The vast, star-strewn void.
Thanos's dreadnought drifted closer as a rain of strange, triangular-prism modules broke off and plunged away from the hull.
Below lay Wakanda.
An endless savanna—Earth's technological capital—now chosen as the perfect ground for a decisive war.
"This might get rough. Their numbers are massive," said Steve, already on site in Wakanda.
"We'll deploy the Wakandan army, the Royal Guard, and the Border Tribe…" T'Challa began.
Boom—
A thunderous detonation rippled across the sky.
A transparent dome snapped into being over Wakanda. Whatever had slammed into it burst apart on impact.
"God, I love this place already," Bucky muttered, feeling oddly safe beneath the shimmering shield.
"Don't relax," warned Colonel Rhodes over comms. "More unidentifieds are approaching the dome—lots more!"
Far off, more triangular prisms streaked in trailing fire, their shockwaves tearing up the plain and heaving sand into rolling gusts.
Rumble.
Rumble.
Rumble.
Dozens of the giant prisms slammed down in a ring around Wakanda.
Then the hatches yawned open. A seething tide of alien shock troops poured out—most of them bestial figures whose bodies were slabs of corded muscle, fanged and clawed, their crimson eyes gleaming as they loosed low, hungry growls. These weren't soldiers who understood fear or retreat. They were living munitions—cheap, relentless, and brutally effective. Thanos had used them to great effect again and again.
The Black Order had been reduced to a single survivor.
Proxima Midnight—beautiful by alien standards, monstrous by Earth's—stalked forward at their head.
Across the field, led by T'Challa, Wakanda's forces stood in ordered ranks. They looked like "tribals" to an ignorant eye—until you saw the tech: energy-spears that hummed with power; fur capes woven as particle mantles that, when wrapped, flared into personal barriers tough enough to shrug off artillery; war rhinos armored in gleaming vibranium. This army would be the backbone of Earth's defense.
Another colossal transport slammed down, rattling the earth.
Thanos himself did not appear.
But the flood of beasts did—howling like they'd been unleashed into paradise. On their own worlds, resources were barren; life itself barely clung on. Compared to that, even Wakanda's empty plains were Eden.
"Rrroooaaar!"
In moments, the bestial host had ringed the entire shield.
"This is worse than expected. There are… more than we thought," murmured Steve, the sheer scale eclipsing anything he'd seen—even the world wars.
"It's fine. Victory will be ours," he said a beat later, lifting his voice to steady hearts.
"Hold the line! Hold the line!"
Armored for war, King T'Challa's growl carried over the ranks. Behind him, Wakandan warriors answered with a thunder of voices, eyes locked on the writhing wall of bodies beyond the dome.
"An energy barrier?" Proxima Midnight smirked at the clear screen encasing all of Wakanda.
Thanos's orders were simple: crush Earth's living defenses. The rest would crumble.
"Humans. Hmph." She flicked a hand.
The beasts leapt forward.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
The barrier could shrug off massive kinetic and, especially, energy blows. But an ocean of bodies—an ant swarm of suicidally charging flesh—strained it in a way no clean beam ever could. Creatures struck, charred, and fell smoking by the hundreds; it didn't slow the next wave, or the next.
"Oh my God…"
"Look at how many—"
"Guess we finally made him mad…"
Even hardened fighters felt their scalps crawl at the sight. No one wanted to guess the endgame of numbers like this.
At last—crack.
One beast punched through, its body cooked black, half its torso gone. It still scrabbled forward, snarling—horrifyingly alive.
With the breach, more forced their way, one after another.
"Your Majesty, at this rate the barrier can't withstand continuous impact. We need to relieve the pressure!" Okoye shouted.
If they didn't shed load, the dome would collapse; then even the skies would be open.
"Tell Shuri—open an access at West Sector Seventeen!" T'Challa grated, his panther suit rippling over his body.
"But that means—" a royal retainer began. Opening the gate would force the Wakandans into head-on melee against a literal sea.
"It's ready. Opening the gap—brother, be prepared," came Shuri's calm voice over the link.
Every Wakandan warrior and S.H.I.E.L.D. fighter squared up, faces set.
"All units—advance! Wakanda forever!"
T'Challa roared and sprang, a streak of violet light.
Behind him, the army surged, weapons high, their battle-cry shaking the dome.
At West-17 the barrier peeled back, leaving a gap nearly twenty meters wide. The beasts, packed thickest there already, howled and rushed the opening like a tide.
Two steel rivers met and smashed together, flesh and blood thrown skyward, the sound a grinding thunder.
A Wakandan warrior lopped an alien's head clean—and another beast tore open his chest a heartbeat later.
The endless plain had become a merciless meat grinder, devouring lives by the score.
Elsewhere—
Thanos stepped onto a barren world.
Because here, he felt the presence he sought.
And the pulse of an Infinity Stone.
(End of Chapter)
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