After a few days, Carol had become familiar with everything about the Moon Base and returned to Earth to meet with the Justice League. However, she found that she couldn't locate the person she needed to see at all, which left her feeling annoyed.
"Where is Batman? Why hasn't Superman appeared yet?"
In front of Anton, Carol didn't hold back. Despite the fact that several days had passed since her return to Earth, she still hadn't seen Batman or Superman. It was inevitable that Carol would feel uneasy.
Others on the planet were probably used to the Justice League's way of acting, so they weren't bothered by the lack of information about these two members. After all, they knew that Batman, Superman, and the other Justice League members would make their appearance at the right time.
"They haven't come out yet," Anton replied, understanding Carol's thoughts but offering no courtesy. "They play a much larger role than you. Besides, this is our Justice League business, and it's not for outsiders like you to point fingers."
"Humph," Carol huffed, clearly annoyed.
Coulson, standing nearby, quickly stepped forward to defuse the tension. He positioned himself between Carol and Anton, looking somewhat nervous.
"This is indeed how the Justice League operates," Coulson said. "They generally don't appear before the incident happens. I believe they will show up when the time comes."
"It's better," Carol said, turning her head and not wanting to engage any further. She walked away, with Gamora following close behind.
Coulson looked a little helpless as he watched them leave, and Nick Fury stayed behind to join him. The two agents exchanged looks and then turned their attention to Anton.
Coulson spoke again. "Please don't blame Carol. Although everything is ready, Thanos poses too much of a threat to us. According to the time calculations, he's about to reach the galaxy, or maybe he's already there. We don't have much time left."
"Don't worry," Anton reassured them, waving his hand dismissively. "We have a great chance of winning."
"A great chance?" Coulson and Nick Fury exchanged another skeptical glance. Even with the fully operational Moon Base, over 100,000 enhanced fighters, and humanity's power at an unprecedented level, no one dared to claim that the odds were in their favor.
Thanos' power and influence were already at the peak in the universe. Even the Kree Empire dared not oppose him. In the original timeline, the Avengers were able to defeat Thanos largely due to plot convenience. Without that, it would be impossible for the relatively weak Earth to defeat a cosmic overlord.
Now, with Gamora's arrival, many people on Earth had gained a better understanding of Thanos' true power, which had made their initial confidence in Earth's victory begin to fade. It was unclear what the future held.
However, Anton's unshaken confidence made it clear that the Justice League had always been certain about their victory in this war.
The two agents didn't press the issue further and, after a moment's pause, followed Carol's retreating footsteps.
Milky Way.
The Thanos Army's fleet, a mix of sleek technological warships and grotesque, creature-like ships resembling turtles and centipedes, was advancing swiftly through space.
On the central ship of the fleet, the controller of this vast army, Thanos, sat calmly in the command room.
"Master, here we are!" Ebony Maw suddenly said, his eyes flashing as he looked at Thanos, who was meditating with his eyes closed. He whispered, his tone filled with a murderous aura.
"Turn on the transmission."
Thanos was straightforward and didn't intend to give Earth a chance to resist. He was well-informed about Earth, after all. Several of the Infinity Stones had been on Earth—stones he desperately coveted.
This time, his mission was twofold: on one hand, it was to show the Thanos Legion's might and take revenge for the death of the third of the four Black Order generals—Black Dwarf, Ebony Maw's comrade. On the other hand, the primary reason was to deal with the loss of his most important ally, the Black Dwarf, along with the other generals.
Of course, the latter was far more important to Thanos. As for the former, it was merely a convenient part of his plan.
In fact, the deaths of Black Dwarf, Proxima Midnight, and the Dead Blade general did not provoke any real anger from Thanos. Over the years, he had nearly abandoned the emotions of intelligent life. Everything he did was for a singular purpose. In order to achieve his goal, there was nothing he couldn't cast aside—even his own life.
