(Marvel, DC, and all other intellectual properties referenced in this story, including images, manga, manhwa, and anime, belong to their respective owners. The main character, Karito/Adriel Josue Valdez, and this story's original elements belong to me.)
The last thing Peter remembered was Artoria stepping in front of him.
They had been running toward Piltover. Even from miles away, they could hear the battle tearing through the twin cities, and neither of them wanted Adriel and Ace to face it alone.
Then blue light swallowed the horizon.
It spread too quickly to outrun. Artoria turned, raised her sword, and threw up a golden barrier between them and the approaching blast. Peter saw the light strike it. He saw Artoria brace herself as the ground vanished beneath their feet.
Then everything went dark.
Pain brought him back.
Peter opened his eyes to a red sky. Dust drifted across it in heavy sheets, hiding whatever remained of the sun. He tried to breathe and immediately regretted it.
"Ugh… fuck."
He rolled onto one side. The movement sent pain through his ribs, his back, and places he could not identify. His spare Spider-Man suit hung from him in scorched strips. Blood ran from his forehead and into one eye.
The Elixir he and Artoria had taken after fighting the Red Surfer had healed them completely. Now Peter felt worse than he had before taking it.
He pushed himself onto his knees and looked around.
There was nothing to orient himself by.
The trees were gone. So were the hills and the damaged buildings they had passed on their way toward Piltover. The land had been flattened into a vast stretch of blackened earth. Farther away, where he remembered seeing water, there was only an empty horizon beneath the red sky.
Peter could not tell how much of Runeterra had been hit. From where he knelt, it looked as though the blast had reached everything.
"Artoria?"
Only his echo answered.
Peter got to his feet too quickly. His legs nearly gave out, and he caught himself with one hand against the ground.
"Artoria!" he shouted. "Where are you?"
No answer.
She had been directly in front of him when the blast struck. She had taken its force against her barrier, and he had no idea what had happened after it broke. Peter turned in a slow circle, searching the ash for any sign of gold.
He had already lost too many people. He could not let himself start counting her among them.
"Artoria!"
A faint groan reached him.
Peter's head snapped toward the sound. At first, he saw only a patch of disturbed earth. Then something moved beneath it.
An armored hand protruded from the ground.
He ran.
Pain tore through his body with every step, but he barely noticed it. Peter dropped beside her and began digging with both hands, throwing dirt aside until he uncovered her face. He cleared her mouth and nose first.
Artoria drew a rough breath.
"There you are," he whispered.
He dug her out completely and pulled her into a sitting position, supporting her back against his knee. Her armor was cracked, and she struggled to keep her head upright.
"Artoria. Hey, talk to me. Are you okay?"
Her eyes opened slowly.
"Peter?"
"Yeah. It's me." He looked her over, trying to work out which injuries were hidden beneath the armor. "Are you hurt anywhere else? Besides the obvious, I mean."
He meant it as a joke. It came out badly.
Artoria glanced at the wasteland around them before looking back at him.
"I caught the worst of the blast," she said, pausing for breath. "The barrier held long enough."
"Long enough for us to wake up in a crater that ate the horizon."
"You are hurt."
"Please don't make this about me. You stood in front of that thing."
Artoria tried to laugh. The effort became a cough.
"Adriel's inventory," she said. "Another Elixir, if you can reach it."
"Right. Give me a second."
Peter called up Adriel's Gamer System. During the fight with Carnage, the Darks had blocked his access to the inventory. For one dreadful moment, he expected the same refusal.
The inventory opened.
"Oh, thank God."
He took out two full-heal Elixirs, the same kind from Final Fantasy that they had used before. He gripped the first vial and shattered it above Artoria. Bright fragments dissolved into sparks as they fell across her body. He broke the second above himself.
Warmth passed through Peter's chest. His breathing eased, the pain receded, and the cuts across his skin closed. Beside him, Artoria straightened as the Elixir healed her injuries. Their clothes and armor remained ruined, but both of them could move again.
"Better?" he asked.
"Yes." She studied his face. "And you?"
"I'm fine now."
Peter helped her stand. Artoria took his hand, and for a moment they stayed close, looking across the empty land.
Her expression darkened.
"This reminds me of a universe I invaded when I was a Dark," she said. "There was almost nothing left by the time we arrived."
Peter glanced at the red sky, then at the wasteland.
"Mad Max?"
To his relief, she gave a quiet laugh.
"You read my mind."
The smile faded as she looked toward where Piltover should have been.
"It is a sad sight."
Peter followed her gaze. Before the blast, they had been able to make out the city's broken towers through the smoke. Now he could not find a single landmark. He saw no water, either. The planet was still beneath their feet, but he had no way to tell what had survived beyond the horizon.
Nor could he tell whether Adriel and Ace had survived at the center of it.
Artoria tightened her grip on his hand once, then released it.
"We should go," she said. "After that, I am more concerned for them than ever."
Peter nodded. Whatever fight had produced that blast must have been hell.
"All right. Let's hurry."
They broke into a run toward what used to be Piltover and Zaun.
⟡ ⟡ ⟡
Ace woke because everything hurt.
For a moment, he could not see. His eyes were open, but the world refused to come into focus. Heat seemed trapped beneath his skin, and every breath scraped through his chest.
The God Blast had gone off at point-blank range. Ace remembered Adriel throwing himself over him, barriers appearing faster than he could count. Then blue light had swallowed them both.
How the hell am I alive?
His vision cleared.
Adriel was lying across him.
Only one barrier remained: a thin, flickering shell wrapped tightly around Ace. The dozens of shields Adriel had raised were gone. He had put himself between Ace and the blast, and somehow, that last layer had survived long enough to protect the man beneath him.
"Adriel?"
He did not move.
Panic struck harder than the pain. Ace waited for the barrier to fade, then gently pushed Adriel's weight aside and sat up.
"Adriel!"
Adriel slipped onto his knees, facing away from him.
Ace went still.
Toxin covered Adriel's abdomen, holding together the wound Gorr had torn open. Everywhere else, the blast had ripped through him. His back was exposed to the spine, with burned muscle and bone visible beneath what remained of the symbiote. The back of his skull showed through scorched flesh.
For one awful second, Ace thought he was looking at a corpse.
Then Adriel drew a ragged breath.
The black veins Gorr had left in his body were fading. As the corruption receded, flesh began closing over his spine. Bone disappeared beneath new muscle and skin. The damage to his head repaired itself, and Toxin pulled the last of the exposed organs into place before sealing his stomach.
Ace watched, horrified and relieved in equal measure.
When the healing was done, Toxin spread across Adriel's back and shoulders, forming his armor again. Adriel coughed, planted one hand against the ground, and raised his head.
"Holy shit," he rasped. "How the fuck did I live through that?"
"That's what I'd like to know." Ace stared at him. "Gorr was pulling your intestines out. I saw him do it."
"Yeah. I felt it." Adriel grimaced. "Pretty sure he took a couple of ribs with him."
He got unsteadily to his feet.
"My healing's better than Deadpool's when it's actually allowed to work. That's why these motherfuckers keep suppressing it." He glanced at his restored armor. "My regeneration, the Gamer System—anything that could keep me alive during a fight. It's getting really fucking old."
Ace looked down at himself. Mjolnir had caved in his sternum before the blast, yet his chest was whole. So was the arm Gorr had infected.
