Except for the Outriders that were released first and Surtur, Thanos's entire army landed along with him in Manhattan.
Thanos came to fight, to give everything he had in this attack, so he would not hide. He went straight toward the Avengers' base and waited patiently.
Behind Thanos, hundreds of ships were deployed on the ground with his army.
Formed by Chitauri and Sakaraans, the strength of Thanos's army was not actually that great. In fact, the Chitauri were fairly basic on a galactic level, and the Sakaraans were nothing more than mercenaries of various races.
Thanos's true strength had always resided in his few elites, the Black Order, which no longer existed, and in himself. Beyond that, there was numbers, vast quantities of lesser forces.
At that moment, those weak but numerous troops stood behind Thanos, waiting calmly. In addition, several ships remained in the sky, ready to fire at any moment, along with around two hundred Leviathans cutting through the air.
In total, that force numbered around eighty five thousand soldiers, but the only real threat to Earth was the Titan standing at the front of them all.
Thanos did not wait long. Less than five minutes later, he lifted his gaze forward and saw thousands of people gathered in front of his army.
The number was far smaller than his, but Thanos knew that was far from defining his victory.
Both armies advanced until there were less than ten meters between them.
"Avengers, aren't you missing a member?" Thanos spoke as if he had known them all his life.
Steve stepped forward and spoke for everyone.
"Are you looking for Leonardo, or for what he has with him?"
"My goal has always been the same."
"Genocide?" Steve asked.
"Salvation," Thanos replied.
"We can save ourselves. We do not need the help of an extraterrestrial," said Tony, who had been standing behind Steve until then.
Everyone knew Thanos's delusions and his idea of killing half the population to prevent resources from running out. Everyone agreed that he was insane.
Leaving aside any poorly thought out plan, the very plan Thanos was attempting now, gathering the Infinity Stones, could solve the problem by creating more resources.
In fact, the root of the problem lay in the fact that Thanos believed no resource was infinite, so he wanted to ensure they would never run out by eliminating those who used them. However, that idea directly contradicted itself when one considered that the Infinity Stones possessed infinite energy.
Even if he did not want to create more resources to avoid a saturation that could generate new problems, why not make living beings capable of existing without depending on those finite resources?
Like that, there were thousands of possible answers without the need to massacre half the universe. However, for Thanos, the idea that killing half the population was the solution had ceased to be merely an answer to a real problem and had become an ideology that he followed without question.
Thanos looked at the man in the armor who had just spoken.
"Then prove it," he said.
At his order, all the troops advanced.
The Avengers did the same, and the fight erupted immediately.
The first to attack was Thor, who throughout the entire conversation had remained silent, staring at Thanos with hatred, barely holding himself back.
He jumped straight toward him, raising his axe surrounded by lightning and bringing it down with force toward his head.
Thanos defended himself and immediately counterattacked the body of the Asgardian god. Thor used the axe to block before being pushed several meters backward.
"You changed weapons," Thanos said with a trace of mockery in his voice. If he had destroyed one, he could destroy another.
"This one will destroy you instead," Thor replied, answering the mockery before attacking again.
Tony joined the fight, firing multiple projectiles that Thanos ignored without difficulty.
Steve also attacked, though without causing much damage, serving mainly as support due to the difference in strength.
While they fought, Thanos's entire army engaged the rest of the Avengers.
"Hulk smash!" Hulk roared before charging, leaping straight toward the Leviathans and completely destroying them.
Each blow sent the massive creatures flying hundreds of meters backward, unable to defend themselves. They were nothing more than giant targets for the emerald giant.
In another sector of the battlefield, several Chitauri were caught with webs and swung through the air before being thrown against others of their own kind.
"Nice!" Peter exclaimed, observing his work before shooting webs at another enemy, spinning his body like giant bolas to strike nearby soldiers.
Suddenly, the web became heavier. Peter looked with curiosity and saw someone using his web as a point of support to propel herself forward.
"Spider boy, it is going to explode," Gwen said as she sped past him and moved away.
"Spider Man," Peter corrected immediately, before reacting.
"Wait, it is going to what?"
Boom.
The soldier suddenly exploded.
Peter released the web immediately and jumped backward to dodge the fire.
As he landed, he spun quickly and struck another nearby Chitauri, knocking it down.
He prepared to attack again when his eyes widened in surprise and he began flipping to evade gunfire.
"Guns? Seriously? I thought we were having a close combat fight."
Ignoring his complaints, the Sakaraans kept firing until the body of another Chitauri fell on them from behind, knocking them down.
Peter took the opportunity and shot webs at all their weapons, ripping them from their hands.
Only one remained. A Sakaraan grabbed it quickly and fired, but the moment he pulled the trigger, the weapon exploded, sending him and his companions flying backward.
"You did not really think I forgot one, right?" Peter joked.
"Thanks for the assist," he added, looking at Gwen in the distance, who had thrown the Chitauri seconds earlier.
Gwen nodded and continued moving across the battlefield. Her spider sense activated and she immediately dropped to the ground.
She struck a Chitauri in the head, killing it instantly, and before the body hit the ground, she used it as a shield against a frontal attack.
The soldier saw how his shot completely destroyed the corpse, thinking he had also killed whoever was behind it, and felt joy, but before he could react, Gwen snatched the weapon from him and kicked him away, leaving him incapacitated.
"What is this thing?" Gwen murmured, observing the futuristic looking weapon in her hands. It was different from the others, but considering that the Sakaraans were mercenaries, it made sense that they used different personal weapons.
She examined it for a second before losing interest. She covered the muzzle with webbing and fired.
The weapon began to concentrate energy and, when her spider sense warned her, Gwen threw it toward a group of nearby Chitauri.
The explosion covered a radius of about ten meters, killing several of them.
"You block the muzzle and it explodes like that? Such poor quality."
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Gwen smiled before continuing to move across the battlefield, eliminating enemies.
To get a better view, she shot webs at a building and stood horizontally on a wall, observing the chaos.
At that moment, two arrows flew straight toward her.