Knull steered Grendel's Black Dragon body through the darkness. Shrouded in Abyss energy, the dragon was slowly changing shape.
A denser, dark substance filled the gaps between its scales, while serrated growths sharp as blades spread along the edges of its wing membranes.
Knull was known as the God of Darkness. He could create and control all dark power, and the darkness produced by the Abyss was a source of his strength.
Loki looked at Russell. "Didn't you promise Odin you'd step in? What are you waiting for?"
Russell hovered in midair, gazing at the Manhattan skyline buried beneath layer upon layer of darkness.
He pulled his right hand from his pocket and casually pointed toward the Plasma Prism Tower rising into the clouds.
The gesture was so effortless that he might have been giving a passerby directions.
But the instant his finger pointed at the tower, a dazzling light flared across the surface of the golden spire, which had grown almost invisible beneath the darkness.
Light climbed from the base, illuminating the patterns on the tower's surface one layer at a time. In less than half a second, it reached the tip, then burst outward like a lit fuse.
BOOM!!
Golden light exploded from the tower's peak, forming a thick, straight column that pierced the darkness covering the sky.
The tendrils in the darkness shrank and vanished the moment they touched the beam, like paper consumed by fire. A clear golden passage opened in its wake and rapidly widened.
The passage pierced every layer of darkness and reconnected with the sunlight lingering above the clouds. Like a luminous anchor line fired from the ground, it dragged the entire city back from the edge of darkness and into the sun.
Then golden light spread in every direction from the Plasma