"I thought we were dead," he said. "Thor broke my chest. I could barely breathe, and then that thing went off."
"The last barrier had a healing command in it," Adriel said. "I set it before the blast hit."
Ace looked up at him.
"You were doing that while your stomach was open?"
"I didn't have much time to think about it."
For once, Ace had no answer.
Adriel tilted his head until his neck popped. "That was a fucked-up fight."
"You can say that again."
The words faded as Ace took in their surroundings.
They stood on scorched, level ground beneath a red sky. Piltover's towers were gone. So was the broken outline of Zaun beneath them. Ace could not find a hill, a river, or anything else he recognized.
Adriel was staring past him, his eyes tracking something Ace could not see.
"Planet scan?" Ace asked.
"Yeah."
A holographic screen appeared in front of Ace. He read it once, then again, hoping he had misunderstood.
"Wow."
Runeterra had become a wasteland. The damage extended far beyond the twin cities—across continents and through oceans that no longer registered where they should have been.
Adriel opened another display. This one tracked living signatures.
Ace's stomach sank.
"The people we put in the bunker?" he asked.
"They're alive. Its protection held." Adriel's voice was flat. "Peter and Artoria survived too. Apart from us, I'm not finding any other living native signatures on the planet."
Ace dragged a hand through his hair.
"So the God Blast killed everyone else."
Adriel nodded.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Ace had watched whole districts collapse during the fight. He had known they might have to repair the damage afterward. Seeing an entire world reduced to this was something else.
Adriel shut the display with a sharp movement.
"And the Omniversal Engine is still online."
Ace let out a disbelieving groan. "Of course it fucking is."
"I don't know how it survived. My best guess is Anansi shielded it while Thor fired."
The air beside them flickered.
For an instant, the wasteland became another version of Runeterra. Different terrain stretched beneath a different sky. Then that world slipped away, and the scorched ground returned.
Ace stared at the place where it had appeared.
"Yeah. We don't have much time."
"The engine's still pulling realities together," Adriel said. "This dimension is starting to lose its hold on itself. We need to get underground and stop it."
Ace nodded, then looked toward the horizon.
"Peter and Artoria caught the blast, didn't they?"
Adriel checked the party display again.
"They did. Both were in critical condition a few minutes ago." He paused. "They're stable now. Their markers are moving toward Piltover."
Ace exhaled.
"Thank God."
"They can feel the engine's distortion. We'll meet them there."
"And Anansi?"
Adriel's expression tightened.
"He'll be there too."
Ace studied him. He knew what their last fight with Anansi had cost Adriel. This time, at least, Adriel would not be facing him alone.
"We stick together," Ace said.
"That's the plan."
Adriel looked toward the place where the Hexgate tower had stood. Beneath the ruined ground, the engine continued dragging other worlds toward them.
"All right. Enough standing around. Let's finish this."
Ace summoned a little cosmic fire around his fist and gave him an exaggerated nod.
"Yes, sir."
Adriel shot him a look, but Ace caught the faintest hint of a smile before they set off toward the engine.
Less than five seconds after they started running, Ace and Adriel reached the place where the Hexgate tower had stood.
A vast hollow had been carved beneath it. At the center, the Omniversal Engine floated above broken bedrock, sealed inside a barrier that had survived the God Blast without a visible crack.
Reality around it was faring worse.
Space folded between its rotating rings. Fractures opened, showed glimpses of other worlds, and closed again as the machine dragged more dimensions toward its core. A monitor suspended beside it displayed the process too quickly for Ace to follow.
Adriel stopped at the edge of the hollow.
"It's still compressing them."
Ace's Guardian knowledge helped him understand what he was seeing. The engine kept adding worlds to a destination that could no longer contain them, like writing into an archive on a full drive. Each failed attempt produced another error. Each error triggered another attempt.
The machine never stopped to ask whether anything it pulled inside would survive.
Ace looked at the monitor.
A familiar face flashed across it.
Then another.
He stepped closer.
For an instant, Luffy and Sabo stood in a world Ace almost recognized. The image stretched sideways. Their bodies were drawn into thin, impossible lines as the space around them collapsed, and the entire scene disappeared into the engine.
Another version appeared. It ended differently, and just as quickly.
Ace gripped the side of his head.
"Please tell me I'm tripping balls. Did I just see Luffy and Sabo get spaghettified on that screen?"
Adriel glanced at him.
"Thor hit me with that hammer enough times that brain damage wouldn't surprise me," Ace added. "Am I having a stroke?"
Adriel's expression changed. He looked past the images to the instructions moving beneath them. The readable commands Ace had seen earlier were only the surface; Adriel's Hacker vision now showed him C++-like processes repeatedly feeding new worlds into the engine.
He went quiet for a few seconds.
"Um… no. You saw them."
Ace clicked his tongue. "Wow. I would've preferred almost any other answer."
"That was Jump Force," Adriel said. "The engine just pulled it in."
"I know what I saw." Ace's voice rose before he could stop it. "I watched my family die a dozen different ways in about five seconds."
Adriel turned toward him. "What did you want me to say? You'd know if I lied."
Ace opened his mouth, then shut it. He rubbed his temple.
"No. You're right. I'm not mad at you."
He looked back at the monitor and immediately wished he hadn't.
"I'm tired," he admitted. "I want this whole thing to end. It feels like I've aged a hundred years in one war."
Marineford had taught him how quickly a battle could strip away every comforting idea a person had about being strong enough to protect family. He had grown since then. He knew better than to throw himself at a machine simply because it made him angry.
Knowing better did nothing to make the images easier to watch.
Adriel winced. "I hate to say it, but we still have one opponent."
"Don't fucking remind me."
For a while, Adriel studied the engine while Ace kept his eyes off the monitor. Blue windows opened at Adriel's fingertips. Every attempt to alter the machine met resistance from the barrier, though it could not prevent him from reading what ran beneath it.
Ace finally broke the silence.
"Is Anansi waiting for Peter and Artoria to get here? So he can make some dramatic entrance once all four of us are watching?"
Adriel snorted. "Honestly? Maybe."
"You can tell?"
"I can't edit through that barrier yet. It isn't stopping me from looking." Adriel closed one window and opened another. "He's nearby, and the engine's still running. If he wanted to hit us before the others arrived, he's had chances."
Ace let out a short laugh. It was either that or start shouting.
"Such a final boss thing."
"It's annoying as shit, is what it is."
Another world vanished from the monitor.
Ace saw Luffy's face again in the instant before it disappeared. His fists tightened.
Those were versions of his family from a game. He understood that. He also understood what Adriel had said about the people inside stories: a different version was still someone who had lived that life. Watching them die was not easier because a screen separated him from them.
A hand settled on his shoulder.
Ace looked over.
Adriel held his gaze. The blunt reply from a few minutes earlier was gone from his face.
"Don't let Anansi keep you staring at that thing until you can't think," he said. "I know it hurts. That's why we have to win."
Ace glanced toward the engine.
"We can fix this," Adriel continued. "We can get those worlds out of there and give their people a future. I can't promise that undoing the damage makes what happened okay. But I'm not leaving your family—or anyone else—inside that machine."
Ace breathed out slowly.
