Spider-Man's witty remark hadn't even faded from the air before it was shredded by a furious roar.
"Another bug!"
Kingpin's massive frame pivoted with terrifying speed. Bloodshot eyes blazed with pure, unfiltered destruction.
He charged—like a rhino gone berserk—straight at the newly arrived Spider-Man.
"Whoa! A little enthusiasm goes a long way, big guy!"
Peter's spider-sense shrieked a warning.
He kicked off the wall and flipped backward, barely clearing the path of Kingpin's crushing fist.
BOOM—!
The punch cratered the wall where Spider-Man had stood a split second earlier. Concrete groaned, cracked, and buckled under the impact.
"Your nonsense is as irritating as the silk you spew!"
Kingpin wrenched a massive slab of wall—steel rebar still clinging to it—from its frame and swung it like a club, aiming to crush Spider-Man midair!
Just then, Daredevil—teeth gritted against bone-deep agony—lashed out with his billy club, striking Kingpin's wrist with precision.
"Ghh—!"
The blow sent a jolt of pain up Kingpin's arm. His momentum stalled.
Seizing the opening, Spider-Man flicked his wrists. Twin strands of webbing shot out, slapping squarely over Kingpin's eyes. He yanked hard.
"Aaah—!"
Blinded and enraged, Kingpin roared. He flailed the concrete slab like a blind bear, smashing everything in reach—walls, pipes, support beams—into rubble.
---
On the other side of the battlefield, Joren's situation was even more dire.
Star Platinum's fist slammed into the darkness—only to vanish as if swallowed whole.
There was no density. No substance. Just an abyss that absorbed every strike without resistance.
Each blow from Star Platinum merely sent ripples across the void, like pebbles tossed into tar.
Worse still was the shriek—a psychic assault reverberating through Joren's mind. It couldn't control him… but it gnawed at his focus, amplifying his frustration, stoking his fury.
So… noisy…
"Did you see that? 'Iron Fist'!" Madam Gao's face flushed a sickly crimson, eyes wide with fanatical ecstasy. "This is the power of God! This is the 'Beast'—the devourer of all! The ultimate nothingness!"
"Give up your resistance! Before it, your brilliance is nothing but a candle flickering in the wind!"
…Sun?
The word struck Joren like a spark.
His brow twitched.
Memories surged—ninjas crumbling to ash in rippling darkness… the woman in white, collapsing amid her own screams…
I see.
Trying to fight this "concept" with brute force was a mistake from the start.
Ah… ah. Now he understood.
Slowly, deliberately, Joren retracted Star Platinum.
To Madam Gao—watching with rapturous glee—it looked like surrender. The relentless barrage of glowing fist-marks against the void had ceased. Resistance had ended.
"Yes!" she cried, voice trembling with triumph. "That's it! Embrace it! Become part of it! It is your honor!"
Joren ignored her ramblings.
He stood motionless as the darkness crept toward his feet, tendrils of shadow coiling around his boots, hungry to swallow him whole.
Then—
He began to breathe.
The first breath was soft—barely more than a whisper—like the first gentle breeze of spring slipping through silent trees.
The second breath deepened, swelling like the tide beneath a summer moon.
And the third—
A pulse of golden light erupted across his body and vanished in an instant.
…
Quinjet Command Cockpit
"Sir! The energy readings—they've spiked beyond measurable limits!"
The analyst's voice cracked with disbelief.
"Biometrics for target 'Joestar' are climbing exponentially! This… this isn't bioenergy anymore. It's—It's something else entirely!"
On the main display, the dot representing Joren detonated with a burst of blinding golden radiance—so intense it dwarfed every surrounding energy signature on the tactical grid.
…
Inside the Theater
Madame Gao's triumphant sneer froze mid-curl.
Kingpin, mid-swing with a steel rebar in hand, halted as though time itself had snagged.
Daredevil and Spider-Man—locked in mid-air combat—both jerked to a stop, senses screaming in unison as they turned toward the source of the light.
Golden.
Sacred.
Warm—yet radiating a terrifying, sovereign power capable of reducing the world to ash.
At its heart stood the boy, expressionless, untouched by the chaos around him.
Golden ripples of energy coiled around his form like living flame—tangible, searing, impossible.
No one present could comprehend what they were witnessing.
Not Daredevil, whose radar sense screamed static.
Not Spider-Man, whose spider-sense flared like a siren but offered no warning—only awe.
Not even Nick Fury, watching from orbit via S.H.I.E.L.D. satellite feeds, could classify the phenomenon.
And then—it manifested.
Star Platinum.
Once an invisible phantom confined to the spiritual domain of Stand users, the blue-violet warrior now stood fully incarnate in the material world—no longer a ghost, but a god forged from solar core and willpower.
Its form shimmered with solid, luminous muscle, every contour blazing with liquid sunlight that flowed like molten gold along divine architecture. Sacred sigils—geometric, ancient, alive—etched themselves across its chest, arms, and back: not merely muscle, but a celestial tapestry woven from life force and spiritual dominion. Each line thrummed with the absolute decree of the sun itself.
The red scarf at its neck no longer fluttered—it burned. A miniature nebula, eternal and unquenchable, spiraled in its folds.
But the most unnerving thing?
Its eyes.
Where once there had been cold blue steel, now blazed twin miniature suns—dazzling, merciless, and utterly aware.
This was no longer just a Stand.
This was evolution.
"Yare yare daze…" Joren murmured.
He raised his hand.
Star Platinum moved as one with him, its golden finger extending toward the writhing mass of darkness—now trembling, recoiling, sensing its own annihilation.
"Since brute force won't cut it…" Joren said, voice calm yet carrying the weight of a collapsing star, "let me show you what it feels like to be scorched by the sun itself."
His words fell like judgment.
Star Platinum's fist—wrapped in spiraling waves of solar energy—launched forward, becoming a golden meteor that tore through the theater's shadows like divine retribution.
"ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA———!!!!"
The very air shattered under the impact as light devoured darkness in a cataclysm of radiance.