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Chapter 80.1

Technomancer in MCU

Wakanda

–Ed–

Watching Toby regale him with the tales of his admittedly brief visits to the Grasslands and the Sakura Garden he had always wanted to visit with a complex gaze, he thought of where did he had lost it all.

The desire to look at the simple things of nature and derive joy from them.

They had discussed back in high school to visit the wonders of nature together and maybe even find hidden ones, a fool’s dream, sure but it was a dream.

For all these years, he did have the opportunity to visit the wonders of nature.

Hell, he had the opportunity to visit any planet he wanted to, many of them filled with natural wonders beyond the understanding of the regular mind.

And yet..here he was, just slogging away all of his remaining lifespan for Humanity when he himself had nearly forgotten how to enjoy the joys that humanity itself took for granted.

He began chuckling bitterly at the absurdity of it all.

The chuckles soon turned into full blown-out laughter.

“Uh, Ed?” He heard Toby ask him but he was far too gone in the hilarity of the situation to give him attention.

“Sorry, Sorry. Just realised something. That’s all.” He said while waving off any of Toby’s questions.

“Anyway, let’s get out, shall we? I am sure everybody must be worried and I can’t wait to give Frank the shock of his lifetime.”

Toby laughed and stood up, nodding at him.

Soon, a ritual circle was drawn on the ground in front of them and while he did not have access to the minor cybernetic enhancements he had done to his original body, he still tried his best to memorise the circle in front of him.

Because it was evident that even Alfred, with all his mystical attainments, was not able to track him while this seemingly small and simple ritual circle was able to track him halfway across the galaxy. It would seem that Demonic energy did still has its benefits.

Then he realised something. “Did you use the blood I gave you all those years ago?”

“Yeah, obviously. How else did you think I was able to track you immediately and from that far away? It would have been impossible without your willingly given blood. Do you want it back?” Toby asked him back flippantly.

He thought about it but in the end, there was no point in asking it back since he was now sure that Toby was back in his right mindset now. So, he shook his head and replied, “No. It’s fine.”

Toby nodded and dropped a droplet of his blood in the center of the ritual circle. The circle immediately lit up red in response and began glowing brighter.

As if reaching a crescendo, the circle’s brightness began receding back under the drop of blood and then a tear in space opened up in front of them.

The tear didn't look big enough to fit him, Toby, and his makeshift life support suit to go through but before he could voice his concerns, Toby simply went to the portal and somehow…expanded it using his bare hands.

!

His eyes widened in their sockets out of astonishment as Toby waved his hand and his new body, along with his suit flew out of the cave and into a small clearing.

Dusting off his shoulders, he stood up, only to pause as he saw Alfred along with Frank pointing Guns and in the case of Alfred, a huge magical circle which had hundreds of different magical circles that crackled with different elements behind him.

He slowly raised his hands in surrender as Toby exited the portal, making things even worse as he could hear the low whine of the alpha cannon being charged up by Frank.

“Um, Hello?” he said while waving his hand awkwardly.

Toby shoved him aside and just waved his hand, the result of which left him extremely embarrassed.

The wave of demonic energy tore apart the barrier around the ritual circle, went on to destroy the magical attack Alfred sent their way and after doing all of that, still had enough energy left in it to crumble the barriers Alfred had activated on instinct, giving Alfred just enough time to get out of the blast zone.

He winced as a thunderous boom sounded in the distance, along with the sound of people and wildlife panicking.

He deadpanned at Toby. “Well done, smartass.”

He sighed, cupped his hands in front of his mouth, and shouted,” Alfred, it’s me. Scan me with your shiny new sensors. We need to get out of here. A lot of things have changed and we have to address them.”

Alfred, along with Frank, slowly and hesitantly floated down to the ground near them.

“This is weird. What is happening to you? I am seeing two identical soul readings from you and the body in the coffin behind you.” Alfred said as he scanned their entire surroundings.

“Oh, that is something Toby did to help prolong my life. Now, can we please go to the Asterisk? You have a lot of work to do and I have things to do as well.” Ed said.

Just then, Toby perked up and turned towards Ed, “We have company.”

“Huh?” Ed looked at him perplexed then facepalmed as he saw Alfred wincing, “Alfred, please tell me you did not just do something extremely stupid?”

“Eh, I just ordered them to go back, if that helps?” 

His only response was an explosive sigh.

“Look, you guys clearly have a lot of work to do. The spell will work as long as I supply it with energy. I’ll see you at the Asterisk soon.” Toby said and without waiting for any of their replies, waved his hands and exited through a fiery red portal.

Though, the dark energy that wafted out of the portal for the few seconds that it was open, gave them a pretty solid guess as to where Toby was headed.

“Did he just?” Frank asked in shocked awe.

