Thanos's eyes narrowed.
Not dead?
He'd crushed the planet's crust around him with the Reality Stone—pulled a world's worth of mass into a single, killing press—yet the bald man still stood.
"You're strong. Stronger than I expected," Thanos said, lifting his gauntlet to show the second Infinity Stone now set into place.
"Yeah? Then I just have to beat you," Saitama replied, closing his fist. His gaze sharpened; his features tightened into something almost—handsome.
"Beat me? Hah."
Saitama didn't bother answering. He dipped a shoulder, coiled, and kicked off.
Boom.
Bedrock spider-webbed beneath his feet, a hundred-meter gouge sinking where he'd stood.
From a distance, Stephen Strange stared, slack-jawed. "That power… you've got to be kidding me."
Thanos's eyelid twitched. Instinct shoved his crossed forearms up to meet the incoming blow.
Normal Punch.
In Thanos's vision, a red glove ballooned large—a primal threat ripping up from his gut. It had been years since anything made him feel that.
The bald man was smaller, true. Thanos stood over three meters; their fists looked mismatched.
It didn't matter.
Crack—
Impact detonated like a meteor strike. Pain burst up Thanos's arms; micro-fractures skittered along bone. A visible shockwave blew outward from the clash, planing the ruins flat. Strange was flung like a dry leaf on a storm.
Thanos skidded backward nearly a hundred meters, plowing a long trench before he caught himself.
He hissed.
Two Stones—and the human still drove him back. Strength… greater than his? Impossible.
"Single-handed Consecutive Normal Punches!"
Saitama landed and exploded forward again.
Fast.
Thanos's pupils pin-pricked. Pressure crushed in from all sides. A storm of red fists filled his world.
Rumble—
He threw up his guard, but every block drove knives through muscle. Purple skin split; thin lines of blood webbed his forearms. Even with the Reality and Time Stones warding him, his flesh pulped under the barrage.
"You're strong," Saitama said evenly, standing toe-to-toe now. For once, heat rose behind the dead-fish eyes. A long-forgotten burn—battle-lust—stirred.
He'd always wanted a true equal. Since becoming "one-punch unbeatable," his emotions had gone dull, but the craving to fight never left. Each time, though, the opponent popped like a balloon.
Not this time. Thanos's power lit the hope he'd been waiting for.
"No," Thanos growled to himself, shaken. He'd seen Saitama fight. He'd underestimated him anyway.
Scarlet bled brighter from the Reality Stone, until the planet itself glowed like a coal.
"He's going to crack the world," Strange breathed, horror tightening his voice. "Saitama!"
"Too late, fools!" Thanos bared his teeth. "Die!"
Reality surged.
From the void, the planet shone—then the glow crawled with fissures. Even from light-years away, one could have felt the shiver.
"Then it's bad for your 'Saitama,'" Captain Marvel said over Wakanda's front lines, eyes flicking skyward.
"What?!" came the chorus from Steve and Fury.
In seconds, even Earth's sky flushed blood-red.
"Two-handed Consecutive Normal Punches," Saitama whispered.
"Worldbreaker!"
Thanos's fist clenched as if crushing glass. Cracks raced across the crust; annihilating light geysered from the seams.
"It's over," Strange said with a broken laugh.
The storm met the storm—Saitama's twin-fisted barrage colliding with a planet-killing surge.
Titan shattered.
A corona of light flared across the stars. Chunks of mantle and city-sized plates spun out as a newborn belt of wreckage. The soundless blast rolled on and on until the universe went still again.
Silence.
Only drifting ruins remained where Titan had been.
Strange, at the instant of rupture, ripped himself through a portal and fell gasping onto Earth's soil.
Thanos flexed his hand. Burns patterned the knuckles, but he scarcely looked at them. His gaze roamed the void where his home had once turned beneath a sun.
"A shame," he murmured.
Had they not been enemies, the man might have lived. A rare opponent, almost worthy.
It didn't matter. The Stones mattered. The plan mattered.
"Earth," Thanos said, eyes finding the distant blue star. His army fought there now. Several Stones lay scattered across that world. Once he gathered them all, it would be done.
"…That punch was nasty. Almost died. Yikes."
The voice floated out of the rubble.
Thanos's next step hung in midair. Slowly, disbelieving, he turned.
From the tumble of shattered rock, a tattered cape shook loose dust. A bald man stepped free, brushing gravel from his shoulder.
(End of Chapter)
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