CHAPTER 186

[Stephen Strange POV]

I knew he was coming. 

There was no other explanation for the occurrences happening lately. He promised he would be back and every single fiber of my being told me that he was about to make good on his promise. 

None of the others – The Ancient One, Draul, Wong, Mordo – knew just how dangerous that entity was. Maybe the Ancient did but not even Draul could have pictured what I saw. 

The Earth laid waste as he feasted on it. 

But maybe we had a chance. Draul was the strongest of us as he was the living embodiment of two Infinity Stones but there was a caveat to that that prevented him from unleashing the full power of the stones. 

While his potential might was infinite, his soul and mind wasn't therefore limiting the scope of his powers. But I don't know if that alone was enough to battle an Hell Lord of the likes of Satannish and Dormammu who had conquered numerous dimensions and feasted on the souls of mortals since time immemorial. 

"Don't worry, buddy. We're gonna survive this one way or the other." I took the Eye of Agamotto from the pedestal it was kept on. Figures I'll need the might of an Infinity Stone if I want to prevail this tribulation. Focusing back on my partner who was nudging at my sides for comfort, I patted my shoulders which it covered before opening a portal to one of the locations Draul had been so kindly to register on the makeshift globe of the Earth before he left. 

With some acolytes and Masters at my side, we immediately launched our attacks on the dark sorcerers and their neighboring demon friends, denying them of the right to life that was the birthright of all things. 

Intertwining the pair of fingers on both hands together, I formed a spell matrix and sent it barraging into the horde before me. 

"Divine Vines of Gaea." The spell spewed forth green luminescent vines of light and stopped them right in their tracks as it started seeping away their foul energy, purifying it before sending it back into the earth. 

I summoned a sword, one of the few artifacts that had recently come in my possession, and immediately set out with killing the struggling cultists and demons. There was once a time that I would have argued vehemently that each person deserves a chance at life but that was human ignorance and naiveté talking. The world that I now resided in was more dangerous than anything the powers of Earth could fathom. 

"Go." My cape flew away from my shoulders and wrapped itself around the head of two cultists who were not in the range of my spell, effectively strangling them, before I used a cutting spell to relieve them of their heads. 

The others were already upon the demons, making quick work of them. The only thing that really hindered us were their number ls but even that was getting quickly thinned. 

'I wonder what Draul is up to. Probably doing something like this but on a wider scale.' I mused to myself despite the screams of my victims ringing in my ear, a vile melody of agony and death. 

What elicited the screams from them was the killing curse I had cast that exacerbated every wound and made them ground wider, gushing out more blood that in turn widens the injury with every drip. 

Along with the killing curse I casted, I weaved a gigantic spell that easily covered the entire camp with its size. The recipient of the spell was everyone targeted by the killing curse, causing every exposed blood to harden and shoot out in all directions in the form of spikes. 

"We're leaving. We have quite the list so go for effectiveness but also preserve your stamina." I warned them. Who knew I would one day head a Sanctum of magic? 

Taking a deep breath, I opened another portal to the second location I would be destroying today. This time, the smell of Hell permeated my nose, alerting me of the possible presence of a hell spawn, a strong one at that. 

"Oh? What do we have here? A group of sorcerers. A meal fit for the Dark Lord." The grating voice that I had somehow gotten used to filtered into my ears along with its sickening aura that spewed out, causing the weaker members of my entourage to tremble in their steps. 

"I take it you are the overseer of the camp?" As far as my senses told me, the magic of cap power practically emanating off of him was engulfing everyone else in this location. 

"And why did you think so?" A whip materialized in his hands with a crack while the other cultists were slowly surrounding us. 

"Nothing, I was just buying a little bit of time." I signaled a Master by my side and together we both cast the spell to transport all of us to the mirror dimension, but instead of the mirror dimension spell which only needed a caster to lay it down, what we did was overlap the already laid out mirror dimension with the one I created and compressed it to a singular point. 

The demon's face changed as he felt the danger he should rightly feel and struggled to rouse his magical power to protect him. Succeeding in condensing the overlapped mirror dimension into a singular point which looked like a black hole the size of a ball, me and Master Krüf Olon fired our spells into the singularity before us and watched as it exploded out in a flash of gore and magical power. 

What we did was no more different than stuffing all of our enemies inside a pinball table with our attack being the pinball and given that it was the mirror dimension which was an endless kaleidoscope, our attack gained speed and power buildup and just kind of exploded out. 