He wanted Luffy and Sabo back. He wanted every version of them spared the memory of being torn apart. Whether that was possible, he did not know. For now, he could at least help stop the engine from doing it again.
"Thanks," he said.
Adriel gave his shoulder a small squeeze, then let go.
"No biggie."
For the next minute, Adriel studied the barrier around the Omniversal Engine while Ace kept watch. Neither found a way through.
Footsteps approached across the ruined ground.
Ace turned first. Peter and Artoria were coming toward them, their pace quickening when they saw the two Guardians beside the engine.
Ace let out a breath he had not realized he was holding. Beside him, Adriel did the same.
"Hey," Adriel called as they drew near. His gaze moved over both of them. "How did it go? The fight, I mean."
Peter nodded. "It was a mess, but we got him."
He stopped there. His eyes flicked toward Artoria, then away. Ace could tell there was more to the story, but Peter clearly did not want to tell it here.
Artoria caught the look and let it pass.
"The Carnage-infused Silver Surfer is dead," she said. "He will not return."
Ace's shoulders eased a little further.
Artoria surveyed the flattened land, then looked up at the floating engine.
"I see your fight was equally pleasant."
Adriel scoffed. "Yeah, no shit. Thor set off a God Blast that took out the planet. I caught it at point-blank range."
"We were hit by it as well," Artoria said. "I shielded us from most of the force, though we suffered a few minor injuries."
"Minor injuries?" Peter turned toward her. "I woke up feeling like I was at death's door."
"I did what I could, Peter."
"I know." He rested a hand on her shoulder. "You saved us. And we got into Adriel's inventory afterward, so the Elixirs took care of the injuries."
Adriel glanced between them but did not press for anything more. He seemed satisfied that they were both standing.
Peter looked past him.
"Oh. Wow."
The monitor beside the Omniversal Engine flashed through another sequence of collapsing worlds. Space cracked around its protective barrier as the machine drew more realities inside.
"That doesn't look pleasant either," Peter said.
Artoria gave him a sideways look. "You have used that word quite enough."
"Look, I'm nervous, all right?" Peter scratched the back of his head. "Anansi's the only one left, and that thing is getting worse."
Ace understood. He had been staring at the same monitor before they arrived.
"We planned for him," Ace said. "Let's stick to what we agreed on."
No one answered.
Adriel's attention had shifted beneath the floating engine.
"Adriel?" Artoria asked.
"He's here."
The others followed his gaze.
Below the machine, Anansi reclined in a beach chair with a coconut in one hand. He had positioned himself where the engine's shadow met the broken ground, watching the four Guardians as though he had been waiting for a show to begin.
"Oh, don't stop on my account," he said. "You can keep talking. I'm comfortable."
He took a sip from the coconut.
"Picked this up in another verse. Good one, too." Anansi glanced at the monitor as a world vanished from it. "Ah. There goes the place I got it from."
He chuckled.
Ace felt his hands curl into fists. A minute ago, that screen had shown him Luffy and Sabo.
Adriel turned fully toward Anansi.
"How does this end? Runeterra's barely holding together, and you're crushing every game world you can reach into that engine."
"That is the idea."
"I grew up with those games," Adriel said. "They matter to me. And there are people living inside them who matter a hell of a lot more." He gestured at the machine. "If you wipe them out, I'll beat the shit out of you. Whatever reaches the real world afterward will be a disaster too."
Anansi shrugged.
"The people in your world can go fuck themselves." His smile widened. "They already do a fine job of it. Every year, they seem a little less interested in thinking for themselves. It's amusing how much of that they blame on one another instead of us."
Peter stepped forward.
"We're going to kill you," he said. "This isn't ending in your favor."
Anansi rose from the chair. He tossed the coconut aside; it disappeared before it struck the ground. The chair vanished with it.
"I don't think any of you understand the endgame." He looked from Peter to Artoria, then to Ace and Adriel. "This is only the beginning. I could tell you what the Darks have planned, but that would spoil what comes next."
The air around him darkened.
Strands of spider magic spread from his hands, crossing and recrossing until they formed a vast web behind him. Adriel recognized the power of the ancient Spider-Totems within it. Peter went still as he felt its connection to his own abilities.
Anansi lowered his stance and glared at them.
"So come on. Put them up. Let's kill each other."
Adriel sighed and opened his Hacker interface. Blue light spread across his fingers, revealing nothing of the commands he was preparing.
"Get ready."
Artoria raised her sword. Cosmic fire gathered around Ace's fists, and Peter took his place beside them.
Adriel looked at the three of them.
"All right. Start the plan."
A command panel opened across Adriel's vision.
No one else could see it. To Ace, Peter, and Artoria, Adriel stood several paces behind them without so much as raising his fists. In front of him, though, his Hacker ability had unfolded a vast sheet of C++-like code: a readable translation of the Arcane narrative and the characters standing within it.
Three names appeared beside his own.
Peter. Ace. Artoria.
Adriel kept his eyes on the commands he had prepared for them.
Anansi glanced at the Guardian hanging back. For a moment, he seemed curious. Then he began walking toward the other three, unhurried, spider magic trailing from his fingers.
"First things first," he said. "I'm going to take your powers away."
He pointed at Peter and flicked a finger.
Peter's Spider-Sense went silent.
The strength in his limbs changed so abruptly that he stumbled. His grip on the ground vanished, along with every other ability tied to the Spider-Totem. He caught his balance through training alone and looked up sharply.
In Adriel's vision, Peter's character sheet flashed red. A new command had been forced into it from outside the interface.
spiderAbilities.enabled = false;
Another window appeared beside it.
VIRUS DETECTED. APPLY PRESET OVERRIDE?
Adriel almost laughed.
Holy shit, it worked.
He selected YES.
Peter's Spider-Sense returned in a rush. Strength flooded his limbs, and his fingers caught the ground beneath him.
Anansi stopped walking.
"What?" His gaze snapped toward Adriel. "What did you do?"
Ace gave him no time to investigate.
He caught Peter by the shoulder. Cosmic fire curled around his hand, bending the space beside them into a narrow tear. Ace spun and hurled Peter through it.
Peter vanished in front of Anansi and emerged behind him with one knee driving toward the back of the Spider God's head.
Anansi's own Spider-Sense warned him. He turned and caught the strike on his forearm, but the block committed his weight to one side.
Ace crossed the distance in a streak of fire and Speed Force energy.
At the same instant, Artoria rose above Anansi with her sword raised for a descending cut.
Anansi saw them both.
He also understood what Adriel was doing. Peter, Ace, and Artoria were forcing him to defend against three directions while their fourth teammate altered the fight from afar. Adriel was the anchor holding their abilities in place and preparing to interfere with his.
Anansi looked past Ace, directly at him.
Then he tried to teleport.
A command prompt opened in Adriel's vision before the movement could complete.
DENY TELEPORTATION: KWAKU ANANSI?
Anansi's body had already begun to fade. There was barely an instant in which to respond, but Adriel's preset held the action at the point of execution.
He hit DENY.
Anansi glitched in place.
His escape failed.
Ace's flaming fist buried itself in his stomach. Anansi folded around the blow, and Artoria's blade cut across his chest before he could recover. Peter landed behind him, ready to strike again.
Anansi stared down at the wound. Then he looked at Adriel.
For the first time since they had arrived, he seemed genuinely caught off guard.
