First Referenced:
The Desolate Guardians (Part 4)
Additional references:
The Fountain of Youth, 'I was told that everyone I'd served with in the military died shortly after I left.', Our Final Acts
The Crushing Fist, as first named by a deceased Sentient Flame during interrogation by Cristina Thompson with the Soul Reader (Book), is considered to be an upcoming apocalypse that will result in the end of the multiverse. The origin and nature of The Crushing Fist is largely unknown, however it is a literal crushing force, which is causing earthquakes and dimensional rifts to appear between different parallel realities. It is the cause of the loud metallic screeching noises heard on many worlds affected by disasters.
The Crushing Fist is reported by Higgins to have been brought on by the actions of Ward Shaw, a brigadier-general commonly known as The Sword, and later as The Double-Edged Sword. Higgins believes it to have been caused by The Sword going too far with his brutal tactics.
Subsequent observation of the damage to the Outer Shield by The Sword after passing through the Shadow Sphere identified that the damage appeared to have been caused by the flailing of The Mad God, which seriously compromised the Outer Shield and triggered various readjustments of the positions of various universes within, along with the buildup of the pressure later known as The Crushing Fist.
The First World has attempted to put both The Sword and a group of Brownshirts on trial, accused of bringing The Crushing Fist down on the multiverse, however the subsequent escape of the Brownshirts from Teskoy Prison and their capture by The Black-eyed Army changed the nature of the trial, which was then held against Cristina Thompson, Conn Thompson, The Sword and Vasiliev Blaku.
The Crushing Fist is not caused by the Shadow Entities as previously thought by The Council, rather the Shadow Entities are merely taking advantage of the breaches in the Outer Shield to devour the minds of helpless victims previously protected by the shield system.
The Crushing Fist is described as such due to the way it is visualized in the structure of the multiverse. It appears as five lines of crushed bubbles of universes within the structure, which gives it the appearance of a hand holding a globe. Even with the destruction of The First World, the compression has continued to increase, resulting in distortion and damage to many universes within the Outer Shield.
Traits:
Largely unknown, but apparently able to be described in the form of action figures. When depicted in a 3D model of the multiverse, appears as five lines of damaged universes within the sphere of the outer shield, which exists around many universes which cushion The First World and its golden inner shield.