In the heart of New Asgard, the two kings led the fight against the brunt of Knull's army.

"Well Brother, you want to try out operation cloud bombers?" King Loki suggested.

"With what clouds!?" King Thor questioned. "They're all beyond the black barrier!"

"Then we'll make our own; you do specialize in storms, do you not?"

"Of course, Brother!"

"And clouds are simply droplets of water that condense in cold air, so all we have to do is moisturize and chill the air around us." King Loki telekinetically lifted water from the sea upward and chilled the air around it with his Jotun powers, speeding up the condensation process. As the clouds formed, he froze the water molecules enough for himself to hop on top of it, and Thor jumped on next to him.

"Now I bring the thunder!" As they gained altitude, Thor struck the cloud he stood on with his own powers, causing lightning to rain down on their foes! Loki used more of his ice to bring sharp icicles of hail down to impale their targets at the same time, alternating with flames that scorched the others! Thor then controlled the wind with a continuous twirling of Stormbreaker, steering the cloud around the battlefield while the hazardous weather combinations devastated the Symbiote army! "I'd say operation cloud bombers is another success!"

"As if you had any doubt."

From the ground, Grievance watched the two Asgardian brothers rain down the elements on his Symbiote brothers, hesitating as they were systematically wiped out!

"Uhhh... Lord Knull? How am I supposed to get that Loki's codex while he and his Thor are frying everyone on that death cloud?"

"You'll think of something. You're a clever child."

"Yeahhh, okayyy. Not very helpful advice."

"You have an army of dragons fighting by your side."

"Yeah, who are getting zapped to death like a buncha flies! I don't have that healing power the other me has if they get me! And speaking of flies, I cannot fly! How am I supposed to get to him?"

"Don't worry. I told you, you are clever, more than you realize! And if you get struck by one of their attacks, I can always reform you! Go, get me my weapon!"

"Uhhh... okayyy."

"Is that how you speak to your creator?"

"Uhhh, yes?" Grievance thought. "Oh, I mean, yes, Lord Knull!"

"Yesss, that's better." Knull concluded.

Grievance looked upward again. "Sooo... what do I do? What... do I dooo...?" He paused for a long moment and turned towards the buildings in New Asgard. "I think after I have some chocolate, I'll come up with somethinggg."

Detective Loki and his two Thors continued their plan to disorient Knull with their flashing lights and blast him in tandem, but now that he had begun to take them seriously, the god of Symbiotes had begun to overpower their light with his darkness! Healer barely managed to heal the injuries that Knull inflicted on them, keeping his main priority on protecting his Loki while his host treated him likewise.

Ultimately, neither side appeared to be winning the battle, as Knull recovered from their attacks even more quickly!

"This is getting us nowhere." Loki assessed.

"So, you were saying we need to destroy him completely if we hope to win?" Red Thor asked. "Is such a feat even possible?"

"Are you going to use that super technique?" Party Thor wondered. "The one that Queen Aelsa told you was too dangerous?"

The detective didn't answer, taking a few anxious steps back from their raring opponent. "I... I might have something in mind. Wait here." Loki opened another Time Door. "I need a moment."

Loki then headed straight through the door, but Knull quickly entered in after him, and the door closed on them both!

"Come back, you cowards!" Red Thor shouted.

"That's weird, Loki was so determined to get here to protect the other Thor." Party Thor mumbled. "He must have a trick up his sleeve somewhere..."

It didn't take Knull long to cut off Loki's path and grab him by the head again! "Running away again? And here I thought you couldn't seem any more pitiful."

Loki smirked. "For someone who existed before the Celestials, you certainly are gullible." A powerful blast of light shot towards them, scorching Knull from behind, and then Loki closed the Time Door! The King in Black glanced around to see that the door had led them to the middle of outer space, where the energy from a large star quickly beamed on him!

"We just need to hold him in place long enough, and then we can finish this!" Loki silently relayed to his Symbiote.

