Chapter Summaries

Xi Nian left Kamar-Taj to deal with threats across Earth and seized a strange alien seed buried in California. As the seed’s connection to Ego caused poisonous vines to overrun his planet, Ego severed the link, and Xi Nian crushed the seed.

• Xi Nian told the Ancient One to watch over Wanda and Pietro, then vanished from Kamar-Taj with Little Orange Cat.
• Xi Nian collapsed the Dark Mages’ basement in New York, killing those who failed to escape into the Mirror Dimension.
• Xi Nian used his Spider-Sense to locate and seize a colorful seed buried in California.
• The seed’s connection to Ego caused giant poisonous vines to erupt through his palace and spread across his planet, draining its energy and nutrients.
• Ego severed his connection to the seed, and Xi Nian crushed the shriveled seed on Earth.

Xi Nian challenged the Lord of the Dark Dimension and the Living Planet after defeating their agents, but both threats withdrew rather than confront him. He then found June Moone at an archaeological site and demanded that Enchantress emerge, only for her to flee into the cave.

• Can Luo praised Xi Nian as Earth's strongest being, while Xi Nian reflected that even Ancient One and the universe's ancient powers held back out of caution.
• Xi Nian called on the Lord of the Dark Dimension and the Living Planet to descend and fight him, but the eye in the New York ruins collapsed and the stellar energy from the seed dust vanished.
• Xi Nian left California's sky with Little Huang and Can Luo and appeared at June Moone's archaeological excavation site, where everyone else had become frozen in place.
• Xi Nian told June Moone to let Enchantress come out, and the witch took over her body before retreating into the cave.

Xi Nian subdued Enchantress without erasing her, then encountered Raven and sent her away after taking one of her feathers. He prepared to enter a zone where artificial intelligence could not help him and confronted the hidden mastermind behind the Great Era cruise ship incident.

• Xi Nian stopped Enchantress from escaping, defeated her, and left her coexisting with June Moone, unable to harm anyone.
• Xi Nian found Raven following him, warned her to leave Earth, and took an ink-black feather from her before she flew away.
• Xi Nian ordered Alice to gather her data into his phone, then stored the phone inside Little Huang's Energy Absorption Space before entering an artificial-intelligence-forbidden zone.
• Beneath Metropolis Harbor, a hidden alien spacecraft absorbed the city's data while its occupant pursued ultimate intelligence.
• Xi Nian confronted the spacecraft's occupant and identified him as the true mastermind behind the Great Era cruise ship incident.

Superman Body Xi Nian confronted Brainiac aboard the skull-shaped spaceship and learned that the alien was the sole survivor of the destroyed Huihe Star, a collector of shrunken cities and a threat to civilizations. Xi Nian trapped four Black and White Vision armors with Magnetism Control, but four Kryptonians emerged from them and attacked him.

• Can Luo identified the spaceship's owner as Brainiac, a survivor of Huihe Star who collected miniature cities from civilizations he destroyed.
• Brainiac intercepted Can Luo's thoughts and revealed that it knew Xi Nian and his companions had entered the ship.
• Brainiac sent two Black and White Vision robots after Xi Nian, who caught them by the neck as two more arrived.
• Xi Nian used Magnetism Control to suspend all four Vision robots and began twisting their Vibranium bodies.
• The four Vision armors opened, revealing four emotionless Kryptonians who struck Xi Nian simultaneously.

Xi Nian fought Brainiac and its controlled Kryptonians inside the alien spacecraft while Superman investigated the harbor’s destruction above. Brainiac’s Kryptonite-laced planet-piercing cannon failed to kill Xi Nian, who captured Brainiac as the battle ended.

• Superman found nothing unusual above ground and detected something beneath Metropolis harbor just as an underground battle shook the area.
• Xi Nian blocked four Kryptonians’ attacks, blasted them away with his fields, and turned to confront Brainiac.
• Superman rescued civilians from the collapsing harbor before Brainiac’s green cannon pierced the ground and struck the spacecraft.
• Brainiac believed the cannon had killed Xi Nian, but Xi Nian survived and fired eye beams that destroyed another spacecraft in orbit.
• The Visions restrained the Kryptonians while Xi Nian appeared beside Brainiac, broke through its energy barrier, and seized its forehead.

