The Space Stone shifted again, and the blue oval gem became a black hole with terrifying devouring force. That power was completely under Ethan Drake's control, and with nothing more than a passing thought, he twisted the Stone into a living disaster hanging beneath the stars. He had already used this same method once before, during the plundering of Garonne, when he needed to move enormous quantities of warships, ore, and industrial equipment in a single sweep.
Back then, the black hole's other end had been linked to Neptune, turning impossible logistics into a joke. This time, however, the destination was no safe storage world waiting to receive stolen resources. The other side opened into the violent stellar chaos of a turbulent cosmic vortex, and anything dragged through it would be shredded apart before it had a chance to understand what had happened.
The long, narrow black battleships of the Dark Order were immediately caught in the pull. Their hulls groaned, their engines screamed, and their warp systems failed one after another under the crushing distortion. A black hole was not merely a weapon of destruction—it was the kind of phenomenon that swallowed even light itself, and no ordinary starship could hope to resist it for long.
Of course, Ethan knew that this kind of move would not be enough to trap every true powerhouse in the universe. Some beings were simply strong enough to brute-force their way out of cosmic disasters. And one of those people was right in front of him.
With a violent explosion, the deck of one of the warships burst apart. Proxima Midnight shot out of the fractured hull and tore across space at full speed, her body straining against the pull as she forced herself away from the black hole's devouring range. The fact that she could do that at all proved why Thanos had valued her so highly and elevated her among his top commanders. She was not some disposable lackey. She had the strength to survive where fleets perished.
But the moment she escaped the edge of the black hole's pull, she found someone already waiting for her.
Ethan floated in front of her, broad-shouldered and relaxed, as if he had been there all along. The stars behind him looked dim by comparison, and the calm smile on his face only made the scene more terrifying. "Surprise," he said lightly. "Didn't see that coming?"
Proxima Midnight's expression twisted in shock. She had heard the name of Krypton's new Superman often enough for it to feel like thunder in her ears, but hearing about him from a distance and facing him at point-blank range were two completely different things. In person, his pressure was overwhelming. The sheer physical presence of him, the immense force hidden under that seemingly casual posture, made her feel like prey standing before a natural disaster.
The black hole was still behind her, and Ethan was directly in front of her. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to dodge, and no illusion left that he intended to let her go. Her only remaining option was to charge straight at him and gamble everything on violence.
A black spear appeared in her hand with a metallic cry. It was the divine weapon personally forged for her by Thanos, a cruel artifact capable of splitting into deadly black rays that locked onto a target. Anything struck by those rays was supposed to collapse under their destructive energy and die almost instantly.
She attacked without hesitation. Three black streaks split from the spear and shot toward Ethan like venomous meteors, fast enough to tear through starship armor and precise enough to follow a fleeing target. At the same time, Proxima Midnight lunged forward behind them, not because she expected the ranged strike to finish him, but because close combat was the only battlefield where she still had the slightest chance.
Even then, she did not hold much hope.
The next second, that last bit of hope shattered.
The three black rays slammed into Ethan's body and vanished as if they had struck a bottomless abyss. There was no penetration, no eruption of deadly force, no instant death effect. The energy attached to the attack simply disappeared without a trace, as if his body had consumed it and left nothing behind.
Her pupils contracted violently. She had already committed to the charge, and there was no turning back now. With both hands raised, trailing waves of destructive energy, she tried to crash into him with a close-range killing blow. Yet the difference in speed between them was so absurd that she never even saw him move.
A fist smashed into her waist.
The impact was catastrophic. It didn't just hurt—it destroyed everything it touched. The energy gathering within her body was shattered instantly, her internal organs ruptured, and her whole frame was sent flying through space like a broken projectile. Blood burst from her mouth, and for one awful moment she felt as though most of her life had been punched out of her in a single hit.
She hadn't even stabilized herself when Ethan was already on top of her again. A violent wind rushed toward her face, and despite seeing the follow-up attack coming, her body could no longer keep up. She forced both arms up in defense out of pure instinct.
