Chapter Summaries

Tony held Steve back from rushing into the fight as the Phoenix Force arrived early and devastated the battlefield. After Mordo died trying to stop it, the heroes attacked the Phoenix, but a Weeping Angel petrified part of it, allowing more than a hundred superhumans to divide the Phoenix Force and leave.

• Tony examined the energy readings and persuaded Steve to wait and watch rather than attack the local Avengers.
• The Phoenix Force arrived early, destroyed the Sentinels in orbit, and swept across Blue Star as Jiang Xiang watched for Weeping Angels.
• Mordo charged the Phoenix Force with magic and was killed after briefly stopping it.
• Thor rallied the survivors, and the Avengers, Scarlet Witch, and mutants attacked the Phoenix Force together.
• A Weeping Angel petrified part of the Phoenix Force, and Jiang Xiang vanished as the heroes' attacks broke it apart.
• More than a hundred superhumans appeared, divided up the Phoenix Force, and walked away.

After the phoenix force was divided, Wanda gave portions to mutants, and Shadowcat, Namor, and Storm became its hosts. The Avengers realized the new hosts could threaten them, especially with Namor seeking revenge.

• Scarlet Witch took three of the five largest phoenix force fragments, while the Trialist Thor and the three-headed, eight-armed Stephen each took one.
• Shadowcat explained that an intact phoenix force could create another Dark Phoenix and that forcing it together with Wanda’s power could endanger Wanda.
• Wanda released the phoenix force, which chose Shadowcat, Namor, and Storm as its hosts.
• Storm and Namor felt the phoenix force renew and strengthen them, though Namor’s uncontrolled power harmed someone at the mutant base.
• Steve and the surviving Avengers worried that Wanda and the new hosts had taken most of the phoenix force.
• Mordo returned to the Avengers and warned that Shadowcat, Storm, and Namor would gain the phoenix force’s recognition, with Namor posing the greatest danger.

Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, and Shadowcat visited Jiang Xiang to explain how the mutants’ rapid victory had left them struggling to govern. Namor’s Phoenix-corrupted violence and the lack of surviving Dove leaders left the Scarlet Witch seeking help through negotiations.

• Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, and Shadowcat entered a magical portal and met Jiang Xiang by the seaside.
• Jiang Xiang asked why they had come instead of governing the Mutant Kingdom, and Quicksilver began describing the crisis.
• The mutants defeated the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., S.W.O.R.D., and other organizations, then took control of former Avengers territory and major institutions.
• The mutants reestablished Xavier's School, the X-Men, and the Brotherhood of Mutants as governing bodies, while public opinion turned against Tony Stark and the Avengers.
• Namor continued waging war under the Phoenix Force’s influence, and the Scarlet Witch’s repeated friendly negotiations with him ended without resolution.

Jiang Xiang rejected Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s request to help prevent the mutants’ decline, while Magneto and Strange discussed the Phoenix Force. Tony briefed the group on a planet divided among four powers, and Strange asked about its original rulers, the Avengers.

• Shadowcat warned Jiang Xiang that mutants were already suffering heavy casualties and that her visions showed them ultimately falling to Sentinels or the Avengers.
• Quicksilver asked Jiang Xiang to help change the mutants’ course, but Jiang Xiang refused and teleported Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch away.
• Strange examined the sealed Phoenix Force while Magneto explained that their universe was unusually small and fragile.
• Tony returned with Steve and reported that the planet was divided among mutants, Sentinels, the Eastern Country, and outsiders.
• Strange asked Tony what had happened to the planet’s original rulers, the Avengers.

Namor, Storm, Shadowcat, and the Scarlet Witch gathered with thousands of mutants for a final confrontation with the Sentinels while the surviving Avengers prepared a mysterious countermeasure. As the Sentinels sent out a synchronized pulse, the war began.

• Namor, Storm, Shadowcat, and the Scarlet Witch arrived at humanity’s last line of defense as trapped civilians watched from nearby.
• Namor, Storm, and Shadowcat argued about the Avengers’ plan and recalled the losses and divisions of the past month.
• The Sentinels surrounded the mutants, and Namor ordered thousands of them to prepare for battle.
• Captain America, Mordo, Thor, and the other surviving Avengers hid nearby with strange rock fragments, and Mordo assured them the fragments would work.
• The Sentinels emitted a synchronized frequency, and the war began.

