Chapter 301: Ethan — "Me? Alone? Something Wrong With Your Eyes?"
"This... is this really the end of Earth?" Fear and despair hung thick in the air, a shadow settling over the entire city, invisible but unmistakable.
"How is this even possible? It's only been a few minutes and our superheroes are already going down? Is this really the gap between us and them?"
"That thing with the scythe — that has to be Death itself. Has to be."
"Our heroes. Our technology. Turns out none of it means anything to these things."
"How does this even happen? Captain America was holding his own against that woman just a second ago, and now he's practically dead!"
"This is terrifying. If they take the Big Apple, what makes anyone think we're not next?"
"God, please — save us! Is there really nothing we can do against these things?" Someone had dropped to their knees, hands clasped together, eyes brimming with desperate prayer.
By the time Captain America stood bloodied and barely upright under Proxima Midnight's assault, the rest of the X-Men and Illuminati members were already crumpled, broken, beneath Ebony Maw's and Corvus Glaive's blades.
The whole world watched, and the Big Apple's residents sank collectively into despair.
Nobody could see a path to victory anymore. Captain America, the mutants — these were humanity's top-tier fighters, and watching that top tier get beaten to within an inch of their lives left nothing to hope for.
Even their proudest achievement, all that advanced technology — none of it meant a thing against these invaders. It might as well have been made of paper.
Who was left to count on? Who could possibly win this war for them?
Manhattan lay in ruins by now. The Big Apple's residents had begun to give up entirely — even if they survived, their homes were already gone.
And survival itself was looking less and less likely by the minute.
At first, people had run — desperately searching for anywhere that might pass for safe. But as time dragged on and the sheer gap in power became undeniable, a brutal truth set in: there was nowhere to run. Every path led to the same place.
Numbness set in. People stopped fleeing, stopped resisting, and simply stood where they were, waiting for death to arrive.
The whole city fell into a dead, terrible silence, broken only by the occasional distant explosion or the sound of someone weeping.
In that moment, people finally understood just how small, how utterly powerless they were against a force this overwhelming.
Ebony Maw seemed to savor the despair thickening in the air around him. This, in his view, was exactly how these lesser beings should have behaved from the start, instead of daring to resist his master's army.
Just as he was about to resume the search for Ethan, a labored, ragged breathing reached his ears.
He turned and found Steve, still fighting to drag himself back to his feet.
"I don't understand," Ebony Maw said, frowning. "Wouldn't it be so much easier to just stay down? Why insist on standing?"
Steve, chest heaving, forced the words out one at a time. "I won't... let you... slaughter innocents." His voice was weak, but there was steel underneath it.
Ebony Maw let out a cold laugh, sweeping both hands downward and rising smoothly into the air. He looked down at Steve from above, voice dripping with condescension. "You should count yourselves fortunate — saved by the great Titan himself. You might think of this as a tragedy. You'd be wrong. This is salvation. Your sacrifice restores balance to the universe's scales. So smile. Even in death, you'll have become one of Thanos's children."
At that, Steve exploded first with sheer contempt. "Bullshit!" Then, as if something had occurred to him, a difficult, pained smile crossed his face.
Ebony Maw's brow furrowed. He raised a hand and gave a light flick of his fingers — the rubble nearby answered instantly, as if summoned by some unseen force, transforming into razor-sharp stone spikes that lashed out like chains, pinning Steve bodily to the wall. Steve couldn't move an inch — but his eyes stayed fixed, defiant, with something almost provocative in them.
"What exactly are you smiling about?" Ebony Maw drifted right up in front of him.
Steve looked at him with open scorn. "You'd better say that same speech to Ethan Cross's face when you find him." Steve knew perfectly well — everyone in Hell's Kitchen fought tooth and nail to live. This whole "noble sacrifice" nonsense was pure garbage, and he wasn't about to pretend otherwise.
"Ethan Cross? We're looking for him too, as it happens. Seems like you might know exactly where he is. I don't mind repeating myself to him personally before I kill him." Ebony Maw leaned in close, right in Steve's face.
Steve spat directly at him — and that, finally, cracked Ebony Maw's carefully maintained elegance. Fury flared instantly.
This one dies.
But Ebony Maw didn't move to finish him off right away. He turned, pulled out his handkerchief, and gave it a light flick. Countless bricks lifted into the air at once, reshaping themselves into a swarm of razor-sharp needles aimed at Steve — a dense, deadly net closing in from every direction.
Ebony Maw, it seemed, had already decided Steve's fate was sealed.
He didn't even bother looking back. He turned and drifted toward Corvus Glaive instead.
That's when a sudden, violent gust of air came tearing in from behind him. Ebony Maw instinctively started to turn — too late.
A fist the size of a cooking pot slammed straight into his face. The impact sent him rocketing backward like a cannonball, tearing clean through several walls before finally crashing to the ground, dozens of meters away.
"So you're into sacrifice, huh."
Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight barely spared the sight of Ebony Maw getting sent flying a glance.
"And who might you be, handsome?" Proxima Midnight asked, amused.
"Me? I'm the guy you've all been looking for," Ethan answered, gently setting Steve down on the ground.
At Ethan's words, a dangerous glint flashed in Corvus Glaive's eyes.
He raised his scythe, moving to strike. "Hand over the Tesseract and the scepter. You don't actually think you can take all of us on alone, do you?"
Corvus Glaive's words startled a laugh out of Ethan. "Me? Alone? Is there something wrong with your eyes?"
"Which one of your eyes told you it was just me?"
With that, golden rings of light began blooming into existence behind him and across the sky above.
As each ring widened, figures in strange, extraordinary garb began stepping through, one after another.
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