CHAPTER 122

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[The Ancient One POV]

Without a warning, the battle started, with Morgana attacking with a curse from the Darkhold.

I stood my ground, and created an eldritch circle of runes to dispel the curse. I could feel the curse struggling against the runes, trying to break through to no avail, good, this meant she was yet to tap into the book's full potential.

"How long do you think you'll be able to hold?" Morgana asked, with a grin of mad delight.

"You overestimate your own capabilities, Morgana," I replied, looking at her with a simple smile. "The Darkhold in your hands it's nothing but a book of wasted potential, had that book been in Merlin's hands, the. I would worry,"

Morgana chuckled, "Maybe, but… once I have Alex on my side, nothing will stand in my way," with that said, Morgana started to push more and more mana into her curse, as well as adding power from Dormmamus' dimension to the mix.

I sighed.

My runic barrier was going to break sooner or later with the current power of the curse, that much was inevitable, but I could still fight, I had after all defeated foes vastly stronger than me.

"Give up, and I promise, I won't torture you," Morgana said, "At least not too much," she added.

"You never stop talking, do you?" I replied, pushing a portion of my mana into the very ground beneath us, mana I would use later on.

"Well, I do love the sound of my voice… so no," Morgana giggled, pushing more power into the curse.

Sadly for her, such a thing was a terrible, terrible mistake, after all, she was not fighting an amateur, she was fighting the Sorceress Supreme.

Beneath her feet, three eldritch runes formed with the mana I had poured into the ground, each rune there for a reason, transmutation, relocation, and disruption, three runes that alone were nothing more than low tier spell, but together, well, together were quite the combination.

"Let's see how that curse works, shall we?" I smiled at her, snapping my fingers, activating the runes.

Morgana noticed the runes a bit too late, and found herself within the breaking shield I had created a few seconds ago.

"You forgot to deactivate the runic shield," Morgana laughed in relief, but I simply chuckled.

"You don't say," I smiled at her, I had after all added a few explosive runes into the runic mix of the shield, for this very purpose.

Morgana, seeing my smile, stopped laughing, clearly sensing something was wrong, and did what to her was the next best move, canceling her active curse.

But soon found out, she couldn't.

"What did you do to me?" Morgana hissed.

"I disrupted your mana paths," I replied, floating around the runic shield, "For the next thirty minutes you won't be able to cast spells properly, nor tap into your mana,"

"It.. this can't be!" Morgana growled.

"Normally that would be the case, but you see…" I smiled at her, "You left your mana guard wide open, that's the downside when relying on an item to fight, in your case… the Darkhold,"

Had this been a normal magical battle, this method wouldn't have worked, but unfortunately for Morgana, her overconfidence in the Darkhold was her outdoing.

Yes, the Darkhold had given her power beyond her wildest dreams, and had she been more careful, not even I would've stood a chance against her, but… in her hubris she had failed to see the glaring weakness of the Darkhold.

Which was the new mana path it created by connecting into the user's mana.

As mages we unknowingly learn how to protect our mana paths, it's a natural thing, like walking or blinking, but that natural learning process eventually comes to a halt.

Like a kid born with a single arm, if you suddenly add a new arm to him, he will forget to protect it, he will if he's not consciously focusing about it, forget the arm it's there.

Only time can fix this blindspot we living creatures have.

But it's something that takes time.

Time Morgana didn't spend, which allowed me to disrupt her mana by tapping into her one unprotected mana path, the one connecting to the book.

"Well, time to end this, don't you think?" I asked Morgana, who looked at me in fright.

"No! Don't do this, we can work something out," Begging, how unbecoming of a mage, Merlín truly wasted his time on her.

"Accept your fate with dignity, it's sad for the both of us," I sighed, truly disappointed in her behavior.

"I can give you what you lost… your soul!" Morgana shot back, "The fragment you left in the dark dimension,"

I looked at her, and without replying, dispelled my runic barrier, letting her curse and the explosives runes I had added to my shield, end our battle.

As tempting as that offer had been, betraying Alex was not something I could do.

"Now… what to do with the Darkhold," I muttered floating towards Morgana's corpse, but before I could touch the book, I felt a shiver running down my spine.

Dormammu, his presence, he was here, a part of him was here.

"She belongs to me," He whispered.

"You have no power over this dimension, so begone," I replied, spreading my mana over the area, readying myself for a fight.

"You belong to me," He added.

"Like I said," I replied, "You have no hold in this dimension," I added.

"For now," Dormammu replied, his presence leaving, but not without taking Morgana's corpse with him, leaving only the Darkhold where once stood the witch of Camelot and the book.

"This is bad," I muttered, Dormmamu was moving way too soon, I was not prepared for this, Alex was not prepared for this, what was I to do now.

"Bad is an understatement," I heard a voice say behind me.

Shocked someone had sneaked on me, I turned around to find a girl around her twenties smiling at me, her mana vibrating in manner I had only seen in one person, Mr. Walker, but unlike his, her was chaotic mess, instead of a symmetrical work of art, she was the definition of complete magical asymmetry.

Was she an agent of chaos?

And if so, how was she related to Mr. Walker.

"My name is Alice, Alice Walker, a pleasure to meet you," The Girl bowed ever so lightly, "And I need your help,"