Namor and the mutants attacked the Sentinels while the Avengers watched from hiding, but Shadowcat discovered them and sprang a trap. Mordo’s magic scrolls petrified the Avengers, revealing that he had orchestrated the crisis to obtain the Weeping Angel’s power and immortality.

• Namor unleashed the Phoenix Force against the Sentinels near a residential neighborhood, and Storm and the other mutants joined the battle.
• Mordo watched from hiding as the Avengers waited to intervene, secretly advancing his plan to bring his lord into the world.
• Shadowcat used the Phoenix Force to block Sentinel reinforcements, then confronted the Avengers after her visions connected them to the mutants’ deaths.
• Shadowcat collapsed the ground beneath the Avengers, trapping most of them in a pit, while Mordo told those holding his scrolls to tear them open.
• The scrolls petrified the Avengers, and the Sentinels stopped resisting as Mordo rejoiced over nearing his goal of immortality and the Weeping Angel’s power.
• Shadowcat realized Mordo had caused the crisis, but his plans were already taking effect.

The Weeping Angel revealed that the phoenix force was a deception and began harvesting the mutants, while Scarlet Witch destroyed the Sentinels. The chapter ended as Mordo used the Eye of Agamotto to awaken the Weeping Angels, and Namor and Storm’s attacks accelerated the Angel’s recovery.

• Scarlet Witch wiped out the attacking Sentinels with a surge of scarlet power.
• Shadowcat watched an army of Weeping Angels destroy the mutants after the Angel reclaimed the false phoenix force from her.
• Scarlet Witch wondered why the Sentinels’ reinforcements had not arrived and suspected that Sentry’s consciousness was searching for the Infinity Stones.
• Mordo ambushed Scarlet Witch and declared that he would serve the Lord as the world returned to His embrace.
• Mordo poured the Eye of Agamotto’s power of time into his petrified body and called the slumbering Weeping Angels back.
• Namor and Storm attacked Mordo, but their phoenix force instead hastened the Weeping Angel’s recovery.

Mordo’s power exposed a colossal sculpture that devoured the lifespans of people and mutants nearby, while Tony explained the Infinity Stones to Captain America and Strange. Elsewhere, Jiang Xiang examined the damaged Nine Realms, weakened the Sun with dimensional energy, and decided to claim the vast spatial rifts surrounding Blue Star.

• A giant stone-like face emerged beneath the final battle site, and its golden eyes drained the lifespans of nearby people and mutants.
• The Trialists watched from a safe distance, and Captain America asked Tony and Strange what they should do next.
• Tony described the Infinity Stones and their costs, prompting Strange to resolve to obtain them to improve his condition.
• Jiang Xiang traveled through the stars and injected dimensional energy into the Sun, causing its power and reactions to fade.
• Jiang Xiang saw enormous pulsing spatial rifts near Blue Star and two nearby planets, then decided to take them for himself.

Jiang Xiang discovered that the spatial rift held true world-creation authority and decided to explore it. Meanwhile, Tony, Steve, and Strange realized the Mind Stone might have been influencing them as they faced a vast Sentinel army, and Steve urged them to act for this world.

• Jiang Xiang sensed world-creation authority in the spatial rift and chose to investigate the power of space.
• After the battle between the mutants and Sentry, the Avengers were nearly wiped out, while Sentry disappeared and many Sentinels were destroyed or vanished.
• Tony brought Captain America and Strange to a Sentry base to find the Infinity Stones, but they hid as a huge force of Sentinels arrived.
• Strange questioned why they were hiding, prompting Tony and Steve to suspect the Mind Stone had influenced their senses and judgment.
• Steve proposed that they stop watching and do something for the world, though Strange worried about how they could obtain the Infinity Stones.

Tony, Strange, and Steve watched the Weeping Angels attack the Sentinels while Sentry wielded all six Infinity Stones. Sentry’s wish shattered the stones and erased the Angels, but Jiang Xiang realized the world’s final protection was gone and its destruction was imminent.

