Chapter Summaries

After Kenneth sent the injured Gilgamesh to Kental Maximum Security Prison, Makkari and Sprite secretly rescued him and took him aboard the Eternals’ Starship. Kenneth discovered the escape and investigated the swap while Gilgamesh’s companions brought him to Ajak in Canada.

• Kenneth ordered the Arbiters to imprison Black Sovereign, but Makkari and Sprite secretly replaced him with an illusion and carried the injured Gilgamesh away.
• Sprite agreed to let Makkari summon the Starship, and they transported Gilgamesh aboard it.
• Kenneth watched footage of Gilgamesh vanishing from his prison cell and concluded that someone had rescued him in the Amazon settlement.
• Kenneth and Shay ruled out Loki as the rescuer after Kenneth explained that Loki was dead, then Shay teased Kenneth about his relationship with Fox.
• Makkari arrived at Ajak’s cabin in Quebec carrying the unconscious Gilgamesh.

Ajak healed the badly injured Gilgamesh and learned that the Red Order had defeated Kamar-Taj and that Gilgamesh had been wounded by its cultists. Ikaris arrived with Sprite, then took Ajak to the ship to discuss a private matter, leaving Makkari and Sprite behind.

• Makkari brought unconscious Gilgamesh to Ajak, who treated his severe injuries and told Makkari he needed to rest.
• Makkari explained that Gilgamesh had investigated the Red Order, discovered it had conquered Kamar-Taj, and was injured in an encounter with its Crimson Cultists.
• Ajak realized Sprite had accompanied Makkari to her cabin, and Ikaris arrived soon after with Sprite.
• Sprite admitted that Makkari had asked her to help bring the ship, while Makkari took responsibility for starting it to get Gilgamesh to Ajak quickly.
• Ikaris assured Ajak that no satellite had detected the ship, then took her aboard to speak privately; Makkari apologized to Sprite, who forgave her.

Ajak and Ikaris argued over the coming Emergence and the Celestials’ mission before Ikaris revealed he had discovered Deviants in Alaska. While they flew there, Rhodes led a Magitech Legion detachment to the cabin, and Sprite and Makkari escaped into the forest with the unconscious Gilgamesh as Rhodes knocked on the door.

• Ajak urged Ikaris to protect humanity from the Emergence, but Ikaris insisted the Celestials’ mission mattered more and criticized the Eternals for living among humans.
• Ikaris revealed he had found Deviants in Alaska, and Ajak ordered him to take her there and gather their partners if needed.
• Ajak and Ikaris flew their spaceship toward Alaska, leaving Sprite and Makkari behind in the cabin.
• The Red Order and Tony Stark detected an unknown spaceship energy signal in Quebec, and Rhodes led fifteen enchanted Iron Armors to investigate.
• Sprite and Makkari saw Rhodes’s forces outside, created illusions to conceal their escape, and fled into the forest carrying the unconscious Gilgamesh.
• Rhodes approached the cabin and knocked, asking whether anyone was home.

Rhodes’s team arrived too late to capture the Black Sovereign, then received orders to retrieve an unknown spaceship in Alaska. There, Ikaris attacked Ajak for opposing the Eternals’ mission, and Ajak found a shotgun after falling onto the ice as a howl came from a nearby cave.

• Rhodes found that the Black Sovereign and Makkari were illusions and reported that they had escaped.
• Tony reprimanded Rhodes, then ordered his division to retrieve the spaceship and its master in Alaska, eliminating anyone who resisted.
• Ikaris led Ajak to an Alaskan ice field and accused her of betraying the Eternals’ mission.
• Ikaris shattered Ajak’s energy shield and blasted her off a cliff onto the ice below.
• Ajak found a Remington M870 shotgun in the snow and heard a wolf-like howl from a cave.

Ajak was killed by Deviants, and their leader absorbed her Cosmic Energy and evolved. Ikaris fought the Red Order’s Magitech Warriors, then pursued the Eternals’ spaceship until Tony Stark intercepted him in the MX-79 armor.

• Ajak shot several Deviants before they overwhelmed her, and their leader drained her Cosmic Energy and evolved into a more humanlike form.
• Ikaris left Ajak’s body behind, then was ambushed by four Magitech Warriors in black Iron Armor near the spaceship.
• Ikaris broke free of the Crimson Energy Chains and destroyed all four Magitech Warriors before flying after the spaceship.
• At Red Order headquarters, Tony Stark ignored High Priestess Strucker’s warning, ordered Edgar and three warriors to the glacial valley, and left to confront Ikaris.
• Tony intercepted Ikaris in the MX-79 armor, and Ikaris warned him to move or die.

