Glossary:Living Abyss

Living Abyss

Living abyss, also known as antilife, anti-life, black ichor, "Necro-Power", and live rubber, is an eldritch substance originating from the primordial cosmic void that existed before and between the iterations of the Multiverse, ostensibly as an opposite reaction to the creation of life and light by the Celestials; Kings in Black are able to control and manipulate this substance, and are intended to utilize it through the use of the Un-Beyond's Black Engine to maintain the Multiverse from within. The Enigma Force produced by the Beyonders' Concordance Engines is its opposite, intended to maintain the Multiverse from without, but can function in a similar manner by bonding to hosts as a "God of Light" and empowering them.

Living abyss is typically amorphous and black or red in coloration; and is often described as cold to the touch, tasting like motor oil, and with a noxious decaying smell, though it has also appeared as having a texture resembling latex or plastic. As it purportedly originated to corrupt and destroy the Light and life itself, creatures formed from living abyss are capable of killing gods and feeding off their power. Living abyss possesses parasitic, corruptive properties; with there seemingly being no limit to what living abyss is able to infect, as even inorganic objects like planets and the very universe itself can be infested.

Compatible hosts are often transformed into predatory monsters or corrupted versions of themselves. Gods, cosmic entities, and other supernatural beings are the most-compatible with living abyss contamination, while mortals are often consumed by the infestation and killed outright. Exceptions exist, as Gorr and Øde were granted godlike powers by bonding to the primordial symbiote All-Black and the Røkkva respectively; and through experimenting with the living abyss the dark god Knull was able to create a species of parasites that could infest gods and mortals alike, amassing an army of predatory monsters with which to conquer the universe.

Entities created from or infected by the living abyss typically possess the ability to shapeshift - often manifesting fanged jaws, claws, and tendrils. Superpowered beings infected by the living abyss possess augmented, often-corrupted versions of their innate powers -- bonding to the All-Black symbiote and being infested by the Røkkva turned King Thor of Earth-14412 and Thor Odinson of Earth-616's lightning black and amplified its destructive capabilities, while bonding to an otherwise mundane symbiote greatly augmented Spider-Man's powers. This same symbiote -- later called Venom -- imprinted most of Spider-Man's powers into itself, and bestowed its subsequent hosts -- many of whom were ordinary humans -- those augmented abilities.

Living abyss resonates with Darkforce energy and can be affected by Lightforce energy - as demonstrated by Cloak being adversely affected during the second Symbiote Invasion and Martin Li's Lightforce-imbued touch mutating trace remnants of the Venom symbiote inside Eddie Brock's body into the Anti-Venom symbiote. According to Meridius, the magical metal called promethium is a similar "element of darkness", and is thus capable of greatly empowering the symbiotes.

• The Exterminators were beings created from the primordial void by the first Celestials even before the creation of the Multiverse. Rebelling against the will of their progenitor, the rogue Celestials sought to create embodiments of death and destruction to erase their failed creations. Initially amorphous, these Exterminators rebelled against their creators, devouring several of them and assuming humanoid forms. Unable to destroy the Exterminators, the Celestials imprisoned them in one of the universes formed by the creation of the Multiverse, and created the Death Seed to replace them. The Exterminators were eventually freed by Xavier Head, Nazi Xavier, and Lord Xavier; seeking to fulfil their purpose by destroying the entire multiverse. They were stopped by the combined efforts of the X-Men of Earth-295, the X-Men of Earth-616, and an alliance of multiversal X-Men, who sacrificed Earth-295 in order to imprison the Exterminators there.
• In the Third Cosmos, the first iteration of the Multiverse to be born from the cycle of creation and destruction, a draconic entity of living darkness called the Anti-All emerged from the Below-Place and battled the primordial manifestation of Light, Lifebringer One. Through the intervention of the time-travelling Carlo Zota from the Eighth Cosmos and - unwittingly - Taaia of Taa from the Sixth Cosmos, the Anti-All overpowered and nearly devoured Lifebringer One, but Zota - donning the Eternity Mask - held the Anti-All back long enough for the time-displaced Doctor Strange to infuse Lifebringer One with the essence of the Fifth and Sixth Cosmoses. Empowered, Lifebringer One slew the Anti-All, shattering its essence into countless offshoots that were scattered across the Multiverse, becoming the source of all future avatars of the Void, including the King in Black and the Røkkva.
• The Chaos King was an offshoot of Oblivion embodying the primordial cosmic void that existed before the creation of the seventh iteration of the universe, though much of its true history was lost to time. The genesis of Eternity -- the incarnation of the Seventh Cosmos -- stripped the Chaos King of much of its power, and it was co-opted into Shinto cosmology as "Amatsu-Mikaboshi" -- the god of darkness and chaos. Imprisoned in the underworld of Yomi, Amatsu-Mikaboshi was eventually able to escape and regain its true form by syphoning the power of the gods it slew and enslaved. The Chaos King attempted to destroy the universe and return everything to the Void, but was sealed in a pocket-dimension called the Continuum by Hercules and Amadeus Cho.
• The primordial elder god Knull originated in the primordial void that existed between the destruction of the sixth iteration of the universe and the genesis of the seventh cosmos, and -- chosen by the Celestials to become the King in Black -- attained the ability to manifest and manipulate the living abyss at-will. Over untold millennia, Knull experimented with this power to create objects such as his Necrosword and armor, the throneworld and throne of his horde; and entities such as the symbiote-dragons, proto-symbiotes like the Exolon and Mister E, and the species of parasitic predators called Symbiotes. Most of Knull's creations turned against him after his dominion over them was weakened by Thor Odinson, imprisoning him in the core of his own throneworld for thousands of years. Knull escaped and attempted to plunge the cosmos into darkness once more, but was vanquished by the Light-empowered Eddie Brock. While Knull claimed to be the Void incarnate and the creator of the living abyss, this is refuted by the primordial void from which his powers stemmed predating him; and the existence of antilife entities with no known relation to him - including the Chaos King and Røkkva.
• The Røkkva was a primordial antilife entity that was spawned from a shard of the Anti-All and came into being at the beginning of the universe, mindlessly consuming or corrupting any living thing it came across until the ancient king Øde sought to subjugate it. The Røkkva bonded to Øde and for a time made him one of the most powerful beings in the Ten Realms, but ultimately corrupted him into an evil soulless shell of his former self. Øde's subjects eventually slew him with a weapon fashioned from the Light-imbued white wood of Feierheim, and the Røkkva was sealed away beneath the mountains of Jotunheim in a vault that could only be opened with something comprised of white wood. The groves of Feierheim were razed to prevent the Røkkva from ever being unleashed again, though the Asgardian god Tyr Odinson briefly managed to unseal it and was nearly consumed by it as Øde had been. Tyr attempted to conquer and corrupt Asgard using it, but the Røkkva's corruption was purged from the infected gods by the Valkyrie Jane Foster using a spear of white wood manifested by Undrjarn, and she resealed the Røkkva in its vault to await the end of time.

Notes

• Both Null the Living Darkness and the Vril energy were described as forces of "Anti-Life", but have no known relation to the Living Abyss.

Links

• 4 appearance(s) of Living Abyss