Star-Lord

Xiao Hen, who had vanished, had already left the planet. He already possessed spatial abilities, and with the Space Stone layered on top of them, even with Thanos’s current strength, he could not trace Xiao Hen’s departure.

Regardless of whether Thanos was angry or confused, Xiao Hen had already gone far from the planet.

"Where is this?" Xiao Hen looked at the new planet he had arrived on, somewhat puzzled. He spread out his Divine Sense to investigate. The planet was in a primitive state, with no living creatures on it at all. Well, there were probably no intelligent lifeforms. There were still some microorganisms.

However, that was of no use.

What was that?

Xiao Hen’s eyes lit up as he spotted a spaceship descending through the atmosphere. Inside the spaceship was none other than the protagonist of Guardians of the Galaxy, Star-Lord.

Yes, it was Star-Lord. What was Star-Lord doing here?

Could this be where the Cosmic Orb was located? It could not be such a coincidence, could it?

Aboard the spaceship, Star-Lord hummed a little tune as he leisurely guided the ship down. Suddenly, he saw an alert from the ship’s main system.

"Beep beep. Biological reaction detected on the planet. Scan identifies it as a highly intelligent lifeform!"

"What? Isn’t this a primitive planet? How could there be an intelligent lifeform?" Star-Lord was startled and immediately checked the scan image from the Main Computer. In the image, an ordinary-looking man stood with his head tilted upward, watching the sky. Judging from his line of sight, he was looking directly at Star-Lord’s spaceship. As for his clothes, he wore a set of Earth-style casual clothing. Star-Lord had grown up among aliens and had long forgotten everything about Earth, so naturally, he could not recognize that Xiao Hen came from Earth. However, he knew this man was definitely not a native of this planet.

"Someone’s actually on this planet. Looks like another lost traveler. Sigh, since the great Star-Lord is such a kind person, I’ll save you once!" After narcissistically praising himself, Star-Lord piloted the ship down.

Once the ship landed, Star-Lord stepped out. His armor automatically unfolded and covered his entire body. Although he wanted to do a good deed, he would not neglect his defenses. As an interstellar adventurer, he had encountered plenty of people who repaid kindness with betrayal. His adoptive father, Yondu, was a thorough scoundrel. Though Star-Lord had been raised by him and remained kind at heart, he was also someone who had spent years at the bottom of society. He understood such matters quite well.

"Hey, do you need help?" Star-Lord looked at Xiao Hen but did not approach rashly, calling out from a considerable distance first.

(No need to question the language issue here. The entire Marvel Universe used English, or rather, every language in the universe was automatically translated into English.)

"Of course!" Xiao Hen said with a smile. "I very much need help!"

With a casual teleport, he had arrived on an unfamiliar planet and then casually encountered Star-Lord, the protagonist of Guardians of the Galaxy. Xiao Hen felt somewhat wary. He did not reveal his power and greeted Star-Lord while pretending to be an ordinary person.

For such a coincidence to happen to him, he would not believe there had been no interference from the World Will even if beaten to death. The World Will would not consider his interests. Was encountering Star-Lord at this moment really a good thing?

Fundamentally speaking, yes. What was Xiao Hen’s goal in coming to the Milky Way Galaxy?

The Infinity Stones. He had just missed the Reality Stone, yet immediately encountered Star-Lord. In the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, Star-Lord was the adventurer and cosmic hunter searching for the Cosmic Orb containing the Power Stone. Now that he had met him, could he not simply follow him to find the Power Stone?

How could there be such a good thing? It was precisely because it was such a coincidence that Xiao Hen became suspicious.

"World Will… My first counterattack from the World Will after entering the Marvel Universe was Strange. The second was Thanos arriving just now while I was probing Tivan’s memories, and I happened to evade him!" Xiao Hen thought. If Thanos had blocked him, he would have had only two ways to deal with Thanos. First, return through the Shuttle. Yes, he could only return through the Shuttle. If he tore through space and left on his own, Thanos could follow the trail and pursue him, perhaps even trace it to the Divine Kingdom’s location. Of course, if Thanos truly went there, he would be dead beyond any doubt. But with Thanos’s cautious nature, he definitely would not go. Still, he would learn the Divine Kingdom’s coordinates, and that was a major problem.

The second option was to summon the Main God Avatar and fight Thanos. The consequence of that was that it might draw the attention of the Five Elders or even directly cause the Celestial Group to descend and destroy his Main God Avatar.

On Marvel’s home ground, the Celestial Group could crush Xiao Hen’s Main God Avatar with ease.

Both possibilities were extremely brutal and placed him at an overwhelming disadvantage. Xiao Hen had left in time and avoided such a severe disadvantage, already pushing things to the limit. Yet now he had happened to encounter Star-Lord. How could he not be wary?

"What happened to you? You don’t look very bedraggled!" Star-Lord looked at Xiao Hen suspiciously. Xiao Hen was completely uninjured at the moment and did not look like someone who had been attacked by space pirates.

"My guards covered my escape and were killed by interstellar pirates. My ship was low on fuel, and I only had enough to flee here. Luckily, I ran into you." Xiao Hen sighed.

"Alright!" Star-Lord nodded. On the surface, he believed Xiao Hen’s words, but he still harbored a bit of suspicion. Yet his kind heart still intended to help Xiao Hen. Then he thought of what he was about to do and became troubled again. Put Xiao Hen on the ship? If Xiao Hen was a bad guy and damaged the ship or flew it away, Star-Lord would be stranded on this primitive planet. As for taking Xiao Hen along on his mission, that would be even more dangerous, would it not?

Thus, he began to agonize over it.

Xiao Hen could naturally guess Star-Lord’s hesitation, so he spoke up. "May I know your name?"

"Peter Quill. You can call me Star-Lord!" Star-Lord said with a smile.

"Alright, Star-Lord. We have only just met, so we may not trust each other yet. You must have something to do on this desolate planet. How about this? I’ll wait here for you. What do you think?" Xiao Hen suggested.

"Th-that would be okay?" Star-Lord asked awkwardly.

"Of course. I’ve already survived on this planet for several days. A little more time makes no difference!" Xiao Hen lied without even pausing for breath.

"Th-then, alright!" Star-Lord nodded.

Afterward, Xiao Hen watched Star-Lord fly his spaceship away from this place. Naturally, his movements remained within the range of Xiao Hen’s Divine Sense. Star-Lord flew to the other side of the primitive planet and arrived before an ancient, primitive structure. After landing the ship, Star-Lord activated his armor’s defenses and began exploring the structure.

Naturally, it was an adventure for others, but for him, he had experienced such things far too often. It was merely a simple task.

Sure enough, the item inside the structure was the Cosmic Orb. Star-Lord acquired it with ease and also encountered people trying to rob him halfway through, but it did not matter. Star-Lord resolved it all the same.

Through his Divine Sense, Xiao Hen learned that Ronan had already set his sights on Star-Lord. His target was naturally the Power Stone.