Tony’s Iron Armor defeated Ikaris, disrupted his Cosmic Energy, and sealed him, while the Red Order captured a wounded Deviant leader and recovered Ajak’s corpse. After learning from Kaecilius that the Eternals might be an ancient and powerful race, Strucker asked him to read Ikaris’s memories.

• Tony fought Ikaris with Iron Armor, wounded him, then stripped away his control of Cosmic Energy and sealed him in a Sealing Spirit Orb.
• Tony stopped the ten black armors from killing the wounded Deviant leader, offered it a choice, and sealed it after it chose to live.
• Tony ordered the Magitech Warriors to collect the Deviant corpses and took Ajak’s corpse from the ice plain.
• At Red Order headquarters, Tony told High Priestess Strucker that Ikaris was far stronger than him without the MX-79 armor.
• Kaecilius arrived from Kamar-Taj and reported that Master Wong had found ancient accounts resembling the Eternals’ abilities.
• Strucker asked Kaecilius to read Ikaris’s memories.

Strucker sent Grant Ward to capture the Eternals hiding in Quebec, and Grant used crimson lightning to overwhelm Sprite and locate her companions. Grant captured Sprite, Gilgamesh, and Makkari and prepared to return to headquarters.

• Strucker ordered Grant Ward to find and capture the Eternals in Quebec, while Kaecilius left to extract memories.
• Grant Ward and his subordinates surrounded the forest as Sprite watched over the unconscious Gilgamesh and Makkari in a tree hollow.
• Grant struck Makkari with lightning when she left the hollow, and Sprite tested the enemy with illusions before realizing he had found their hiding place.
• Sprite created tens of thousands of illusions and fled among them, but Grant unleashed a vast thunder net that destroyed the illusions and devastated the forest.
• Grant bound the unconscious Gilgamesh and Makkari, while his subordinate caught Sprite in a crimson net and brought her back.
• Grant confirmed that all three targets were captured and ordered his subordinates to return to headquarters.

Kaecilius’s attempt to search Ikaris’s soul revealed a warning about the Celestials and the Emergence, but Arishem struck back and left Kaecilius gravely injured and unconscious. As Tony and Strucker discussed the Eternals and their ship, the captive Deviant leader’s healed arm stump began to bleed and writhe again.

• Kaecilius entered Ikaris’s memories and discovered information about the Eternals, the Emergence, and Arishem the Judge.
• Arishem sensed Kaecilius and destroyed his spiritual fragment, leaving Kaecilius badly injured and unconscious after he warned Tony about a Celestial conspiracy.
• Christine Palmer treated Kaecilius but said the healing device could not assess his skull or soul injuries, and only Richard might be able to wake him.
• Tony learned that Grant Ward had captured three Eternals alive, then told Strucker that Kaecilius’s soul might be severely damaged.
• Strucker ruled that Rhodes would lose his squad-leader position but be demoted only to ordinary soldier before becoming acting squad leader in recognition of capturing the Eternals’ ship.
• The captive Deviant leader’s previously healed arm stump split open, began bleeding, and started to writhe.

Strucker ordered Judy Essex, Lena Walker, and Andrew Garner to use the Soul-Searching Secret Art on the imprisoned Deviant leader after its regeneration revealed a possible connection between Deviants and Eternals. After the first two searches were disrupted by the creature’s violent reactions, Andrew sealed its memories in a blue-stone stele covered with strange script.

• White Queen showed Strucker surveillance footage of the Deviant leader regenerating its severed arms, prompting him to summon Judy Essex, Lena Walker, and Andrew Garner.
• Judy Essex searched the Deviant leader’s memories, but it erupted with Cosmic Energy and threw her across the cell before Strucker stopped her fall.
• Lena Walker tried reading the creature’s memories, uncovered its belief that its kind was the perfect race, and was repelled by a violent surge of energy.
• Andrew Garner used a Hexagram Array to imprison the Deviant leader in amber and began copying its memories onto the seal.
• As strange script appeared across the amber, Andrew Garner transformed it into a mountain-shaped blue-stone stele covered in rows of black characters.

Strucker learned from the memory stele that the Celestials created the Deviants and that the Eternals fought them, then narrowly contained a Deviant leader’s catastrophic transformation. She ordered the Red Order to watch the Eternals, while Tina suffered a violent episode and Gilgamesh stayed by her side.

