Stairway of Light and Darkness (3K Bonus Chapter, Thanks to Gewuen for Lighting the God of Literature)

Drip.

Drip.

Foul, viscous black liquid dripped from the sky, and the holy radiance that had filled the air moments ago swiftly began to turn defiled.

Solomon found it difficult to resist the dark power of the Darkhold as well. His body and mind both became extremely unstable.

Of course, he wanted to ascend the Demon God’s Stairway too, but something of that level was incredibly rare!

His Demon God’s Stairway was incomplete, containing only the first four steps.

But he had obtained another power.

The Stairway of Light and Darkness—or rather, the Stairway of Saint and Demon it had now become.

Stairway of Light and Darkness (10 steps)—a stairway of light and darkness, saint and demon, yang and yin; the essence of binary opposition.

A stairway with ten full steps was enough to allow Solomon to reach a realm beyond that of the current Supreme Experts. With it, he would establish himself in the Native World before seeking the power of the throne.

Solomon held a feather from the angel Gabriel in one hand and a fragment of the Darkhold in the other. This item not only possessed tremendous effects and served as the key to opening a new stairway, but was also one of the few powerful dark forces he could obtain in this world that could stand alongside Gabriel’s power.

In an instant, the powers of light and darkness, saint and demon, continuously rose from Solomon’s two arms.

By then, massive numbers of troops and weapons had gathered nearby. Fighter jets were rapidly approaching overhead, and although some people were still trying to contact the Avengers to confirm the situation—

Many military commanders and officials could no longer endure the pressure and gave the order to fire.

Boom!

Missiles tore through the air. Solomon did not even glance at them. Countless tiny glimmers lit up, and the missiles exploded out of thin air.

Those shockwaves seemed to exist on an entirely different plane from him. They could not affect him in the slightest.

The crowds on the ground had completely lost control. A colossal being that covered all of New York was constantly reacting to ordinary people, and that alone was enough to shatter most people’s sanity.

Parker’s mother and brother were no exception. They followed the crowd, screaming and running.

Until a massive silver lance lit up once more.

Splat!

An unimaginable amount of blood erupted in every direction.

Because they had been seeking shelter, the crowd was densely packed. An attack capable of instantly wiping out more than half a city block landed squarely amidst them.

This time, they were not vaporized as they had been before.

Instead, it was as though a terrifying impact had crashed down. Blood and gore sprayed outward like ocean waves, splattering skyscrapers hundreds of meters high.

Then blood ran down the glass-covered walls of those buildings, like some bizarre ritual.

The bloody aura rushed into their faces. The next moment, another gigantic lance descended far away. Amid the terrified screams of countless people tearing their throats raw, a torrent of blood shot into the sky.

The fallen angel high above the sky had finally begun his slaughter.

The overwhelming stench of blood made people retch. A faint bloody haze seemed to be rising throughout the city.

The entire city had been stained crimson.

Ebony Maw hid inside a building, watching the apocalyptic scene outside in shock. What exactly was that thing in the sky trying to do?!

He smelled the traces of some evil ritual.

Behind him, Proxima Midnight had lost an arm and was supported by Corvus Glaive. Their ship had already been destroyed, and now they could only wait for Thanos’s support.

"Tch, what a bunch of trash. When you don’t have the advantage in power, you can’t do anything at all?!"

Contempt, mockery, ridicule, pride.

It was hard to imagine that someone could convey so many emotions through their voice alone.

But Ebony Maw clearly sensed that implication. He turned around, and his dim eyes flickered.

"This is… an undead?"

A human girl whose body emitted a faint white glow leaned against the wall opposite the building.

Her black, medium-length hair and bangs covered her face, making it impossible to see her features clearly. Yet her lips curled into a deeply mocking smile.

Ebony Maw raised a hand, about to seize her, but another figure surged out from within her body, slowly emerging like foam.

"Trash, who gave you permission to lay hands on this king?!"

The inexplicably majestic voice was utterly mismatched with that foam-like, unstable spirit body. Yet when Ebony Maw reached out, all he caught was that strange white substance.

It seemed to be an incorporeal spirit body, endlessly flowing.

White Face was deeply dissatisfied with being controlled by Mercenary Tao, but she had no choice. Mercenary Tao seemed to have encountered some special situation and released every spirit from his body.

Moreover, he had given them new "revival slots." With Artoria’s revival as precedent, none of them were willing to give up.

She continued speaking as she backed away.

"Idiot, what good does attacking me now do?"

"Why not think about how to make up for the crime of losing the Mind Stone before Lord Thanos arrives!"

There was no incongruity in White Face calling him "Lord Thanos." She was naturally skilled at exploiting Plot Characters and could blend into any faction without the slightest discomfort.

Ebony Maw was indeed disturbed by Gilgamesh’s spirit body, which had lost its Wall of Heart. He misjudged White Face’s current strength and raised a hand to stop Corvus Glaive from acting.

"What do you want?"

