Chapter Summaries

Tony learned that Thanos was preparing to attack the Dark Generals and chose to let them fight while he stayed on vacation, planning to use The Ancient One’s command of the Space Stone to gather powerful enemies for him. He sent Hyperion to aid Loki and remained with Linda and Adam, intent on dealing with the Destroyer himself.

• Loki warned Tony that Thanos and a large coalition, including The Ancient One and the Sovereign Volunteers, were preparing to attack the Dark Generals for the Mind Stone and Space Stone.
• Tony told Loki to fight the attackers and surrender the Space Stone to The Ancient One if necessary, hoping she would use it to assemble a powerful allied army.
• Tony explained that even with all six Infinity Stones, The Ancient One would hesitate to kill him because his Three-Life Body let him survive death and return.
• Tony refused to leave his vacation, but sent Hyperion back to the Nova Sector to help protect Loki and the others while they recovered.
• Linda and Adam defended the Sovereign Empire’s queen when Tony learned the Volunteers were part of its Liberal Faction, and Tony said he planned to kill the Destroyer rather than attack the empire.

Tony tried to profit from stirring up a war between the Dark Empire and the Anti-Demon Alliance, offering Linda a Darkness Mark and weapons. Meanwhile, Loki’s group prepared to hand the Space Stone to the Ancient One and tricked Hyperion into holding it, expecting him to take the beating.

• Tony explained to Linda that war would accelerate the Dark Empire’s development and offered her a Darkness Mark granting eternal life, resurrection, and unlimited energy.
• Linda agreed to try the mark, telling Adam to have her younger sister kill her and take the throne if it controlled her.
• Loki and the Generals worried about facing Ronan’s army and the Sovereign Volunteers without Tony, but Loki insisted they had to resist before giving the Space Stone to the Ancient One.
• The Generals refused to volunteer to hold the Space Stone, so Loki handed it to the returning Hyperion by promising it would help him conquer and earn the boss’s praise.
• Hyperion declared himself invincible with the Infinity Stone, while the Generals silently pitied him for the fight ahead.

Loki and the Generals planned to stall the Anti-Demon Alliance while Hyperion believed they were trusting him to lead the defense. They sent him to face the vastly larger enemy fleet, where he provoked Thanos into charging at him as Ronan ordered the attack.

• Loki and the Generals flattered Hyperion and assigned him the responsibility of defending the Dark Empire while they planned to stall for time.
• The Ancient One studied possible futures and prepared a quick strike to seize one Infinity Stone before Tony returned.
• Hyperion saw the eight-billion-ship alliance fleet and protested that the Dark Empire had only nine hundred million ships, but Loki, Ratso, and Spider-Man urged him to hold the line.
• Hyperion used the Space Stone and taunted Thanos about having his ass skewered, making the alliance army erupt with gossip.
• Thanos flew out of the Dark Aster in a rage to kill Hyperion, and Ronan ordered his forces to attack the Dark Empire.

Commander Dier learned that the Dark Generals were powerful, resurrecting Asgardian gods and that Tony had gone to the Sovereign Capital Star. After discovering that Linda had turned dark as well, Dier rallied the fleet to fight the Dark Empire despite losing his home.

• The Ancient One ordered Nolan to rescue Dier's flagship after the Dark Generals survived the Sovereign fleet's bombardment and destroyed the command ship.
• Ronan and the Ancient One told Dier that the Dark Generals were powerful Asgardian gods linked to Tony, who had devoured Asgard's Skyfather and could keep them resurrecting.
• The Ancient One revealed that Tony had gone to the Sovereign Capital Star, and Dier fainted when he realized his home was under attack.
• Dier called Linda and saw that she was surrounded by a dark aura, then broke down after the projection disconnected.
• Dier ordered the Sovereign fleet to attack the Dark Empire with full firepower, and the others saw that grief had only intensified the fleet's fighting spirit.

Tony strengthened his Darkness Mark by defeating Drax, then left Linda to expand the volunteer army’s attacks. On the warfront, the Ancient One realized the Demon King had deliberately arranged for her to obtain the Space Stone, but she could not figure out his plan.

• Linda asked Tony whether the Darkness Mark affected her mind, and he explained that he had removed its mind-control function.
• Linda told Tony that Drax had arrived near the energy-processing plant, so Tony sent Mephisto to cripple and seal the Destroyer.
• Tony received Chiu’s thunder demon chi, grew substantially stronger, and departed after telling Linda to intensify the volunteer army’s attacks.
• The Ancient One received the Space Stone after Thanos defeated Hyperion, but she suspected the war was unfolding too smoothly.
• Thanos and the Ancient One reasoned that the Demon King had deliberately left the Space Stone with Hyperion so the Ancient One could obtain it, and she realized he was plotting something unknown.

