Inside Galactus's stomach was far more hospitable than Joey had imagined.
Before being swallowed, he had expected oceans of acid capable of dissolving anything, or perhaps an indestructible stomach powerful enough to grind all matter into dust.
Instead, there was none of that.
All he found was an endless expanse of space stretching beyond sight.
Trillions of stars in every stage of their life cycles shone throughout the cosmos. Even with Kryptonian vision, Joey couldn't begin to count them all.
Countless dying stars collapsed while countless new suns were born. Vast nebulae drifted around him, and the starlight they radiated made him stronger than he had ever been before.
The universe evolved at incredible speed.
Cosmic energy flowed between his fingers as though space and time themselves had become one with him, filling him with an indescribable sense of peace.
After surpassing the speed of light and wandering through this endless sea of stars for what felt like an eternity, only serenity remained in Joey's heart.
There was just one sentence echoing through his mind:
"Where are my teammates?! Somebody, damn it, save me!"
Seriously.
Wasn't there anyone outside who could pry open this universe-sized glutton's mouth and pull him back out?
This universe inside Galactus was even larger than the real universe.
After searching endlessly for an exit, Joey found nothing.
If it was truly infinite, then even with a Kryptonian's vision and limitless stamina, he probably would never reach its edge.
There didn't seem to be any immediate danger, but this was still the stomach of a cosmic god.
Who knew whether any of this was even real?
Maybe he was already dying, and everything he saw now was nothing more than an illusion created as his consciousness was gradually being digested into cosmic energy.
"I hope Earth is okay."
After quietly praying for the Earth outside, Joey found a relatively stable red dwarf star system and began basking in its sunlight.
The universe inside Galactus evolved far faster than the normal universe.
After being continuously bathed in the radiation of countless newborn stars along the way, Joey began feeling numb and itchy all over, almost like the symptoms of early-stage radiation sickness.
Looking inside his own body, he discovered that nearly every cell had become unnaturally saturated with energy.
If he didn't cool himself down beneath a red star soon, even he couldn't predict what might happen next.
As he relaxed under the sunlight, another question occurred to him.
Logically speaking, only his consciousness had left the Ultraman body and entered Galactus's stomach.
So why did he still possess his Kryptonian body?
...Forget it.
Trying to understand Ultraman-related things in detail was usually a waste of time.
Then again, perhaps it was simply Galactus's cosmic energy at work.
After all, Galactus was fundamentally a creator god rather than a god of destruction.
The problem was that every act of creation required the destruction of part of an old world in order to give birth to a new one.
If Galactus were ever to die, then for the entire multiverse it would be like an ecosystem simultaneously losing both its apex predator and its decomposers.
Without either, everything would inevitably collapse into absolute stillness.
But that wasn't Joey's problem to solve.
Skipping one meal wouldn't kill Galactus.
But if Joey remained trapped here much longer, Tony's Earth would almost certainly be doomed.
With that thought, Joey took off once more, flying toward what he believed to be the "edge" of this universe.
Yet the boundless emptiness offered neither direction nor landmarks.
Time continued to pass.
All that accumulated was anxiety.
Eventually, he began talking to himself.
"So Ultraman doesn't work either..."
"I thought this was supposed to be a deus ex machina."
If Wonder Woman, whose mythology originated from the ancient Greek gods—had been here, she would have been perfectly qualified to explain what a deus ex machina actually meant.
The term originated in ancient Greek theater.
Literally, it meant "the god from the machine."
In essence, it described a story in which the protagonist found themselves trapped in an impossible situation—unable to escape, unable to win, with no hope of survival.
Then, at the very last moment, someone or something suddenly appeared and saved them.
That savior was traditionally portrayed as a god descending from above by means of a stage machine.
Thus, the name: the god from the machine.
As far as Joey could remember, the vast majority of Ultraman stories followed exactly that formula.
Whenever the protagonists fell into absolute despair, Ultraman would appear as the miraculous savior.
The god of the story.
Mortals faced disaster.
The god descended from heaven.
The crisis disappeared.
Nearly every episode followed that same pattern.
Many critics had argued that this style of storytelling was too simplistic and too convenient, destroying the internal logic of the narrative.
Normally, Joey agreed with them.
...Except in situations like this.
When facing a godlike existence such as Galactus, even Superman and Ultraman were no different from ordinary mortals.
So what happened when the god of the original story was the one driven into despair?
If someone could suddenly appear now with a classic deus ex machina and save Joey from this impossible situation...
He certainly wasn't going to complain afterward that the story was poorly written.
When people were pushed to their limits, their minds tended to wander.
It reminded Joey of taking exams in his previous life.
Whenever he encountered a question he couldn't solve and desperately needed to think...
His brain would instead start randomly playing some song he'd heard years earlier.
Still flying through the endless void, Joey eventually found another lonely red dwarf system far away from the larger star clusters and stopped to rest again.
Although Kryptonian biology had never mentioned the dangers of excessive yellow-sun radiation, he could clearly feel that his cells were becoming overloaded from the omnipresent cosmic energy permeating this universe.
Could this constant radiation actually be Galactus's digestive system?
While resting and thinking of a way to escape, Joey took a closer look at this remarkably desolate red star system.
It truly was... desolate.
Normally, any massive celestial body would have several planets and countless asteroids orbiting within its gravitational well.
Yet around this red giant there was only a single barren rocky planet beneath Joey's feet.