"By setting off the supernova? That finishing move?"

"Correct, unless if you can think of anything else powerful enough to destroy him."

"You do have a plan of escape for us, right?" Healer asked his host. "Because I can't heal us if this attack destroys me too!"

"Don't worry, I always find a way to escape!"

Loki summoned more beams of light from the closest stars, beginning to overwhelm Knull from all sides! As the bright energy excruciatingly singed him, Knull summoned darkness from the deepest voids of space, struggling until he was able to dive into the darkness and slip away!

Loki gathered up more energy from the stars while Knull hastened to open a new portal back to New Asgard, and he rammed himself into Loki, pushing the Jotun-Asgardian prince through it!

When they reached the other side, one of his tendrils snatched Loki's TemPad from him and crushed it; Knull then held out his hand and closed his portal!

"No more of that. The galaxies were so much prettier without those eyesores you call stars. Once all of my children are on my side again, I'm going to extinguish every one of those pesky lights!"

"What happened?" Party Thor asked. "He looks wounded; did you try the supernova something blast?"

Loki shook his head. "I only had time to blast him with the weaker star beams, and he slipped away before he brought me here! I'll need a lot more time to set off the chain reaction for my ultimate attack, and to make matters worse, he'll now be on guard against me leading him anywhere near outer space!"

"And without your little portal machine, the only way we can get him there is by blasting him through that barrier above us!" Red Thor reasoned. "If that's even possible."

"Well, I actually have more of them tucked away, but I'd much rather keep that information from him if he's just going to destroy them!"

"What's the plan, then?" Party Thor asked as they defended themselves against Knull's waves of darkness. "Should we grab him and bring him up through that barrier, like red-haired me suggested?"

"Yes. My light beam laser should be able to open up a sizable hole for you, should you catch him! But I don't know if we can all make it back here before the Superluminous Supernova Surge goes off!"

"That is an awesome name, by the way!"

"Really?" Healer criticized. "I think it sounds super redundant and super pompous!"

"Hopefully it'll live up to that name; nothing else seems to be working!"

"You silly little lightling, you're fighting a pointless battle!" Knull taunted. "Haven't you even realized the counterproductive nature of your little light tricks yet?"

"Only the counterproductive nature of your long-winded babbling!" Party Thor replied, firing a beam of light magic from his hammer, but Knull easily sidestepped it.

"I can get away with it, now that you're becoming predictable. I mean the counterproductiveness of your Loki using that light magic when the darkness inside him weakens its efficiency." Loki raised an eyebrow, piecing together what the he and Light Elf queen each noticed about his light magic proficiency. "You are bonded to one of my shadows, born of darkness, and darkness is part of your very DNA until I take it back! That is why you can never hope to destroy me, even if you were a real god!"

"So it's not all due to anxiety, like Aelsa thought."

"Ignore him, he is just trying to give you excuses to get rid of meee!" Healer figured.

"Naturally, but it doesn't matter how ancient he is, no one manipulates me!"

Eventually, Malice slipped off of his Sovereign-made ride, slinking over to see the battle between his creator and Detective Loki's team!

"Tch! Healing powers or not, they're still no match for him! And me... maybe that Grievance wasn't wrong about those hosts: it seems they have all been disappointments to me, almost as much as he has himself! But if I had my own body..." He looked up at Knull. "If I didn't have to rely on hosts anymore, then I would be truly free!" As he drew closer, he noticed the pieces of broken TemPad scattered across the ground. "Wait, this technology... it looks like his little time machine! That's it! If I can find a way to fix it, I can turn the tide of this battle to my favor!" He inwardly grinned as he gathered the parts, unbeknownst to the fighters.

As light and dark clashed again, the two Thors combined their inner lightning to keep Knull at bay! As the three barely managed to pin him down together, Party Thor placed his hammer on the primordial god's back.

"That should hold him for a moment!"