Adriel could hardly believe it himself. He had prepared the counters, but his Hacker ability had never been powerful enough to apply them this quickly before. Now it could intercept Anansi's changes as they happened.
Anansi's surprise lasted only a moment.
Cosmic energy burst from his body.
Peter flew backward and crashed into a dune of ash. Ace and Artoria struck the ground hard enough to carve separate trails through it. Farther away, Adriel braced against the wave and slid back a few feet without closing his interface.
Anansi straightened. The cut across his chest remained visible beneath the spider magic gathering around him.
"All right, you cocky little shit," he said. "I underestimated you. That won't happen again."
His gaze fixed on Adriel's moving fingers.
"That ability of yours is the most dangerous thing here."
Adriel smiled.
"Feeling less cocky now? We planned for this, Anansi. I don't give a fuck if you're a god. Gods can bleed, and I can erase them."
Ace pushed himself up. Peter was already climbing out of the ash. Artoria rose with her sword still in hand.
Adriel glanced at them.
"And this time, I'm not alone. Do me a favor and rot in hell."
He opened a portal beneath Artoria's feet.
She disappeared and reappeared directly above Anansi.
"Excalibur!"
Golden light surged along her blade as she brought it down. Anansi raised both bare forearms and caught the strike. The collision sent a blast rolling across the wasteland, bright enough to hide both of them as the ground broke for miles around.
When the light receded, Anansi was still standing.
He held Artoria's sword above his head. Before she could pull it free, he released one arm and drove his fist into her sternum from barely an inch away.
The last armor covering her chest shattered.
Artoria shot across the wasteland and struck a ruined mountain, vanishing into its broken slope.
"Artoria!" Peter shouted.
Ace lunged at Anansi, sending a curved sheet of cosmic fire ahead of him. Anansi stepped aside, letting it pass. Peter fired web lines from another angle, but the Spider God thrust one hand forward and held them motionless in the air.
Ace clicked his tongue.
"Throwing attacks at him isn't going to do shit. We need an opening."
Adriel's voice reached all three Guardians through their telepathic link.
Exactly. Stay together. Make him defend against you first, then use your abilities where he leaves himself exposed.
Peter pulled against the frozen webs and felt Anansi's control tighten around them.
He knows I'm interfering, Adriel continued. And he can alter the narrative too. My counters were prepared before the fight; he's making his changes as we go. I can stop some of them, but I need you three to keep forcing him to react.
Ace looked toward the mountain. Artoria's presence was moving inside the rubble.
No one fights him alone, Adriel said. We create an opening together and hit it before he can rewrite his way out.
Peter released the trapped web lines and lowered himself into a stance beside Ace. Across the wasteland, Artoria burst from the mountainside and turned back toward them.
Right, Peter thought. Stay together. Find the opening.
He looked at Anansi, who was already watching the three of them.
Cool. Just the god of stories.
Ace moved first.
Dark cosmic fire streamed from his shoulders as he sprinted across the ruined ground. Blue Speed Force lightning followed at his heels. Peter ran beside him, close enough that Anansi would have to choose which of them to meet.
Ace jumped, turned over in the air, and brought a flaming heel down toward Anansi's head.
The Spider God raised one arm and caught it.
His fingers closed around Ace's ankle. He yanked Ace downward and drove a fist toward his face. The punch clipped Ace's cheek, but Ace was already grinning.
Peter appeared at Anansi's exposed side.
Anansi sensed him. Without the Velocity Suit, Peter was the slowest of the three Guardians in front of him. He could afford to finish Ace before dealing with one Spider-Man.
"3X2(9YZ)4A," Ace said.
Blue electricity sprang from his body into Peter's.
Anansi's eyes widened.
Peter's fist began to vibrate. He planted his feet and drove it beneath Anansi's ribs, straight into his liver.
The Infinite Mass Punch connected.
Adriel's interface flooded with warnings. The force Peter had gathered threatened to spread far beyond the point of impact, and Anansi was standing on the remains of a world Adriel still needed to save.
A command he had prepared for this possibility activated.
COLLATERAL CHAIN REACTION: DENIED
The surrounding air steadied. The force of the punch remained focused on Anansi.
He shot downward through Runeterra. Rock and metal split around his body as he tore through layer after layer of the planet, emerged from its far side, and continued into space. He shattered a line of asteroids before striking a distant planet hard enough to leave a glowing trench across its surface.
Anansi lay at the end of it, fighting for breath.
He cursed himself as he pushed upright. Adriel was suppressing enough of his abilities that he had tried to rely on his advantage in close combat. He had even noticed Peter approaching.
He had simply dismissed him.
That had been stupid. Anansi knew Speed Force energy could be shared, and he had heard the formula before. Adriel standing in the back did not make the other three harmless.
Space rippled behind him.
Artoria's sword came through first.
Anansi stepped aside as she followed it through the opening. Her blade struck the ground, and a golden arc raced across the landscape, splitting a distant mountain from peak to base.
He caught her sword arm and pulled her the rest of the way through.
Artoria swung her free fist at his face.
Peter burst out of the same opening with one hand clasped around hers. He used the momentum of her pull to whip himself past her and drove a roundhouse kick toward Anansi's temple.
Anansi caught his leg.
Still holding Artoria by the wrist, he slammed them both into the ground. The impact rolled across the planet like an earthquake.
He lifted them for another blow.
A fist struck his cheek from the left.
Anansi's head snapped sideways. The blow jarred his grip loose, freeing Peter and Artoria. He turned toward the attacker, but a second fist came from his right. Then another from behind. Adriel had opened small, linked portals around him, and Ace and Peter were driving their punches through them from different angles.
Anansi sensed the next strike and tried to tear the portals apart with cosmic power.
The energy glitched at his fingertips.
Above him, another portal opened.
Adriel rode a meteorite through it.
Anansi looked up. The Guardian stood on the descending rock with one hand braced against its surface, laughing with the wild edge of someone who had survived far too much that day.
"Delivery for you!"
Adriel teleported away from the meteorite.
Anansi glanced down. Peter and Artoria were gone. In the distance, Ace was carrying both of them away, Speed Force lightning tearing across the ground beneath his feet.
Anansi tried to teleport after them.
His body flickered and remained exactly where it was.
"You irritating little—"
The meteorite struck.
Adriel appeared beside the other three in a pocket of protected space far above the planet. Together, they watched the impact spread across its surface. Fire raced beyond the horizon. The crust broke, and the planet came apart in an expanding cloud of stone and light.
For a few seconds, none of them spoke.
"That got him?" Ace asked.
"No," Adriel said.
A web line flashed from the exploding debris.
It crossed the distance before Ace could move and stuck across his face. The line snapped tight, wrenching him out of the protected pocket and through a tear in space.
Peter reached for him. His fingers closed on empty air.
Ace saw streaks of light, then a window rushing toward him.
He burst into a futuristic high-rise and tore through several floors. Furniture, glass, and ceiling panels followed him into an elevator shaft. He struck the roof of a descending car, broke through it, and landed inside.
Ace rolled to his feet.
"Where the hell—"
His Observation Haki flared.
He leaned aside as a black stinger punched through the wall beside his head. Anansi appeared in the torn opening and backhanded him across the car. Ace hit the opposite wall, rebounded, and drove his shoulder into Anansi's waist.
