[Peter Parker, we want you to know what you have done.]
When he heard these words, Peter happened to wake up inside the Sanctum Sanctorum. The toll that single arrow had taken on his body was simply too immense, to the point that he had only seen the sky of Limbo restore itself before losing consciousness. The moment he woke up and sat up, a familiar voice drifted into his ears.
"Oh, you're awake. The issue isn't actually fully resolved yet... well, mostly resolved, anyway. So you should be able to get some proper rest now."
Regrettably, the person watching over his bedside was not a certain girl, but Danny Rand, the Iron Fist. Peter sat up and realized he was still wearing his Spider-Man suit.
"How long was I out?"
"Only three hours, actually. Not long."
Peter rubbed his head, falling into thought. "What about Belasco? Is he dealt with?"
Iron Fist indicated that the fight was still ongoing, but Chthon had already withdrawn from Limbo. Belasco was stripped of all his sorcery, and having previously turned his own weapon against himself, he was now injured and running around like a stray dog.
As for Illyana's Darkchild persona, she had fled into hiding after that single strike, though she certainly had not left Limbo.
After listening to the breakdown of the current situation, Peter pondered for a moment, still finding it very strange.
Stacking a bunch of buffs using the power of Chthon's own essence and then shooting an arrow right back at Chthon—and that was it? No matter how he looked at it, this felt entirely unbelievable. Peter did not know what that arrow truly represented. But considering Strange had never told anyone about Chthon's descent, nor anything else related to it, if calculating against Chthon had been Strange's plan from the very beginning, it meant he had kept the entire team in the dark.
Moreover, he had led the entire team into extreme danger. With just one slip-up, it would have been a total party wipe, or perhaps an even worse fate.
Furthermore, the information from just now seemed to have been delivered to him by the Spider-Gods. Spider-Man, the King in Black, had transmitted a message to him through the Anti-Venom suit, revealing the truth of why Strange needed Peter's help: it wasn't that Strange lacked other means to stop Chthon's descent. Quite the contrary—he actively wanted to facilitate Chthon's descent, and then utilize Peter's ability to connect with the Web of Destiny, forcing the Spider-Gods to desperately restrain Chthon.
When combined with what he had told Illyana and Elsa, the parts that deviated from the original plan were altogether too numerous, and Strange had not mentioned a single one of them.
And besides, why did it have to be him firing that arrow?
Condensing magic into a bow and arrow to shoot was actually a fairly low-level spell. What truly determined its power ceiling was the array of varied magical energies attached to it. Therefore, in theory, whether it was Strange or himself who loosed that arrow, the effect shouldn't have differed much—aside from the fact that Strange had no way to infuse the power of the Web of Destiny into it. But could such a seemingly negligible amount of power from the Web of Destiny really be enough to influence anything?
"Tell me, did Strange really go through all that trouble just to shoot an arrow at Chthon? That looks more like a provocation. I don't even know why Chthon actually left."
Peter questioned Iron Fist. Iron Fist fell silent for a moment before throwing a question back at Peter, "If Strange only intended to provoke Chthon, how would Chthon react? So I'm more inclined to believe it wasn't just a provocation. Even though I also feel it was far too simple—the rift hadn't closed back then, yet Chthon made no further attempts."
"So that arrow must have contained an immense amount of information. It's just that we don't know what kind of information it was that made Chthon decide to leave. Could it be that Strange was threatening Chthon, warning him that if he didn't leave, he'd get the Vishanti to come beat him up?"
Thinking up to this point, Peter somehow suddenly recalled a scene from the MCU Doctor Strange movie, where he ran over to Dormammu and shouted, "I've come to bargain." The Time Stone was indeed in Strange's hands. But could Chthon be affected by the Time Stone?
Thus, Peter asked the most critical question.
"Where is Strange?"
The Flickering Realm. This was a dimension Chthon had created after leaving primordial Earth, and it was also the manifestation of his own will. Here, all the elements that existed on primordial Earth were randomly piled together in a completely illogical state.
Heraclitus of ancient Greece asserted that fire and all things could transform into one another; that the primordial state of the world was fire, which transformed into all things, and all things transformed back into fire. This might be false on Earth-616, but in the Flickering Realm, it was an absolute reality. What Chthon represented was precisely the concept of fire, and everything within the entire Flickering Realm was the materialization of his will and power. He was the reflection of all reality here.
"And this reality is one that pursues chaos... From what I know, Gaea pursues life, Oshtur pursues order, and Set pursues corruption. Only you, Chthon, pursue ever-greater power."
Strange appeared within the Flickering Realm. This place was not only a chaotic reality, but also the home of all the monsters Chthon had created. A massive horde of monsters surrounded Chthon on all sides, but Strange ignored them completely. The final arrow Peter Parker shot had not merely struck and wounded Chthon; it had also brought along a set of coordinates—a location.
And so, he had appeared here.
Strange glanced at the green band around his hand, took a deep breath, and then took a step forward, walking right up to Chthon's altar. "Chthon, I've come to..."
In the next instant, nothing was left of Strange except a pair of feet. Strange then looked at the pair of feet in front of him and shook his head helplessly. At the same time, a werewolf lurking around the periphery spoke up.
"The Infinity Stones can only be used in their own universe. The Flickering Realm transcends any individual universe."
"The realms of the four Elder Gods were all constructed using the matter and power of the primordial Earth because they themselves are a part of the primordial Earth. And I come from Earth-616, the Supreme Universe, the Prime Universe—the universe where the remaining power of the primordial Earth is at its absolute strongest."
Therefore, the Infinity Stones of Earth-616 could still be used here. Although their power was vastly discounted, it was fully sufficient to allow Strange himself to run rampant here.
It just wasn't enough to trap Chthon himself in a time loop, because he was an abstract entity that existed non-linearly.
"In that case," a vampire on the other side questioned, "what could your bargaining chip possibly be, mortal?"
"All things are about to face their end. You should be more aware of this than we are, great... Elder God. And from that arrow, you have already realized exactly how many chips we hold."
"We only need to be left undisturbed, so that they may grow."