• Tony warned Strange and Steve not to look at the Weeping Angels as the creatures attacked the Sentinels’ base with a psychic assault.
• Tony and Strange repelled the psychic force, while Steve endured it through his own strength.
• The Weeping Angels and Sentinels clashed, with the Angels aging their opponents and the Sentinels failing to copy their powers.
• Sentry appeared wearing a gauntlet with all six Infinity Stones and held the Weeping Angels at bay.
• Sentry wished for the Weeping Angels to vanish, but the stones cracked, shattered, and disappeared along with the Angels.
• Jiang Xiang awoke from the disturbance and realized the world was about to be destroyed without the stones’ protection.

After the Infinity Stones were destroyed, the world began collapsing as it tried to expel the Weeping Angels, while the remaining Phoenix Force failed to hold it together. Thor arrived and recognized Odin controlling the Destroyer Armor, which began killing the Angels as the chapter revealed Odin, the Ancient One, and Thanos had each tried—and failed—to save the world.

• The destruction of the Infinity Stones triggered the world's collapse, and Weeping Angels across the planet began disappearing as the world fought to expel them.
• Jiang Xiang withdrew his Spatial Rift power while Tony recorded the changing world data and realized the Hell Tower had issued no warning.
• Strange checked the Hell Tower mission and found it still marked incomplete as the Phoenix Force Hosts tried to stabilize the world.
• The collapsing world overwhelmed the Phoenix Force, killing two of its Hosts; Namor escaped with their bodies.
• Thor arrived and recognized Odin controlling the Destroyer Armor, which began slaughtering the Weeping Angels.
• The chapter revealed that Odin, the Ancient One, and Thanos had each pursued different plans to save the world, but all had failed.

Odin and the Ancient One asked Jiang Xiang to save their collapsing universe, offering him two fragments of its world essence. As Jiang Xiang began drawing the universe into his dimension, Tony and the others chose to return to their original world just before the space around them ruptured.

• Odin and the Ancient One appeared beside Jiang Xiang and asked him to pull their universe into his dimensional world.
• Jiang Xiang agreed after Odin and the Ancient One left him two fragments of world essence, and Odin asked him to look after Thor.
• Jiang Xiang began drawing the collapsing universe into his dimension, leaving its inhabitants to face unstable conditions and the Shadow Dimension.
• Tony, Strange, and their companion received a Hell Tower notice allowing them to leave the world.
• Tony and the others chose to return to their original world, and the space they had occupied ruptured moments later.

Jiang Xiang used his Son Goku avatar to master the Way of Battle, then prepared to transform the Shadow Dimension into a world of his own. As he began, he remembered the Weeping Angel, while gods beyond the world launched another assault.

• Jiang Xiang returned to Kamar-Taj with his collected treasures and prepared to break through his strength bottleneck.
• Jiang Xiang summoned his Monkey King Son Goku avatar to pursue mastery of the Way of Battle.
• Son Goku drove off shadowy opponents and successfully mastered the world's rule of the Way of Battle.
• Jiang Xiang turned his attention to perfecting the Shadow Dimension and began creating a world with his main body.
• Jiang Xiang remembered the Weeping Angel as the gods beyond the world began another assault.

After returning to Blue Star, Tony learned that rivers across multiple countries were turning red. As disasters spread, a priest summoned an enhanced locust plague that devoured him, while frogs appeared during a sacrifice by the Nile, and people recognized the signs of the Ten Plagues.

• Tony returned to Blue Star and asked JARVIS what had happened while he was away.
• JARVIS reported that rivers in ten countries and thirty-two regions had turned red, killing fish and making the water undrinkable.
• A white-robed priest in Desert Camel Country summoned a swarm of black-energy-enhanced locusts, which devoured him and spread outward.
• A priest by the Nile prepared to sacrifice the locust-summoning priest’s wife as frogs began appearing on the altar.
• The people fled as monitoring forces detected widespread turmoil and observers connected the disasters to the Arrival of the Ten Plagues.

Tony fought a massive locust swarm attacking New York and ordered robots to search the city for surviving locusts and eggs. Meanwhile, Hulk and Zhang Fei traveled near the border between Eastern Europe and Asia, where they spotted a village holding a funeral.

• Tony detected swarms of locusts filling the sky and watched them devour military aircraft and equipment before targeting Stark Tower.
• Tony deployed the modified Vulcan No. 21 system and flamethrowers, destroying many locusts as the swarm adapted and mutated under attack.
• Tony ordered nearby machines to self-destruct at high temperature, then sent robots across the city to search for locusts and their eggs.
• Hulk and Zhang Fei traveled near the region where the East met the European Continent and noticed a village holding a funeral.
• Banner wondered whether the villagers had a funeral feast, but lost his nerve when Zhang Fei teased him to ask.

