CHAPTER 196

The guy was finally getting serious if whatever my senses were telling me was true in any way. I had thought that with all of us against Dormammu, even inside his own domain, would be more than enough to put up a fight and detain him or outright push him back.

We could hold him for some time sure, as proven with Strange and the Ancient One, but the little problem about that was that he was getting stronger as time went on. The same way I was powering myself up to face him was the same way as the same as he was doing, but with more ease. 

I could already feel the tiniest specks of Earth being eroded away as it merged with a part of hell but while that was still not enough for a foothold for either of the two Hell Lords, it was enough for us to know that our time was ticking away. 

To be honest, I was half the mind to just send Strange and the Ancient One away to deal with Satannish while I let loose on Dormammu as it seemed that his dimension was also powering me, but I knew how bad of a plan that was. While I would be the first to admit that I was not the best team player around, I also understood when one was in way over his head. 

Strange and the Ancient One could work together and do whatever it was they could to Dormammu and it was my job to keep his attention on me for however long that took. 

Dormammu's attention was mostly on Strange, most likely to stop the sorcerer from pulling off any ridiculous spells and then on me for somehow being a target of interest – not that I knew why since I've never made any sort of connection with him. 

The Ancient One was flung away by one of Dormammu's dark beams which she managed to protect herself from with a hastily erected shield but she couldn't do anything about the impact. Strange then got in his way as Dormammu tried delivering the killing blow to the woman, stopping the demon in his path as he fired spells, some of which even I had no recollection of, effectively provoking the already raging hell fiend. 

Before the living nightmare could rage his way through Strange's spells, I barred his path as my axe met a dark barrier. The nigh-boundless energy from the Power Stone filled my body which made the barrier to break into splinters and impacted Dormammu. Not waiting for him to attack back, and also with the boost from the successive hit, my axe gained added strength from the 'flow' rune I had inscribed in it a long while back which I used to send another strike back at him, stacking up the power bursts and magnifying then with my authority over 'Power'. 

Darkness and fire rose up from the ground to stab me through but I didn't care about them, focusing my everything in unleashing everything I could on him. 

Using magic along with the Mind Stone, I made countless copies of myself, each occupying a portion of hell's space and each with different abilities. Different from cloning, what I did was just stepping in different places at once and using the Mind Stone to partition my mind to do different things at once despite having just one body. 

I didn't need to be told what to do by myself as over ten of us gathered together and formed a huge ball of energy of different properties, disregarding whether they were compatible with each other or not, while the others kept him at bay. 

I looked back at the energy a bunch of mes were gathering, knowing fully well that what I was doing would be more than enough to erase a solar system with just its flare, and signaled to the two sorcerers. "If you guys are tired this soon then I'll be forced to bench you."

Dormammu was thrashing around, attacking wildly and simply not caring about who felt the brunt of his outburst. Lasers had shot straight from my eyes but Dormammu in his hyper state didn't even flinch and just grabbed my head before exploding it in darkness. 

Watching yet another copy of myself being destroyed, my axe twirled around me knocking away any stray attacks while I flew at the VIP of this fight and punched his head. Might not have been my best idea but at this point who cares? 

Dormammu didn't register the attack as flames just covered me and darkness pierced through me. Grabbing the axe of the fallen copy of myself that just got speared through, I clashed them together and the sound that resounded from the impact destroyed everything I around me. 

Darkness and destruction washed over me as they destroyed the Demon Lord's attack. Calling upon the vestiges of The Living Tribunal, light of Law and Order intertwined into Judgment chains and bound one of Dormammu's hands and feet. 

Strange appeared the moment the chain was cast and fired off green spells powered by the Time Stone at Dormammu which resulted in angering the dude more. Nothing was new anymore at this point. 

After Strange finished with his, the Ancient One took his place, a displacement spell in action, and supplemented whatever Strange did with hers which made the demon stop howling for a second, seconds which made my hair stand at their ends. 

Without waiting for whatever was going to happen, I filled in the space between me and the Ancient One with over a galaxy's worth of distance as the huge ball of energy created by copies of myself was dropped right on top of me and Dormammu. 

I watched as every version of me around Dormammu became bathed in the light of the explosion that was so huge that it completely destroyed and engulfed a solar system in seconds, even erasing all sound, and continued stretching forward by light-years. 

I appeared beside the two panting sorcerers, both looking like they've seen better days which was an unsaid truth, while also looking that they were a moment away from collapsing on the ground. 