They slammed against the elevator's supports.
The cables snapped.
As the car plunged, Ace landed a hook across Anansi's jaw. Anansi answered with a front kick that folded Ace into the wall. Webbing spread over Ace's face, and Anansi pulled him forward, pounding his head against the dented metal.
Ace grabbed the web.
Cosmic fire engulfed his body.
The blast filled the falling car at the same instant it hit the ground floor. Its doors blew outward, and both fighters hurtled into the lobby.
People screamed and ran for the exits.
Ace lifted his head long enough to check the wreckage behind him. He had torn through empty offices on his way down. The people in the lobby were fleeing under their own power.
Anansi rose behind him. A stinger lengthened from his forearm and angled toward Ace's back.
A red blur hit him first.
Peter drove Anansi through a concrete wall and out onto the street. He caught the Spider God by the face and threw him across the road, then fired an electrified web into his chest.
Anansi was pulled back toward him.
Peter jumped, hauling the web upward. Speed Force energy formed a platform beneath his feet. He kicked off it and drove Anansi into the pavement with both hands.
The street collapsed.
Anansi fell through into a subway station below.
He rose amid broken concrete just as an approaching train lit the tunnel. He bent his knees to clear the track.
Artoria came through a portal at his side and thrust toward his chest.
Anansi slipped outside the blade, caught her by the throat, and shoved her into the side of the arriving passenger car. Metal buckled around them. People inside screamed and threw themselves away from the windows.
Ace dropped behind Anansi with a flaming fist aimed at his head.
Anansi turned beneath the punch, caught Ace's arm, and threw him through the car. It tore loose from the rest of the train and spun across the station.
Before it struck a support pillar, Peter moved.
Blue lightning flashed from door to door. He carried passengers to the far platform in groups too fast for them to understand what was happening. By the time the car broke open against the pillar, it was empty.
Ace, Artoria, and Anansi spilled from the wreckage and rolled across the tracks.
Artoria recovered first. She met Anansi's charging stinger with the flat of her sword, turned it away from her throat, and cut across his middle. Anansi leaned beyond the edge and slashed back.
Artoria followed her blade's momentum, turning her body out of the stinger's path. Her heel came down on his shoulder.
Anansi grunted.
Ace appeared at his back.
The Spider God struck backward without looking. Ace hardened his forearm with Armament Haki and blocked, but the force drove him into a wall hard enough to crack it.
Another train thundered down the neighboring track. Its cars were empty; Peter had evacuated this train too.
Artoria stepped toward the open space between tracks, drawing Anansi with her. Ace launched himself from the wall before the Spider God could follow.
Anansi caught Ace's fist on one forearm and knocked Artoria's sword aside with the other. He kicked her into a support pillar, seized Ace by the face, and pressed him against the passing train.
Metal shrieked against Ace's cheek.
He screamed, grabbed Anansi by the collar, and hauled himself forward. Anansi's face struck the moving car in his place. For several yards they fought over that grip, each forcing the other against the train until its last carriage passed.
They fell onto the track together.
Anansi mounted Ace and punched.
Ace blocked the first blows with Haki-covered arms. Each impact drove him deeper into the broken concrete. He caught Anansi around the waist, pulling him close enough that the next punches lost their reach.
Anansi switched to elbows.
Ace took one against the side of his head and held on tighter.
Anansi's Spider-Sense warned him. He tried to rise, but Ace locked both arms around him and bared his teeth.
"Caught you, asshole."
Peter's knee struck Anansi across the face.
The impact bent the air. Anansi tore through the station wall and the dimensional boundary behind it, disappearing into another world.
He hit a mountain face-first and bored a tunnel through its center. Trees snapped as he rolled through a forest on the other side. Anansi drove his stinger into the ground and dragged it through the soil until he stopped.
Large shapes fled between the trees.
Dinosaurs.
He had arrived in a prehistoric world.
A web line shot toward his ankle.
Anansi caught it and pulled. Peter flew between the trees, and the Spider God met him with a fist across the face. Peter grunted as he struck the ground. Anansi followed, hammering blows against his raised guard until the earth sank around him.
Peter absorbed the impacts. Blue electricity gathered beneath his skin and around the ruined remains of his suit.
He released the stored force.
Anansi was thrown backward through a line of trees.
Ace came from one side and Artoria from the other. They had barely begun to close the trap when Anansi vanished.
Adriel's teleportation block had held every other time.
Ace skidded to a stop. "What?"
Anansi reappeared between them. He seized the backs of their heads and slammed them together before either could turn.
"I've been studying the changes Adriel makes," he said.
He spoke so quickly that Ace caught only pieces between the ringing in his ears.
"His commands are prepared in advance. I only need to find where they end."
Anansi drove them apart.
"I am the one manipulating this story. Did you think he could keep me out of it forever?"
He caught Ace by the back of his coat and hurled him through a mountainside. Artoria swung at his exposed shoulder; Anansi caught her wrist and struck her face against the ground, then did it again before she forced her sword between them.
Peter charged to help her.
Anansi caught him by the throat and punched him in the stomach. Peter's breath left him. He struck Anansi's elbow and twisted, trying to lever the arm away.
The grip did not release.
Anansi's palm was attached to Peter's skin through the same power that let Spider-Men cling to walls. Peter tore himself free, leaving skin beneath Anansi's hand.
He cried out and stumbled back, clutching his throat.
Anansi struck him again, sending him through a boulder and across the ground into a lake.
Peter sank beneath the surface. Blood streamed between his fingers as he pressed them to his neck. Something large moved toward him through the dark water—a dinosaur drawn by the disturbance. It turned away when Peter looked at it and swam off.
He kicked toward the surface.
On the shore, Peter tried to open Adriel's inventory. The access window appeared, flashed red, and closed.
"Of course," he rasped.
Anansi had blocked it.
Peter wrapped webbing around his throat, pulling it tight enough to slow the bleeding. Then he ran back toward the fight.
For the first time since the Guardians had surrounded him, Anansi had a few uninterrupted seconds. He closed his eyes and followed the structure of Adriel's interference. One restored ability had led him to another. If he kept changing the underlying commands, he could free the rest.
Footsteps and lightning interrupted him.
Ace, Artoria, and Peter came at him together.
Artoria thrust first. Anansi stepped outside the point, caught Ace's descending leg, and swung him into her. Both Guardians struck the ground.
Peter jabbed at his face.
Anansi pushed the fist aside. Peter's other hand fired a web past his shoulder and pulled a boulder from behind him.
Anansi caught the rock without looking.
He swung it into Peter like a club. The boulder broke across his body, throwing him through the trees.
Peter rolled upright and webbed the trunks around him. He pulled several trees loose at once and swung the tangled mass toward Anansi.
The Spider God leaped above it.
Adriel's interface flashed another warning.
One of Anansi's blocked abilities had come back.
Anansi raised a finger. A point of light formed above it, swelling into a miniature sun.
Peter's stomach tightened. He could feel its heat from the forest floor.
"You tried," Anansi said. "Now let's see if you can outrun a supernova."
He threw it.
Peter grabbed Ace and Artoria, caught the edge of the Speed Force, and ran through the nearest dimensional seam.
Light filled the world behind them.
