In the Third Cosmos, the Defenders are stranded on a small white sphere drifting through the Void, orbiting a battle for the fate of existence between the golden Lifebringer One and his nemesis, the eldritch dark dragon the Anti-All. Doctor Strange marvels that they are witnessing the first instance of a cycle of multiversal creation and destruction. Marvelling at witnessing the mythology of her people come to life, Taaia laments that her Scienti-Suit is unable to get a reading on the two cosmic entities. Doctor Strange remarks that magic and science do not exist, as they have gone so far back into the history of the Multiverse that even fundamental concepts like matter, time, and space are nascent to the point of being meaningless. Crawling up the side of the globe, Dr. Carlo Zota mumbles that time still exists, but is at such a rudimentary state that an hour of its passage seemed like an eternity; wondering if the Defenders are a hallucination. As the other Defenders prepare to attack him, Doctor Strange's warns them to be cautious, as Zota is not in his right mind. Snarling that that makes him easy prey, the Red Harpy lunges at him with her talons extended. only for Zota to frantically summon a force field. As the Red Harpy angrily claws at it, Doctor Strange orders her to stop and look at the cosmic battle taking place overhead, where the Anti-All has started gaining the upper hand against Lifebringer One. Doctor Strange urgently tells Zota to drop the force field, but he refuses, saying that the Red Harpy will kill him the moment that he does. Doctor Strange retorts that while he no longer controls his magic, he is still a Master of the Mystic Arts and that Zota - as a Master of Science - should be aware that a fire, even a secret one like magic, cannot burn without fuel.
As Doctor Strange asks where Zota thinks that their power is coming from, Zota screams that he does not care, as long as he can take down the Defenders. Taaia calls their attention to the Void above, where the Anti-All has overpowered, and is attempting to devour, Lifebringer One; Doctor Strange surmising that as magic and science are products of future iterations of the Multiverse, the fuel for his spells, Zota's force field, and Taaia's Scienti-Suit is coming from the avatar of existence, Lifebringer One, weakening him in the process. Doctor Strange grimly states that if the Anti-All eats Lifebringer One, then the Void will triumph and the Multiverse will cease to exist, the Masked Raider saying that it is time for him to do his job. Phasing through Zota's force field, the Masked Raider pulls a revolver on his nemesis. As Zota incredulously wonders how that was possible, the Masked Raider states that he tried to stop Zota before it came to this point, not out of hatred but because he wanted to save Zota from himself. Remarking that it was always down to this choice, the Masked Raider raises the revolver and says that the choice is not his to make, but Zota's. Zota tackles him and grapples for the gun, the Eternity Mask making them evenly matched. With his allies powerless to help him due to Zota's force field, the Masked Raider is knocked to the ground, Zota shooting him in cold blood. Dying, the Masked Raider tells Zota that he could have walked away and lived; Zota triumphantly gloating before unmasking his nemesis - recoiling in shock and horror when he sees his own face beneath the Eternity Mask. As Zota stammers that this is impossible, Eternity speaks to him through the mask, explaining the mask's nature to him and that he has been chosen to fulfill a task. Overwhelmed by cosmic knowledge, Zota stands in a trance until Doctor Strange snaps him back to his senses, berating him for dooming all of existence. Turning to watch as the Anti-All pulls Lifebringer One into its gaping maw, Zota refutes his statement that things did not have to end this way and puts on the Eternity Mask. Shattering his force field, Zota grows in size to match Lifebringer One and - taking up Lifebringer One's shield - grapples with the Anti-All, forcing it to release its prey. Realizing that, despite having become a borderline cosmic entity, Zota could still lose, Doctor Strange helps Taaia and the Red Harpy to channel their connections to the Eighth, Sixth and Fifth Cosmoses into Lifebringer One, restoring him to full power. As the Anti-All overpowers and then tries to devour Zota, Lifebringer One retrieves his sword and impales both of them. Doctor Strange notes that Zota could have released the Anti-All at the last moment and escaped, but that he chose to sacrifice himself to ensure its defeat.
A blinding flash lights up the Third Cosmos, the eternal darkness of the Void giving way to a vast white expanse. Watching the Anti-All's corpse crumble into fragments of red crystal containing shards of its essence, Doctor Strange speculates that these fragments will scatter across the nascent Multiverse and that the various dark gods and cosmic entities embodying non-existence, most recently Knull, are merely incarnations of the Anti-All. The Red Harpy snidely remarks that Doctor Strange would sound smarter if he just admitted that he did not know what they just witnessed, but Doctor Strange notifies the Eternity Mask floating towards them and wonders if Zota could have survived his apparent death. Taaia protests that they all saw him get impaled by Lifebringer One's sword, but Strange points out that Zota and the Masked Raider were one and the same, and that this time loop now has to play out once again.
In the past of the Eighth Cosmos, Carlo Zota - clad in a suit, black trenchcoat, and cowboy hat - approaches Blind Justice, who is baffled as to why the Eternity Mask chose him as its next bearer before asking if Zota found the costume that he laid out. Zota asks why Blind Justice picked the identity of the Masked Raider for him, Blind Justice replying that he remembered Zota was a fan of Westerns. Zota asks why his old friend chose him, given that he killed him - or rather, Zota's past self will do so in the near future - and Blind Justice replies that Eternity is the one who chose him; adding that he, nonetheless, gets some satisfaction in knowing that this is how Zota meets his end. Accepting the Eternity Mask and with it the identity of the Masked Raider, Zota vows to find a way to break the time loop that he has trapped himself in.
In the Third Cosmos, the Defenders are pulled back to their native Multiverses, Taaia offering Doctor Strange a keepsake and telling him to stay in touch before vanishing. As they are pulled back to the Eighth Cosmos, the Red Harpy wryly tells Doctor Strange to wait a day before doing so... and to never get in touch with her again. Returning to the Sanctum Sanctorum, Doctor Strange puts his feet up and marvels that there is no telling what the future holds. Wong checks in on him, Doctor Strange assuring him that everything is fine... for the time being.
