Soon, Carnage shows his first move.
He invaded San Francisco's underground city, a place forgotten by most, crawling with outcasts and hidden societies. But they couldn't hide from him.
Dark Carnage unleashed his power, infecting the people below with his Carnagized version of the Grendel symbiote. Their screams became his symphony. Their minds were lost—devoted now to one purpose: serving the god through Carnage.
Now a growing army of red-veined monsters stalked the city in the shadows, hunting down anyone who had ever bonded to a symbiote—alive or dead.
Because every host leaves behind a trace in their body—a sliver of the symbiote, a codex.
And Cletus needed them all.
To free Knull.
—
Shriek trembled before the monstrous figure her master had become—taller, leaner, a walking corpse wrapped in writhing crimson horror. His glowing spiral—the mark of Knull—burned bright on his forehead.
But she didn't flinch.
"Master… you squander Knull's gift," she said, voice shaking but firm. "You hunt your personal ghosts while the world waits for His cleansing fire. We must spread His glory!"
There was silence for a moment.
Then Carnage let out a sound like cracking bones as he laughed—a cold, rattling echo from his hollow chest. He studied her with those empty sockets, then spoke in a voice like rusted steel scraping across stone.
"You speak boldly… good."
He extended a hand, claws twitching. Shriek stepped forward, taking her place beside him once more.
Soon, Doppelganger, the spider-like abomination, skittered out of the shadows and joined them.
Together, they returned to where it had all begun: Doverton, Colorado.
The town was quiet now, half-forgotten by the world—but Carnage remembered. He could still sense the fragments of his old self, the codices left behind in the people he had once infected.
He tore through the surviving townsfolk with surgical precision. Each codex consumed made him stronger, the Grendel symbiote growing darker, hungrier, more complete.
Then came John Jameson.
Carnage didn't kill him, he infected him. Slipped a seed of the Carnagized Grendel symbiote into his brain. Made him a sleeper agent, silent and deadly, waiting for the perfect moment to awaken.
---
Later, back at their sanctuary beneath the ruins of Ravencroft, Carnage stood before a war map of the United States, his bones cracking as he knelt, vast wings folding behind his hunched form.
His skeletal frame shuddered, steam hissing from the gaps in his charred body.
"Speak your strategy, Shriek… and I will lend my might."
Shriek stepped forward, her smile sharp and full of madness.
"Philadelphia cries out for salvation," she said. "Let us bear them Knull's mercy."
Carnage led the charge.
He descended upon Philadelphia like a plague. With blade-like tendrils and claws of living death, he tore through the Monsters of Evil, slaughtering them in a storm of red.
He found Sarah Benton, the aunt of Andi Benton—the girl once bonded to the Mania symbiote.
She begged for her life.
He silenced her with a single whisper of a blade.
But Andi was ready.
Drawing on the demonic powers of her Hell-Mark, she fought back with fire and fury. Her flames tore through Carnage's minions, the Hell-Mark giving her strength far beyond a normal host.
Carnage reached for her—but she vanished into the darkness, wounded, but alive.
Andi had escaped.
But not for long.
Carnage smiled—jagged, wide, inhuman.
"Run, little flame," he whispered. "You'll burn all the brighter when I catch you."
Just as he turned to pursue her, a chain wrapped in holy fire struck him across the chest, sending him crashing into a burning wall. Alejandra Jones—the Ghost Rider—stood firm, her flaming skull glowing in the dark.
At the same moment, Eddie Brock lunged from the shadows and drove Carnage into the dirt with a thunderous punch. Together, they bought Andi the time she needed to escape.
Cletus screamed as the Rider's hellfire scorched his symbiote, weakening him. Venom's symbiote tendrils wrapped around his limbs, pinning him down—if only for a moment.
Then Carnage exploded in rage, tearing himself free.
But it was over, Eddie and Alejandra had also fled from there.
Cletus roared in frustration, his voice rattling windows and shaking the ground.
"You dare interfere!" he bellowed, his claws twitching with fury. "You think you can steal my prey?"
He was furious—not just because Andi had slipped away, but because Eddie and Alejandra had humiliated him. Again.
After returning he announced to his cult.
"Eddie and that fool Rider think they can stop us?" he snarled, black ichor dripping from his fanged mouth. "I'll show them what true power looks like!"
The cult cheered, their faces twisted with madness. Dark Carnage raised his arms, thirteen feet of skeletal terror, the spiral of Knull glowing on his forehead, the dragon-spider emblem on his chest pulsing like a second heart.
