As the light slowly faded, the entire planet was pierced through.
The power of the starship's main cannon is terrifying. According to the Interstellar Weapons Safety Convention, such weapons are strictly prohibited for planetary firing. This is because, although many starship main cannons cannot shatter a planet with a single shot, they can severely disrupt a planet's stability, eventually causing it to disintegrate or explode.
Even a brute-force civilization like Asgard, possessing a planet-destroying weapon like the Rainbow Bridge, typically uses such weapons for boarding battles rather than directly targeting someone's home planet. This is because the destructive power of such weapons is too great; firing at a planet's surface is indistinguishable from genocide.
No society with any semblance of order can accept such slaughter and extinction. Once this is done, it effectively isolates oneself from the interstellar society and directly becomes the enemy of the cosmos.
So even though the Kree Empire and Skrull Empire have been at war for a millennium, there has never been an instance of directly firing a starship's main cannon at a densely populated planet.
But today, that record was broken. A starship belonging to the Interstellar Security Committee fired directly at the most densely populated Centauri Market Planet and successfully pierced the planet through.
Fortunately, the target location wasn't the largest market but was slightly off. Even so, the planet's structure was completely destroyed. After being pierced, the planet began to tremble rapidly, on the brink of disintegration.
Main Universe Constantine, who was in the Central Tower, was directly shaken from his chair. Just as he got up from the ground, he was shaken down again, hitting his head on the edge of a table, leaving him bleeding profusely.
But he still scrambled to the window, just in time to see that beam of undissipated white light.
"Oh my God..." Main Universe Constantine was stunned. But he didn't even have time to notify Batman before the entire Central Tower collapsed.
Main Universe Constantine only had time to cast a magic shield on himself. But even so, buried under hundreds of tons of construction material, he broke several ribs and nearly died there while crawling out from the ruins.
But now, that was no longer the main concern. The planet's surface had directly cracked open and was continuously trembling. By human standards, it would be akin to a magnitude 13 earthquake. Any creature without the ability to fly found it difficult to stand firm.
Luckily, creatures capable of traversing the cosmos' black markets are certainly not too weak; most of them have at least some kind of spaceship. They rushed to their ships as soon as the quake occurred, lifting off from the surface in countless ships, disregarding any blockade from the Interstellar Security Committee, flying desperately outwards.
As one of the few without a spaceship, Main Universe Constantine could only use magic to leave. He teleported to a more distant satellite and then saw the culprit behind the planet's destruction—the starship with its main cannon not yet fully cooled.
"Good heavens, has Thanos gone mad?!" Main Universe Constantine exclaimed, "Using the main cannon on a planet, this is complete massacre, isn't it?!"
But just then, he witnessed an octopus wobbling out of the starship. The body type and coloring of this octopus were very familiar—it was Tolos, with whom he'd had a fleeting encounter not long ago.
Main Universe Constantine gulped; he immediately realized that this was not a simple matter and hesitated whether to keep a safe distance.
However, at that moment, he noticed a figure on another satellite, flying slowly towards this side behind the starship.
It seemed like they were on a journey, but not quite, because they flew to the side and then above, finally just directly diving in.
Due to the distance, Main Universe Constantine couldn't clearly see who it was, but his intuition told him there was definitely something fishy here. After some thought, he also flew towards the starship's entrance.
Once inside, Constantine smelled an indescribable scent, resembling some sort of hallucinogenic potion. Nevertheless, the interior of the starship was quite clean and tidy, with no signs of battle.
Constantine walked further in, and upon entering the banquet hall, he saw a tall black figure standing there, holding up a camera, recording something.
"Hey! You..."
Before Constantine could finish speaking, the large figure turned around. Constantine was dumbfounded for a moment, then said, "Venom? Is that you, Venom?"
The black goo instantly disappeared, revealing Eddie's face behind it. He said, "I'm Eddie Brock. Are you Constantine?"
"That's right, it's me. Honestly, you looked damn hot just then." Main Universe Constantine walked forward and shook hands with Eddie.
"He's flirting with you!" Venom shouted in his mind.
"He's flirting with you," Eddie retorted irritably, "Don't show yourself, or he might get too handsy."
"What are you doing here?" Main Universe Constantine asked.
"Of course, reporting the news," Eddie shrugged and said, "I was originally a war correspondent over there, but while wandering around the battlefield, I discovered two octopus-like planets at war, and one side seemed to be mistreating prisoners of war. I followed this lead and came near this ship, only to find that this guy had gone mad enough to directly attack the planet with the starship's main cannon. I think they can't escape the charge of genocide, but I suspect there's a deeper story here, so I came up to take a look."
