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Chapter 80.2
Technomancer in MCU
Dark Realm
–Dormammu–
But, the way his essence inside the avatar was being stolen piece by piece had given him a pretty good idea as to what the Ancient One was trying to do.
She was trying to take his Dark Energy and strip it of all its other qualities and only taking it in the Longevity aspect of his energy.
He had been so furious back then that even at the cost of damage to his soul, he had forcibly destroyed the avatar body, hoping that it would stop the ritual mid-way and if he knew anything about Chthon at all, he would make sure that the soul of Ancient One was claimed after that.
But after years of silence after that, the second he sent in his soldiers again, there she was.
The Ancient One, hale and hearty.
With none of the supposed damage from the ritual. Even the slight taint of Chaos Energy was gone from her soul as she had actually severed a part of her soul and healed it using something.
The ensuing reign where she held the position of the Sorcerer Supreme for centuries was the single longest period of non-interference that the mystical side of Earth had.
Even his recent deal with Dracula that he was able to do felt like it was planned. As if it was done all by the Ancient One for something.
For some goal that she was able to see and he was not.
But that was simply impossible.
He was aware that ever since the introduction of the Singularity and his guardian in the universe, the future had been in a constant flux and so all clairvoyant abilities, even his very own, had been either handicapped or outright disabled.
The Time Stone, being one of the six fundamental building blocks of the universe, was not disabled completely but from what he knew about it, it was not able to accurately tell her the future as well.
He had this tested multiple times using scapegoats from the mystical hotspots of Earth.
So, with this knowledge in hand that the Ancient One’s future sight, arguably her greatest tool in the fight against him, was severely hampered, he set out a plan.
A plan to get rid of the biggest hindrances in his path to once again ruling a part of Earth, a plan to get rid of the pesky shields that kept Earth out of his reach.
The problem was that just by getting rid of the Ancient One, he would not get complete access to the Earth since the Singularity was on her side as well.
And everybody knew not to mess with the Singularity unless you were sure of finishing him off completely because if he survived and came back prepared, even entities on the same level as him would find it difficult to escape that confrontation unharmed.
So, he churned a significant portion of the Dark Realm’s energy to create a zone with accelerated time dilation inside that area with respect to Earth.
During his plotting, he chanced upon a hurt Master of the Mystic Art who had embers of rage inside of him, rage that could one day burn down the very organisation that he worked inside.
So, he took advantage of that. He slowly began sowing discord in his mind. It helped that he was the one who regularly volunteered himself to go fight in the front lines against his demons and through them, he had convinced Kaecilius to forge a permanent bond with him.
Once that was done, he gave him the knowledge about the secret to Ancient One’s unnatural longevity and how he could access the same knowledge to even bring back his family.
It was all falsehoods of course but to the hazy mind of Kaecilius, it felt true. It helped that he was able to confirm various facts using his access to Kamar Taj’s library.
Slowly, one by one, the pack of people whom he could influence increased and soon, he gave the order for Kaecilius to gather his troops and be ready to attack.
Then, he focused his attention on the Guardian of the Singularity. While a completely digital construct, it had a soul, and while it could be said that a digital presence’s most critical vulnerability was its vessel, its soul was equally vulnerable if you knew where to look for it.
He had a spell that, if charged with enough magical power, could overpower the Guardian’s formidable mental and soul defenses and leave it reeling from the shock. The problem was that he had no minion with that level of power in the organisation.
Kaecilius came in real handy here as he informed him about the distaste that various members held for the Guardian and its antics, including one old Dwarf, formerly of Nidavellir.
So, he had Kaecilius approach the old dwarf under the guise of building a spell to ward off the Guardian’s pranks temporarily from a significant area.
That foolish old dwarf.
He was unaware of the true nature of the spell and ended up striking at the core logic centers of the Guardian, leaving it disoriented and hampering it’s proper decision-making abilities.
A swift poison that he had not used for a while was also administered to Throgg by Kaecilius that only activated after sensing the particular spell being used, had done the trick of taking out one of the Ancient One’s staunchest allies as well as the premier weapons maker of the Singularity.
He made sure to use the same poison that had ultimately taken down the previous Sorcerer Supreme, a poison that the Ancient One was well aware of.
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The cure to which was only known to her in the current organisation.
Being who she was, he was sure that she would employ the cure, risking all the soul-bound spells she had cast. Sure, with the sheer strength of her soul, most spells would hold on just fine.
But, there was a single person with whom she held a soul contract whose very soul held weight even more so than the Ancient One.
Toby Mathers was an equally infuriating person but he was someone who could be dealt with. The last time they had met, he had been forced to give up nearly one-tenth of his realm and churn it into energy to ward off that resilient fool who had thought that he could defeat Dormammu in his own realm.
The soul pact was an insidious one that forced Mathers to stay out of Earth’s affairs for a set period of time or else the Singularity would die.
Honestly, he wanted all three of them to die but he would settle with the death of two, the Ancient One and the Singularity due to the remnants of his energy still on that person when he had tried to, in a completely moronic move, eat him.
The second he got confirmation of the soul pact shuddering and breaking, he ordered Kaecilius and the others to assault Kamar Taj and if possible, go after the Ancient One in her vulnerable state or destroy all they could and kill as many people as possible.