"No!" Red Thor interjected. "He-"

However, the warning came too late as Knull smashed the weapon into pieces with a pound of his fist, and he eerily slid back up to his feet.

"Damn it!"

"You're the biggest fool of the bunch, I see." Knull gathered his dark energy into a circle around them all, which expanded until it caught his opponents in his snare! They struggled to free themselves, but the trap held them tight, until bright orange discs materialized between their bodies and the darkness! The magic discs expanded in the opposite direction, enough for the Asgardian trio to free themselves, and Loki turned to see Doctor Strange, Wong, and Clea at the ready!

"Ah, just what the doctor ordered!" Loki remarked.

"Okay, you start making Doctor jokes and I'm sticking you with a real doctor's bill, insurance excluded!" Strange replied.

Loki ignored his comeback, his attention now on the blonde next to him. "Is that the sorceress you mentioned before? The one you may or may not fancy?"

"Small talk later, killing your boogeyman now!"

"Right! We need to stun him long enough for me to take him to outer space, where I'm going to destroy him with a massive supernova!"

"And blow up an entire galaxy in the process?" Clea added.

"One of the uninhabited ones, which is why I'll need to make sure Knull is immobilized long enough to get caught in the explosion, because we don't have many chances of everything going correctly! And if it isn't too much trouble, I might need a portal to keep me from getting caught in it as well!"

"Nothing is ever simple and quiet with you, is it?" Doctor Strange rhetorically asked.

"Of course not! In the meantime, we also need to keep him from taking Healer."

"Your alien? I thought you wanted him gone."

"Not anymore, he's one of the family now. And true to his name, he's the only one of us to my knowledge that can heal damage from Knull's weapons of darkness, so he's crucial to this battle as well!"

"Got it!" The trio of Midgardian spellcasters joined in on the assault, adding to the lightning theme by striking Knull with their Bolts of Balthakk! Then they followed up as a team with their mightiest binding spell, the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, on Knull while the Asgardian trio assisted them!

Back on Earth 688, Carnage brought Eddie, Anne, and Dylan to shelter.

"Phew! Good job, Carnage!" Dylan complimented.

"Just tell me who to kill, and I will cut them all to bloody ribbons!" Carnage spoke enthusiastically.

"Uh, Knull!" Eddie offered. "Killing Knull would be nice!"

"Killing Knull would be impossible, and I was talking to my new host, not you, stupid human!"

"Hey, he's my dad, and I'm your new boss, so show him some respect!" Carnage didn't respond and only reluctantly nodded, so Dylan continued. "Do you know how to get Venom- your father back? How to set him free?"

"He has been inducted back into the hive; you would need to be able to connect to it to reach him, but to free him? You would have to infiltrate the hive mind, get past Knull's defenses somehow, and even if you somehow managed that, then you would need to find his codex out of thousands of others!"

"That's okay; I think can recognize him. But how do we get him out afterwards?"

"How should I know? I'm a killer, not a rescuer! I don't care one bit about freeing my father; I'm only helping you so I can kill Father myself later!"

"Charming as always." Anne sarcastically replied. "So how do we connect with this hive mind?"

"You don't." Carnage faced Dylan. "He does: he has control over the hive workers, he can gain control of the hive."

"Right. I'm gonna give it a try!" Dylan grabbed hold of Carnage, causing the Symbiote to squeal again in anguish and surprise!

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?"

"Creating a link into your mind." He closed his eyes, picturing Venom in his head as he attempted to connect to the hive mind. "This had better work!"

"This had better work!" Malice mumbled as he turned on the newly fixed TemPad from a deep underground workshop. He flashed a toothy grin as the screen displayed its destinations. "Now where was that universe where Detective Loki's family was hiding? Not there, not there... ah yes, the Null-Time Zone, that was the title! Hmmm, such a futuristic device with such simple operating functions..." He pressed the buttons with his formless blob body, and a glowing orange door appeared in front of him. "Yesss!" He entered through it, dragging the TemPad with him as his plan unfolded.