"Stop wasting time talking to him," Venom said in his mind, "It sounds like there's someone upstairs. I hear some noise. Let's go check it out."
Eddie nodded at Main Universe Constantine, then carried his camera upstairs. Main Universe Constantine followed behind him. The two of them went upstairs one after the other, and then they saw several high-ranking officials frequently appearing in interstellar news staggering out.
Most interstellar high-ranking officials are from the Three Great Empires. Among them, because Supreme Wisdom's control over the Kree Empire is very strict, most high-ranking officials from the Kree Empire are essentially avatars of Supreme Wisdom. And since Supreme Wisdom is an electronic life form without personal desires, these high-ranking officials tend to be fair in matters outside the Kree Empire, with no issues in personal morality.
But the remaining two empires are a mess. The Skrull Empire, because most citizens have undergone extensive mechanization, is a bit better, but the Shi'ar Empire has always been a feudal aristocracy, and you don't need me to tell you how much chaos that can bring. This time these high-ranking officials are from the Shi'ar Empire.
Eddie and Constantine reacted quickly, instantly dodging into a small room nearby. Eddie extended the camera outside and clearly captured the faces of these people.
"I knew there was something wrong. That Tolos caught his own kind, didn't kill them, but imprisoned them all and brought them here, apparently to sell them to these officials. But what would they want with octopuses?"
"Uh..." Main Universe Constantine paused and said, "Don't you think those octopuses are very beautiful?"
"Huh???"
"Their limbs are very soft, their colors very vibrant, and their suction cups are fantastic. Oh..."
"Wait," Eddie said incredulously, "You can't be saying they're bringing those octopuses here for... My God! I mean... God!"
"Of course, their best feature isn't even their limbs; it's their psychic ability, which can give you dual physical and mental pleasure..."
Eddie looked at Constantine's face, full of relish, and couldn't say anything, only feeling that his worldview was shattered.
"Don't look at me like that," Main Universe Constantine said, "This is well-known in the cosmos, and the trade issue of this race is always severe. It shows that my aesthetics are normal."
"Ugh!"
"What's going on?! Why did so many people suddenly die?!" Earth's command center was in chaos. Looking at the grayed-out names, all the commanders were on the verge of collapse.
Deaths in war are not unusual, but these aren't ordinary people with fragile bodies; we're talking Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Fantastic Four! How could they have no ability to resist and be wiped out just like that?! At least send a message back!
But soon, they received messages from the dead from the Battleworld. But everyone said they didn't know what happened, just saw a white light, and the next second they were in the Battleworld.
"A white light?!" Stark said surprisedly, "Could it be another version of an Omega Ray?! Could Darkseid be behind this again?"
"It doesn't seem like it," Natasha shook her head, checking her information interface and then saying, "This time is significantly different from last time; they felt a distinct thermal energy, and the death process was slightly longer than being hit by an Omega Ray, so it seems to be a different kind of energy."
"Then what exactly happened?!" Steve was scratching his head. This loss was even more severe than the last, but they didn't even know what had happened.
But soon, they learned from interstellar news about the disintegration of the Centauri Market Planet. And this news was actually published on the interstellar internet by their war correspondent Eddie Brock.
"In the footage, we can see this once-prosperous planet gradually disintegrating. For safety reasons, I can't get too close, but I've invited a customer who was previously shopping on this planet to give us a detailed account of what happened. Hello, do you know how this planet began to disintegrate?"
Eddie was standing on a satellite, with the gradually disintegrating market planet behind him, and on this satellite were many ships, seemingly having fled from the main planet.
He was interviewing a purple-skinned, four-armed alien. The alien spoke a string of alien language, and Eddie translated: "He says, he doesn't know how the planet started disintegrating, just felt strong vibrations. But his personal terminal told him that the energy fluctuations seemed to come from the ships of the Interstellar Security Committee."
"Before this, the Interstellar Security Committee had blockaded this planet, under the pretense of searching for a fugitive, but according to this customer, he hadn't seen any fugitives on this planet."
"Moments after the explosion, I risked my life to approach the starship of the Interstellar Security Committee, went inside, and discovered an astonishing secret. Next, please watch the footage I captured inside the starship..."
As the footage switches, they first see an octopus-like alien flying out of the starship; entering inside, it's first in the chaotic banquet hall with all sorts of slime, then the seemingly drunken high-ranking Intergalactic Alliance officials; next, is the starship weapon operation log, which clearly states that just a few minutes ago, the starship's main cannon was charged and fired, with the target being the market planet's surface.