Chapter Summaries

After killing Jor-El, He-El followed a psychic trail to find Dawn, the artificial intelligence he had left behind, now a unique living being made of psychic power and programming. Dawn recounted her long struggle against Jor-El, and He-El asked whether she could still emerge from the dark space.

• He-El killed Jor-El and sensed a familiar presence among the minds Jor-El had linked to himself.
• He-El followed the psychic trail through the Dreaming and found Dawn, who welcomed him and reported collecting information on more than seven trillion superpower genes.
• He-El realized Dawn had become a living being and thanked her for preserving his orders and waiting for his return.
• Dawn explained that she had guided humanity through technological advances, fled Jor-El, and repeatedly fought him while collecting technology and biological genes.
• Dawn said Jor-El’s control of the mind and the Dreaming had interrupted her attempt to transform into the universe’s programming logic.
• He-El asked Dawn whether she could still come out.

After killing Jor-El, He-El found Dawn at risk of dissolving into the universe’s operational logic and ordered her to hold on while he sought a way to save her. He sent Ciri and the others into the Pacific Rim universe to conquer it and examine its underlying logic, then went to Doctor Manhattan, still worried about Dawn.

• Dawn appeared to He-El as a little girl in a red dress and said her mission was complete, but He-El ordered her to maintain her state until he could find a way to save her.
• He-El promised to send Dawn Jor-El’s knowledge of the mind and the Dreaming so she could resist sinking into the universe’s operational logic.
• Dawn asked whether Dr. Ciri was still alive, and He-El told her that Ciri had modified herself with ten finger-like tentacles on her back.
• He-El left the Pacific Rim universe and ordered Ciri, Aizen Sousuke, Hela, and the Honest Marshal-class Battleship to enter it and help conquer it while Dawn assisted them.
• He-El, still uneasy about Dawn’s condition, went to Doctor Manhattan.

He-El visited Doctor Manhattan’s workspace, where Manhattan had made progress on instruments for studying the Chronicle and Jumper universes. He-El joined him to speed up their completion and asked Manhattan to protect a subordinate who was becoming embedded in another universe’s operational logic.

• He-El entered Doctor Manhattan’s isolated workspace, where time passed far faster than in He-El Space.
• Doctor Manhattan reported that he had developed a basic approach to studying the Chronicle and Jumper universes and expected to finish the instruments in about two months of workspace time.
• He-El said he would work alongside Doctor Manhattan to complete the instruments more quickly.
• Doctor Manhattan asked why He-El had taken on the work, and He-El explained that a subordinate was half-embedded in a universe’s operational logic.
• He-El asked Doctor Manhattan to watch over the subordinate and prevent her from merging with that universe.

He-El assigned Doctor Manhattan to study the Pacific Rim universe’s foundational logic and protect Dawn, who had become half-embedded in it. As He-El dispatched forces across several universes and faced a shortage of manpower, he went to Lucy.

• He-El asked Doctor Manhattan to help build detectors for the Chronicle and Jumper universes, then examine the Pacific Rim universe and find a way to save Dawn.
• Doctor Manhattan agreed, recognizing that separating Dawn from the universe’s logic would be extremely difficult.
• He-El and Doctor Manhattan completed detectors for the Chronicle and Jumper universes and sent forces to protect them while the scans proceeded.
• He-El assigned Ciri, Aizen Sosuke, Hela, Great Ape Groot, and other forces to conquer the Pacific Rim universe, where Doctor Manhattan would watch over Dawn.
• With Zero leading an assault on the Transformers universe and the teams guarding multiple operations, He-El faced a shortage of manpower and headed to Lucy.

He-El reviewed the avatars exploring universes beyond the Traversal Vortices and learned that more than thirty percent had died without identifying their universes. After examining one avatar’s disastrous death, he sent a replacement into the same universe.

• Lucy reported that none of the avatars had completed their understanding of a universe and that 380 had died.
• He-El examined a dead avatar’s memories and saw it grow into a Cthulhu-like monster before being killed by missiles after crossing through a portal.
• He-El failed to identify the universe the avatar had entered and absorbed its light back into his psychic power.
• He-El sent a new avatar into the previous universe.

He-El reviewed the insights of several avatars and sent the resentful former emperor back to his world to begin a new life and finish his reforms. He then found the long-lived Neos, a legendary figure who had appeared throughout human history, and returned him to his universe for later investigation.

