Chapter Summaries

Chen Tao used Barbatos’s Dark Energy to power the universe and prepare a universe-sized strike against the Anti-Monitor, but the strain killed him before he could attack. He awoke in a jungle without his powers and met Death.

• Chen Tao resisted Barbatos’s corruption by diverting the Dark Energy in his body to power the universe.
• Barbatos ordered the Anti-Monitor to destroy Batman’s Propulsion Towers, but the towers lifted the universe instead of driving it forward.
• The Anti-Monitor realized Chen Tao was preparing to strike him with the universe and asked Barbatos to strengthen his puppet body and hinder the attack.
• The universe’s rumbling stopped, and the Anti-Monitor found Chen Tao floating in space, apparently dead from the strain of powering the universe.
• Chen Tao awoke in a jungle without his powers and recognized the young woman holding withered flowers as Death.

Chen Tao met Death after his body was crushed, while Anti-Monitor attacked the Justice League and Aquaman sacrificed himself to save Batman’s corpse. Aquaman’s death activated Chen Tao’s contingency and restored his life, and he returned determined to resurrect his friends and stop Barbatos’s plan.

• Chen Tao met Death outside time, learned his plan had failed, and refused her offer of a peaceful afterlife.
• Luther took control of the Propulsion Tower plan as Murder Machine approached Owlman and demanded his surrender.
• Wonder Woman, Superman, Martian Manhunter, Shazam, and Bane tried to stop Anti-Monitor from taking Batman’s corpse, but Anti-Monitor killed Wonder Woman and Superman.
• Aquaman used The Red and The Black to control Batman’s corpse, sent his allies fleeing with it, and died after the corpse bit through him.
• Aquaman’s death activated Chen Tao’s system and synchronized him with Drowned Vengeance, reviving him and allowing him to reveal his plan to resurrect the Justice League.
• Chen Tao rejected Death’s offer to become her assistant and prepared to return to the living world.

With Batman dead and the universe doomed, Owlman nearly escaped through a portal prepared by the Outsider, but embraced the Joker-Man virus and chose to continue Batman’s plan. Grail reluctantly turned the accelerating universe back toward the Anti-Monitor, while Death challenged Chen Tao’s reason for returning to life.

• Owlman prepared to destroy Murder Machine and himself with the four Propulsion Towers, but the Outsider revealed an escape portal to another Dark Multiverse.
• Owlman nearly accepted the Outsider’s escape plan, then embraced the Joker-Man virus and asked Joker-Man to help him reject his cowardice.
• Changed by the virus, Owlman told the Outsider he would continue Batman’s plan and wait for Batman to revive, beginning by defeating Murder Machine.
• Grail protested when Hal Jordan and Lex Luthor ordered her to turn the Propulsion Tower system back toward the Anti-Monitor, but Luther shocked her and took control.
• Death asked Chen Tao why he was still determined to return to the world of the living after becoming tempted by his responsibilities.

Murder Machine and the Dark Knights fought over the Propulsion Tower while Bane desperately tried to wake Batman as Anti-Monitor defeated the remaining Justice League. Chen Tao chose to return, and Batman reappeared to seize Anti-Monitor and carry him toward the Light Multiverse as the Propulsion Towers activated.

• Murder Machine used his Alfred program and a decoy to draw Owlman's attention while Red Death attacked Owlman inside the Propulsion Tower.
• Red Death wounded Owlman, and the Dark Knights discussed taking the tower before Owlman suddenly rose and fought back.
• Bane refused to abandon Batman and struck him, pleading for him to wake as Anti-Monitor lifted Bane by the neck.
• Chen Tao told Death he had found the moment he had been waiting for, then left to return to the fight.
• Owlman exploited Red Death's weakness while Murder Machine intervened, and a blue flash teleported the Dark Knights away as all four Propulsion Towers powered up.
• Batman appeared, embraced Anti-Monitor, and shot with him toward the Light Multiverse, leading Barbatos to realize Batman was transporting him there.