In the original plot, he executed this characteristic perfectly—sacrificing Gamora to obtain the Soul Stone and, after using the Gauntlet to wipe out half the life in the universe, suffering irreversible damage to his body. Eventually, he lived in seclusion, only to be easily killed by Thor and the Avengers.
It would be impossible for the wise Thanos to be unaware of his eventual demise, but he remained steadfast in his decision.
Destiny. He saw himself as the harbinger of destiny. Destroying half the life in the universe and delaying the ultimate end of the universe was a task he, a "philosopher," should undertake.
…
"Turn on teleportation!"
"Yes!"
After Thanos finished speaking, Ebony Maw immediately responded. He followed the order, and the entire battleship assembled, with countless energy surging toward the tail wings of the ships.
Standing on the central ship, Ebony Maw used the energy gathered from the ships to perform a spell and successfully opened a portal to another space. But his face was grim. The door did not open inside Earth, as expected, but in a region outside the planet.
...
Ebony Maw remained silent.
When Thanos saw this, he immediately realized something had gone wrong.
"A powerful magician has blocked Earth's space."
Ebony Maw spoke slowly. "It's the Supreme Sorceress of Earth... She holds the Time Stone."
"Understood."
Thanos nodded. "Then we will proceed outside of Earth."
He was unfazed.
"Even if they are prepared, Earth cannot escape the solution that I have devised." Thanos' words were laced with unmatched confidence, more intense than Anton's.
As the overlord of the universe, Thanos had built his power from nothing. In many ways, he was more of a legend than even Superman. As a member of the eternal race on Titan, Thanos had an incredibly long lifespan. Over the course of a thousand years, he built the Thanos Legion from scratch, creating a force on par with the Kree Empire.
A thousand years might not seem long, but one must remember that civilizations like the Kree Empire or other great powers in the universe spent countless centuries developing before rising to prominence and becoming hegemonic civilizations.
Only Thanos has achieved what would take other planets several thousand years to accomplish in just one thousand years. Along the way, his dominance has been invincible. This is the main reason why countless people across the universe are pessimistic about Earth after learning that the Thanos Army is on the move.
The Superman from Earth may seem powerful, but in reality, he is just a character who has recently emerged in the vast universe. Such characters are rare, but they do exist. On the other hand, the overlord of the universe, like Thanos, who started from nothing, is the only recognized powerhouse in the universe.
…
After the Thanos Army arrived on the scene, many overlord-level forces and interstellar intelligence organizations turned their attention to the galaxy. They used special methods to continuously observe the war between the Thanos Army and Earth.
While they didn't believe Earth—protected by Superman—could turn the tide, nor did they think that Thanos would falter, it couldn't be denied that the battle between Superman and Thanos would be exciting.
Even the planet Cybertron continued to watch this battle. Autobots, with their long lifespans, especially Optimus Prime and others, lived for thousands of years.
While the movie version of Transformers doesn't reveal the Autobots' or Decepticons' ages, based on the "non-sequential storytelling" style, Optimus Prime is at least thousands of years old.
The Cybertronian civilization is far older than Asgard, but living long doesn't guarantee continued strength.
Cybertron was once a dominant civilization in the universe. However, after its destruction, the civil war between Autobots and Decepticons led Cybertron to lose its status as a hegemonic power.
Even though it's being rebuilt now, compared to other overlord-level civilizations, it lacks some power, though it still has significant heritage.
Thus, it would be inaccurate to say that the Autobots were afraid of the Thanos Army and unwilling to fight for Earth.
They didn't intervene simply because Anton had stated that there was no need for the Autobots to get involved. The establishment of the Great Wall of Steel, with its powerful connection between Earth and Cybertron, was enough. The coming war would be left to humans.
This was humanity's first battle to step into the stars and make Earth known to the universe. As the leader, Optimus Prime understood Anton's message, so he sent the Great Wall of Steel to the Moon Base and allowed the Autobots to return to Cybertron, leaving the battle in human hands.