"What the heck was that? That almost killed us too." Strange huffed the question out through his shaky breath. 

"I forced everything I could conjure up – curses, light blessings, dark energy, chaos energy, cosmic energy, primordial energy, whatever dregs I could pull out, space energy, soul destruction spells, mind shattering hexes along with pumping everything up to a thousand – and threw them all at him. Should do some damage."

I lightly explained, ignoring their stunned stares and I focused my attention on the gulf that was swallowing its fourth system and still moving on. "What was that you guys hit him with?" I asked as I remembered how Dormammu lost it after Strange and the Ancient One's attack. 

Strange pointed at the green glowing Eye of Agamotto and then at his left hand where there was a green clock that was slowly ticking away from the 12 numeral. "A sophisticated time loop spell. We can't fight him if he keeps getting stronger and ignoring our attacks so what I basically did was put a reset on him but I don't know how long it'll last before he breaks it."

I nodded because it was pretty neat if you ask me. I then turn to the Ancient One for clarification because it was after her spell that Dormammu lost it and if not because my attack completely destroyed any slow moving sound waves, we would have been hearing Dormammu scream bloody murder. 

"It would have taken 2 or 3 resets before Dormammu broke the spell since Strange casted it on him and since this is his dimension and time doesn't mean much here, it would have been a different case however had Strange cast the spell outside of here and brought Dormammu inside its influence. What I did would serve to prolong the time before each reset and also the number of reset we have." She said with a small smile. 

"And how exactly did you accomplish that?" Her smile brought about a sense of schadenfreude foreboding in me. 

"Easy. After every reset, he loses a percentile amount of energy that just filters back into the Dark Dimension which conversely means that he'll have less energy to fight Strange's time loop spell thereby increasing the number of resets we have. Though I should warn you that there is nothing that can stop him from drawing more power from his dimension but thankfully Strange's spell managed to put a limit to that."

No wonder the dude was livid. I would be pretty pissed too if I found out that someone had placed a limit on how strong I could power myself up to inside my own domain. Regardless I was thankful that at least this managed to slow down the encroachment on Earth. 

… 

[Kamar-Taj] 

Five people suddenly found themselves standing in front of molten slag that was slowly melting away the ground and even the magical defenses of Kamar-Taj. 

"Draul!" Ororo screamed as her lover forcefully pushed her out of the fight. She was more than strong enough now to fight by his side without being a burden, more so after her very recent ascension. 

"He'll be okay, Ororo. We can scream at him later but for now we have a fight in front of us." Bucky drew the Goddess' attention to the humongous grotesque that was bathing everything in fire as it walked. 

Countless bodies of sorcerers were strewn across the ground along with dismembered limbs. The demon even had someone screaming out of the mouth that was located on where its stomach should have been.

"Jesus.. Christ." Natasha's mouth gaped as he saw the fire that melted everything down to the bones and even saw the soul that tried to flee only for a tongue filled with spikes to wrap around it and drag it back into the mouth all while the spirit screamed for mercy. 

"Steve, Yelena. Try to evacuate those who can't fight as soon as possible and get back here. We'll have to take this fight away from here but collateral damage is unavoidable." Steve and Yelena both disappeared in a fog and lightning respectively as they immediately carried out Bucky's orders. "You guys ready?" He asked the two women besides him, all of them looking determined as they stared at the enemy in front of them. They were forced to retreat from the first battle but this second one was a do or die, to them at least. 

"As ready as I'll ever be." Ororo's eyes were brimming with rage as they crackled with lightning and filled the air with burnt ozone. 

"I hope they bleed." Dark purple wrapped around Natasha's form as he joined Ororo in the air, the presence of the Hell Lord in front of her not frightening her all that much after what she'd seen in the Dark Dimension. 

Half of Bucky's body took on the energy form of lightning while the other took on the stainless sheen of Adamantium as that was his most strongest form in the sense of defense. He had been trying to successfully combine both Adamantium and Vibranium to one part of his body but he hasn't had much success except that he could turn most of his tissues and bones to Vibranium while the rest was Adamantium. 

Satannish looked at the three people in front of him but only two caught his eyes. First was the white haired woman who completely reeked of divinity(And she's dying first) while the other was something that piqued his interest. (She would make for a good follower and strong one to boot). 

"I don't know about you guys but this thing is pissing me off major." Natasha said, not liking the way the demon's eyes lit up in interest as if it was checking out her and Ororo. 

"That makes both of us, Nat." And with that the attack commenced. 

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