The heat hit first—a dry, suffocating wave that tasted of sulfur and burnt copper. The air rippled, distorting the view as if the world itself was melting under the weight of what was happening.
I could see a volcanic hellscape. The ground was jagged black rock, veins of magma cutting through the earth like arteries pumping molten blood. The sky wasn't blue or black; it was a choking ash-gray, lit only by the violent eruptions below.
And on that battleground… I saw them. The Eternals.
They were fighting for their lives. But it wasn't a battle they were winning.
Deviants. Hundreds of them. Monstrosities of twisted biology and primal rage, pouring out of the volcanic vents like plague rats. They were swarming the Eternals—Makkari flashing in blurs of yellow, speed useless when she was buried under a mountain of flesh; Druig holding dozens of them back with his mind, blood running from his nose as his veins stood out like cables; Kingo blasting beams of cosmic energy that barely slowed the tide.
But that wasn't the worst part.
My eyes narrowed as I locked onto the center of the fray.
Ikaris was floating above the chaos, beams of cosmic energy shooting from his eyes. But he wasn't shooting at the Deviants. He was shooting at *them*. At his own family.
He struck Sprite down, sending the young Eternal crashing into the ash with a sickening crunch. He blasted Phastos, who barely managed to erect a golden shield in time, the impact skidding him back across the rock.
"Ikaris…" Sersi gasped, staring into the rift, horror written across her face. "He's… he's killing us."
Betrayal. It was a classic trope, but the execution was brutal. The strongest of them had turned his blade against his own family, blinded by a doctrine that demanded genocide.
And beneath their feet, the ground wasn't just shaking.
I looked down, past the battle, to the heart of the volcano. The ocean of magma was churning. Rising. A massive shape was breaching the surface—scales the size of mountains, eyes like burning suns.
The Celestial.
Tiamut.
It was an awakening. The Emergence was no longer a theory; it was seconds away. If that thing fully woke, if it pushed its body out of the crust of that planet, Earth would be shattered into a billion fragments of cosmic dust.
The situation had escalated from a street-level skirmish to an apocalypse in the span of a heartbeat.
The Spider-Gang was staring at the rift, completely out of their depth. Ghost Spider looked at me, then at the burning portal, her mask hiding her expression but not her body language. She was trembling.
"Okay… I'm officially lost," she managed, her voice tight. "Is that… Godzilla?"
"That," I said, my voice cutting through the wind, "is the end of the world."
I turned to Thena and Sersi. They were waiting for orders. They were terrified, trembling at the sight of their traitorous brother and their awakening god, but they were standing firm.
"You activated the contract," I said, my eyes glowing faintly with power. "You asked for my help."
I looked back at the rift, where the Betrayer, Ikaris, was hovering like a vulture, waiting for his god to rise.
"Well," I muttered, cracking my knuckles. "I hate traitors."
I stepped toward the tear in reality.
"Let's go clean up your mess."
***
The transition was instantaneous. One moment we were in the cold damp of a warehouse; the next, we were standing on the edge of an active volcano.
The roar of the battle was deafening. The smell was overwhelming.
Ikaris turned, his burning eyes locking onto us. He sneered, hovering imperiously above the ash.
"More flies to squash?" he boomed, his voice amplified by the roar of the rising Celestial behind him. "You bring humans to a god's war?"
"To make this easy," I said, my voice flat and unbothered by the chaos, "can I take all the Deviants alone while all of you take your traitorous friend?"
I didn't shout. I didn't posture. I simply stated it as fact.
Sersi looked at the horde of monsters—hundreds of them, tearing into the rock—and then at me. Her fear for her people warred with her confusion.
"Can you do that?" she asked, doubting me. And why wouldn't she? I had not displayed any feat so far which screamed power. To her, I was just a man in a coat. "Mr. X, there are too many. Even for us—"
"A human?" Ikaris laughed, a cruel, sharp sound that echoed off the canyon walls. "That is the best you could do, Sersi? A mere human? Good for nothing."
He mocked and taunted me, spitting venom with the confidence of a creature that had never known fear. He expected a reaction. He expected me to cower.
I didn't respond. I didn't blink.
I just stared.
**The Stare.**
My gaze pinned him in mid-air. It wasn't a physical blow, but the effect was more immediate. I focused my will, compressing the air around him, locking his mind in a vice grip of pure intent.
For a second, Ikaris lost himself.
He stopped moving. His eyes widened, the cosmic flames in them flickering as if they were being suffocated. His mind went blank, wiped clean by a tsunami of killing intent. The only things he could feel, see, and think was fear. Endless, crushing pressure fell on his body from a mere glance.
The world ceased to exist for him. There was no battle. No Celestial. No mission.
"M-Monster…" he choked out, the word barely a whisper. The arrogance was gone. Only the primal terror of realizing he was not the apex predator remained. He fell from the sky, crashing into the black rock, paralyzed and sweating.
I looked away from him, bored.
"I will be taking my leave to kill them," I said, gesturing vaguely toward the swarm of Deviants.
I snapped my fingers.
*Snap.*
The space behind the Deviant horde twisted. A fissure tore open the fabric of reality—a doorway to a dimension of static and gray. The gravitational pull was instantaneous. Hundreds of monsters, large and small, were yanked backward. They screeched and clawed at the ground, but the pull was irresistible.
One by one, they vanished into the void, dragged into my personal slaughterhouse.
The battlefield emptied in seconds.
The silence that followed was heavy. The Eternals stood there, weapons raised, staring at the empty space where the army had been. Then I looked at Ikaris, shivering in the dirt.
"Your turn," I said to the group.
I turned away from them, facing the tear in reality I had just created. It was still pulsating, waiting on the other side.
"Welcome, monsters of the World Forge or whatever," I spoke to the darkness, my voice booming across the dimensional barrier. "I'm here to fuck it all up. So pray to whatever god you believe in and make peace, as I'm sending each and every one of you to him."
I stepped through the rift, my blood humming. I was bursting with adrenaline and energy, ready to fight for days if not weeks.
On the other side, the horde was regrouping. But at the center, standing atop a mound of scrap and bone, was a massive Deviant. It didn't look like the mindless beasts outside. It stood upright, intelligence burning in its eyes.
It looked at me, sensing the power radiating off my frame.
"Human… no," the creature rasped, its voice like grinding stones. "You are a mutant."
"Damn, you're smart," I replied, cracking my neck. "So you must be the leader of these orcs."
"We are Deviants," the creature spat, stepping forward, its size dwarfing the others. "Not orcs."
"Where did you bring us?" it continued, tilting its head in a grotesque mimicry of curiosity. "Aren't you afraid of your death?"
I grinned, the expression feral.
"Death?" I chuckled darkly, rolling my shoulders. "From you. I own you. BitcH!"
I clenched my fists, feeling the aura of energy between my fingers.
"And as for being afraid of death…" I lunged forward, vanishing and reappearing instantly in front of its face. "I'm the only one here selling it."