"BASTARDS!" The mangly sight of the demon, all bloodied and full of holes, was a disturbing sight. 

I sent out a slash that traversed space and beheaded the demon. "That's two. We'll be moving up the danger level so get your shits together." I said to the young sorcerers who were looking dumbfounded. 

"Yes sir!" I nodded at their response and created a globe, an identical to the one in the Sanctum which had hundreds of red spots in it of varying sizes, some of them were going out by the second which implied that the base thee had been wiped out but the progress was still too slow in my opinion. "May we all survive this." I whispered under my breath but I was sure those near heard me. 

"Master Strange, I suggest we split up and attack from two fronts to cover more grounds." Krüf said to me before conjuring another globe atop his hand. "We will hit the marks Master Draul identified as having low danger and work it up from there." He said as he alighted some of the spot which was outright blazing red. 

As much as that was more likely to create more casualties, I knew what he was saying was the truth. But still that didn't mean I forgot what Draul warned about there being a traitor in our midst. 

I was about to say something but I felt a gaze in our direction. 'Looks like he's already in on it.' 

"Okay. We need to be quick, conserve your strength for as much as you can and if you think you can't win, retreat back to the Sanctum for healing." With that done, we divided the people with us into two groups, one for him and one for me, and created a portal to go our separate ways. 

…. 

[The Ancient One POV] 

I knew trying to change destiny would only bring about more chaos, but something to this scale was not what I had in mind. 

Though no one was at fault, with Mr. Cross and Strange's interference with Dormammu's first rise, they had unknowingly changed destiny, well not changed as it so seemed, but more like they postponed it.

Trying to run from destiny would only make its retaliation worse and struggling with it at this point would only make the future that much bleak. 

The only reason such a thing could have gone under my nose, the only thing that came to my mind, was Fate. Due to what Strange had done with usurping Order, he had unknowingly forced the Vengeance to act and all we could do was spill our blood and balance the scales. Truly as Mr. Cross had said, this universe truly was unfair in all rights. 

Numerous magic materialized themselves around my hands as the artifacts I've relinquished their usage for centuries came alive. "This will be the battle of our lives."

The room started changing, the tiles shifting and gaining the colors of the sky while the braces transfigured themselves into trees. The chairs and table stretched themselves and grew branches of green. The shades of light glowed clearly and soon lost it luminescent as it became a clear stream that ran across what was once a study. 

Reality was anything we perceived it to be, and as someone who could draw the powers of the universe for my perversion, reality was what I wanted it to be. 

I saw the hordes of demons as I walked through their camp but none of them could see me which wasn't surprising as the path I walked through was that which existed between what wasn't and what was. A path between the astral and material world. 

"If only there was another way."

A soft wind through place and with it everything in his was dyed the dark red of the hell spawns. 

The space shifted and rearranged and the picture of the one in place was a scenery behind a waterfall. "How quaint. Quite the fashion sense you have there." These demons and their occultist allies really came with a unified purpose in such a short time which means that one side had to have agreed with ease, quickening the time such vast almost global cooperation came together which in turn supports the claim that it was organized by a demon of high authority… a Hell Lord. "How troublesome."

The serene shimmering blue of the cave mixed the dark blood of their guests, painting it a dark purple and flowed it to the river below the water, the wine red of blood. 

Mr. Cross seems motivated on his own ends which is something I understand given his veiled origins. Having to deal with not just one but two Hell Lords is something that should terrify him, absolutely so. Although the Hell Lords won't be as nigh omnipotent as they should be as they are outside their realms of power to step inside the Earth but I can't say for sure if that consolation will true if they some fuse a small portion of their being and tether it to the Earth itself. 

If they so much as claim any portion of the Earth, however small it is, we will be in for a cataclysm. This world is not yet ready for such a thing! Time had been contorted to the point that even trying to discern a singular path in its endless stream was a tremulous task. 

I wonder what it is that seems to have rattled Mr. Cross to such precise movements. If only I could provide them more help but unfortunately my wide knowledge seems not to be effective as they have both grown at a rate faster than any one should have, catching up to what would be called the older generation and on the verge of surpassing it. 

I could feel the energies between the Earth shifting and connecting to selected locations on the planet. It looks like they have started noticing some of them disappearing and activated the spell they were working on but even with this they still can't reach their allies scattered the globe at once since mundane communication won't work and the magic around those areas will go unstable. 

Surprisingly this works in our favor. 

"Are you seeing this, Mr. Cross?"

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