2103 Preparing for War, Thanos on the Move

Time flew by; in the blink of an eye, it was June 2018.

In the past six months, criminals around the world suddenly felt that their days had become much better.

News of mysterious disappearances or deaths of people in their line of work had basically disappeared.

Business naturally improved, and their income skyrocketed.

For a while, many crime lords with keen senses who had disappeared quietly came out to try picking up their old trade again, and the returns were very good.

The underworld stirred again and started to enjoy what was a breezy period for them.

Some people who understood the real situation knew why.

The Justice League and New SHIELD had suddenly cut down on their operations by more than 90%, which was why the underworld was able to reemerge.

This information was indeed correct.

For the past six months, Luke and his clones had been busy and rarely went out to earn points.

Instead, his gains included finding ordinary mineral deposits on the barren planet. Coupled with special materials purchased on the lawless planet, there was enough to produce small fighter planes.

The service factory was constantly manufacturing small fighter planes.

They would be piloted by ‘tool’ players and act as cannon fodder. Thus, no vibranium was used at all.

With Luke’s current technology, it was enough for these fighter planes to deal damage to Thanos’s smaller army units.

The production of large and medium-sized battleships proceeded at an unhurried pace.

From the earliest garbage prototypes to the current qualified versions, more than 130 had been produced, which could be considered pretty impressive for just a few years of labor.

No matter how crap a prototype was, it could still be used as floating cannon folder on the battlefield to both increase and draw firepower.

Thus, these battleships had good defenses.

The cost of building a large third generation arc reactor wasn’t high, and the interior of the battleship was big enough, so several more power sources and defenses were installed.

This was what Ivan liked to do with his armor. Luke had absorbed this advantage so that trash could also be used.

At the same time, the battleship’s command system was modified.

With the help of mental remote control and a powerful A.I., the entire ship was basically unmanned.

The pilots would be the members of the Justice League and Ursa Minor.

For example, Frank putting on his armor and going out to beat aliens up would be nowhere near as lethal as when he was piloting a large battleship.

It was the same for the others who didn’t have superpowers or who didn’t have superpowers useful enough to play a huge role in such a battle. They all switched to piloting battleships.

Naturally, this sort of battleship operation couldn’t be used in an official intergalactic battle.

However, Luke just needed a defense line to protect the ‘front yard’; it didn’t matter if all the battleships and fighter planes were destroyed.

Actual combat was the best test.

After a real-life test, they would definitely be able to find a lot of flaws with these fighter planes and battleships which they had worked overtime on; producing a new generation of ships was inevitable.

He had a personal manufacturing planet, which would take a year or two at most to fill in the gaps.

With money and resources, he could be just this willful.

In fact, Luke was certain that Thanos would descend directly to steal the Stones.

If Thanos’s army really dared to directly open fire and bombard Earth, Luke wouldn’t be stupid enough to stay on Earth and be wiped out along with the Space Stone.

He would send his friends and family off without hesitation, then fight a war of attrition against Thanos.

With the Space Stone and his clones, he would always find an opportunity to kill Thanos.

Of course, that was only the worst case scenario.

If possible, he planned to settle everything in one go.

It would be hard to live peacefully with an enemy like Thanos watching Earth.

…

It wasn’t until 25 June that the Level 2 clone, Big Dipper, received a message from a ‘branch store’ on the planet Xandar: Thanos’s army had attacked Xandar, crushed the Nova Corps that guarded it, entered the Nova Empire’s treasure vault, and then retreated unhurriedly.

The people at the branch didn’t know what Thanos had done in the treasure vault; the only thing they knew was that the Nova Corps had suffered heavy losses, and the conservative rate of casualties was estimated to be over 30%.

Luke took a deep breath and knew that Thanos had started to take action.

Quill and Rocket had said that they would give the Orb to the higher-ups of the Nova Empire on Xandar for safekeeping. Coupled with their contribution in killing Ronan, they had decent standing with the Nova Empire.

Luke, who had been to 2023, knew that the so-called Orb was a containment device to block the energy of the Power Stone.

Thanos had gone to Xandar to take the Power Stone.

Looking at the tragic state of the Nova Corps, Thanos had definitely succeeded.

Otherwise, according to his usual practice, he would’ve culled Xandar’s population before he left.

Loki had stolen the Reality Stone, the Mind Stone was with Thor, and the Soul Stone was said to be on the planet Vormir.

On Earth, Luke had the Space Stone, and Strange had the Time Stone.

Big Dipper frowned. “Did Thanos follow Thor here?”

This wasn’t the home ground that Luke had chosen, so he could gather much less support here.

Who knew if Thanos would chase him here. Luke didn’t have time to bring everyone here.

Based on the distance, it would take Thor and the others more than ten days to reach the lawless planet.

He could only wait for them to arrive before sending them to Earth.

Since Thanos had started to take action, his trip to Earth would happen sooner or later.

It actually didn’t matter if Thor and Loki distracted him.

Two days later, it was a sunny afternoon on June 27 in New York.

Luke was busy in the living room. He suddenly frowned and looked at the sky outside the window.

There, a rainbow beam of light fell from the sky… Hm, near the New York Sanctum?

Why did this appearance and energy fluctuation look so much like the Bifrost? But Asgard was gone. Puzzled, Luke checked where the light beam had fallen on the surveillance feed. After a few glances, he confirmed that this was indeed the Bifrost.

That was because it had landed directly on the New York Sanctum, and the building was vaguely visible.

Apart from the Bifrost, Luke didn’t know what else with a similar appearance and energy fluctuations could land on the New York Sanctum.

As he pondered the source of the rainbow light beam, the Knight clone had already set off for the New York Sanctum.

A few minutes later, Luke knocked on the door.

Before he could knock a second time, he felt his vision go blurry, before he was standing in the hall of the New York Sanctum.

He only had time to nod at Strange and call out, “Dr. Strange,” before someone quickly stepped forward to hug him.

Looking at the aggrieved expression on the man’s honest face, Luke hugged him back helplessly and asked Strange with his eyes, What’s going on?

Strange said solemnly, as if he were attending a memorial service, “It’s bad. I’ll bring Tony Stark here first, and we can discuss it together.”

Luke nodded and watched as Strange opened a portal and walked through. He then patted Dr. Banner, who had yet to let go. “Okay, Dr. Banner. I believe we can solve the problem.”

Dr. Banner let go, and his aggrieved expression finally relaxed.

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