• Andrew Garner completed copying part of the Deviant leader’s memories, and Strucker released Melinda May while warning Garner that she should join the Order.
• Strucker viewed memories showing the Celestials creating the Deviants and the Eternals, including Tina and Gilgamesh, fighting them on Earth.
• The Deviant leader began swelling toward an explosion, so Strucker stripped the cell into a separate spatial sphere; it shattered, and she returned to her office.
• Strucker warned the Red Order to report the Eternals and ordered surveillance of Kingo, Sersi, and Phastos after they were found, while Tina and Gilgamesh remained unlocated.
• Tina fell into a murderous frenzy and struck Gilgamesh repeatedly, but he held and comforted her until she collapsed, then carried her to bed.

Tiamut began the Emergence, triggering catastrophic earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis across Earth while Sersi received the Eternals’ summons in a nightmare. Strucker and Mordo realized the sleeping entity at Earth’s core was about to be born, but with Richard absent and no way to reach Tiamut, they did not know how to stop it.

• Arishem sensed Tiamut on Earth and left the newly seeded living planet as Sersi heard the summons to the Eternals in her sleep.
• Tiamut’s projection disappeared, his body began to unfold, and disasters erupted worldwide as governments scrambled to respond.
• President Ellis halted a chaotic White House meeting and ordered officials to propose practical disaster-response measures.
• India’s leaders urged people to pray, while Little Japan’s citizens protested as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and a tsunami threatened the country.
• High Priest Strucker told Mordo that Kaecilius remained unconscious and that the Order’s branches were trying to contain the disasters.
• Strucker recognized the Emergence and warned Mordo that Tiamut’s birth could split Earth, but they had no way to stop it without Richard or contact with the entity.

Strucker questioned Ikaris and Sprite to learn how the Eternals could stop the Emergence, using what he knew about their companions and Sersi to provoke them. Sprite agreed to share a way to stop it if Strucker told her what happened to Ikaris, and he began recounting the attack in Alaska.

• Strucker left Mordo and went to the base’s prison, where he questioned Ikaris about the Eternals, Ajak’s death, Sersi, and the Emergence.
• Ikaris revealed that the Eternals were meant to ensure the Emergence and that he had killed Ajak because she wanted to stop it.
• Strucker left Ikaris and warned Makkari against attacking him, demonstrating the dangerous magical defenses in the corridor.
• Strucker spoke with Sprite and showed her footage of disasters around the world, confirming that the Emergence had begun.
• Sprite offered to explain how to stop the Emergence if Strucker told her what happened to Ikaris, and Strucker began describing Ikaris and Ajak’s encounter with Deviants in Alaska.

Strucker questioned Sprite about stopping the Emergence, learning that Ajak and Ikaris had supposedly entrusted the Red Order to help the Eternals. Sprite admitted she did not know the solution, but revealed two methods Phastos had proposed, leaving the second dependent on uniting all the Eternals.

• Strucker told Sprite that Ikaris had been rescued but Ajak had died, and learned that Ajak alone could communicate with the Celestials.
• Strucker claimed Ajak and Ikaris had asked the Red Order to help stop the Emergence, prompting Sprite to offer what she knew.
• Sprite admitted that the Celestials had never told the Eternals how to stop the Emergence.
• Sprite explained Phastos's first proposal: Ajak could persuade the Celestial inside the earth to stop the Emergence, but Strucker dismissed it because Tiamut was deeply asleep.
• Sprite described Phastos's second proposal: Sersi could turn Tiamut's bodily tissue into rock to delay His emergence, but only if all the Eternals united their will.

Strucker learned of Sprite’s plan to channel the Eternals’ energy through Sersi and ordered his forces to capture the people and device needed for it. In London, Shay’s team threatened Dane until Sersi agreed to go with them, leaving her fate uncertain.

• Sprite explained that Phastos’s Telepathic Unification Device could gather the Eternals’ energy in Sersi, though its simulated chance of success was less than one in ten thousand.
• Strucker ordered teams to capture Sersi, Phastos, Dane Whitman, Ben, and Jack alive and retrieve the device from Chicago.
• Strucker’s team confronted Sersi and Dane in their London apartment, and Thomas restrained Dane.
• Shay threatened Dane with a Crimson Sword and demanded that Sersi surrender.
• Sersi agreed to go with Shay’s team if they released Dane, while golden Cosmic Energy began glowing in her hands.

Shay’s team forced Sersi to surrender by threatening Dane, then traveled to Chicago to confront Phastos at home. Phastos recognized their portal magic and asked what they wanted, while Ben and Jack were blocked from leaving.

