A single hand breached the surface of the bubbling, pitch-black sludge.
It was impossibly thin, the skin a sickly, translucent white stretched taut over jagged bones.
The absolute second those withered, elongated fingers clawed into the cracked concrete of the pier, Peter's spider-sense didn't just buzz. It detonated. A blinding, agonizing spike of pure terror drove itself directly into the base of his skull. His knees buckled under the sheer psychic weight of the warning. It was a suffocating, paralyzing dread, second only to that day he fight Kwaku Anansi.
Peter frantically tapped his wrist console, his fingers slick with sweat. He forcibly routed his suit's optical feed directly to J.A.R.V.I.S., broadcasting the live feed to the Avengers' secure frequency.
It is him, Venom whimpered in Peter's mind, the symbiote's consciousness recoiling, trying to bury itself as deep into Peter's cellular structure as physically possible.
Riot's labyrinthine contingency plans had finally paid off. The brutal, violent death of a long-term host had fulfilled the cosmic condition.
The pale hand dug into the asphalt, anchoring itself. A strange, suffocating pressure dropped over the pier, pinning Peter to the ground. He couldn't move his arms. He couldn't fire a web. He could only watch as the hand pulled a towering, emaciated nightmare entirely out of the black mud.
The entity stood nearly ten feet tall. It was gaunt to the point of starvation, resembling a walking corpse more than a god. It lacked lips, its lower face nothing but a jagged, exposed maw of needle-like teeth.
This is not Knull's true form, Peter, Venom pushed the frantic thought through their link. His divine body remains imprisoned deep within the core of Klyntar. This is merely an avatar. A psychic clone, forged from the pulverized, dead biomass of Riot and his siblings.
The King in Black had not fully resurrected. He had merely opened an eye.
The gaunt, white-haired avatar took a single step forward. The remaining black sludge on the ground violently surged upward, washing over his pale skin. It rapidly hardened, forging itself into a heavy, jagged suit of biomechanical black armor. A massive, blood-red dragon emblem bled into existence across the chest plate. The design was ancient, terrifying, and distinctly resembled the spider-emblem currently resting on Venom's chest.
Knull tilted his head, his milky, void-like eyes locking onto Spider-Man.
"A piece of the Living Abyss that betrayed me," Knull's voice didn't echo in the air; it vibrated directly inside Peter's bones. It sounded like grinding tectonic plates. "How interesting. Surrender, or be unmade."
Before Peter could even force his paralyzed jaw open, the air to Knull's right violently sparked.
"Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!"
Doctor Stephen Strange dropped from a sparking golden portal. He thrust both hands forward. Thick, glowing red magical chains erupted from the ether, wrapping tightly around Knull's outstretched arm and chest, instantly binding the dark god.
Strange didn't hesitate. He spun his hands in a complex, rapid mandala. The fabric of reality around Knull shattered like a broken mirror. The jagged, kaleidoscopic shards of the Mirror Dimension swallowed the King in Black entirely, sealing the breach with a sharp crack.
"Doc—" Peter gasped, the suffocating pressure finally lifting off his chest.
Strange flicked his wrist. A second golden portal opened directly beneath Peter's boots. Spider-Man fell through the floor, tumbling wildly before crashing hard onto the polished mahogany floorboards of the Sanctum Sanctorum's grand foyer.
A second later, Strange stepped through the portal, his red cloak snapping behind him. He looked incredibly pale, his brow slick with sweat.
Peter groaned, pushing himself up onto his elbows. "You were watching this whole time? If you saw that thing coming, why didn't you step in before he climbed out of the mud?!"
"I wasn't watching the docks, Spider-Man!" Strange snapped, pacing frantically across the rug. "I was maintaining a scrying lock on the frozen dragon in the Arctic! I only diverted my attention when the localized fabric of reality screamed in agony at the arrival of a divine entity."
Strange rubbed his temples, his breathing shallow. "Knull is trapped in the Mirror Dimension, but it will not hold him. He is a primordial force. Shattering my construct will be effortless for him. I bought us minutes, at best."
"Then send me back!" Peter yelled, forcing himself to his feet. His legs shook violently. "If he breaks out, I have to—"
"Listen to me, Peter," Strange interrupted, stepping close and placing a firm hand on the teenager's trembling shoulder. "You are completely drained. Your bio-electricity is depleted. Your symbiote is traumatized. You are dead on your feet. And according to the scrying threads of the future, you are the singular key to defeating him."
Strange raised his right hand, two fingers glowing with a soft, ambient yellow light. He pressed them directly against the center of Peter's forehead.
"Sleep. Rest. We will speak at dawn."
The magical command overrode Peter's biology instantly. His eyes rolled back beneath his mask. His muscles went entirely slack, and he collapsed to the floor, instantly submerged in a deep, dreamless magical sleep.
Strange looked down at the unconscious teenager and let out a long, heavy sigh. He turned toward the massive window of the Sanctum. It was going to be a very long night.
Thousands of miles away, absolute chaos erupted on the deck of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.
