novelhk Chapter 136 Intervention by the Observer
Chapter 136 Intervention by the Observer
Thanos's forehead pressed against the shattered ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Kneel down, or die.
These two options should have made no difference to Thanos. He has never knelt before anyone in his life, not even when everyone was begging for mercy when Titan was destroyed, but he stood up.
An invisible force rose from his heart and spread throughout his body, causing Thanos's left knee to bend uncontrollably.
A voice in his head was saying: Kneel down.
It wasn't the voice of the Holy Lord, but his own voice, an instinct of obedience emanating from the deepest recesses of his consciousness. The residual resonance of the Mind Stone was eroding his fighting will, turning the concept of "surrender" into a physiological reaction, as natural as breathing.
Thanos's left knee bent.
Wanda stood behind Shendu, watching Thanos's actions, and felt that this ending was justified.
Thanos's body stopped abruptly, or more precisely, he was pulled back by something.
The Holy Lord noticed something amiss. Thanos's kneeling motion was stuck in mid-air, his left knee still twenty centimeters off the ground. His posture was extremely awkward, his facial muscles were twitching, blood vessels were bulging from his neck to his temples, and his pupils were rapidly contracting.
"We have guests," the Holy Lord said.
He shifted his gaze from Thanos and looked up at the sky above Titan.
There was nothing in the void. Nothing could be seen with the naked eye. But the Holy Lord's perception range far exceeded that of the naked eye—in a dimension higher than the material world, a gaze was fixed upon this place.
It wasn't the aggressive kind; it was more like an observer suddenly deciding to stick their hand in and stir things up.
The Holy Lord knows who it is.
Observer.
The Power Gem lit up again.
Thanos didn't activate it himself. The purple light of the gem went from dark to bright in less than 0.3 seconds, and the brightness far exceeded the previous peak. The Observer was injecting some kind of catalyst into the resonant circuit between the gem and the gauntlet, causing the Power Stone's output to exceed the safety threshold that Thanos's body could withstand.
Thanos's muscles were swelling, and his three broken ribs were rejoining with a cracking sound. The healing of the bones was brutal, not normal biological regeneration, but rather forced together by energy. The veins on his left arm were all bulging, and purple light could be seen flowing in the blood beneath the skin. The Infinity Gauntlet was completely covered in purple light from the fingertips to the shoulder armor.
The Holy Lord watched the process without intervening.
He wasn't looking at Thanos, but at that unseen gaze in the void.
"You broke your own rules," the Holy Lord said.
The void did not respond. The Observer had been unable to stop Shendu from absorbing the Space Stone, and he did not want this figure, who held immense weight in the Marvel Universe, to die at Shendu's hands.
The Holy Lord withdrew his gaze; he currently had no effective means to intervene in that level of existence.
Wanda frowned. She sensed the change in Thanos; his energy level was rising, more than an order of magnitude higher than before.
"Master, you need me..."
The Holy Lord did not turn around, but gently waved his hand.
Thanos's enhancement is complete.
The Observer set the limits of his physical endurance; any more and his body would be shattered by the energy. Thanos in his current state, in the past, would have been able to destroy a planet with one hand. The purple energy field around his body was so dense it was almost tangible, and the Power Stone on his gauntlet was blindingly bright.
He drew the double-edged cleaver from behind his back with his right hand.
The blade hummed as it was infused with the power gem, and purple energy patterns spread along the metal to the tip, transforming the entire weapon into a far more powerful killing machine.
Thanos took a step forward, sword in hand.
The Holy Lord stood there waiting for him.
Thanos took two steps and then changed direction.
Wanda's pupils contracted sharply.
Thanos's target is not Shendu, but Wanda.
The cleaver, arcing purple light, slashed down. Thanos, nearly three meters tall, combined with the length of the blade, covered the entire area where Wanda was located. This strike was faster than all the previous attacks; the enhanced Titan's melee abilities were among the best in the universe.
Wanda stepped back.
The red chaos magic between her fingers had already taken shape, but Thanos's slash was too tricky. It wasn't aimed at her head, but at an angle. The blade's arc went from top to bottom, and the direction she retreated was exactly within the range of the blade's convergence.
Thanos's choice to attack Wanda was calculated.
Regardless of how much of his mind is now driven by his own will and how much by the observer's guidance, his tactical judgment remains. If he can't defeat Shendu head-on, then he'll attack those around him. He'll distract Shendu, and he had estimated Wanda's combat strength before fighting Shendu. This woman's energy level is not low, but her close-combat reaction is far inferior to his.
The knife has arrived.
Wanda's defensive array unfolded, forming a red barrier between her and Thanos. A cleaver struck the barrier, the Power Stone-enhanced blow cracking it and causing the entire barrier to tremble. Wanda's foot slid back half a meter.
The second strike came right away. Thanos didn't give her a chance to breathe. He flipped the cleaver, turning the back of the blade into the edge, and swung it horizontally with a backhand. The advantage of this double-edged weapon is that it doesn't require adjusting the grip direction; the blade always faces forward from any angle.
Wanda's second barrier was shattered as soon as it was erected.
Thanos's blade pierced through the shattered red energy fragments and continued forward.
The Eternal Spear stood in front of the blade.
The sound of the gun barrel colliding with the blade was not loud, but Thanos's cleaver stopped.
The Holy Lord stood in front of Wanda, holding the gun barrel in his right hand.
He instantly moved from a distance of more than ten meters to this position without using the Space Stone; his speed was so fast that Thanos's visual system couldn't detect the movement.
Shendu used the barrel of his gun to deflect Thanos's sword to the side.
Thanos's hand was jolted open, and he was forced to the right, his sword and hand veering half a body length. Shendu stepped forward, pressing his left palm against Thanos's chest.
Thanos's body flew backward.
Twenty meters. Thirty meters. Fifty meters.
His feet dragged two grooves in the ground, and the armor on his back and the protective barrier of the Power Gem together endured the friction during the deceleration, with sparks flying from the soles of his feet.
When Thanos regained his footing, he was already more than eighty meters away from Shendu.
There was a dented palm print on his chest armor.
Shendu glanced back at Wanda, who stood where she was, a small piece of her clothing torn off by the gust of wind, but otherwise unharmed. Her expression was calm, or rather, it became even calmer after Shendu turned to look at her.
"I'm fine," Wanda said.
Shendu nodded and turned back to face Thanos.
"Your patron taught you a trick," the Holy Lord said in a flat tone.
Thanos braced himself against the ground with his sword, the tip embedded in the stone, the purple light of the Power Stone still blazing at full power. The Observer's enhancements hadn't faded; his body remained at its peak. But the feedback from that previous blow was clear: the difference after the enhancements was essentially no different from the difference before.
Thanos knew this, but he couldn't stop now; he didn't want to die.