Following Thanos’s command, ten assault ships broke formation from Sanctuary II and advanced.
Each of these massive vessels was eight kilometers long, one kilometer wide, and one kilometer high, resembling a gigantic floating coffin.
A colossal cannon, roughly a hundred meters in diameter, was mounted at the front of each ship, capable of firing devastating laser blasts.
Along with the main battery, their hulls bristled with ten secondary cannons and twenty-eight smaller laser turrets.
Powered by third-generation warp drives, they could instantly cross distances of a hundred light-years.
They were also equipped with heavy energy shields designed to withstand both physical and energy-based assaults.
If these ten assault ships were to invade Earth, they would be more than enough to obliterate the planet’s combined military forces.
Of course, that was assuming it was a normal Earth, not the Marvel universe, where superheroes roamed the streets and absurdly overpowered freaks were a dime a dozen.
Soon, the main cannons of the ten assault ships flared with a harsh blue glow, signaling their rapid charge.
Five seconds later, the blinding light peaked, and massive beams of azure laser fire tore through the void.
Space warfare was an entirely different beast from planetary combat.
In the endless expanse of the cosmos, the distance between two opposing forces was usually measured in millions, if not tens of millions, of kilometers.
Light itself only traveled at roughly three hundred thousand kilometers per second in a vacuum.
If an enemy was three million kilometers away, a beam would still take a full ten seconds to reach them.
That delay made kinetic weapons practically useless; by the time an artillery shell actually reached its target, the battle would likely already be over.
As a result, laser cannons were the absolute standard for interstellar combat.
There were far more devastating options out there, of course—spatial collapse cannons, particle beam emitters, and warp-accelerated artillery—but those behemoth weapons were simply too massive to mount on standard assault ships.
Milliseconds later, all ten laser beams slammed directly into the incoming Captain Marvel.
However, instead of being vaporized, her body erupted in an even more blinding aura of multicolored cosmic energy.
She completely ignored the intense laser fire, forcing her way straight through the barrage.
Within seconds, she reached the frontline of the ten ships.
Completely disregarding their heavy energy shields, she rammed headfirst into the nearest assault ship.
A spectacular explosion of fire and twisting metal followed.
Moments later, she blasted straight out the other side of the hull, instantly changing her trajectory to dive-bomb the next warship.
Watching Captain Marvel tear through their fleet and obliterate one warship after another, Proxima Midnight winced.
“My Lord, what should we do now?” Even with their massive military might, warships didn’t just appear out of thin air.
They cost a staggering amount of resources to construct.
Thanos slowly turned to look at her, his gaze icy.
“When this battle is over, you and the other four are going into intensive training.
To think you couldn’t even handle a small fry like her.”
While Captain Marvel was considered one of the absolute powerhouses of the Marvel universe, that was only true for the early stages.
Later down the line, monsters like the Worldbreaker Hulk, the Darkhold-corrupted Scarlet Witch, a fully unhinged Doctor Strange, or Iron Man in his Godbuster Armor could all utterly dismantle her.
Sure, she would eventually have her own cosmic encounters and unlock her Binary form, skyrocketing her combat power off the charts.
But the current Captain Marvel was nothing more than someone who had absorbed power from the Space Stone and was using it in the crudest, most unrefined way possible.
His Black Order might be able to go toe-to-toe with these superheroes early on, but if they didn’t improve, they would end up as nothing more than background fodder in the grand scheme of things.
Hearing her Lord’s reprimand, Proxima bowed her head in deep shame.
‘I will train harder,’ she swore inwardly.
‘I will never disappoint him again.’
A little over ten minutes later, all ten assault ships had been reduced to floating scrap.
Having successfully gauged her current strength and confirming she had no hidden tricks up her sleeve, Thanos finally stood up from his throne.
He had to admit, even though this walking cheat code only knew how to violently spam her powers, it was hard to argue with a practically infinite energy reserve.
If he didn’t step in now, she was going to scrap every single ship in the fleet except for Sanctuary II.
“Hold your positions,” he commanded.
In the next instant, he shot out of the flagship, crossing the void at lightspeed to appear directly in Captain Marvel’s path.
Carol, who had just been gearing up to shred the rest of the armada, slammed to a halt as a massive, purple titan suddenly materialized in front of her.
She hovered in place, sizing him up with blatant curiosity.
The two of them stood in absolute silence within the vacuum of space, the infinite, starry darkness serving as their backdrop.
After a long moment, she broke the silence.
“So, you must be Thanos?”
She had never seen him in person before, but she could sense an overwhelmingly terrifying aura of pure destruction radiating from him.
Combine that with the purple skin, and he perfectly matched the galactic rumors.
Sound obviously couldn’t travel through a vacuum, but she used a simple cosmic trick to project her voice directly into his ears.
Thanos gave a slow, measured nod.
“Tell me your name,” he rumbled softly.
He obviously knew who she was, but since this was technically their first meeting, he couldn’t act like he already knew everything about her.
Carol raised her chin, radiating absolute arrogance.
“I’m Captain Marvel, guardian of the universe.
If you and your little lapdogs pack up and leave right now, I might just let you live.”
Thanos couldn’t help it—he let out a low chuckle, shaking his head.
She was every bit as obnoxiously conceited as she had been in the movies.
But he wasn’t the severely nerfed Thanos from the big screen.
Hell, even he didn’t know where his upper limits lay anymore.
He hadn’t slacked off on his training for a single day over the last five hundred years.
He was constantly growing stronger.
Even if his System panel only displayed a Strength stat of a little over twenty-four thousand, that was purely raw, unbuffed physical power.
If he combined that base strength with his Power of Destruction and the System-granted Ruler skill, he was fairly confident he could obliterate an entire planet with a single punch.
Hearing his dismissive laughter, Carol furrowed her brows in deep annoyance.
“What’s so funny?”
While she could sense the staggering destructive force he possessed, she had never once lost a fight since absorbing the Space Stone’s energy.
She fully believed she could crush him without breaking a sweat.
The practically limitless power burning in her veins gave her the confidence to look down on everything in creation.
Thanos stopped laughing.
He calmly raised a single finger.
Carol blinked, clearly confused.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“One punch,” Thanos said plainly.
“Survive a single punch from me, and then we can talk.”
Blatantly insulted by his sheer contempt, Carol let out a sharp, furious laugh.
“Ha!
There isn’t a single soul in this entire universe who can take me down in one punch!”