This would have never been possible if the Guardian of the Singularity was not absent since both the organisations had been so closely knit that any attack on Kamar Taj would have garnered a swift response from their stationed forces on the Planet.
The next step was to get Mathers out of prison and somehow convince him to work against his previous allies.
Allies that had imprisoned him inside a solitary prison. He had thought that it would be enough of a reason to work with him to take revenge on his incarcerators but the moment Mathers got out of that dimension, he knew that it was not going to work.
He just didn’t have the hunger, the spark for revenge and hate that he had seen in Kaecilius.
Still, he gave his customary offer and while the loss of Kaecilius would have bugged him for a while, the fool at least did one thing right and managed to steal samples of Mather’s DNA from the Singularity’s organisation when it was in disarray from the sudden leave of the Guardian.
If he couldn't get Mathers to work for him, he would just make his very own.
By the time the clone was ready, Dracula had managed to prove himself useful, even in his death, and by taking the Ancient One by surprise, he defeated and killed her, preserving her head for future purposes.
Infiltrating the large ship they were in, was easy since Mathers knew the energy signatures of the ward and while they had certainly been added upon, the underlying ward scheme remained the same.
Utilizing that loophole, he managed to snag the attention of the Singularity, his Guardian, and all the people he surrounded himself with.
Knowing that the ship held an alternate dimension itself, he didn’t waste much time before flooding the ship with his darkness, forcing the Guardian to take them to the alternate dimension.
Once there, he wanted to taunt the Singularity with the head of the Ancient One but the Guardian proved to be smart and knocked the Singularity out immediately.
The resulting fight, while tough, was nowhere near entertaining as all of their cards fell short of the sheer power he brought to bear in the alternate dimension.
Towards the end was when the Singularity woke up and sensing the opportunity, he threw the severed head of the Ancient One in front of the Singularity.
The ensuing battle was one that would have given him trouble if he was actually trying to win. All he wanted to do was prolong the battle and make sure that the Singularity exhausted his remaining lifespan, trying to fight a meat body that he could make in less than a minute.
In the end, the Singularity collapsed the dimension and killed his clone but his objectives had been met.
If not immediately, the Singularity would be dead soon. The Ancient One was truly dead this time.
And he was free to attack Earth once he had the confirmation of the Singularity’s death.
Just then, he sensed someone entering his realm. Shocked at the intrusion since it was not allowed by him, he summoned the point in space where the tear happened to him and recoiled when he saw Mathers getting out of the tear.
He growled in anger at that. This pest had come back to his realm once again to bother him.
“Yo”, he had the audacity to smirk at his growing rage.
His only response was a glowing violent energy beam that struck Mathers right in his face.
His triumphant smirk fell short when he saw that Mathers came out completely unscathed from that confrontation.
Looking closer, he could see a thin sheen of hellfire that surrounded the form of Mathers.
“I don’t care what matter you had with the Ancient One-”
Mathers’ form began to grow as hellfire suddenly flooded his realm.
“-But the moment you targeted Ed, you became my problem-”
Soon, his size reached the same as him and now his realm housed two volatile energies in the form of Dark Energy and Dark attribute Hellfire.
“-And I only know of a single way to deal with my problems.”
He could not even see how he was struck when his planetoid-sized body tumbled through his realm, the vast damage being done to his realm and its denizens by the Hellfire, visible to him.
Swiftly regaining his balance, he turned his body into a humanoid one to match better with Mathers’ new form when his entire vision was filled with Hellfire as he felt his very realm groaning from the stress of another dimension trying to force its way in.
With growing horror, he watched as the very hell dimension that Mathers ruled over, manifested behind him.
No, he could not allow that to happen. If he lost his realm, he would be left with nothing and would soon turn into cosmic dust, becoming an easy meal for the vultures to pick apart.
“Alright, stop! You made your point. What do you want?” He growled out with extreme reluctance clear in his voice.
Mathers only watched him with a dispassionate stare as his hellfire continued to rampage in his realm, erasing the Dark Ones by the billions every minute.
“WHAT.DO.YOU.WANT” he asked again with gritted teeth.
Only then did Mathers seemed satisfied as the hellfire receded back into the dimension behind him. He then said, “I want you to agree to never interfere in Earth’s matters as long as I am alive. I know you’ll inevitably find a loophole but as long as I am alive, the second you step out of line, you lose your realm and we both know what will happen then.”
Having no choice but to comply, he agreed. “Fine.”
“Great working with you,” Mathers said and his hell dimension behind him dissipated back into nothingness and Mathers swiftly made his exit.
He immediately took stock of his realm and to his absolute rage, found out that roughly twenty percent of his realm was gone because of the absolutely massive discharge of hellfire that Mathers perpetrated.
He must have figured out how to take ownership and use his realm while being in that prison because he was not this powerful the last time they had fought.
He would abide by the pact as long as Mathers was alive.
But that did not mean that he could not spread the information about Mathers walking around with an unclaimed dimension with him.
That should be enough trouble for him until he could figure out a way out of that pesky soul pact.
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Word Count - 2322
Ah, this chapter took more than five hours to finish.
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