Xi Nian defeated Brainiac aboard the alien ship, then stored Brainiac’s captured cities and ship in Little Huang’s Energy Absorption Space. Brainiac’s surviving consciousness clone realized Xi Nian’s telepathic poison had infected it, leaving his return uncertain.

• Xi Nian restrained Brainiac and the Kryptonians, resisted Brainiac’s psychic attack, and killed him with overwhelming telepathic force.
• With Brainiac dead, the Vision Armor and Kryptonians stopped functioning, and Xi Nian placed the shrunken cities and skull-shaped ship inside Little Huang’s Energy Absorption Space.
• Xi Nian left the underground ship site before Superman arrived and found it empty.
• A surviving Brainiac clone believed it could recover, but it collapsed in agony after the poison spread through its consciousness and realized Xi Nian had infected it telepathically.

Wonder Woman searched the ruins of Mount Olympus for a way to save Xi Nian, unaware he watched her climb and knew she would find nothing. The next morning, after his powers vanished, Xi Nian left home alone as Lorna and Can Luo mourned, while the world celebrated its superheroes.

• Wonder Woman entered the ruined Mount Olympus and struggled to climb its mountain as its strange energy suppressed her powers and increased the weight around her.
• A mysterious being prepared to attack Wonder Woman over an old grudge, but Xi Nian kicked him through the island and into the sea.
• Wonder Woman passed a fallen statue of Athena, while Xi Nian secretly watched her and chose not to reveal that the ruins could not save him.
• The next morning, Xi Nian's abilities had disappeared; he ate Lorna's burnt breakfast, told her to wait for him, and left home alone with an umbrella.
• Lorna wept as she held Little Huang, while Can Luo watched Xi Nian disappear into the crowd and declared that the era was called Xi Nian.

Xi Nian waited in a snowy riverside park for Wonder Woman Diana, knowing his life was nearly over. After he rejected the Wishing Stone she had brought, he proposed to her, and they promised to remain together.

• Xi Nian met a Gothic Woman on a snowy street, and she helped him walk to the park where he planned to wait.
• Xi Nian encountered the dying Odin, who admitted he had interfered in the wager between Xi Nian and Thor and said both sides would lose without Xi Nian.
• Xi Nian waited through the day at the park bench where he had first met Diana seventeen years earlier.
• Wonder Woman Diana arrived with the Wishing Stone and urged Xi Nian to wish for his recovery, but Xi Nian confiscated it and warned that it was a trap.
• Xi Nian proposed to Diana, and she accepted the ring as they embraced and promised they would always return to each other.

Three years after someone close to them disappeared, Gwen and Kara continued their studies at Columbia and planned to visit the Prince family together. Elsewhere, a mysterious figure found a long-abandoned flower shop, while Hope sent Scott Lang to steal something from a house.

• A Columbia freshman admired Gwen and Kara, and a passing student warned him against pursuing them.
• Gwen and Kara reminisced about the person they had been apart from for three years and agreed to visit the Prince family with gifts.
• A hooded figure found a shuttered flower shop in Washington and called its owner a dear friend.
• Hope persuaded Scott Lang to break into a house despite his worry that Hank would find out.
• Scott put on his suit, shrank to nearly invisible size, and flew from the van as an ant.

Ant-Man Scott infiltrated Alice’s villa to retrieve an item from a safe, but the cat and jellyfish guarding the house nearly killed him. He reached the safe and discovered it was made of vibranium, leaving him uncertain how to proceed.

• Scott halted his aerial approach after his intuition warned him he would be discovered, then entered the villa through the sewers.
• Hope told Scott the villa belonged to Alice and warned him about a cat, jellyfish, and maid; the maid would not be there that night.
• A cat with a four-meter tentacle-like tail killed a mosquito, then left the living room when something in the yard drew its attention.
• A swarm of translucent jellyfish surrounded Scott in the bathroom, but the ants sacrificed themselves to rescue him.
• Scott reached the second-floor safe and learned from Hope that its metal was likely vibranium.

Felicia Hardy pursued Little Huang into the woods, where the orange cat attacked her, while Diana's reunion with Barbara ended in a fight after Barbara asked about the man who had been gone for three years. Diana transformed into Wonder Woman, revealing that her hair had turned white, and Barbara realized her black hair had been a disguise.