Chen Tao used the four Propulsion Towers and the Dark Multiverse’s living creatures to drive the universe into Anti-Monitor, but Barbatos empowered Anti-Monitor, who tore Batman apart and fought back. After Chen Tao’s third hammer blow failed to push Anti-Monitor through the rift, Luther’s newborn universe struck from another dimension, and someone placed a hand on Chen Tao’s shoulder.

• Citizens across Gotham and the universe answered Batman’s summons, powering him through The Red as the Propulsion Towers drove the universe toward Anti-Monitor.
• Barbatos refused to help at first, but agreed to give Anti-Monitor Dark Energy in exchange for Monitor’s location, letting Anti-Monitor tear Batman apart and strengthen his puppet body.
• Chen Tao killed Thunder-Zan-Sha, absorbed Darkseid’s Omega Effect, and synchronized with the SS-rank Batman: Dark Father.
• Anti-Monitor endured the second universe-powered hammer blow and attacked Batman, while Barbatos’s influence weakened Chen Tao’s resolve.
• Chen Tao used the Omega Effect to swing a third time, but Luther’s newborn universe struck Anti-Monitor from another dimension and helped drive him back.
• As Chen Tao and Anti-Monitor remained locked in a struggle, someone placed a hand on Chen Tao’s shoulder.

Destiny read how Batman broke Barbatos’s fate as the dregs of the Dark Multiverse rallied behind him and helped push Anti-Monitor through a rift into the Light Multiverse. Afterward, Death guided the newly freed dead onward, while Anti-Monitor confronted a gravely wounded Batman near Earth.

• Destiny read the account of Batman summoning Death and breaking free of the fate Barbatos had woven.
• As hollow Dark Multiverse worlds collapsed, their dregs returned to the living realm and gathered around Chen Tao.
• Batman used the spirits’ strength to force Anti-Monitor toward the rift, then punched him into the Light Multiverse as the dregs carried him through.
• Chen Tao and Anti-Monitor fell into the world of light, where Anti-Monitor asked Chen Tao how he wanted to die.
• Death met a Bruce Wayne from a destroyed Dark Multiverse, explained that Batman had changed his fate, and led him onward with the other remnants.

The Anti-Monitor cornered Batman, believing no one would come to save his Dark Multiverse. Batman revealed that he had tied the multiverse’s survival to Earth-15, drawing the multiversal heroes through portals to confront the Anti-Monitor, while Supreme Superboy remained lost between universes.

• The Time Master struggled to find a way to save both the Dark Multiverse and the wider multiverse, while Golden Pioneer questioned his plans.
• The Anti-Monitor prepared to capture Batman and return him to Barbatos, dismissing the chance that heroes from the normal universe would intervene.
• Batman used the First Lantern and Brainiac technology to move Earth-15, making its survival threaten the Green Lantern Corps and the stability of the DC Universe.
• Batman threatened to self-destruct and drag the Over-Time Stream into destruction, forcing its immune system to respond and sending multiversal armies through portals.
• Chen Tao struck the Anti-Monitor as Justice Incarnate and the Multiverse Superman Corps arrived, then fell as more heroes poured through the portals.
• Supreme Superboy wandered through empty parallel universes until his Purple Lantern Ring began glowing again.

Batman released First Lantern and sent him to Earth-15 with the power and instructions to save his world without sacrificing anyone else. His arrival shook the multiverse and drew thousands of heroes into the Anti-Monitor’s presence, where the Anti-Monitor failed to convince them that Batman was the true threat.

• First Lantern met Batman in his hidden prison, and Batman offered to release him so he could try to save Earth-15.
• Batman gave First Lantern Brainiac’s shrinking-gun components, explained the stakes, and warned him not to endanger other worlds.
• First Lantern arrived on Earth-15, causing the multiverse to shake as the Time Master and Golden Pioneer reacted.
• Heroes from across the multiverse emerged through portals, including several alternate Supermen and a Batman from Knightfall.
• Batman told the gathered heroes that the Anti-Monitor was responsible, while the Anti-Monitor insisted that Batman was the real culprit.
• Kong Kenan questioned the Anti-Monitor’s plan to destroy Earth, and the heroes dismissed his increasingly desperate accusations.