“Yes, yes he did just do that. The motherfucker just went to the Dark Realm.” Alfred cursed out loud.

Finally, he had the chance to do something he had been looking forward to for years.

“Language!”

Ah, good times.

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Dark Realm

–Dormammu–

He had been called the Dark Overlord by generations of Sorcerer Supremes and feared by nearly all of them since the time of Agamotto himself.

If not for that accursed man, he would have long since devoured Earth or at least shared it with multiple demon outer gods but no, that mortal had to go and turn Earth into the biggest magical fortress the Universe ever knew.

Even then, it was fine for him.

He was an immortal being. Time was meaningless to him.

A little bit more time was not going to make him budge but then came the single most infuriating human he had ever come across, even more so than Agamotto.

Agamotto he knew how to deal with, he left Earth alone in his presence and Agamotto never came knocking on his doorstep but the Ancient One..

He had to hand it to her.

When one of his more powerful experiments had killed her predecessor right in front of her, he had done so with the complete knowledge that there was no one aside from the Ancient One who had the right to assume the position of the Sorcerer Supreme. He was also aware of her attachment to her teacher who had rescued her when she was but a mere mortal babe.

He had hoped that crippling her emotionally would be the final nail in the coffin for the organisation that had spawned from Agamotto’s little triplet of disciples but she turned out to be tougher than he could imagine.

She took command of the organisation and made sure that the barrier was fortified along with taking help from unconventional allies to help safeguard the planet, even going as far as to take the help of the Shamans of the old forgotten Gods of Africa. For decades, she purged any demon on Earth with extreme prejudice and left no backdoors for any entity to abuse.

He had written her off and resigned himself to wait out her mortal lifespan to try again.

Only, that time never came. The accursed woman refused to die.

Sacrificing her true name to one of the Endless, she gained power comparable to that of Agamotto himself when he was a mortal powered by nothing but dimensional energies and the Time Stone.

Then, came the true attacks.

Time and time again, she attacked and tested him. Created intentional openings for him in the barrier surrounding the planet and decimating all his forces.

Using him as a means of destroying rogue elements on the planet that she herself couldn't be bothered to take care of and then swooping down and saving the day.

That’s what he hated the most about that woman.

The sheer arrogance she held. 

To use the Dark Overlord, one of the strongest beings in the multiverse, as a mere instrument to kill off her enemies.

Then one day, frustrated beyond belief that she was once again, triumphing over all of his experiments, he chose to lure her out of the universe into one of the many small alternate dimensions that found their openings to be on Earth for some reason. He did so with the hope that at least he would be able to force her to use the Infinity Stone and reduce her mortal lifespan, as he was nearing the end of the average lifespan for a Sorcerer Supreme anyway.

He should have been more suspicious of the fact that he was successful in luring her away but alas.

He was far too happy with the result to notice that it was not her who was walking into a trap, it was him who was doing so, quite happily he might add.

The laws surrounding the manifestation of Outer dimensional entities were quite lax when it came to alternate dimensions so from the get-go, he manifested his strength to the limit and that was when he realises, as his senses which would normally not be available to a normal avatar were now present to him. He sensed the underlying ritual circle in the alternate dimension and soon realised that the Ancient One had used the Time Stone to pre-draw it in this dimension before he could even lure her in.

Before he could do anything further though, the option was taken out of his hands as the Ancient One placed a very old, very rough-looking but glowing ominously book in the center of the ritual where the outline of a certain Old God was present.

He hadn’t even realised it then but his avatar’s body which he had been possessing and subsequently, had a direct connection to, was bound by the very laws of the dimension, laws that had suddenly become quite strict when it came to movement of avatars of outer dimensional entities.

The blackened fingers of the Ancient One and the smell of chaos wafting off the Book had given him a pretty solid idea as to what the book actually was.

The Darkhold.

He had been incredibly confused back then since the previous Sorcerer Supreme, the one person the Ancient One swore by, was incredibly rigid when it came to laws, and tinkering with Chaos energy, in general, was forbidden by Kamar Taj, let alone directly using the Darkhold, the one opening through which C̵̢̨̛͔̩͚̗̦̮̩̤̔̾͐͛h̸̯̤͇̪̄̑̃͒͋̃̇͠t̶̡̯̤̾͗̆h̷̜̝̯͗̀̄͂ö̷̱̭́̈́̄̒ņ̶̛̘͚͚͓̦̲̯̲̘̇̌̋̊̿̆̈́͛͠ directly expanded his influence in the mortal plane.

Sitting cross-legged in front of the Darkhold, with the Eye of Agamotto constantly circulating some sort of energy around the Ancient One, she began chanting an old spell of some sort. Something which he had not heard, even throughout his long life.

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Word Count - 2005

To be Continued…

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