• Felicia Hardy chased Little Huang from the villa district to the woods and tried to speak with it, but Little Huang attacked her.
• Diana finished work at her Washington law firm, and her assistant noticed the ring she wore and wondered about her absent partner.
• Barbara visited Diana and asked what had happened to the man who had been gone for three years.
• Diana hurled Barbara into a wall after Barbara questioned whether the man was truly gone, then transformed into Wonder Woman as Barbara revealed her vibranium Silver Cheetah Armor.
• Barbara saw Diana's white hair and realized Diana's black hair had been a disguise.

Black Cat Felicia was swallowed by the transformed Little Huang, while Wonder Woman defeated Cheetah Barbara and questioned her with the Lasso of Truth. Ant-Man Scott shrank through the vibranium safe by entering the quantum realm and found that its interior was a room, where he was stunned by what he saw.

• Little Huang transformed into a black, tentacled monster and swallowed Felicia after she fled through the forest.
• Wonder Woman defeated Cheetah Barbara, severed her vibranium claws, and used the Lasso of Truth to question her.
• Scott learned the entire safe was made of vibranium and, with the mysterious employer urging him on, shrank into the quantum realm to pass through it.
• Scott heard an aged woman's voice, regained consciousness, and returned to normal size inside the safe.
• Scott removed his helmet and discovered the vibranium vault contained a room, leaving him astonished by its contents.

Ant-Man Scott discovered Prince Xi Nian’s preserved body inside the vibranium vault and learned that Xi Nian had been missing for three years. A Scarlet Maid attacked Scott and the mysterious diamond woman, leaving them in an abandoned town as the diamond woman fell from the sky.

• Scott entered a carefully preserved room inside the vibranium vault and found a seemingly sleeping black-haired boy on the bed.
• Hope identified the boy as Prince Xi Nian, a Washington High School student who had been missing for three years.
• The mysterious woman said Xi Nian’s body was alive but had no psychic fluctuations, as though his soul had died.
• Hope’s system was hacked, and the mysterious woman sensed that the Scarlet Maid had returned.
• The Scarlet Maid struck Scott through a shattered mirror-like space, sending him into an empty town where he enlarged himself and landed in a pool.
• The diamond woman was dragged through another shattered mirror and attacked the Scarlet Maid with telepathy, but she screamed and fell from the sky.

Scarlet Maid defeated Ant-Man Scott and returned to the villa, where Diana and Wanda watched over the unconscious boy. Far away, the boy’s spirit began to grow more solid after an orange gemstone entered his body.

• Scarlet Maid knocked Scott’s soul out of Ant-Man’s body and left him and Emma Frost unconscious in the Mirror Dimension.
• Wanda reported to Diana that the intruders had been dealt with, and Diana confirmed the boy was safe.
• Diana visited the boy’s room, then told Wanda not to kill the intruders and left to handle the damaged office.
• Wanda cleaned the sealed room and promised the sleeping boy she had removed all the intruders’ trash.
• On a distant snowy planet, the boy’s spirit left the mountain and entered a hot spring, where an orange gemstone circled him before sinking into his body.

Xi Nian’s soul, sustained by the Soul Stone but bound by a mark of death, worked as the Gothic Woman’s teddy bear assistant while seeking a way back to Earth. On Xandar, he comforted a dying alien girl with a brief hug.

• Xi Nian woke in the Soul Stone’s hot spring, reflected on surviving three years as a soul, and resolved to remove the mark of death so he could return to his body on Earth.
• The Gothic Woman summoned Xi Nian into her teddy bear and took him from the snowy mountain to Xandar.
• Xi Nian spotted a group of interstellar pirates and a blonde woman carrying an orange cat in the busy plaza.
• The Gothic Woman offered her teddy bear to an alien girl with a broken wing, and Xi Nian gently hugged the girl as she held him.

Gwen and Kara discussed the Hero Limitation Protocol and the Justice League’s planned expedition to Apokolips, with Kara deciding to join the dangerous mission. Before departing, Kara visited the unconscious Senior and mourned that she had been unable to carry his child.