• He-El sent the mindless Cthulhu avatar back into its universe, placing it within human civilization to develop as a new transmigrator.
• He-El examined a martial arts avatar who had unified the Holy Dynasty but was killed after the Empress and aristocratic clans betrayed him.
• He-El sent the emperor's memories into the body of a recently deceased man surnamed Xiang, and the reborn man declared, "My name is Yu!"
• He-El reviewed more than three hundred avatar insights and noted how their different choices had shaped distinct lives and personalities.
• He-El discovered that Neos had lived under many identities, including famous historical leaders, and sent him back into his universe to investigate him later.

He-El recalled a clone from an animated two-dimensional universe and examined the universe’s unusual nature and operating laws. He left the Snake Spirit behind and tested how high his Vajra body could ascend, but the universe’s limits remained unknown.

• He-El learned that his clone had seized several gourd origins, gained a Vajra body, and taken the Snake Spirit as its mate.
• He-El recalled the clone and merged with it while it was with the Snake Spirit in a mountain.
• He-El discovered that the two-dimensional universe repeated its plot, consumed an unknown power, and depended in some sense on the three-dimensional universe.
• He-El blasted through the mountain and ascended to about eighty thousand meters, where dense air prevented his body from climbing farther.
• He-El observed the flat world below and reflected on how two-dimensional space differed from three-dimensional space.

He-El examined why the Calabash Brothers universe was two-dimensional and considered the challenges of studying its underlying logic without damaging it. He decided to use it as an experiment for developing a tool to examine two-dimensional universes, then returned to the cave and announced his plans to develop technology.

• He-El questioned why the Calabash Brothers universe was two-dimensional when the other fictional universes he had visited had appeared three-dimensional.
• He-El reflected on how perception and the He-El Universe shaped his understanding of reality, while recognizing that the universe’s underlying essence remained beyond his grasp.
• He-El concluded that studying the two-dimensional universe’s operational logic would require a different approach from studying three-dimensional universes.
• He-El decided Zero, Doctor Manhattan, and Lucy could not safely enter the two-dimensional universe because their avatars could damage it.
• He-El chose the Calabash Brothers universe as an experiment for creating an instrument to examine two-dimensional universes.
• He-El returned to the cave, where Snake Spirit asked what they would do next, and he answered, “Develop technology!”

He-El conquered and reformed the Calabash Brothers two-dimensional universe while building an instrument to detect its underlying operational logic. After five years there, he completed the instrument and returned his consciousness to the He-El Universe, leaving his avatar to balance the ongoing detection.

• He-El abandoned unstable mountain spirits and monsters as computer components and ordered a human city to search for objects containing stable points and strings.
• He-El led monsters and human soldiers through seventeen cities, rejected the empire's peace proposal, and marched on the capital.
• He-El took the throne, reorganized resources and agriculture, and established a New Dynasty where humans and monsters lived under his rule.
• He-El built strange wonders across the cities, then linked them with lightning and complex lines to complete the universe-detection instrument.
• He-El turned his avatar into a balancer terminal and withdrew his consciousness from the Calabash Brothers universe to the He-El Universe.

After arranging for Lucy to monitor the Calabash Brothers universe’s slow inspection, He-El searched for universes with both two- and three-dimensional operational logic. He entered the Digimon Universe, where his avatar became BlackWarGreymon, a being who might develop an independent will, and watched him challenge the Dark Four Heavenly Kings.

• He-El returned to his universe and explained why inspecting the Calabash Brothers universe’s operational logic would take several hundred years.
• He-El asked Lucy to monitor the inspection and mark the Calabash Brothers universe as a priority target.
• He-El searched the Traversal Vortices and found several universes that combined two- and three-dimensional operational logic.
• He-El entered the Digimon Universe through an avatar and saw it become BlackWarGreymon in a region of dark data.
• He-El discovered that the barrier between two and three dimensions prevented him from fully reclaiming BlackWarGreymon’s consciousness, giving the avatar the potential for independent will.
• He-El remained within BlackWarGreymon as he fought the Dark Four Heavenly Kings for leadership among the forces of darkness.

BlackWarGreymon faced the Dark Four Heavenly Kings after refusing Piedmon’s offer to join them. It killed MetalSeadramon in one exchange, leaving the remaining kings stunned.