• Shay held Dane at swordpoint, and Sersi surrendered to protect him.
• Phastos, Ben, and Jack shared dinner, and Jack enjoyed Phastos’s carrot stew.
• A crimson portal opened in Phastos’s home, and he ordered Ben to take Jack upstairs.
• Kenneth and four others emerged from the portal, while Dmitri blocked Ben and Jack from reaching the stairs.
• Phastos recognized the visitors as Kamar-Taj sorcerers and asked what they wanted.

Kenneth told Phastos that the Emergence had begun early and asked him to help save Earth. Phastos doubted his old plan could work, but Kenneth urged him to try for Ben and Jack, leaving Phastos silent as Jack excitedly learned he was a superhero.

• Kenneth revealed that the global disasters were signs of the Emergence and said the Red Order had come for Phastos's help.
• Kenneth explained that Sprite had told them about Phastos's plan, and Phastos realized the Eternals' identities had been exposed.
• Phastos said his plan was no longer feasible because the Eternals had split up and Ikaris would not agree.
• Kenneth urged Phastos to try anyway, reminding him that Ben and Jack would die if the Emergence destroyed Earth.
• Dmitri told Jack that Phastos was a superhero, and Jack excitedly imagined telling his classmates.

Phastos agreed to join Kenneth and leave with his family, and he and Sersi were brought to the Red Order headquarters in Sokovia. There, Strucker showed them proof that Ikaris had killed Ajak and explained that Phastos's original plan could no longer work.

• Phastos chose his family over his mission and agreed to go with Kenneth, then shielded Ben and Little Jack when an earthquake sent the dining table sliding toward them.
• Phastos, Ben, and Little Jack were taken to the Red Order headquarters, where Strucker welcomed Phastos and Sersi.
• Phastos urged Strucker to act quickly because the Emergence had begun and asked where the other Eternals were.
• Strucker showed Sersi and Phastos a video of Ikaris pushing Ajak off a cliff and the Deviants killing her.
• Strucker told them Ikaris had betrayed them, Ajak was dead, and the original plan needed to be changed.

Phastos explained that his plan to save Earth depended on uniting the Eternals’ will and channeling their cosmic energy into Sersi, but he doubted their energies could be combined. Kenneth then revealed a forbidden spell that could pool casters’ mana and transfer it to one person, giving Phastos a possible solution.

• Phastos told Strucker that his Telepathic Unification Device required the Eternals to share their will and cosmic energy with Sersi.
• At Strucker’s request, Shay and Kenneth demonstrated a zero-consumption mana cycle, astonishing Phastos and Sersi.
• Phastos concluded that Sersi’s cosmic energy could not merge with the others’ energy, leaving his plan unworkable.
• Kenneth unveiled an ancient parchment describing the Ring of Damballa, a spell that pooled mana among casters and channeled it into one caster.
• Phastos eagerly examined the parchment.

Phastos adapted the Life Resonance Chain into a safer Group Mana Pool, and Sersi agreed to join the operation after learning Ikaris was alive. The Red Order gathered above the Indian Ocean as Phastos began casting the array.

• Phastos explained that the Life Resonance Chain drew on casters’ vitality to create a shared mana pool, and Kenneth realized its cost was trading life for mana.
• Phastos redesigned the array with energy feedback, adjustable conversion rates, shared consumption, and a buffer layer to reduce the danger.
• Strucker called for the plan to begin, and Sersi agreed after asking whether Ikaris was alive.
• Strucker, Sersi, Phastos, and the Red Order’s forces assembled above the Indian Ocean, where Phastos enlarged the golden array to enclose them.

Strucker and Tony Stark activated the golden array to channel life force into Sersi, who used her matter manipulation ability to turn the Indian Ocean into stone. Her transformation energy stirred Tiamut the Celestial, who began emerging from beneath the seabed and reached toward the array.

• Strucker ordered the Crimson Believers into position on the golden array’s resonance nodes.
• Tony Stark ordered the Magitech Legion to raise the array, cloaking it in heavy clouds.
• Sersi connected herself to the group mana pool and absorbed an overwhelming stream of life force.
• After Phastos warned her to use her matter manipulation ability, Sersi unleashed cosmic energy and transformed the Indian Ocean into stone.
• Tiamut the Celestial began rising through a fissure in the seabed, and Sersi realized he was about to be born.
• Tiamut’s giant hand broke through the petrified sea and reached toward the golden array.