Awakened by the "Light of the Creation" and outraged by his kingdom of darkness being despoiled, Knull retaliated by creating All-Black the Necrosword and killing one of the Celestials. Seeing this, the other Celestials banished Knull and the severed head deeper into the Void. He then used the head to forge the symbiote and combined it with the cosmic energies of the head, which would eventually become Knowhere. In doing so, he unintentionally gave the symbiote its weaknesses to sonic attacks and fire. He created a symbiote armor and, with All-Black, started killing the other deities, until he crash landed on an unnamed planet where Gorr took All-Black and incapacitated Knull. Knull eventually reawakened and discovered he could bond his living abyss to "lesser creatures" and control their new form as vessels. He created an army of symbiotes with himself in the center of the hive mind and uses them to spread over the universe, establishing the Symbiote Imperium and killing the light and creation in the process. He continued killing Gods, while also enslaving others whom he spared with the use of his abyss. At some point, he was approached by the time displaced Silver Surfer, who had been weakened after the Surfer had created a little star in order to free a world from Knull's control. After a brief fight, Knull was able to bond a symbiote to the Surfer, but the latter was saved by Ego, the Living Planet. When Knull reached the surfer, he tried to defeat him and re-infect the surfer with his abyss, but the Surfer, who had gathered the energy of the cosmos, creates a star which was enough to defeat Knull. When one dragon-like symbiote composite arrived on medieval Earth to claim the planet as part of the Symbiote Imperium, Thor arrived in aid of the Viking villagers and defeated the dragon, which the villagers called "Grendel", causing the connection between Knull and the symbiote hivemind to break. The symbiotes that were scattered over the universe, now free from Knull's control, began bonding to benevolent hosts and learning about the Light. The Symbiotes rebelled against their god and trapped him inside an artificial planet formed of thousands of symbiotes, which they called Klyntar — "cage" in their language. After thousands of years, S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered the body of the Grendel and bound the pieces of the dragon to soldiers in order to create Super-Soldiers to fight in the Vietnam War.