The Fantastic Four — with Namor unwillingly in tow — crash directly into the Oregon Think Tank II facility, where Agatha Harkness and the Salem’s Seven have prepared Johnny Storm as a living ignition source for the massive Hydra Egg cluster.

Inside the facility:

The Hydra Eggs pulse with growing bio-energy, responding to Johnny’s heat signature.

The Seven defend the chamber with supernatural and metahuman abilities derived from dimensional energy fields.

Johnny is restrained and weakened from prolonged heat extraction.

The Oregon science team (Josie’s group) remains trapped by the Seven, forced to witness the coming eruption.

Reed and Ben engage the Seven directly, attempting to disrupt the ritual. The Seven prove difficult to fight because their powers interact unpredictably with the interdimensional distortions Agatha controls.

Meanwhile:
Sue uses her destabilization formula (developed in #55) to weaken the Egg matrix.

Namor battles members of the Seven with cold precision — but remains hostile, arrogant, and difficult for the FF to trust.

The ritual intensifies as the Eggs begin their accelerated “multiplication cycle,” ready to burst into a catastrophic biological bloom.

As the FF push forward, Agatha proclaims that the awakening cannot be stopped and that the Seven are acting in service of a greater dimensional truth.

The issue ends with the entire Hydra Egg chamber shaking violently — moments away from eruption — setting up the catastrophic collapse and final confrontation in Issue #57.