Ebony Maw could tell that she meant to cooperate. Facing the strange existence outside, he had no choice but to yield some initiative and actively seek a variable.

The smile on White Face’s lips deepened. Blue Fox Fire ignited behind her, and Shamanic Power began flowing through her body once more.

"Mercenary Tao, you will regret letting me out…"

Bai Cangshu blinked and discovered that only his head remained, cradled in Wanda’s hands.

Everything he had just seen—the arrangements he had made by deliberately releasing the souls within him—had already been read by this Witch, who had merely witnessed her lover’s death and was now heading down a despairing, terrifying path.

Bai Cangshu blinked several more times before recalling that he had merely sat down. The next moment, Wanda had pulled his head off.

He could not even tell whether reality had been distorted or whether this was simply an illusion.

Yet he was still smiling.

Bai Cangshu actually wanted to die. Within him was an Ultimate Power that would be triggered the moment he truly died.

But precisely because Bai Cangshu had gone too far down the path of vitality, whether it was high-level immortality, Instant Regeneration, or the even more troublesome constant effect of the Twelve Labors, all of it made it difficult for Bai Cangshu to truly die.

This was the core reason his actions in this world had become increasingly reckless and terrifying.

He wanted to die.

The scarlet Chaos Magic behind Wanda was nearly draping her in a veil. Bai Cangshu watched these changes, while Wanda’s expression grew colder and colder.

"Both of you are artificial beings. He wanted to embrace life so badly, while you only think about death…"

"Whether for others or for yourself."

Because Bai Cangshu shared a similar nature with Vision, Wanda had initially felt a trace of sympathy for him. She had not expected him to be a complete monster.

A beast that seemed born knowing only how to grow stronger and kill.

Wanda disliked such things. Malice toward Bai Cangshu’s very existence began to spread, and Chaos Magic wrapped around his head.

Bai Cangshu felt a familiar pain. It was the damage to his existence he had felt after forcibly opening that unknown Mystic Eye.

For him now, only damage of this level could produce immediate results.

He could not hide the smile on his face, but he continued speaking.

"Wanda, don’t you find it strange?"

"Many things in this world are strange. For example… parallel worlds clearly exist, and there is more than one Mind Stone, so why did all of us find your world, the one in his forehead…"

"For example, your brother Pietro Maximoff possessed that level of speed, so why was he so easily killed by a single burst of machine-gun fire…"

Almost the instant Bai Cangshu mentioned Quicksilver’s name, Wanda’s expression twisted even more violently.

Too much had been taken from her, but before her children appeared, Quicksilver and Vision were absolutely the losses she could not accept most.

Splat!

Bai Cangshu’s head exploded like a watermelon. Then the blood and skull fragments gathered together out of thin air, as though a new body was about to form.

But Wanda merely stared at the flesh and blood. The writhing mass continuously shattered until it finally vanished completely.

With a casual wave of her hand, the illusion shattered. Captain America, Black Widow, and the others were all blasted away by a powerful shockwave.

Boom!

Scarlet mist spread out, sweeping through the surroundings like a shockwave.

After stepping out of her illusion, Wanda—whose expression had completely changed—locked her gaze directly onto the enormous angel hanging upside down in the sky, half black and half white.

Wanda had decided to kill every one of these people who had suddenly invaded this world!

Solomon bombarded the city while allowing gunfire and artillery to strike him. He was steadily climbing the stairway, using the power of two mighty holy relics to rapidly reach heights he had never attained before.

But Wanda’s presence was far too intense. The moment the illusion shattered, he noticed her.

The pupil of Solomon’s left eye spread outward like a spiral. That was the effect of him actively opening his Mystic Eye.

In an instant, everything from the illusion replayed before him.

When Solomon saw Mercenary Tao’s final moment of being erased by Wanda, he was briefly stunned.

That arrogant Mercenary Tao had been killed by Wanda just like that?!

Had he overplayed his hand?

Yes. Solomon noticed that Mercenary Tao had practically offered Vision’s corpse to Wanda of his own accord, as though deliberately provoking her and leading her down the path of corruption.

But for what purpose?

Just to cause him trouble?

Solomon could not understand Mercenary Tao.

With a thought, a gigantic black Holy Lance pierced down above Wanda’s head out of thin air.

But Wanda lowered her body, raised both hands, and directly blocked the Holy Lance with Chaos Magic. Then she let out a roar and tore her hands apart.

The black Holy Lance snapped in two and crashed into the buildings on either side.

Rumble!

The buildings began to collapse, and countless fragments rained down. The crowd below grew even more terrified, but Wanda no longer cared about them.

She clapped her hands together and flew directly toward Solomon in the sky.

After Wanda left, a golden feather lay quietly amid the blood on the ground.

Powerful vitality began bursting forth from it.

Specks of radiant light continuously scattered in every direction.

The faint bloody hue above New York began to flow backward, flying toward that feather.

Ten Phoenix Nirvana Art, a special… treasured art that could only be activated after completing Nirvana!