, only to discover that it seemed to have stopped working.

Ronan was already in front of him, swinging his two-meter Warhammer, and still nothing happened.

The next instant—

Boom!

Star-Lord was smashed into pulp.

Aboard Sanctuary II, Thanos found the sight strange.

Had I been wrong all along? Was no one—or no god—watching Star-Lord?

Ronan's tremendous blow had also broken the Cosmic Orb Star-Lord carried, revealing a purple glow within: the Power Stone.

Greed flashed in Ronan's eyes at the sight of it.

With this Stone, could I defeat Thanos?

Before he could reach for it, however, a surge of blue energy erupted from Star-Lord's remains.

The energy tore open space, swept up Star-Lord's remains and the Power Stone, and flew into the opening.

As Ronan stood at a loss, a voice rang out with overwhelming force.

"How dare you!"

Thanos's towering figure appeared before Ronan. He thrust his hand into the Space Rift and seized the Power Stone.

The Space Rift began to close, quickly shrinking around Thanos's wrist.

But it did not sever his hand as one might expect. Instead, as Thanos pulled, space shattered open again.

At his level of power, he could enter subspace in his physical body. The cutting force of a Space Rift posed no threat to him.

He withdrew his hand from the Space Rift unharmed, the Power Stone in his grasp.

Sensing a living being holding it, the Power Stone unleashed Skyfather-level energy that swept across everything nearby.

Anyone unable to withstand that power would be torn apart, reduced to dust, and wiped from existence.

But whoever mastered the Power Stone's energy could greatly amplify their own strength when using it, perhaps even reaching the peak of the Skyfather-level.

Only the peak of the Skyfather-level, though. A single Power Stone could not push someone to Universal Level.