In the images broadcast across the universe, the Thanos Army's fleet moved past the azure planet, with densely packed interstellar fighters emerging from massive warships and biological battleships, surrounding Earth. However, to everyone's surprise, Earth had its own champion. Not a fighter, but a person—Superman!
…
Returning the timeline to ten minutes ago, Anton and others on Earth were always monitoring the situation at the Moon Base. Earth had been on full alert for the past three days. Though life seemed to go on as usual, with people walking the streets unaware of the looming crisis, the truth was that Earth was already facing an unprecedented threat.
The scale of the alien war made it impossible to completely conceal. Some people, sensing that something was wrong, began to spread information online. However, their accounts were quickly blocked by network supervisors, and special forces came to investigate.
Some perceptive individuals realized the gravity of the situation, speculating that World War III might be imminent and unsure of which country would be safest. Yet, under the rising tension, no nation had the inclination to explain the full scope of the crisis to its citizens.
The war had come too suddenly. It wasn't a matter of gathering the power of humanity to win; in such a short time, the only hope for victory lay in global unity.
If the people are allowed to participate, the ultimate possibility is not victory, but total chaos. Therefore, it is better to let the people face the result directly, rather than the process.
At the same time, as Thanos could arrive on Earth at any moment, every insider appeared quite nervous and anxious.
"Here we go!"
Suddenly, Anton received the news—information transmission from Kama Taj, from the Supreme Mage, ancient one . She sensed that a huge force was opening a door to Earth's space. However, she kept her promise and sealed Earth's space with the power of the Time Gem, creating a protective shield to prevent Thanos from directly entering Earth.
Anton immediately separated his DC hero clone. Batman, Superman, cyborg , Wonder Woman, Arrow, Constantine, Shazam, and other characters were dispatched immediately to attack.
Superman soared into the sky, causing a deafening sonic boom. All of New York saw a blurry figure, invisible to the naked eye, rushing skyward, disappearing almost instantly.
Batman and the others activated the teleportation bracelet and went directly to the moon base.
…
Inside the base, Carol and the others had been stationed there for several days. Their inner anxiety was palpable. The feeling of waiting for something inevitable made them experience an unprecedented kind of pain. Especially for the impatient Carol, this feeling was even more intense.
Although Carol was approaching menopause at her age, she seemed to be in the mood swings of an aunt every day, and the people around her didn't dare to provoke her.
Huh, huh, huh!
Suddenly, the arrival of Batman and others triggered a huge alarm at the moon base. Carol, Gamora, Nick Fury, Iron Man Tony, Mr. Fantastic Reed, Dr. Lizard Connors, Bruce Banner, and the special forces commander—General Hawke, who had been transferred to the moon base to command one hundred thousand elite soldiers—were all startled by the siren.
When they came outside the base, they saw Batman and others hovering in mid-air, their faces sinking.
"Everyone." Batman's voice was low but carried enough weight to resonate throughout the area. "The war has begun."
Then, all the soldiers at the moon base assembled. One by one, they looked serious, gazing up at Batman with extremely firm expressions. They were all insiders, and they knew they were fighting for Earth.
As one hundred thousand desperate soldiers selected from all countries, they had become elite warriors. All of them were outstanding and heroes of Earth.
"Superman has already dispatched us first..." Batman continued, his tone steady, "According to the plan, he will guard the gates of Earth until he forces all the Thanos Army spacecraft to land on the moon base."
"Everyone, I know many of you may feel like you're already doomed, but please believe me, never underestimate yourselves, and never underestimate Earth..."
His tone gradually rose.
"Superman will show you just how powerful Earth is..."
"When the forces of Thanos are driven to Earth, it won't be a tiger greeting you—it'll be a pack of drowned dogs!"
"Aliens are no more noble than us, and you, who have been injected with the Extremis Virus, are stronger than most aliens!"
"Go!"
"To defeat Thanos, we must rise by stepping on the heads of his legion, under the gaze of countless civilizations!"
"After this battle, humanity will be the brightest star in the universe, shining forever!"
…
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