2105 Pre-Battle Discussion

Hearing that, Tony glanced at Luke again. No wonder this guy had been in a hurry to round up so many 'players' and train them to fly the 'cannon fodder' fighter planes.

T'Challa nodded. "I have about 2,000 fighter planes. Including Bruce's, they should be useful enough."

As for the battleships, nobody mentioned them. These took time to make, and T'Challa and Luke knew very well how many there were.

Thanos's warship was equivalent to an 'air base' for fighter planes, while Earth's fighter planes were mainly land-based.

In terms of speed and agility in the air, the fighter planes couldn't compare with Thanos's warship.

In particular, Wakanda's vibranium fighter planes were lethal enough to destroy the warship's protective shield.

Thus, whichever side could destroy the enemy's fleet of fighter planes first could suppress the enemy's base.

Once the base was destroyed, the enemy would have lost 80% of the battle.

Of course, Thanos wasn't stupid enough to let the base be tormented to death.

He was someone who specialized in culling populations by half; he wasn't an idiot who would risk his own life.

If the situation was irreversible, he would definitely escape early.

With Earth around, he wasn't afraid of not being able to obtain the Stones.

They soon entered a meeting hall inside the palace.

As soon as they entered, Shuri greeted Luke and Tony at the door.

As Wakanda's number one tech engineer, she had been responsible for the manufacturing and production of various equipment in Wakanda since this year.

She knew exactly how much equipment and strength Wakanda had. Naturally, she had to attend the meeting.

Then, Luke greeted the 'retired' Avengers.

Tony turned his face away and pretended not to see Steve.

Steve wasn't embarrassed.

Normally, the tycoon would definitely have given him an acidic tongue-lashing. It was already very magnanimous of him to just turn half of his face away.

The others didn't say anything.

Steve and Tony had been at loggerheads over Bucky.

Thanks to Luke's efforts, both parties finally gave in, and Steve admitted his mistake, but it wasn't appropriate for anyone else to say anything.

Since it didn't affect official business, it was fine to turn a blind eye.

Everybody greeted each other and took their seats.

It was Dr. Banner who took the lead, which Luke chiming in now and then to add to his explanation.

Then, Luke concluded, "Destroying the Stones to stop Thanos is actually useless for us."

After thinking for a while, a smart person like Tony figured out the reason.

He didn't want to be mocked by Knight, so he interjected decisively, "Because Thanos already knows that Earth has the Stones. If we destroy them, the entire universe will indeed be safe, but Thanos wouldn't mind personally destroying Earth in his anger, right?"

Luke nodded. "His usual practice is to kill half of the population, but when he gets angry, he can categorize all the humans on Earth as half of the entire population he destroys."

He looked around and slowly said, "I'm an Earthling. I won't sacrifice Earth for the good of the entire universe. So, we either kill Thanos this time, or let him collect all the Stones. That way, half of Earth can survive."

Everybody was silent.

This was a heavy topic.

If they won, everything would naturally be fine.

If they lost, Luke's idea was undoubtedly the best choice for Earth.

It was like exchanging half of all lives in the entire universe for half of Earth's population.

But everyone present was aware that half the people left was enough for them to carry on.

From an absolutely rational point of view, this could significantly reduce the problem of competing for resources.

Of course, this was in fact Thanos's logic.

It was just that the friends and family of the dead half wouldn't accept it.

Of the people present, T'Challa had a more empathic nature, but even this was only a thought he had at most.

Most of the others agreed inwardly but didn't dare say anything.

Only Knight could make his stance clear.

Everybody here knew that Knight was Batman.

As someone who had saved Earth many times, he had already been elevated to the level of a saint, and wasn't afraid of being questioned at all.

Also, the Avengers remembered his attitude toward nonhuman intelligent creatures — to Batman, different species weren't 'people' at all.

The hands of Batman, who was known to never kill anyone, were nonetheless stained with the 'blood' of nonhumans like vampires, Experimentals, aliens and so on – he was 100% a butcher.

It would be strange if he let Earthlings be sacrificed for aliens.

Luke's attitude set the tone for the upcoming battle.

Either they killed Thanos and protected all of Earth, or half of the universe, along with Earth, would die – there was no third choice.

Building on this attitude, all that was left was to prepare for battle.

On this point, Luke simply let go.

He had never been an outstanding tactical commander. Apart from fighting his opponent head-on, he was best at hiding and taking snipe shots.

This approach was useless against a mature space fleet like Thanos's.

Professional matters should be left to the professionals. Frank and Steve were the best candidates.

King T'Challa? Forget it.

Wakanda hadn't fought many battles at all – at most, the tribes just fought among themselves.

They even used traditional cold weapons in their duels.

But that was understandable.

If internal strife in Wakanda made use of vibranium technology, it could turn the country into dust.

At that time, they would have to consume a lot of vibranium to hide Wakanda's existence once more.

During the discussion, Luke stood at the window and looked at the wide plain outside as he pondered Thor and Loki.

It definitely wasn't a coincidence that they had run into Thanos.

After Odin died and Asgard was destroyed, Thanos sent out troops to steal the Power Stone from Xandar, then turned around to intercept Thor's spaceship in space.

Without a doubt, whether it was via a mole or a space probe, Thanos had definitely been paying attention to the situation in Asgard.

That was how he had been able to chase down Thor's spaceship and steal the Stone.

Even if Loki hadn't brought the Reality Stone out of Asgard, Thanos could still search the remains of Asgard.

The only thing that could destroy an Infinity Stone was the Stone itself.

Even that tremendous divine power which had turned Luke to dust was nothing compared with the Infinity Stone.

It was just a pity about Loki! Luke sighed inwardly.

It was a shame that he wasn't the one to kill this Asgardian scum in the end!

Putting aside the experience and credit points, based on what this second prince had done on Earth and how he had wanted to kill Luke's little sister, Cindy, Luke really wanted to cut Loki into pieces and burn his bones to ash before scattering the ashes in the ocean of stars.

As for Thor, Luke was worried, but didn't think he was dead.

He had asked Dr. Banner; before the latter had been teleported away by Heimdall, Thor had just been trapped, and hadn't been killed.

A son of destiny like Thor wouldn't die so easily.

Not only didn't Thor die in 2023, he even cut off Thanos's head with his newly forged Stormbreaker ax.

Even though Thanos had already been half-crippled at that time, and the Avengers had ambushed him, there weren't many people who could cut off his head so easily.

Taking this into account, Thor's situation here shouldn't be that wretched.