• MetalSeadramon, Puppetmon, Machinedramon, and Piedmon surrounded BlackWarGreymon with their forces in the Sea of Data.
• Piedmon offered BlackWarGreymon a place as one of the Dark Five Heavenly Kings, but BlackWarGreymon refused and declared that it would rule the dark forces alone.
• BlackWarGreymon charged MetalSeadramon, who fired its Ultimate Stream.
• BlackWarGreymon used Great Tornado to tear through the Ultimate Stream and pierce MetalSeadramon, which vanished as data.
• MetalSeadramon’s Deep Sea Dark Army fled, while Puppetmon and Machinedramon stared in disbelief at its swift defeat.

BlackWarGreymon overwhelmed the Dark Four Heavenly Kings’ forces with the Dark Gaia Energy Cannon and became known as the Dark WarGreymon Emperor. Piedmon escaped, and BlackWarGreymon ended the chapter demanding that someone inside his body come out.

• BlackWarGreymon tore through MetalSeadramon’s Chrome Digizoid armor and killed him, horrifying Piedmon.
• Piedmon ordered Puppetmon, Machinedramon, and their armies to attack BlackWarGreymon.
• BlackWarGreymon’s Dark Gaia Energy Cannon vaporized Puppetmon, Machinedramon, and many of their forces, sending the rest fleeing.
• Piedmon threw an expanding handkerchief at BlackWarGreymon and escaped while BlackWarGreymon tore the cloth apart.
• The surviving armies surrendered and named BlackWarGreymon their emperor, and he summoned a blazing dark sun above them.
• The Dark WarGreymon Emperor coldly told someone inside his body to come out.

BlackWarGreymon confronted the consciousness inside him and learned from He-El that he was one of He-El’s clones, though losing their connection had made him an independent being. As the truth clashed with his memories of Chen Hai and his hard-won rise to power, BlackWarGreymon broke into a terrified, furious roar.

• BlackWarGreymon sensed a consciousness in his body and demanded that it reveal itself after defeating the Dark Four Heavenly Kings.
• He-El explained that BlackWarGreymon’s descent into the Digimon World had severed part of their connection, allowing him to become a free-willed being.
• BlackWarGreymon recalled his life as Chen Hai, his battles and losses, and how he became BlackWarGreymon and defeated three of the Dark Four Heavenly Kings.
• He-El calmly told BlackWarGreymon that he was one of his clones.
• BlackWarGreymon sensed that He-El was telling the truth but rejected the claim and roared in fear and fury.

He-El revealed that BlackWarGreymon was one of his clones, but explained that a rare accident had given him the chance to gain independent free will. BlackWarGreymon accepted the opportunity to conquer the Digimon Universe, while He-El departed to face the DC Universe’s second Parallel Universe fusion.

• BlackWarGreymon erupted in distress after He-El revealed their connection, and He-El suppressed his emotions and explained that his memories and experiences were still his own.
• He-El told BlackWarGreymon that many of his other clones had died or become consumed by evil, while BlackWarGreymon had survived and shown the ambition to reform the Digimon World.
• He-El explained that losing the information linking him to BlackWarGreymon had given the clone a chance to develop independent free will.
• He-El offered BlackWarGreymon the chance to become an independent being by conquering the Digimon Universe and bringing it before him.
• He-El gave BlackWarGreymon New Krypton’s conquest procedures and left to confront the DC Universe’s second Parallel Universe fusion.

He-El arrived in the DC Universe as a second universal fusion began, and New Krypton broadcast instructions to incoming lifeforms while struggling to manage the growing population. As Superman Clark Kent challenged the enforcers’ use of force, He-El sensed the fusion taking effect and a massive sun appeared before them.

• He-El instructed Lucy to prioritize watching the Digimon universe, then traveled to the DC Universe.
• New Krypton broadcast warnings across Earth, the Solar System, and the Milky Way, directing incoming lifeforms to stay calm and cooperate with security patrols.
• He-El considered the strain repeated fusions placed on New Krypton, including the risk of disorder from unfamiliar lifeforms and their weapons.
• Superman Clark Kent urged He-El not to let New Krypton's enforcers slaughter people from unfamiliar universes, and Athena explained the orders to maintain order and kill those who incited violence.
• He-El sensed that the fusion had begun, and a massive sun appeared before him, Athena, and Superman Clark Kent.

He-El stopped the Sun-Eater from bringing a sun to Earth by incapacitating it and transporting the sun and Superman inside it to a distant region of the Milky Way. As Superman Clark Kent took Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Batman Bruce Wayne to help contain the chaos on Earth, Athena reported that Yi-Yi had subdued the weakened Indian Pantheon.

• Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Batman Bruce Wayne arrived beside He-El and Athena as the Sun-Eater merged with another universe’s Superman and carried a sun toward Earth.
• He-El opened a spatial passage and used a psychic blast to incapacitate the Sun-Eater before sending the sun and Superman to an empty region of the Milky Way.
• He-El ordered Superman Clark Kent to take Hal Jordan and Bruce Wayne to Earth to help stop the chaos, and Clark flew them away.
• Athena told He-El that the Indian Pantheon had won its struggle to become the sole pantheon but had fallen into slumber after losing much of its strength, allowing Yi-Yi to deal with it.
• He-El sent Athena, Hera, and Apollo with the Divine Legion to suppress unrest across the universe.

Superman Clark Kent brought Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Batman Bruce Wayne to the merged Earth and explained that their universe was merging with his. As they helped contain the chaos, Hal saw Carol Ferris alive and flew to protect her.

• Superman Clark Kent explained the universal merger to Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Batman Bruce Wayne, then brought them through Earth's defense barrier.
• Batman Bruce Wayne and Green Lantern Hal Jordan discovered that Gotham and Metropolis belonged to an unfamiliar world, and Superman gave them business cards to communicate.
• Superman Clark Kent defeated a flaming skeleton attacking New Krypton's law enforcers and continued toward other battles.
• Green Lantern Hal Jordan flew over the unfamiliar Coast City and began using his ring to suppress the unrest.
• Green Lantern Hal Jordan saw Carol Ferris fighting a steel enemy with a Violet Lantern Ring and charged to help her, overcome by memories of her death.

Batman Bruce Wayne saw Alfred alive in the New Krypton Universe, but struggled with the loss of his own world and the Alfred he had lost. As chaos broke out, he joined Superman Clark Kent in protecting people while Clark promised to help him and Green Lantern Hal Jordan adapt to their new reality.

• Batman Bruce Wayne remembered how Darkseid’s invasion had cost his universe its heroes and Alfred, leaving him unable to know how to face this universe’s Alfred.
• Alfred, whose memories had fused with those of another universe’s Alfred, greeted Batman Bruce Wayne and apologized for not being able to make him black coffee.
• A green Swamp Thing attacked a building, Frankenstein’s Monster roared, and the Court of Owls stirred up chaos, so Batman Bruce Wayne and Alfred split up to respond.
• Batman Bruce Wayne fought Frankenstein’s Monster and insisted that this was not his world.
• Superman Clark Kent told Batman Bruce Wayne that the universes’ merger could not be reversed and promised to help him and Green Lantern Hal Jordan settle into the New Krypton Universe.

New Krypton dealt with the aftermath of the universe fusion by restoring order and settling displaced newcomers across the Milky Way. When Darkseid and another group of Guardians of the Universe appeared, He-El sent forces to merge with the Guardians and ordered an attack on Apokolips.

• New Krypton restored order after the initial panic and settled many newcomers on temporary planets throughout the Milky Way.
• Zero's avatar informed He-El that Darkseid had reappeared and the Guardians of the Universe had appeared on Oa Star.
• He-El explained that the newly arrived Apokolips forces and Guardians had merged over from another universe, while the original Oa Star had been emptied by New Krypton.
• He-El sent the Guardians of the Universe, the Seven Lantern Corps, and fifty star-level powerhouses to Oa Star to merge with their counterparts.
• He-El ordered Zeus, five Olympian Gods, one hundred star-level powerhouses, and Ciri's Biological Corps to attack Apokolips and eliminate Darkseid quickly.

The Guardians of the Universe on Oa Star resolved their differences, merged the Green Lantern Corps into New Krypton’s forces, and reported the escape of a First Lantern. On Apokolips, Zeus’s army and reinforcements from Oa overwhelmed Darkseid, defeated him, and destroyed the planet.

• The Guardians of the Universe convened on Oa Star, persuaded most of their counterparts to accept merging, and killed those who refused.
• The Guardians transferred the Green Lantern Corps to Scarface’s Seven Lantern Corps, while a First Lantern escaped.
• Zeus led five Olympian Gods, one hundred stellar-level fighters, and Ciri’s Biological Corps in an assault on Apokolips.
• He-El sent the Guardians and Scarface’s Seven Lantern Corps from Oa Star to reinforce Zeus’s forces.
• Darkseid rose to confront Zeus but was overwhelmed as the coalition shattered Apokolips’s defenses and destroyed the planet.