The Anti-Demon Alliance Army retreated after failing to break through the Dark Empire's defenses, while the Space Stone reached The Ancient One. Commander Dier then revealed an experimental weapon that could not safely be used against the Demon King, leaving The Ancient One's Power of All Beings as their best hope.

• The Anti-Demon Alliance Army withdrew, leaving Commander Dier's Sovereign Volunteers to cover its retreat while the Dark Empire held its position.
• Loki stopped Hyperion from pursuing Thanos and reminded him that handing the Space Stone to The Ancient One had been their mission.
• Tony arrived with Mephisto, praised Hyperion for completing the mission, and explained that The Ancient One could use the Space Stone to gather heroes and develop the Power of All Beings.
• Commander Dier told The Ancient One and Thanos about the experimental Multidimensional Energy Weapon and asked for help creating an opening to fire it.
• Adjutant Nolan revealed that the weapon's blast would kill its operators and devastate half the star system if used against the Demon King, so The Ancient One dismissed it as useless.

The Ancient One and her allies prepared a power-of-all-beings model to defeat the Demon King, but Tony arrived and revealed that he wanted the model to develop ultimate darkness. Tony sealed spacetime, devastated the Sovereign fleet, absorbed Captain Marvel’s energy and memories, while The Ancient One escaped with the others.

• The Ancient One dismissed Commander Dier’s weapon and gathered the group to plan how to defeat the Demon King.
• Tony appeared in the hall, and Commander Dier and Nolan recognized the danger and called him Daddy; Star-Lord attacked him and was knocked unconscious through the warship’s barrier.
• Tony explained that the positive and negative versions of the power-of-all-beings model served his plan to create an upgraded ultimate darkness.
• The Ancient One tried to retreat with the Time-Space Stone, but Tony sealed spacetime and unleashed a Thunderstorm that destroyed nearby Sovereign ships.
• Tony trapped Captain Marvel in the storm, absorbed her energy and memories, while The Ancient One teleported Star-Lord and the others to safety.

Tony revealed that the power-of-all-beings model could not counter him because the Dark Empire’s essence came from outside the universe, and he intended to use The Ancient One’s Spacetime Forbidden Art to devour the Four Great Cosmic Beasts. Meanwhile, The Ancient One learned Captain Marvel was dead and decided to release a powerful King Hyperion from Temporal Turbulence, as the disrupted timeline threatened a hidden crisis.

• Tony left Commander Dier and Nolan unharmed inside an energy-silent zone, and Linda appointed Dier supreme commander of the war against the Dark Empire despite his protests.
• Tony explained the model’s Maxwell’s Demon could reverse cosmic energy, but revealed that the Dark Empire did not belong to this universe and so escaped its effects.
• Tony told Loki and the generals that he planned to devour Maxwell and the Four Great Cosmic Beasts, which The Ancient One could summon with her Spacetime Forbidden Art.
• The Ancient One divined that the Demon King had devoured Captain Marvel and warned Thanos that the enemy likely knew the power-of-all-beings model.
• The Ancient One proposed releasing King Hyperion, whom she had sealed in Temporal Turbulence, to fight the Demon King.

The Ancient One took Thanos to Knowhere to offer the Tyrannical Dragon King his release after his long imprisonment. They arrived just as he finished building a device to escape, and he broke down when the Ancient One said his sentence was over.

• The Ancient One explained that she had defeated and imprisoned the Tyrannical Dragon King after he arrived in her universe, where he had planned to conquer it.
• The Ancient One and Thanos traveled to Knowhere and found the Tyrannical Dragon King cursing her while working on an escape device.
• The Tyrannical Dragon King completed his galaxy-scale device for breaking through temporal turbulence just before the Ancient One arrived.
• The Ancient One offered to release him if he accepted her conditions, but the Tyrannical Dragon King demanded that she leave and let him escape by himself.
• The Tyrannical Dragon King grabbed the Ancient One, refused her offer, and collapsed into tears over the timing of his release.

The Tyrannical Dragon King tried to escape with his Galactic Weapon, but the Ancient One secretly reinforced the space-time prison and caused his attempt to fail. She led him out through the front door, leaving him devastated as Thanos and Star-Lord watched.

