Like a collapsing mountain, the massive sand giant (once an overwhelming presence) crumbled apart as if made of fragile porcelain, disintegrating into swirling clouds of dust under the force of the raging tempest...
Sean turned his gaze toward the black figure crouched among the steel beams and concrete, his eyes cold. Intense golden flames lifted him effortlessly into the air.
During his battle with Sandman, Spider-Man had managed to break free from Venom's control, and hastily rescued Mary Jane from her perilous fall at the last possible moment before retreating from the fight.
Amid the swirling dust, the watching crowd could no longer make out the details of the battle.
However, Venom's body coiled like a humanoid spider as he felt an instinctive tremor of fear, as though he had encountered an apex predator at the very top of the food chain. His body shivered uncontrollably, unable to even flee.
His biological survival instincts screamed warnings at his brain, yet Venom remained frozen in place like a statue encased in ice. His usual agility and reflexes had vanished entirely... his limbs became stiff, and his mind sluggish.
To his senses, the golden figure hovering in the air was like a living volcano. The figure radiated terrifying waves of energy and exuded an overwhelming pressure that threatened to crush him entirely.
Eddie Brock, whose body was encased in the black symbiote, stared with wide, panicked eyes. Since bonding with Venom and gaining power surpassing even Spider-Man's, he had never experienced anything like this.
It was as if the symbiote had been stripped away, reducing him once more to the weak, cowardly Eddie Brock... a mediocre nobody who endured the exploitation and scorn of his boss at the Daily Bugle, someone who could only watch helplessly as others stole his opportunities...
Someone powerless to change anything!
"No!" A surge of emotion briefly overpowered Venom's fear.
He shot out a strand of webbing, snagged a jagged steel rebar from the wreckage, and hurled it like a spear with all his might.
The steel rod shot forward like a fleeting shadow, with enough force to shriek through the air. But Sean merely smirked coldly as he caught it effortlessly before hurling it back with even greater force!
The sheer power shattered the rebar mid-flight, leaving only the remaining half to pierce straight through Venom's torso and pinning him to the wall behind.
The gaping wound should have been fatal, but the black symbiote writhed rapidly, instantly regenerating the damage. A bestial screech tore from Venom's throat as his fanged maw stretched wide.
Sean took a single step that unleashed a shockwave of wind pressure as he closed the distance in an instant. His powerful hand clamped around Venom's throat, golden light blazing from his eyes like twin suns.
Then, a streak of golden light tore upward, slicing through the building's upper floors like a blade through paper. The sheer force of the energy storm ripped apart the sky itself!
Still gripped in Sean's hand, Venom erupted into flames as they broke the sound barrier. The friction of their ascent ignited the air, turning the black symbiote into a writhing torch as its surface boiled under the intense heat.
To any onlooker below, it would have looked like a shooting star in reverse with a blazing trail rocketing upward before vanishing into the clouds.
When Eddie finally regained consciousness, he found himself floating in the void of space. Below him stretched the vast, vibrant blue sphere of Earth, while around him stretched endless darkness.
Nearby, a satellite bearing the American flag orbited silently.
The weightless vacuum should have suffocated him instantly, but the black symbiote coating his body shifted and adapted, allowing its host to survive the harsh environment.
The alien organism that had transformed the Daily Bugle's photographer into a super-villain was, in truth, a symbiotic lifeform with rudimentary sentience. It required a host to survive, and in return, granted them immense power.
Thus, encased within the Venom suit, Eddie could endure the lethal conditions of outer space, because the symbiote itself was extraterrestrial, capable of altering its structure to preserve its host.
"Should I call you Venom… or Eddie Brock?" Sean's voice echoed directly in his mind.
The black symbiote was already repairing itself, its surface charred and cracked from atmospheric friction.
At the sound of that terrifying voice, Eddie shuddered involuntarily. The sheer power this man had displayed made him feel like he was back to being that powerless, ordinary man who was incapable of fighting back against anything.
But after bonding with the symbiote, everything had changed. He had tasted true strength... He could lift cars with ease, leap between skyscrapers, and move with reflexes sharp enough to track bullets mid-flight. Just like Spider-Man, he had become something more.
"I won't go back to being ordinary. Eddie Brock is going to make his mark... and that damn Spider-Man, Parker, Jameson, the Daily Bugle… they can all go to hell!"
The surge of hatred resonated with the symbiote as their minds intertwined. Feeding on his negativity, the alien entity began to exert greater influence until Eddie was little more than a puppet.
"...I am… Eddie… Brock…" The weak thought reached Sean, laced with unmistakable terror.
But it wasn't just Eddie who was afraid... the symbiote itself recoiled like prey before a predator. It understood far better than its host just how terrifying the golden figure before them truly was.
"Still trying to deceive me? You think, as a human, I wouldn't exterminate my own kind? Not bad… for a primitive intelligence." Sean's mental voice dripped with amusement.
Holding the floating figure (now more Venom than Eddie), Sean unleashed a surge of golden energy. The black symbiote writhed as if scalded, its surface dissolving like snow under a blowtorch. The alien consciousness shrieked in agony with a soundless cry in the vacuum of space.
Then, a final, desperate psychic assault lashed out... a dying creature's last struggle.
But the attack shattered harmlessly against Sean's mind. In response, Venom's body suddenly swelled, muscles bulging grotesquely as the symbiote mutated into a monstrous form... a three-meter-tall behemoth with its surface writhing with black tendrils.
It looked like a nightmare ripped straight from hell.
"Enough." With a single brutal motion, Sean's hands tore outward.
Golden light erupted as the symbiote was forcibly ripped from Eddie's body. The black tendrils twisted into grotesque, shrieking faces, desperately trying to reattach to their host.
Eddie screamed soundlessly, his arms flailing as he reached for the symbiote... He refused to let go of the power it offered.
Sean exhaled softly, and with a final pulse of energy, he reduced both the thrashing alien and its broken host to nothing more than cosmic dust...
....
High above, a surveillance satellite captured every moment, transmitting the footage back to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters by the Potomac River...
From the moment the golden figure appeared, Nick Fury had watched with unwavering focus.
Witnessing the effortless defeat of Sandman, and the casual dismantling of Venom in the vacuum of space... the one-eyed director's expression darkened.
A superhuman of this caliber appearing out of nowhere was a problem...
"The footage is too distorted. Can we enhance it? Run facial recognition, anything to identify this target. His threat level is extreme. We need him under observation."
Hill tried, then shook her head, "The satellite feed was disrupted by energy interference. Even with our databases, we can't match his physique or movements to any known individuals."
"Seal the file. Classify it as maximum threat priority." Fury's voice was ice.
"Should we assign a codename?" Hill asked quietly.
Fury stared at the blurry figure in the video screen and said in a deep voice, "Sentinel..."