Thanos and Vision quickly took notice of the situation unfolding nearby.
Leaden clouds gathered, veiling all of Wakanda in a funeral shroud.
Across the dim sky, serpentine bolts of lightning—bright enough to set the world ablaze—danced at Thor's command before crashing into the earth.
The God of Thunder held back as much as he could, tuning the lightning to a frequency that would leave a man convulsing but clinging to life.
Yet, his control was never absolute. Under the weight of such staggering power, casualties were inevitable.
But in this moment, no one could find the breath to criticize him. Not even T'Challa could bring himself to ask Thor to pull his punches.
Thor's arrival hadn't just shattered the suffocating pressure of the siege; it had ignited a wildfire of morale. For Vision, it was a profound relief.
With both the Hulk and Thor now on the field, the crushing weight on his own shoulders began to lift.
"Where is the Wakandan broadcast tower?"
Even high in the air, Vision's voice rang with crystalline clarity in everyone's ears—one of the many subtler graces of the Mind Stone.
Upon hearing the request, T'Challa immediately pointed the way. Without so much as a parting glance at Thanos, Vision took flight toward the distance.
Thanos, however, had no intention of letting his prize slip away.
Though his mind was frayed and stripped of much of its reason, the drive to collect the Stones remained etched into his psyche like a fundamental law of physics.
The Stones recognized no hierarchy among themselves, but Thanos simply held too many.
A sickly green light pulsed from the Gauntlet. Vision, who had been streaking forward, suddenly looked as if someone had hit the rewind button, his body snapping back to his starting position.
Bearing a Stone himself, Vision knew exactly what had just transpired. His expression darkened. If Thanos intended to keep him caught in this temporal loop, he was truly trapped.
Thor was quick to spot his comrade's predicament.
His hatred for Thanos burned white-hot. Though the Asgardians this monster had slaughtered weren't from his own universe, and that tragedy hadn't touched his home, he couldn't remain indifferent.
"Look at me, Thanos!"
Like an arrow loosed from a bow, Thor broke the sound barrier. He slammed into Thanos with a full-force hammer strike that carried the weight of a falling star.
The Titan, who had been focusing his will on restraining Vision, felt an irresistible surge of raw power toss him aside.
Thunder coiled around Mjolnir, and Thor's very skin crackled with electricity.
Moving faster than the tumbling Titan, Thor overtook him and brought the hammer down once more, aiming straight for the head.
But Thanos was no amateur. He had been caught off guard by the initial ambush, but now that he had found his footing, he wouldn't be hit so easily again.
A flash of blue light signaled his disappearance just before the hammer connected. In the same heartbeat, a massive hand clamped onto Thor's ankle.
Thanos shattered Thor's momentum, swinging the God of Thunder down and slamming him violently into the dirt.
Having his full power met head-on left Thor momentarily dazed, but the fog cleared quickly, replaced by a searing, incandescent rage.
"Thanos!"
With the Titan's focus shifted, Vision reached the broadcast console that could blanket all of Wakanda. As a super-AI, he needed only a single thought to master the complex machinery.
Soon, a silent frequency began to radiate across the kingdom.
The Mind Stone acted as a natural suppressant against the zombie plague. It was the reason Vision had only been surrounded, rather than overrun, back at the camp.
However, his passive influence had a limited reach; to achieve a wide-scale effect, he needed the broadcast towers.
As the frequency hummed through the air, seeds of clarity and peace sprouted in the minds of the undead, spreading like wildfire. The madness that had been relentlessly eroding their sanity vanished.
The clouded, feral eyes of the masses turned dull and vacant.
Then came the pain. It arrived so sharply that even the gnawing hunger in their bellies was forgotten.
Many bore wounds that were objectively fatal, their lives sustained only by the unnatural resilience of the zombie virus. But there was no time to worry about that now.
Heal them first, then wake them? There weren't enough hands in the world for that. If they didn't act fast, the death toll would only climb higher.
It was better to cut the knot now than to hesitate and lose everything.
Besides...
Everyone turned their eyes toward the Gauntlet.
If the Infinity Stones were truly as powerful as the elder Banner—and Thanos himself—claimed, capable of erasing half the life in the universe with a single snap, then surely they could save the lives of one small planet.
They only had five Stones, of course. They couldn't very well kill Vision for the last one. But they were only short by one, and they weren't trying to resurrect a whole galaxy.
"Your eyes... they are full of resolve. And... conviction."
Thanos, who had been trading blows with Thor in a feral stalemate, suddenly sent the Thunderer flying with a massive punch.
His fist, shrouded in purple energy, erupted with such staggering force that Thor felt as though his very bones were splintering.
The worst-case scenario had arrived: the frequency from the Mind Stone had restored Thanos's sanity as well.
Glancing at the ragged flesh on his arms and the various wounds covering his body, the extremist merely extended his left hand.
A red glow washed over him and dissipated; when it cleared, he stood fully restored, his state renewed.
"My King!" The Wakandan soldiers, barely clinging to their own consciousness, struggled to their feet to shield T'Challa. But with the Chitauri Outriders outnumbering them several times over, their protection offered little comfort.
As Vision cut the broadcast, the Outriders lunged—at the heroes, and... at Thanos.
The turn of events stunned the heroes and Thanos alike, but the Titan realized the cause almost instantly.
The frequency the machine played was currently localized to this region. The Chitauri weren't like a normal army; they were bio-mechanical symbiotes with a rigid, hierarchical hive mind.
On the battlefield, they were controlled by a mothership that never entered the fray, ensuring total behavioral synchronization.
In other words, while the soldiers on the ground had been "cured," the Chitauri commanders aboard the orbiting ship had not.
Thanos could control the commanders, but right now, the commanders were out of sync.
For the first time, he was experiencing the headache of the old feudal adage: "The vassal of my vassal is not my vassal."
In a foul mood, he tapped into the Reality Stone. A crimson light bypassed the commanders entirely, forcibly tethering the Chitauri army's loyalty directly to his own will.
Before he could bark an order, he sensed something falling from the heavens.
Bullets and missiles rained down upon Thanos and the Chitauri.
Though they were a step behind Thor, the high-tech craft carrying Tony and the others was no slouch. This vessel, a cocktail of alien technologies, was far beyond anything of its era.
As the ship touched down, the Avengers finally assembled.
They held no doubt in their hearts regarding their victory. But...
Ten minutes later, Thanos looked down at the row of fallen figures before him, his face devoid of surprise.
To the master of five Infinity Stones, victory was not a question.
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.