Chen Tao watched a vast gathering of alternate-universe heroes overwhelm Anti-Monitor while First Lantern’s reunion with his mother caused ripples through the Multiverse and briefly disrupted Lantern rings across history. Barbatos rejected Anti-Monitor’s plea until Anti-Monitor revealed that Perpetua was close to escaping the Source Wall and offered to become Barbatos’s dragon puppet in exchange for his full assistance; Barbatos agreed.

• Chen Tao led an army of alternate-universe heroes, including multiple Batmen, Supermen, Wonder Women, and Bizarros, in a charge that buried Anti-Monitor beneath them.
• First Lantern reached Earth-15 and embraced the mother he had lost, causing ripples in the Multiverse and brief ring failures during several past events.
• Barbatos refused to help Anti-Monitor, who warned that their brother World Forger might not be dead and asked Barbatos to strengthen his weakened body.
• Anti-Monitor revealed that their mother, Perpetua, was about to break free from the Source Wall and explained that he meant to oppose her rather than wait for the Multiverse to be destroyed.
• Anti-Monitor offered to let his puppet become Barbatos’s dragon in exchange for full assistance, and Barbatos accepted the deal.

Golden Pioneer and Time Master devised a plan to let Batman resist the Anti-Monitor by merging with thousands of heroes, while the Anti-Monitor transformed into a Barbatos Dragon and the heroes were pulled into his battle. Batman swallowed Knightfall before they could explain how to carry out the plan, leaving them stunned and demanding he spit him out.

• Time Master and Golden Pioneer realized the Anti-Monitor planned to rewrite history rather than restore the timeline, and Golden Pioneer proposed empowering Batman with the minds and strength of more than three thousand heroes.
• The Anti-Monitor transformed into a massive dragonlike creature, while changing futures showed the heroes dead and Batman fused with him.
• During the Sinestro Corps War, Ion-Man Sodam Yat was pulled from his fight with Supreme Superboy into the Anti-Monitor's battlefield, where the Anti-Monitor seized and beat him.
• Golden Pioneer and Time Master arrived to tell Batman to swallow the other heroes, but Batman had already swallowed Knightfall.
• Batman asked what to do next, and Time Master told him to spit Knightfall out.

Supreme Superboy’s Purple Lantern Ring shattered, leaving him lost in the Over-Time Stream, while Chen Tao used Brother Eye data to prepare for a fusion with the gathered heroes against the Anti-Monitor. The damaged timeline then forced Supreme Superboy back into the battle beside a cosmic black hole.

• Supreme Superboy’s Purple Lantern Ring self-destructed, leaving him drifting without a route to Earth-15.
• Chen Tao spat out the orthodox old Batman, and Ion-Man Sodam Yat helped the heroes hold back the Anti-Monitor.
• Time Master gave Chen Tao Brother Eye data and explained that he could fuse with the heroes to dilute Barbatos’s influence.
• Chen Tao absorbed the Brother Eye data, resisted its mental contamination, explained his plan, and began swallowing the heroes, starting with Chinese Superman Kong Kenan.
• The Anti-Monitor expected Supreme Superboy to find the battlefield, but the Over-Time Stream suddenly brought Supreme Superboy and a cosmic black hole before him and Chen Tao.

Supreme Superboy emerged from the Over-Time Stream with memories that made him the future Time Trapper, then attacked the Anti-Monitor while Chen Tao planned to weaken him by showing him Darkseid’s death. As Parallax Hal prepared to remake the universe, he sensed something unexpected and suddenly froze.

• Supreme Superboy recovered memories of a different history, realized how to find Batman and the Anti-Monitor, and set out for Earth-15 to complete the Over-Time Stream’s loop.
• Supreme Superboy arrived at Chen Tao’s battlefield, failed to recognize him, and charged the Anti-Monitor after mistaking him for an enemy he had already killed.
• The Anti-Monitor tried to redirect Supreme Superboy’s anger toward Batman, but they fought while Batman continued swallowing heroes nearby.
• Chen Tao asked Time Master to open a portal to the moment Darkseid died so the Omega Effect’s backlash could weaken the Anti-Monitor without changing history.
• Parallax Hal explained his plan to erase existence and rebuild the universe, then sensed an unknown presence and stopped moving.