Zhang Fei and Banner investigated a village where nearly every family was mourning and learned that an unexplained curse had killed every firstborn son after livestock began dying. Banner recognized the deaths as resembling the plague of the firstborn from the ten plagues, but they had no solution and did not know whether more deaths would follow.

• Zhang Fei and Banner entered the grieving village and visited the village chief to ask what had happened.
• The village chief said animals had died first, then every firstborn son in the village had died on the same night.
• The village chief said rituals and offerings had failed, and urged Zhang Fei and Banner to leave before the curse struck them.
• Banner told Zhang Fei that the deaths resembled the plague of the firstborn from the ten plagues.

Banner and Zhang Fei investigated villages afflicted by the ten plagues, tracing the disasters to a village where a priest and his woman had been blamed and killed. They found no solution before the Fireside Festival approached, and Banner suspected a final catastrophe would kill most of the remaining people.

• Banner and Zhang Fei left a village where every family had lost its firstborn and continued investigating the disasters.
• Zhang Fei explained that curses often depended on an anchoring object, so he and Banner decided to search for the source of the plagues.
• Banner and Zhang Fei reached a nearly destroyed village where witnesses said the disasters had begun after villagers banished a priest and executed his woman.
• A local gave Banner and Zhang Fei a map to the place where the priest had died, and the survivors welcomed them as people who might stop the disasters.
• Banner asked Tony for help, but Tony was occupied with locust eggs in the city, while torrential rain threatened the region with mudslides.
• As the Fireside Festival approached, Banner suspected it commemorated survivors huddling together after most people had died, and feared one last enormous disaster was coming.

Zhang Fei and Banner investigated their last possible cave and found living people bound in agony by black tendrils. After they fought their way through the tendrils, they reached a black staff identified as the Evil God's Scepter, beside papers detailing the Ten Plagues.

• Zhang Fei and Banner cautiously entered the final cave on Banner’s list of possible sites.
• They found living people bound by withered tendrils, suffering so severely that some pleaded with their eyes to be killed.
• Banner lost control and transformed into a four-armed Hulk, attacking the black mass around the captives.
• Zhang Fei used Conceal Presence to approach the central staff, then transformed into a giant red ape and joined the Hulk’s assault.
• Zhang Fei and the Hulk broke through the barriers and reached the ominous black staff, beside papers describing how the Ten Plagues would erupt.
• Zhang Fei and Banner recognized the staff as the Evil God's Scepter.

Zhang Fei tried to stop Hulk from succumbing to the black scepter and urged him to think of Betty, helping Hulk regain control and seize the weapon. As superhumans rushed to assess the damage, identical screens appeared across every universe, showing Jiang Xiang.

• Zhang Fei dodged the black shadows while Hulk resisted the scepter's influence and endured their attacks.
• Zhang Fei reminded Hulk of his family and Betty, and Hulk struck the scepter as the cavern collapsed around them.
• The scepter's black substance and voices from beyond overwhelmed Banner until calls from his companions and power from Hell and the rage dimension helped Hulk return.
• Hulk seized the scepter, declared himself Destiny, and battered it while its creators tried to reclaim it.
• Superhumans hurried to the scene, and enormous screens appeared across every universe showing Jiang Xiang.

Jiang Xiang used his multiversal power to defeat the merged evil god and turn him into fuel for a New Universe formed within Jiang Xiang’s body. After reaching another unknown realm, Jiang Xiang said farewell on Blue Star and took his family to live in the New Universe.

• Jiang Xiang revealed his breakthrough and multiverse permissions, prompting the Outer Demons to merge their essences into one evil god.
• Kang, Death, Eternity, Infinity, and the other gods attacked the merged evil god as Jiang Xiang fought him across space, time, and causality.
• The evil god failed to erase Jiang Xiang, who revealed that the What-If Phone Booth had helped him become the strongest being in the multiverse.
• Jiang Xiang sealed the evil god’s abilities and turned him into fuel for a New Universe formed within his body.
• Jiang Xiang reached another breakthrough, then bid everyone farewell on Blue Star and took his family to the New Universe.