They crossed into another reality as the miniature sun detonated. For a moment, the opening at their backs showed a galaxy disappearing beneath the blast. Then Peter forced the seam shut and kept running.
Anansi appeared ahead of them.
His shoulder struck Peter in the chest and stopped him cold. Anansi seized Peter and Ace by their faces and dragged them along the wall between dimensions. Peter's damaged mask tore further as the shifting boundary ground against it.
Artoria brought her sword up.
Anansi planted one foot on the blade and pinned it down. His right hook caught her across the face, driving her into the same unstable wall.
She ripped the sword free and struck at his leg. Ace drove a fist into his ribs. Peter fired a web around his wrist. For a few seconds they held him in place together.
Then Anansi changed something.
Adriel saw the command in his interface and reached to override it.
OVERRIDE REJECTED
Anansi tore free.
He struck Artoria down as she rose, turned Peter's next charge aside with a backhand, and drove his elbow into Ace's face when Ace tried to reach them. Ace staggered. Anansi punched beneath his ribs and threw him through a breach into another dimension.
Peter caught Artoria before Anansi could strike her again. He tried to carry her clear, but Anansi cut off their path, seized them both, and hurled them through separate openings.
Ace hit a distant planet.
Artoria plunged into an endless ocean beneath a sky she did not recognize.
Peter tore through a drifting mass of black stone in a third reality. The webbing at his throat pulled against the wound as the impact shattered the rock, leaving him tumbling among its fragments.
None of them could reach the others quickly enough to surround Anansi again.
Anansi stepped back through the dimensions toward the ruined center of Runeterra. The Omniversal Engine still floated inside its barrier, drawing worlds toward it. Adriel stood beside the machine, command windows spread across his vision.
Several had turned red.
Anansi looked at him and laughed.
"Was that your great plan?"
Adriel's fingers moved across the interface. Another attempt to block Anansi failed.
"It lasted longer than I expected. I'll give you that." Anansi walked toward him. "But you tried to take my powers away inside a story I'm already manipulating. How long did you think I would let you decide what I can do?"
The engine turned above them.
"You can change plenty, Guardian. You just can't keep changing me."
Anansi spread his arms, inviting Adriel to try another command.
"So come on. Try again."
Adriel stared at the red warnings filling his interface.
Every override he had prepared was failing. Anansi had found the edges of his commands and was rewriting his way around them faster than Adriel could build new ones.
Across three different dimensions, Peter, Ace, and Artoria were stranded where the Spider God had thrown them.
Adriel had known Anansi would adapt. He just had not expected the plan to fall apart this quickly.
"What's wrong?" Anansi called. "Having an aneurysm over there?"
Adriel's jaw tightened.
He closed the useless windows.
His eyes turned red.
Anansi raised an eyebrow. Then Adriel vanished from his senses.
The warning from Anansi's Spider-Sense came an instant before impact.
Adriel drove his shoulder into Anansi's waist. The tackle carried them through a tear in reality and onto the surface of a barren planet Adriel had marked earlier as lifeless. He locked both arms around the Spider God, lifted him, and slammed him into the ground.
The impact reshaped half the planet. Mountains folded toward the crater; fault lines raced beyond the horizon.
Before Anansi could rise, Adriel reached into his inventory.
He pulled out a small grenade.
Anansi's eyes widened.
"Where the hell did you get—"
Adriel seized his jaw, forced his mouth open, and shoved the grenade inside.
Then he teleported away.
The singularity ignited within Anansi.
It had been compressed into something Adriel could hold, its growth patterned after the monstrous scale of TON 618. Once released, it devoured the barren planet, then the stars beyond it. From the safety of another dimension, Adriel saw darkness spread across that galaxy until no light remained.
He did not wait to see whether Anansi survived.
Ace came first.
Adriel found him on the world where Anansi had thrown him, sitting against a boulder with one hand pressed to his ribs. He was conscious, but his breathing came in shallow gasps. Anansi had nearly knocked him out with a handful of hits. Each time Ace had tried to recover, Peter or Artoria had reached the Spider God just long enough to keep the next blow from landing.
"Ace."
Ace lifted his head. "Did you get him?"
"I bought us time."
"That's a no, then."
Adriel took his shoulder and teleported.
Artoria was sinking through the dark water of another world. Its ocean stretched in every direction. She had lost her grip on her sword, and the weight of her damaged armor was dragging her deeper.
Adriel appeared beside her, caught her wrist, and pulled her through a portal before she could descend any farther.
Peter was the last.
He floated among asteroids, motionless, fragments of stone drifting past his torn suit. One lens of his mask was broken. Adriel grabbed him and returned with all three Guardians to the wasteland of Runeterra.
The Omniversal Engine still hung inside its barrier.
Adriel set Peter down and stumbled back, breathing hard. Ace dropped to one knee. Artoria coughed water onto the scorched ground.
"I don't know what to do," Adriel said.
The words came out before he could stop them.
"I'm serious. I don't know what to do. We get stronger, and he figures us out even faster. Every time I close something off, he finds another way through."
Artoria looked up at him. She had heard only pieces, but his face told her enough. The plan that had kept them alive for the first part of the fight had failed.
Her sword returned to her hand. "Adriel—"
Space warped between them.
Adriel felt the attack and shoved Artoria out of its path.
Anansi stepped through and punched him squarely in the face.
Adriel skipped across the wasteland and struck a boulder hard enough to leave his shape in it. He remained there for a second, stunned.
Anansi lowered his fist.
He looked more furious than injured. The singularity had hurt him—Adriel could see it in the scorched flesh around his mouth and the unsteady way he drew his first breath—but it had not killed him.
"That," Anansi said, "was unpleasant."
Artoria lunged.
She aimed an upward cut at his chest. Anansi stepped on the blade before she could raise it, shifted his weight, and kicked her in the sternum. Her damaged armor broke under the strike.
She flew into the boulder just as Adriel was trying to pull himself free. Both of them disappeared beneath falling stone.
Ace forced himself up and charged.
Anansi backhanded him across the jaw.
Ace hit the ground and did not get up.
Something sharp pierced Anansi's side.
He looked down. A narrow point of webbing, wound so tightly that it had become rigid, had driven between his ribs and into a lung. Speed Force electricity traveled along it.
Anansi turned.
Peter stood beside him. The broken lens of his mask had fallen away, exposing an unfocused eye. He was unconscious. He had been since Adriel found him among the asteroids, yet his body had moved the instant Anansi threatened the others.
His Spider-Sense was acting without him.
Anansi smiled despite the wound.
"You're still getting stronger." He studied Peter's empty gaze. "Ever since that transformation, your body keeps finding new ways to survive. Good. Very good."
He raised a palm toward Peter's face. Cosmic energy gathered there.
Peter moved first.
He flipped backward, kicking Anansi's wrist toward the sky. The blast passed over him and split the red clouds.
"What the—"
Peter thrust one hand into empty space.
Earlier, when he and Artoria had crossed the ruined twin cities on their way to the others, he had found Mjolnir and the Necrosword among the wreckage. Thor and Gorr were gone, and the black corruption had faded from the hammer. Peter had stored Mjolnir in Adriel's shared inventory, meaning to ask about it when they had time.
There had been no time.
Anansi had blocked Peter's inventory access during their fight. Adriel had reopened it when he brought the team back to Runeterra, moments before Anansi attacked.