Parallax Hal reconstructed a new universe before the heroes, but the collapsing Over-Time Stream erased the scene and led him to Earth-15. There, he attacked the Anti-Monitor and fought Supreme Superboy, forcing Batman, the Anti-Monitor, and Supreme Superboy into a tentative alliance.

• Parallax Hal showed Guy Gardner and the other heroes a newly created universe and promised to restore their loved ones and lost worlds.
• The Over-Time Stream collapsed, erasing the heroes and Hal's created universe while leaving Hal himself intact.
• Hal traced the disturbance to Earth-15, where he found Batman, the Anti-Monitor, and Supreme Superboy.
• The Anti-Monitor urged Batman to help stop Hal, and Batman agreed that they were already teammates.
• Hal pierced the Anti-Monitor's chest and struck Supreme Superboy, who retaliated with heat vision as Batman considered how to join the fight.

Chen Tao learned that his actions had led to Parallax Hal and Supreme Superboy conquering the Multiverse and repeatedly rewriting reality. After the last survivors of Justice Incarnate warned him that only he could stop the catastrophe, Chen Tao accepted that the Light World was not his home.

• President Superman, Captain Carrot, and Chinese Batman Wang Poxi emerged from a golden portal, gravely injured and being pulled back through it.
• President Superman and Wang Poxi told Chen Tao that Parallax Hal and Supreme Superboy had defeated the Anti-Monitor, killed Chen Tao, and invaded the Prime Universe.
• Wang Poxi recounted how repeated attempts to remake reality brought the Multiverse to the brink of collapse, while the surviving heroes' efforts to change history failed.
• Wang Poxi told Chen Tao that the last survivors would try to weaken Parallax Hal by shaking the timeline, but Chen Tao alone could change the outcome.
• Chen Tao released the three heroes, said he understood, and recognized that the Light World was wonderful but was not his home.

Barbatos tried to stop Parallax Hal and Supreme Superboy from destroying the Multiverse, while Chen Tao bargained for freedom from Barbatos’s control. Chen Tao agreed to guard the World Forge, then tricked Barbatos by sending the two gods through its portal instead.

• Barbatos discovered that Parallax Hal and Supreme Superboy’s repeated reboots were driving the Multiverse toward destruction, threatening his own power and plans.
• Barbatos could not leave the World Forge at full strength, so he tried to corrupt Batman and recover the missing authority of the Barbatos Dragon.
• Chen Tao demanded that Barbatos surrender control of the Barbatos Dragon, but Barbatos refused and instead offered to merge Chen Tao with the Anti-Monitor so Chen Tao could guard the World Forge.
• Chen Tao accepted Barbatos’s offer, and Barbatos suppressed the Anti-Monitor and merged him with Chen Tao.
• Chen Tao opened a portal to the World Forge, then turned around and slapped Parallax Hal and Supreme Superboy through it, leaving Barbatos to face them.

Chen Tao used a time-looping plan to separate Barbatos’s influence from his body and claim the Dark Multiverse Dragon position. After he left to save his Dark Multiverse, the Time Trapper arrived at Earth-15, completing the timeline’s loop.

• Chen Tao rejected the Anti-Monitor’s offer to work together and explained that he planned to transfer Barbatos’s influence into him by splitting their fused body.
• Doctor Manhattan examined branching histories and saw that the Multiverse repeatedly failed to repair the timeline until the speedsters brought Chen Tao a specially forged sword.
• Barry Allen led more than twenty speedsters in using the Speed Force to help Chen Tao separate the Anti-Monitor from himself.
• The Time Master and Golden Pioneer opened a portal to Final Crisis, where the departing Omega Effect destabilized the Anti-Monitor and left him unable to resist.
• Chen Tao completed the separation, retained part of the Barbatos Dragon’s authority as the Dark Multiverse Dragon, and left to save his Dark Multiverse while Barbatos took the Anti-Monitor.
• The Time Trapper arrived at Earth-15, completing the timeline loop.

Doctor Manhattan severed the Over-Time Stream’s newly completed temporal loop and defeated the wounded Thought Superman, then found Chen Tao preparing to fortify the Dark Multiverse. Manhattan offered to evacuate Chen Tao’s universe, threatening the plan that would make Batman its gatekeeper.

