Hiss—
Both Commander Thrall and Yondu drew in sharp breaths.
They weren't just shocked — they could barely believe what Star-Lord had just said.
Yondu glared at him.
"Quill… you pulling my leg? The prince of the gods? And he's gonna come fight for us?"
The title alone was staggering.
Prince of the Gods — even if you didn't know his exact strength — represented the weight of an entire divine race.
In peacetime, someone like that wouldn't even need to fight. Just stepping into negotiations would be enough to make most civilizations hesitate.
Take Asgard, for example — its individual warriors might not matter much in a galactic war, but the power of the realm itself? Terrifying.
Just the Rainbow Bridge was enough to make most empires think twice.
Where other civilizations needed to smash through defenses, drag their fleets into orbit, and hammer a planet with heavy weapons — Asgard could just fire the Bifrost from half a galaxy away and wipe a city off the map.
No defense. No warning.
That was divine power.
Technological races could only dream of such weapons.
, en Thanos — who had spent a lifetime culling planets — had no such tool before collecting the Stones. Back then, he had to do it by hand, planet by planet, slaughter by slaughter.
So yes — one god might not be enough to make Ronan retreat…
But it was not help anyone could ignore.
Star-Lord stretched lazily, smirking.
"I've already wasted a few minutes chatting with you. Think it over — whether you want to ask him or not. Me? I'm not in any rush."
Moments later, another hologram joined the channel.
Nova Prime Irani Rael.
Her expression was calm, but her tone carried the urgency of a commander under siege.
"Star-Lord, we are short on time, so I will be direct.
"If this god prince is willing to fight for the Nova Empire, we will pay five hundred billion credits — or an equivalent treasure of equal value — and grant him a life-bearing planet within Nova jurisdiction."
"And as an intermediary," she added, turning slightly to Star-Lord, "you will receive ten percent of the reward if we win this war."
Star-Lord, Rocket, and even Drax all froze.
Then Rocket whistled.
"Five hundred billion? For one fight?"
Star-Lord was speechless.
His bounty was only four credits.
Even selling the Orb had only earned forty billion — which he had thought was an astronomical number.
Now he was about to pocket fifty billion just by acting as a middleman — plus maybe get his own planet?
He could already picture it.
His planet, His continent. Star-Lord's Beach Resort.
"Deal!"
He shut off the connection with Nova Prime and Yondu.
Then he turned to Lock.
"Okay, buddy — all you."
Lock simply nodded.
Star-Lord had already cleared things with him before opening negotiations. He might be a rogue, but he wasn't stupid enough to speak on behalf of a god without permission.
Lock had listened to the entire negotiation in silence.
Even if no deal had been struck, he would have acted — Xandar falling to Ronan would throw the galaxy into even greater chaos.
But if Nova wanted to pay him to do it? That was just practical.
Those resources would be vital one day, when Earth stepped into the stars for real.
—
On the planetary defense map, a red line glowed ominously.
Ronan's mothership was approaching fast.
Once it crossed the red line, the planet's defense network wouldn't have enough time to intercept its heavy artillery fire.
Each shot from the mothership was comparable to a nuclear strike.
Each missed interception meant the death of an entire city.
And Ronan knew it.
For minutes, he had been testing the defenses, advancing in increments and firing one "sunset shell" at a time — massive energy blasts that lit up space like falling stars.
So far, the Nova defense network had shot them all down, detonating them in the void before they could reach the planet.
But now —
Now he was in range.
He fired again.
The "sunset" shell tore through space — too close for the orbital ships to stop.
Ground-based defense turrets opened fire, launching dozens of counter-blasts, filling the sky with crisscrossing trails of light.
At the last moment — just as the energy shell pierced the atmosphere — two beams collided.
BOOM—!
The blast lit the heavens.
A blue-white fireball expanded across the sky, blotting out the clouds, throwing hurricane-force winds across the continent.
Dust and rock were torn from the ground, trees flattened, streets scoured clean.
But it had detonated high enough.
No cities were lost — not yet.
Still, it was clear Xandar couldn't take many more of these.
Commander Thrall's voice came sharp over the comms:
"Star-Lord! Tell your godly friend to act — now!"
Lock stepped forward.
And through the transparent hull of the ship, he simply walked — as if the metal and glass weren't even there — out into open space.
At once, Nova and Ravager ships received orders to pull back.
The battlefield parted.
One man now faced the mothership alone.
On Xandar, Nova Prime gripped her sleeves.
As leader of a galactic civilization, she had met many gods — but very few who could stand alone against a ship like this.
Gods of that level were rare even among their own kind.
And Ronan's mothership… had clearly been upgraded beyond anything standard.
Would this "god prince" really be enough?
In the holographic display, Lock was so small compared to the mothership that he was barely visible — just a speck before a mountain.
And then —
He raised his hand.
"Infinite Divine Fist!"
A brilliant, glowing fist erupted from his strike — expanding, growing until it was over a kilometer wide by the time it slammed into the mothership's shield.
BOOOOM—!
A second sun bloomed in space.
Xandar's skies went white. For a full second, there were no shadows — only endless light.
When it faded, the mothership still hung there, shield intact.
But its glow had dimmed, flickered — sections sparked and smoked, overloaded from the blow.
The shield still held, several kilometers thick. The core reactor had not been breached.
Lock narrowed his eyes slightly.
This was the first time his Infinite Divine Fist had failed to pierce a target.
No wonder Ronan dared attack Xandar without the Power Stone — he was armed for war.
Ronan might be a fanatic, but he wasn't a fool.
The only question was — had he built this weapon himself…
Or had Thanos given it to him?
---
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