• Gwen told Diana that she planned to leave the Avengers rather than sign the Hero Limitation Protocol, though she would still help during extraordinary incidents.
• Bruce Wayne learned that the Kryptonian spacecraft would be ready to fly to Apokolips in three days and ordered the team to assemble for the expedition.
• Kara told Diana that she would leave with the Justice League to fight the external war, despite the risks and Lois’s pregnancy.
• Diana sent Kara to visit Senior, while Gwen chose to let Kara see him alone first.
• Kara rested against Senior’s chest and said she hoped it would not be their last meeting, recalling that she had been unable to carry his child.

Felicia Hardy awoke inside the black kitten’s mouth and discovered vast alien cities surrounding a colossal statue of Xi Nian. In Gotham, Batman and Can Luo discussed their coming assault on Apokolips, while Xi Nian’s soul continued visiting the Soul Stone and irritating its guardian, Red Skull.

• Felicia woke in a strange world inside the cat’s mouth, climbed a hill, and saw numerous alien civilizations gathered around a gigantic statue resembling Xi Nian.
• Batman prepared for the Justice League’s expedition to Apokolips and asked Can Luo about their chances against Darkseid.
• Can Luo said their odds were below half and recalled that another Flash had called Xi Nian the key.
• Xi Nian’s soul appeared at the Soul Stone altar, joked with Red Skull, and went to sleep without taking the stone.
• Red Skull fumed that Xi Nian had been freeloading on the Soul Stone for three years and wished someone would claim it.

The Justice League members set out on an interstellar expedition while Xi Nian continued his struggle to escape the Death Mark and was taken by the Gothic Woman to witness Star-Lord confront his father, Ego. The chapter left Xi Nian watching Ego reveal that he had killed Star-Lord’s mother before Star-Lord shot him.

• Superman, Batman, Barry Allen, Zatanna, Cyborg, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter prepared to leave their loved ones and depart on an interstellar expedition.
• Kara said goodbye to her adoptive parents as Gwen arrived to see her off, while Diana watched the spaceship disappear into space.
• Xi Nian recalled that he had spent three years using the Soul Stone more than a thousand times, but still needed roughly ten more years to have a chance to escape the Death Mark.
• The Gothic Woman took Xi Nian’s soul to an unknown hall without the teddy bear plushie and brought him to a conversation between Ego and Star-Lord.
• Ego told Star-Lord that he had planted a tumor in Star-Lord’s mother’s brain, and Star-Lord shot Ego with his energy blasters.

Xi Nian’s soul confronted Ego the Celestial, broke free of the death-rule imprint, and chose to return to Earth instead of becoming the Gothic Woman’s assistant. He said goodbye to Red Skull while the boy’s body remained asleep in Diana’s villa, its pendant glowing faintly.

• Ego recognized Xi Nian’s soul and attacked Star-Lord, but an interstellar pirate fighter crashed into the hall and rescued him.
• The Gothic Woman and Xi Nian’s soul watched Ego’s planet collapse as Xi Nian accepted death as a universal rule and the death imprint merged into his soul.
• The Gothic Woman offered Xi Nian a real assistant position, but he chose to return to Earth and thanked her for guiding him.
• Xi Nian’s soul visited Red Skull on the snowy mountain and said he had come to say goodbye.
• Diana kissed the sleeping boy, left him in Wanda’s care, and departed for work as his pendant glowed faintly beneath the blanket.

After three years, Xi Nian revived at home and reunited with Wanda, who had waited for him. He learned that Diana was out at a company dinner and hurried to change clothes and leave, while the chapter also showed the flower shop’s vines coming back to life and a Gothic Woman carrying away Red Skull’s teddy bear.

• The vines outside a Washington flower shop that had been closed for three years sprouted new green buds.
• A Gothic Woman carried away the teddy bear from the snowy mountain where Red Skull guarded the Soul Stone.
• Wanda finished cleaning Xi Nian’s room and nearly kissed him before blue mist surrounded him and he woke.
• Wanda threw herself into Xi Nian’s arms and sobbed, and he promised he would never leave her again.
• Xi Nian discovered that Wanda had not physically changed in three years and absorbed the information his Spider-Sense had gathered while he was unconscious.
• After learning Diana was at a company dinner, Xi Nian got up to change clothes and leave, and Alice welcomed him back through his phone.