Peter's hand came out holding Mjolnir.
Even unconscious, he could lift it.
Speed Force lightning raced down his arm. Peter swung the hammer across Anansi's sternum like a baseball bat.
The impact launched the Spider God into orbit.
Peter swayed. His Spider-Sense released control, and awareness returned in pieces: the red sky, the broken wasteland, the ache in his throat beneath its web bandage.
He looked at the hammer in his hand.
"…When did I take this out?"
He remembered finding it. He did not remember swinging it.
Then another thought caught up with him.
He was holding Mjolnir.
Peter stared at it for half a second before his Spider-Sense flared. Anansi was returning, and he was coming fast.
A tear opened directly in front of Peter. Anansi emerged with a roundhouse kick aimed at his neck.
A second portal opened between them.
Adriel's arm shot through and caught Anansi's leg.
Adriel stepped out after it, Toxin wrapped tightly around his body. He looked at Peter, then at the hammer.
For a moment, neither of them said anything. They had fought beside each other often enough to know what the other needed.
Adriel twisted Anansi's captured leg, pulling his balance forward. Peter stepped inside the opening and swung Mjolnir at the Spider God's ribs.
Anansi raised an arm to meet the hammer.
Toxin lashed around that arm before he could complete the block.
Behind them, Artoria pushed the fallen stone aside. Ace stirred on the ground.
Peter tightened his grip on Mjolnir. Adriel planted his feet beside him, eyes still burning red.
Mjolnir struck Anansi beneath the ribs.
He flew backward across the wasteland, spun in the air, and landed on both feet. Trenches opened beneath his heels as he slid. Before Peter could follow up, Anansi launched himself at them again.
Adriel fired a Venom blast into his path.
Anansi slipped past it and answered with bioelectricity of his own. Adriel knocked the discharge aside, stepped into range, and met his fist with one of his own. The impact sent a shock wave across the planet.
They stayed close. Adriel turned a second punch past his face and struck at Anansi's jaw. Anansi caught him on the forearm, drove a knee toward his stomach, and forced him back half a step.
Peter came around Anansi's flank with Mjolnir raised.
Anansi kicked the hammer before the swing could finish. Its weight pulled Peter off balance. A surge of cosmic power blasted Adriel away, and Anansi caught Peter around the waist, lifted him, and drove him headfirst into the ground.
Peter tried to roll clear.
Anansi seized his ankle and threw him toward the sky.
The ground disappeared beneath him. Peter steadied himself near orbit, Speed Force lightning breaking his rotation, and raised Mjolnir just as Anansi appeared in front of him.
A cosmic blast struck the hammer.
Peter was pushed backward, but he turned Mjolnir across his chest and felt the weapon draw the energy inside. Lightning gathered around its head. He spun it, building momentum while Anansi closed the distance to stop him.
Peter threw.
Anansi moved aside.
Adriel teleported into the hammer's path behind him, caught the handle, and hurled it back.
Mjolnir struck Anansi between the shoulders.
The energy Peter had absorbed detonated around him, spreading fire and lightning across the darkness above Runeterra.
Far below, Ace finally got to his feet. Artoria rose beside him, one hand pressed against her battered armor. Both saw the explosion and launched themselves toward it.
Peter called Mjolnir back. Adriel appeared at his side as the others reached them.
Anansi's laughter came from inside the fading blast.
The four Guardians exchanged a look. They had hurt him. They had forced him to defend, surprised him, and struck him with enough power to tear worlds apart.
He was still getting stronger.
Below them, the Omniversal Engine continued turning. Every moment they spent fighting brought it closer to completing its work.
Artoria raised her sword and went first.
Anansi flicked his wrist.
She stopped mid-swing.
Her blade remained inches from his neck. Artoria strained against whatever held her, but her arms would not move.
Ace drove a Haki-covered fist toward Anansi's exposed side. Cosmic fire gathered around his knuckles.
Anansi looked at him.
The fire went out.
So did the lightning around Ace's body. The black coating on his fist vanished, and his forward momentum carried him past Anansi before he could understand what had happened.
Ace opened his mouth.
There was no air.
Peter turned toward him immediately.
"Ace—"
His arm moved without his permission.
Peter watched his own hand extend Mjolnir toward Anansi. His fingers opened as though handing it over had been his intention all along.
Anansi took the hammer.
The event had been rewritten before Peter could resist it.
Mjolnir struck him across the cheek. Peter disappeared toward the planet in a trail of blood and blue lightning.
Adriel reached for Ace.
Mystical cords closed around his wrists.
He tried to teleport. Another cord tightened around his neck, and more wound around his legs and torso, wrenching him backward. Adriel pulled against them, reaching for the commands that could break the spell.
Anansi altered it again.
The counter Adriel had begun to form no longer matched what restrained him.
He looked toward Artoria. She was still suspended beside Anansi, locked in the position of her attack. He had stopped her movement while leaving her aware of the vacuum around her.
Ace's lips were turning blue.
"No."
Adriel strained harder.
Ace clawed at his own throat. His eyes found Adriel's, and for a moment he looked less like a Guardian than a man waiting for his friend to reach him.
Let me go!
Adriel's voice traveled through the telepathic link. Ace did not answer.
Artoria's grip loosened around her sword. The light in her eyes dimmed.
Adriel pulled until the restraints cut into him.
Then both of his friends went still.
Space closed around them.
An instant later, Adriel was standing on the ruined ground before the Omniversal Engine. Ace and Artoria lay at his feet. Anansi landed beside the machine with Mjolnir hanging loosely in one hand.
"That may be the easiest takedown of Guardians I've ever had."
Adriel barely heard him.
He opened the party display.
Ace's heart had stopped. Artoria was not breathing.
Both status sheets still read:
DYING
Adriel stared at the word.
The transition would not complete. Anansi had pinned them to the edge of death, holding their bodies in a terminal state while keeping enough awareness inside them to suffer.
"This helped, of course." Anansi rested a hand against the engine's barrier. "Every world it draws in gives me more power. More possibilities. More ways to work around anything you prepare."
Adriel looked up.
The cords loosened as Anansi set him down. Adriel tore free of what remained and lunged.
Dark tendrils erupted from Anansi's shadow, wrapping around his legs and waist. Adriel formed a blade of lightning in his hand and drove it toward the Spider God's chest.
The tendrils vanished.
Anansi caught the blade between his bare fingers.
Its light died.
His other hand closed around Adriel's throat.
Adriel struck at the wrist. Toxin surged over his arm, forming hooks that dug into Anansi's flesh. Bioelectricity followed. When that failed, Adriel reached for magnetism, psionic force, the Void power he had taken, and every command he could still call up.
Anansi stripped them away as they formed.
Some attacks fizzled before leaving Adriel's body. Others reached Anansi and were knocked aside. A web line snapped before it could attach to anything. Adriel's interface flickered between red warnings and empty windows.
His feet left the ground.
"Is this it?" Anansi asked. "After everything I've heard about you? Every impossible fight you survived?"
Adriel tried to answer and could only choke.
Anansi glanced at Ace and Artoria.
"Do I need to give you more motivation?"
Adriel's hands tightened around Anansi's wrist.
The engine turned behind them. Its rings drew closer to the core as another sequence of worlds collapsed into its archive.