Under normal circumstances, Joey would probably have spent quite a while investigating such a strange anomaly.
But now, he simply didn't have the luxury.
Feeling that his body's energy level had finally returned to a manageable state, Joey pushed off the ground with one foot and prepared to leave the lifeless star system.
Boom!
The instant both feet left the ground, the planet beneath him suddenly exploded.
Joey's first thought was that he had once again lost control of his strength, causing the reaction force from his takeoff to shatter the planet itself.
That was simply how Kryptonians were.
Their mere existence often carried the potential to destroy entire worlds.
"I barely used any strength... so why did it suddenly brea—"
This habitual assumption lasted only until the next second.
As fragments of the shattered planet scattered in every direction, Joey saw a hundred-meter-long worm burst out from the planetary core. It opened its enormous maw and lunged at him at faster than light speed.
"ROOOAAAR!"
Caught completely off guard by the monster's sudden appearance, Joey barely managed to brace himself with both hands and feet against its circular lamprey-like mouth, preventing himself from being swallowed whole.
The giant worm's body was covered in a shimmering, multicolored shell that resembled a solidified cosmic nebula, occasionally refracting deep indigo flashes of cosmic energy.
Apparently not expecting its prey to fight back, the creature let out an irritated screech.
Its mouth—like that of a giant lamprey, lined with roughly 7,863 overlapping teeth, pressed down with overwhelming force, determined to crush and devour the meal that had delivered itself right to its doorstep.
The intense struggle rapidly drained the energy stored within Joey's body.
Being beneath the light of a red sun only made things worse, leaving sweat pouring down his back.
Knowing that continuing like this would inevitably get him killed, Joey forced himself to study the horrifying mouth in front of him, searching for a weak point.
"If I can just fire my heat vision and knock out a few hundred of those teeth..."
But before he could put the idea into action, a long tongue suddenly shot out from the seemingly bottomless maw.
It wrapped tightly around Joey's waist.
With both his hands and feet occupied holding back the creature's jaws, he had no way to resist.
Like a pangolin swallowing an ant, Joey was dragged helplessly into the giant worm's stomach.
The only words he managed before disappearing into its throat were—
"Fuck!"
---
"Fuck!"
Far outside the miniature universe within Galactus's stomach, Iron Man and the Spider-Men assisting him cried out almost simultaneously.
"We're out of time!"
"I know!"
The good news was that the weapon was almost finished.
The bad news was that Galactus was about to start eating before it was ready.
The efficiency of the Matter-Energy Converter far exceeded everyone's expectations.
Even with Iron Man and hundreds of brilliant Spider-Men working at full capacity, there simply wasn't enough time to properly calibrate the device.
"We need someone to hold Galactus off!"
"We still need thirty minutes!"
Tony and several Spider-Men from other universes were running around in a frenzy.
He had to admit that nearly every Peter Parker truly deserved to be called a genius.
They barely needed to communicate before seamlessly syncing their ideas with Tony's own.
The Spider-Men looked at one another before collectively letting out weary sighs.
"Even Thor and the Silver Surfer lost."
"Can we really stall him long enough?"
Most of them had never encountered Galactus before and had no concrete understanding of just how terrifyingly powerful the Devourer of Worlds truly was.
But almost all of them knew exactly how strong Thor was.
If Galactus could casually swat away both Thor and the Silver Surfer with one slap each, then even several hundred fearless Spider-Men probably wouldn't be able to buy more than a minute.
"Fine."
"We'll give you thirty minutes."
"We may not be able to defeat a god..."
"...but we can at least teach him what pain feels like."
A voice echoed down from above.
The assembled Spider-Men looked up to see Spider-Man 2099 climbing down from the rooftop.
"Spider Society."
"Are you ready to fight for New York once again?"
Not every Spider-Man shared his optimism.
"Honestly? No."
"I'd bet fighting that giant isn't much harder than an ordinary person dealing with a spider."
"He probably even brought bug spray."
Even so...
Not a single one of them backed down.
"But spiders do have one advantage."
"No matter how deadly the threat..."
"...they always find a way to dodge it."
"No."
Spider-Man 2099 knew that scattered harassment wouldn't slow Galactus down in the slightest.
They needed to confront him head-on.
"We're going to fight Galactus face-to-face."
Of course, charging headlong into battle had one important prerequisite.
He wasn't the type to throw people away in a meaningless suicide attack.
While Tony Stark had been busy building the massive cannon that was supposedly capable of driving Galactus away...
Spider-Man 2099 hadn't been idle either.
Creeeak—
The steel framework of Stark Tower groaned as though a tremendous weight had finally been lifted.
The enormous object resting atop the skyscraper regained enough power to fly once more.
Spider-Man 2099 had finished his work.
Using futuristic nanotechnology, he had repaired the Spider Society's giant trump card—
Leopardon.
More and more Spider-Men climbed onto the giant robot's shoulders and packed themselves into its cockpit.
Inside Leopardon's cockpit, Takuya Yamashiro, the Toei Spider-Man, crossed his arms before his chest, fully prepared to stake his life on the coming battle.
There was no time to mourn their fallen comrade, Superman.
The one entering the battlefield next was—
The steel giant Leopardon, wielding Sword Vigor, erupted with blazing exhaust trails as it charged toward Galactus thousands of miles away.
With absolute resolve, it unleashed its mightiest slash.
"The man who found hope in the courage of his friends and comrades—"
"Supaidaman!"