Stephen Strange's estimate had been incredibly generous. Knull didn't need minutes to break the Mirror Dimension. He shattered the magical construct in seconds. In the blink of an eye, the King in Black bypassed the geographic distance entirely, materializing directly inside the Helicarrier's primary containment bay, right beside the massive, frozen block of ice holding Grendel.
Knull rested his pale, armored hand against the frosted glass.
"First, I will consume this barbaric rock," Knull murmured, a cruel smile splitting his lipless face. "Then, my vanguard will return to Klyntar, shatter my cage, and begin the great unmaking."
Knull turned slowly. The heavy, reinforced blast doors of the containment bay were already melting.
The Human Torch didn't ask questions. Johnny Storm blasted through the melting steel, flying at supersonic speeds. He pushed his pyrokinesis past its absolute limit, igniting his entire body into a blinding, white-hot, supernova-level plasma flare. He collided directly with Knull's chest.
The impact should have instantly vaporized a city block.
Instead, Knull didn't even take a step back. The King in Black simply reached his pale hand straight through the six-thousand-degree plasma and grabbed Johnny Storm directly by the throat.
Johnny gasped, the flames around his neck sputtering and dying under the suffocating grip.
"Ah. I understand," Knull whispered, lifting the struggling hero off the deck. "You believed I was merely the master of the Abyss. You thought I would cower from fire and sound, just like the miserable parasites you fought today."
Knull's grip tightened. Johnny's boots kicked uselessly in the air.
"Foolish mortal," Knull sneered. "They fear the heat and the noise because I forged the first symbiote in the fires of a dead Celestial, striking the blade with a divine hammer. I do not share their weaknesses. I am the one who gave them those weaknesses!"
"Avengers! Attack!" Captain America's voice roared from the breached doorway.
The Hulk launched himself through the smoke. The massive green behemoth crossed the room in a single bound, pulling his fist back to deliver a devastating, earth-shattering blow.
Knull casually tossed the gasping Human Torch aside. The dark god simply raised his hand and pressed his palm flat against the Hulk's massive green chest.
"A mindless, irrational beast," Knull purred, his eyes gleaming. "You will serve as an excellent vanguard."
The second Knull's skin made contact, a torrent of inky black, viscous alien biomass erupted from the god's palm. The sludge violently washed over the Hulk. It didn't just cover him; it forced its way into his nose, his mouth, his eyes.
The Hulk let out a garbled, terrified roar. The sickening snap of shifting bones and tearing muscle echoed through the bay. In less than three seconds, the green skin was entirely consumed.
A hulking, monstrously mutated Black Hulk turned around. A jagged, blood-red spiral emblem glowed on its chest. It stood by Knull's side and unleashed a deafening, symbiote-laced roar at Captain America.
Standing behind Steve, Reed Richards stared at the monster in absolute, clinical horror. "He... he bypassed the cellular integration process entirely. He can forcibly transmute any organic matter he touches into a symbiote."
"Organic?" Knull laughed, a dark, grating sound. "Your perspective is so agonizingly narrow."
Knull stomped his armored boot against the steel floor grates.
The black sludge exploded outward from the point of impact. It rapidly infected the metal decking, the bulkheads, the computer terminals. The entire S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier began groaning, twisting, and mutating into a massive, biomechanical symbiote hive.
Captain America raised his shield. Iron Man primed his repulsors.
Before a single weapon could be fired, the steel deck beneath their feet vanished.
Dozens of golden, sparking sling-ring portals opened simultaneously across the entire ship. Every single superhero, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and flight technician dropped straight through the floor.
Knull paused, his pale hand hovering over the corrupted control console. His dark eyes narrowed in deep annoyance. He had just lost his entire crop of potential soldiers. Stripped of its human crew, the massive, corrupted Helicarrier lost altitude. The engines screamed as the ship plummeted out of the sky, crashing violently into the already-destroyed docks of New York Harbor in a massive, fiery explosion.
A hundred miles away, the displaced heroes tumbled out of the golden portals, crashing in a chaotic heap onto the hardwood floors of a massive, ancient, incense-filled mansion.
Nick Fury rolled to his feet instantly, his service weapon drawn and sweeping the unfamiliar, dimly lit room.
"Good evening, everyone," a calm, measured voice announced.
A stocky Asian man in traditional monastic robes walked slowly down the grand, sweeping staircase. He kept his hands folded politely in front of him.
"I am Wong," he stated, coming to a stop on the bottom step. He pointed a finger past Nick Fury's raised gun, gesturing toward the heavy, brass-handled front doors. "You may exit through there. Director Fury, I suggest you coordinate with your surviving S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel to immediately initiate an emergency, subterranean evacuation of the entire civilian population of Manhattan."
Tony Stark pushed himself off the floor, his Iron Man faceplate retracting. He looked around the mystical lobby, recognizing the architecture. "Wait. You're the Sorcerer Supreme's assistant. Where is Gandalf?"
"The Sorcerer Supreme is currently atop the roof," Wong explained, his expression grave and unyielding. "He is casting a massive, localized mystical barrier. He intends to ensure that Knull cannot leave the island of Manhattan."
Wong looked at the battered, exhausted faces of the Avengers.
"He will hold the King in Black here. Until you find a way to kill the god... or until the god kills him."
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