With a wave of his hand, he unleashed his minions—Carnagized monsters crawling with hunger—tasked to hunt down anyone who had ever bonded to a symbiote. Living or dead, it didn't matter.
They even dug up the corpses of past hosts, tearing open graves and tombs. With savage efficiency, the codices were ripped from the rotting remains, the remnants of symbiotes clinging to bone and flesh.
The bodies were dumped in a mass grave—arranged in the shape of Knull's spiral, visible from the skies like a grim declaration of war.
But Carnage wasn't finished.
He resurrected Emil Gregg, the delusional man who once believed himself to be the real Carnage—bringing him back as a twisted echo, just to torment Eddie Brock with the sins of his past.
In New Mexico, he cornered Alejandra Jones, once the Ghost Rider, whose Spirit of Vengeance had long ago merged with the Venom symbiote, leaving a powerful codex within her.
Carnage loomed over her, a walking nightmare, his hollow eyes burning with red light.
"The Ghost Rider's flames still sear your bones—I can smell them," he hissed. "Join us. Serve the dark god. Or be erased from the Earth."
Alejandra stood her ground, her chain glowing with righteous fire.
"I will not follow you."
From the darkness, Danny Ketch, another Ghost Rider, roared in on his Hellcycle to aid her, the ground splitting beneath his wheels.
But even together, they were not enough.
In a flash of speed and violence, Dark Carnage ripped Alejandra's spine from her body and devoured it, absorbing her Spirit of Vengeance, flames twisting into darkness as he let out a roar that shook the sky.
The cult erupted in cheers, their voices rising like a hymn of madness. Carnage's agonized chuckle echoed over them—a sound not of joy, but of satisfaction.
He had what he needed, and more would come.
"Let the Riders burn. Let the world resist. It matters not."
"Knull's return is fate. And fate… cannot be denied."
For now, Carnage turned away—not out of mercy, but because the next phase of the plan had begun.
Conversion. Infection. Domination.
The age of Carnage was just beginning.
—
Manhattan's skyline loomed, but something darker was approaching.
Inside a high-security prison, Lee Price, the former host of the Venom symbiote and now bonded to Mania, strutted through the cafeteria like he owned the place. The other inmates stayed out of his way—until Cletus Kasady walked in.
Unrecognizable to many, Kasady's burnt frame and glowing spiral gave off only one message: death was here.
"Back off, freak," Price growled. "This is my turf now."
Cletus just grinned.
In a flash, he reached into Price's chest and ripped the Mania symbiote free, ignoring its shrieks. The symbiote twisted and writhed but bonded to Kasady, unable to resist the pull of the Grendel-augmented monster.
Dark Carnage was reborn—stronger, more savage.
Blood filled the cafeteria.
Inmates screamed as the monster tore through them, one by one, laughing as he shattered bones and crushed skulls. When the guards arrived, they were met with silence—and red dripping from the walls.
---
Breaking out, Kasady set his sights on an old obsession: Norman Osborn.
Knowing Osborn was under watch at Ravencroft, Cletus activated his sleeper agent—John Jameson, now infected with Carnage's spawn. Spider-Man and Venom arrived to protect Osborn, but they were too late.
The inmates were already infected with fragments of the Carnagized Grendel symbiote.
They twisted into red-and-black monstrosities, sprouting extra arms, claws, and fang-filled mouths—Doppelganger clones without minds, only hunger.
Carnage unleashed them on the heroes.
Spider-Man was flung through the door of Osborn's padded cell, crashing into the far wall.
Inside, Norman Osborn was laughing maniacally, clawing at the walls.
"I am Cletus Kasady! Bow before me!" he screamed.
Carnage stood in the doorway, amused.
"Then wear the face you crave."
He slammed a tendril into Osborn's chest, bonding him to the Carnagized Grendel symbiote. Osborn writhed as the transformation overtook him—his skin peeled back, red matter swarmed him—until he looked exactly like the original Carnage.
Now there were two.
Dark Carnage took over Ravencroft, turning the asylum into a temple of madness.
The inmates, their minds broken, were easily indoctrinated into his cult. He hunted Shriek, ripped the codex from her body, and—not wasting a corpse—used it to resurrect the Demogoblin, the demonic entity once fused with her.
Now riding again in twisted form, Demogoblin screeched in rebirth.
Cletus stood at the center of it all, a dark messiah, his army growing, his power unmatched.
"Let the world tremble. Let the gods return. We are the blood tide. We are Carnage."