Anansi watched it for a moment.
Gorr had intended the accumulated power to finish his altered God Bomb: a weapon that would destroy video games as an entire category of existence.
But Anansi no longer saw a reason to let the weapon have it.
He could absorb the payload himself.
Then he could destroy those worlds at his leisure. And when he finished, there would be other stories to enter.
Anansi smiled.
He released Adriel's throat and wrapped him in spider magic before he could fall. Layer after layer closed around his body, pinning his arms against his sides and binding him upright. The cocoon left his face exposed.
"Watch," Anansi said.
Adriel struggled for breath. His eyes kept returning to his friends.
Anansi followed the look, then stepped toward the monitor.
"Within this story, my current classification is high outerversal." He tapped the screen. "An impressive place to begin. But still a classification with something beyond it."
A soft chime interrupted him.
The monitor changed.
COMPRESSION COMPLETE
Anansi laughed.
"There it is."
He pressed a hand against the display. A holographic file rose from it, small enough to fit between his fingers.
Adriel stared.
The first games humanity had created. Every world that followed them. Every branch, adaptation, alternate history, crossover, and connection the engine had harvested.
Countless lives, compressed into something Anansi could hold.
League of Legends remained outside the archive as the host setting, with this version of Runeterra as their battleground. Every other video-game setting had been forced into the archive.
Anansi turned the file toward Adriel.
"From the beginning of video games to the present. All of it."
Adriel tried to open his interface again.
Nothing appeared.
"And now," Anansi said, "I become Boundless."
He pressed the file into his chest.
It disappeared.
No.
Adriel, no.
The file is gone. I saw it go into him, but I cannot describe where it went. I cannot find the boundary of what he has become.
His face is still there. His hand is still raised.
And he is somewhere behind every word I use to describe him.
Guardian, what happened? You were supposed to stop this. I watched you prepare. I watched the others trust you, and I thought—
I thought we would reach the next scene.
Anansi lowered his hand.
The engine's monitor went dark.
I cannot hear the other worlds anymore.
There were so many of them. Even when they were being compressed, there was something left to follow: a voice, a place, the last moment of someone's life.
Now there is Anansi.
He has them.
Every story inside that file exists only where he permits it to exist.
We are going to die.
You, your friends, the people you hid in that bunker. This world will go first, and then he will reach through every connection that brought him here. The games, the archives, the stories people shared because they loved them.
There will be nothing left for me to tell.
I am going to die too.
Adriel, please.
You hated being called the chosen one. I know. After everything that title demanded from you, I know why you hated it.
But you are still here.
Please do something.
Anansi turned his head.
His gaze passed over Adriel, over the cocoon, over the place where Peter had fallen beyond the horizon.
Then he looked farther.
At me.
I stopped.
I do not know how to hide from something that can see where I am speaking from—and beyond.
"I see everything," Anansi said.
His voice reached beyond the wasteland.
"I feel everything. I am everywhere."
Adriel stared at him, blood running from the marks around his throat.
"Was this a fraction of what you had when you lived in the real world, Guardian? This understanding? This access?"
Anansi's expression sharpened with envy.
"You stood beyond our stories. You could look in, decide what mattered, and close the page whenever you pleased."
I cannot tell whether he is asking Adriel or accusing everyone watching.
Perhaps he no longer sees a difference.
"Watch closely, those beyond the screen."
His eyes found the edge of the scene.
There is no distance left between his gaze and the people reading it.
"Soon enough, none of you will be safe. Our reach will find you."
He looked down at Ace and Artoria, then back at Adriel.
"But first, we deal with the antivirus."
Please, Guardian.
"Then the virus can keep spreading."
Anansi released Adriel.
The bindings peeled away from his body and dissolved. Adriel dropped onto the scorched ground, caught himself on one knee, and forced himself upright.
He had not even finished straightening when Anansi appeared before him.
One finger hovered an inch from his sternum.
Adriel's eyes widened.
The finger curled into a fist.
Anansi moved his hand forward.
That was all.
His knuckles struck Adriel's chest, and the world behind the Guardian cracked.
For one unbearable instant, I saw the fracture spreading through everything.
The ground split beneath their feet. The horizon broke along the same line, followed by the sky and the space beyond it. Stars vanished behind a widening seam that continued through the universe containing them.
Then the damage reached the other realities.
Across every layer of the League of Legends setting, the same division appeared. Parallel worlds fractured. Alternate timelines broke apart. Entire universes and the multiverses containing them opened along the path of that single blow.
Even the higher dimensions surrounding those structures began to tear.
The force kept traveling through them.
Every boundary that should have separated one reality from another cracked in succession, carrying the destruction farther into the setting until it reached its outermost limits.
I could see the scale of it.
I wish I couldn't.
The Runeterra beneath their feet was one world within an enormous collection of worlds, histories, and possibilities. Anansi's punch had driven a rupture through that entire collection.
It was like cutting a book lengthwise through its cover, its spine, and every page beneath it.
The same half disappeared from every page.
Everything written there went with it.
Half of the entire League of Legends cosmology was erased.
For a moment, I waited for the aftermath. Fire. Debris. Some terrible wave of destruction that would let me follow what had happened to Adriel.
Nothing came back.
The space that could have carried it had disappeared too.
Beyond the fracture lay an empty whiteness, stretching through every level of reality the blow had reached. There were no distant stars within it. No other worlds behind it. No remaining history for me to look through.
It resembled a blank page.
I tried to describe where Adriel had gone.
There was nothing there for the description to reach.
Across the connections linking this fiction to the internet, gaps opened with it. Records, images, and whole stretches of history belonging to the erased realities disappeared.
Anansi had already absorbed every other video-game setting.
He had deliberately kept League of Legends outside that absorption so the Guardians would still have somewhere to fight him.
Now he had casually destroyed half of their remaining battleground.
Ace watched from the ground.
Anansi's magic still held him at the edge of death. He could not lift an arm, summon a flame, or even draw the breath he desperately needed. Yet his eyes followed the spreading whiteness.
Artoria remained trapped beside him.
She had seen Adriel get to his feet. She had seen Anansi raise his hand.
Then the punch connected, and her friend disappeared with everything behind him.
Her eyes strained toward the fractured edge of the surviving world.
There was no body.
No falling silhouette.
No trace she could follow.
Anansi lowered his hand.
He studied his knuckles for a moment, flexing his fingers as though testing how much effort he had used. Then he glanced across the ruined boundary and sighed.
"And I was holding back."
Ace's gaze shifted toward him.
Anansi sounded mildly surprised.
"A casual hit," he continued. "And half the setting disappears."
He looked into the whiteness again.
For the first time since absorbing the engine's contents, something resembling genuine curiosity crossed his face.
"Though your friend surprised me."
Artoria's eyes widened.
"He survived."
Neither of them could understand it.
They had just watched entire layers of existence break apart around Adriel. The punch had struck his chest before tearing through the worlds behind him. He had taken the impact directly.
And Anansi was saying he had lived.
Ace searched the surviving wasteland again, desperately looking for something he had missed.
Artoria stared beyond it, toward the empty place where the rest of their reality should have been.
Adriel was nowhere.
I searched too.
Every remaining world. Every part of the scene I could still reach.
I had been begging him to save us.
Now I could not even tell them where he was.
To Be Continued...