The result was a sharp, sickening crack.
Both arms broke at once. Proxima Midnight screamed and coughed out another mouthful of blood, her body drifting helplessly in the endless dark. The strength had left her limbs, her life was bleeding away, and she could feel that her end had already begun. Still, hatred burned in her scarlet eyes as she stared at Ethan and forced out a broken roar. "I only regret that I couldn't avenge my husband. I'll curse you in the underworld…"
She could not even finish the threat properly before another fit of blood choked her words. Ethan only smiled at her, casual and almost amused. "A family reunion sounds nice," he said. "I'll send you to your husband, then I'll send the rest of the Black Order, and after that I'll send Thanos himself so you can all be together."
Proxima Midnight's face twisted with fury and disbelief, but she no longer had the breath to answer him properly. Even on the edge of death, she could not comprehend how arrogant he was, how naturally he could speak about killing Thanos as if it were already decided.
"The great Titan Thanos… will avenge us…" she forced out at last.
Ethan reached forward and closed one hand around her throat. The rest of her words died inside it. She kicked weakly, struggling with what little strength remained, while the smile on his face only grew colder. "Don't be in such a hurry to go to hell," he said. "You're still useful to me."
Fear exploded in her eyes. A second later, her spirit was thrown into chaos. Ethan's mental power poured into her mind like a flood, and all the barriers she might have raised in a healthier state were meaningless now. Her memories cracked open under his will and began spilling out one after another.
This was why he had spared her for the moment. It wasn't mercy, and it certainly wasn't because he had any sick interest in prolonging the death of a defeated enemy. Proxima Midnight was one of Thanos's closest subordinates, and inside her mind was exactly what Ethan wanted most—paths, locations, secrets, and the trail leading straight back to the Mad Titan himself.
Proxima Midnight realized what was happening almost immediately. Her face turned pale beneath the blood. She knew her consciousness had been invaded, that her memories were being torn open and read page by page like an exposed book. "Damn you… stop…" she rasped, panic overtaking even her hatred.
She understood the danger better than most. As someone who had followed Thanos closely and knew many of his hidden matters, she knew exactly how disastrous it would be if those secrets reached the wrong person. She even tried to kill herself on the spot to stop him from digging further, but a force that made her heart tremble locked her body down and denied her even that final act of defiance.
In Ethan's eyes, scenes began to flicker one after another. Places Proxima Midnight had visited, routes she had traveled, fortresses she had entered, all of them surfaced and rushed past as his consciousness dug deeper. The images stretched across the void until they settled on a familiar patch of starry sky and then zoomed inward toward a single world.
Titan.
The abandoned homeworld of Thanos had appeared before Ethan at last.
A smile curved across his face. "Found you, Thanos," he said softly. "And I found your planet too."
He did not stop there. Ethan pushed further into the memory stream, widening the image of Titan, searching every detail Proxima Midnight had carried with her. The view descended across the dead world, then rose again toward a place high above it. There, suspended in the sky, floated a silver throne.
Sitting upon that throne was a massive figure with broad shoulders and an overwhelming presence. It was Thanos.
His eyes snapped open. Divine light flashed within them as he stared into the void, clearly sensing that someone was looking into this place through the power of the mind. Ethan had expected to find him, but he had not expected the Mad Titan to react so quickly and so directly through a stolen memory.
Interesting.
It seemed the Thanos in Proxima Midnight's memories possessed a spiritual sensitivity far sharper than Ethan had assumed. Even through layers of distance and secondhand recollection, the Titan had noticed the trace of another will probing his domain.
"Who is it?" Thanos's low voice rolled out, deep and cold. "Who dares use the power of the mind to spy on this place? You will die."
Ethan's smile didn't fade in the slightest. If anything, it sharpened. "I see you, Thanos," he said. "And I see where your planet is. Titan—are you ready for the day I come find you?"
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