• The Tyrannical Dragon King prepared his Galactic Weapon, while the Ancient One used the Time Stone and Space Stone to reinforce the prison around him.
• The Ancient One secretly layered additional Spacetime Forbidden Arts over the existing barrier, and Thanos criticized her for sabotaging the escape attempt.
• The Tyrannical Dragon King fired the weapon and briefly opened a Space-Time Portal, but the portal collapsed and the weapon overloaded.
• The Tyrannical Dragon King broke down over his failure, and the Ancient One comforted him while leading him toward the front door.
• Star-Lord asked Thanos about the sobbing man, and Thanos identified him as the Tyrannical Dragon King and blamed the Ancient One for his condition.

The Ancient One and the Tyrannical Dragon King debated whether the Demon King’s unification of the universe justified his methods, then agreed to work together against him despite their conflicting ideals. Meanwhile, Tony reluctantly handled the empire’s growing backlog of proposals and discovered that Hyperion had become a lawyer whose client had begged for execution.

• The Tyrannical Dragon King challenged The Ancient One to explain why she opposed the Demon King’s rule, and they argued over unification, diversity, and civilization’s competing paths.
• Thanos joked that his belief in eliminating half of all life could be settled with a fight, while The Ancient One and the Tyrannical Dragon King acknowledged their impasse and agreed to cooperate against the Demon King.
• Loki threatened to kill himself unless Tony dealt with the empire’s documents, so Tony sat on the Throne and approved a proposal to restore light and varied appearances to the dark environment.
• Tony outlined and signed a system for social advancement based on civilization development, individual cultivation, basic welfare, and reincarnation for those whose cultivation went astray.
• Tony and the generals discovered that Hyperion had defended the Blood Lord in a manslaughter case, but the Blood Lord had confessed to intentional murder and begged to be killed with Holy Water.

Loki presented plans to restructure the Nine Generals' territories, while the generals laughed over Hyperion's disastrous court case. As Tony and Hyperion inspected a planet, Hyperion revealed that he deliberately acted foolish to avoid unwanted work.

• Loki read how Hyperion exposed the Blood Lord's innocence by replaying an embarrassing private scene during a public trial.
• Loki gave Tony a plan to restructure the Nine Generals' territories, with tailored proposals for each general and a one-sentence instruction for Hyperion: “Don't do anything.”
• Tony approved Loki's proposal and left with Hyperion to inspect a planet in the Nova Sector.
• Mephisto wondered whether Hyperion was pretending to be foolish, and Loki dismissed the idea before privately reconsidering it.
• Tony recognized Hyperion's intelligence, and Hyperion admitted he played the fool so the others would leave him out of work he disliked.

Tony restored summer on Nova's Capital Star and ordered Hyperion to accelerate the empire's conversion and develop specialized territories for the Nine Generals. The Ancient One brought the Tyrannical Dragon King to see the Dark Empire, where its cheerful, empowered residents made him doubt her claims about Tony.

• Tony restored the sky and vegetation on Nova's Capital Star after promising a child he would bring back summer, and the child gave him a cicada.
• Tony considered the possible futures of the child and the Dark Empire, then told Hyperion to advance the conversion plan and establish the Nine Generals' specialized territories.
• Tony saw that the empire's essence let him perceive likely futures for his subjects and concluded that the empire had reached a new level.
• The Tyrannical Dragon King begged The Ancient One to take him to the Dark Empire, and she used the Time-Space Stone to bring him to Nova's Capital Star.
• The Tyrannical Dragon King saw the empire's festive streets and stronger residents, questioned The Ancient One's judgment, and she insisted Tony had changed.

The Ancient One discovered that Tony was an outsider whose devouring essence let him build a diverse Dark Empire, but she still chose to fight him. Tony defeated her forces, summoned the Eight Great Demons, and began preparing a war across the multiverse as the Ancient One and her allies were pulled away through time and space.

• The Tyrannical Dragon King argued that Tony had created a fairer, more diverse civilization than the Ancient One’s, prompting her to investigate Tony’s origins and conclude that another-world soul possessed him.
• The Ancient One and her allies resolved to fight Tony, while Tony gathered his generals and sent Loki and Mephisto to locate Ego; Mephisto nearly died opening a portal, and Loki accidentally killed him with holy water before Tony revived him.
• Tony found Ego and took his creation essence, sparing Star-Lord and giving Mantis a Darkness Mark; Ego died, and Star-Lord inherited spacetime power and abandoned his quest for revenge.
• Tony and the Ancient One led opposing armies into battle, where Tony’s Shendu avatar and the explosion of more than twenty essences overwhelmed her forces; Tony then summoned the Eight Great Demons.
• The Ancient One sacrificed herself, but her strongest spacetime incarnation rescued her and her allies; Tony received an eighteen-stone Infinity Gauntlet and sent Loki to decode coordinates for a multiversal war.