• Doctor Manhattan decided to intervene in Batman’s final choice and sever the temporal loop, causing the multiverse to recoil and summon the wounded Thought Superman.
• Thought Superman refused to let Manhattan pass, but Manhattan erased his limbs and eventually stepped over his ashes.
• Chen Tao used the Anti-Monitor’s help to separate a quarter of the Barbatos Dragon’s status and freed the mortal Mobius, then asked him to help build defenses against Barbatos.
• Chen Tao promised Mobius freedom after retirement and explained his plan to make Batman the Dark Multiverse’s gatekeeper.
• Doctor Manhattan appeared before Chen Tao and offered to evacuate every living being from his universe to a safe universe in the matter multiverse.

Doctor Manhattan tried to persuade Chen Tao to abandon his role in the Dark Multiverse crisis and retire, while Golden Pioneer and Time Master’s attempt to alter Batman’s history unexpectedly destroyed Fiji. Chen Tao refused to abandon the Dark Multiverse’s inhabitants and chose to face the risk of failure.

• Golden Pioneer and Time Master planned to travel into Batman’s past, but Doctor Manhattan tampered with their device and fixed them as surveillance probes on Fiji across different timelines.
• Doctor Manhattan offered Chen Tao a way to move his universes away from the Multiverse’s crisis and retire, arguing that someone else could save the Multiverse.
• Chen Tao asked who would save the Multiverse if he accepted Manhattan’s offer, and Manhattan said another hero could take his place.
• Chen Tao told Manhattan that Fiji had been destroyed, and Manhattan discovered that Golden Pioneer and Time Master’s altered history had changed events beyond his control.
• Chen Tao rejected the offer to abandon the Dark Multiverse’s inhabitants and said he had considered the possibility of failure.

Barbatos used the Anti-Monitor Dragon and the Dark Knights to attack Parallax Hal and Supreme Superboy while Batman used the heroes’ positive-matter energy to build a fortress beyond Barbatos’s control. After the fortress shook the Dark Multiverse and the Alfred Protocol malfunctioned, Batman refused to release the heroes immediately because he needed their power to resurrect friends.

• Barbatos controlled the Anti-Monitor Dragon by cutting off its supply of antimatter energy and sent the Dark Knights to weaken Supreme Superboy with Kryptonite dust.
• Parallax Hal weakened as his existence flickered under a Time Remnant reaction, giving Barbatos an opening to attack him.
• Batman used the Dark Multiverse Dragon’s divine aspect and the energy of more than 3,000 heroes to reshape stars and planets, causing the Dark Multiverse to tremble and freeing echoes of the dead across its worlds.
• Chen Tao returned to the Dark Multiverse, erased the malfunctioning Alfred Protocol’s warnings, and joined the Batman and Owlman universes into a makeshift fortress.
• Golden Pioneer and Time Master demanded that Chen Tao release the heroes so their memories could be erased and they could return to their timelines, but Chen Tao said he needed their power to resurrect friends.

Chen Tao traveled through the Dark Multiverse as the dragon, rescuing the souls of fallen Justice League members and briefly giving hope to doomed worlds. After returning to his fortress, he left a changed Over-Time Stream full of emerging crises, while Emperor Joker was teased as a possible new threat.

• Chen Tao diverted Cyborg Superman’s Kryptonite beam, saving Superman and giving Lois Lane a temporary reprieve from her violent fate.
• Chen Tao brought hope to several Dark Multiverse worlds, fought Dread Lantern and a corrupted Wonder Woman, and collected the bones of his own Wonder Woman.
• Doctor Manhattan watched Chen Tao’s journey, while Parallax Hal recovered memories of the Over-Time Stream and called Mordru to him.
• First Lantern realized he could locate Earth-15 and save his mother, while Black Death Emperor considered using Larfleeze as a spy.
• Brainiac prepared Multiverse Fusion, Barbatos accelerated his invasion plans with Anti-Monitor’s power, and Chen Tao returned to his fortress.
• The chapter revealed that Emperor Joker might break free from the Over-Time Stream.