"You have courage, Earthling," Thanos said with a faint note of admiration.
He believed these Earthlings had already sensed the gap in their strength.
Yet they still dared to act this way. Their courage was indeed commendable.
"You flatter me!" Nick Fury was neither servile nor overbearing. "This is simply my duty as Earth's protector! So please answer my question directly!"
Earth's protector... Thanos repeated inwardly.
He looked at the Avengers again. Although he did not think much of their strength, they still constituted a force that could not be ignored.
Hadn't even his strongest warriors, the Black Order, been defeated?
Calling them Earth's protectors was fair enough.
In truth, he had never underestimated Earth, but he had never attached much importance to it either.
After all, the Ancient One resided on Earth, and Odin's gaze fell upon it from time to time.
Although Thanos considered those two troublesome, he did not fear them. Besides, neither really had that much to do with Earth.
Although the Ancient One was known as Earth's guardian, she only protected it against invasions from the Dark Dimension.
Odin merely regarded Earth as his own backyard.
As long as he did not wreak widespread destruction after arriving on Earth, neither of them would take the initiative to provoke him.
So he had never thought much of Earth.
Yet he had never expected such an Earth to give him so enormous a surprise.
Was it because of that person...?
That fleeting glimpse from that day surfaced in Thanos's mind again. Under his and Odin's watchful eyes, that person had taken the Tesseract without a care.
Was Thor's transformation his work too?
Thanos fell silent for a moment, then explained:
"I did not send anyone to invade Earth. I only wanted to retrieve the Tesseract."
But Nick