Chapter 118: Theory of the Sphere

To read up to 20 chapters ahead: https://www.patréon.com/SlyOW

-------------

Sefako was powerful, even while weakened. Just as he arrived in this dimension, he effortlessly and nearly instantly cast a city wide curse that would kill everything inside, and shape it to suit him.

In comparison, Edward, even with his reserves being as absurd as they were, he struggled to launch a city wide healing spell that only affected the average human.

Considering for most people their magical reserves grew alongside with their potency, Sefako truly was an extremely dangerous opponent.

However, Edward had gone a long way since he first stepped in Dragon's Dojo, and he was confident in facing the god. It wouldn't be the first time he would be facing a stronger foe, and he was weaker than Zelia.

Edward wasn't fighting alone though, and so he had to take others in considerations for his plans.

While everyone was resting, waiting for the battle ahead, some were a bit… restless.

"You don't get to make those kinds of decisions!" In the somewhat calm bunker, Wanda Maximoff's outburst gathered quite the attention.

The mutant girl didn't really seem to care about the gazes though as she stared at Magneto. The usually ruthless leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants showed a soft face in front of the girl.

He tried to reason with her, too low for anyone else to hear, but Wanda clearly wasn't happy with the answer. Next to her, her brother Pietro, Quicksilver, also looked quite pissed at Magneto.

Magneto's face finally grew firm as he whispered loud enough for those close to hear, "This is neither the place or the time!"

Wanda frowned, but eventually said nothing as she walked away, quickly followed by Pietro. The two walked away from the other members of the Brotherhood, taking their own corner.

Seeing this, Edward sent a look at Roma, but saw she was already walking toward them, making him smile as he wondered whether she took that decision on her own or if it was Luke's advice.

Since they would be working together to fight Graxus, getting to know each other couldn't be bad. Wanda's mutant power was Witchcraft, something Edward came to know about after he copied the libraries in his mind.

Witchcraft was a special branch of magic mainly used by the famous witches of Salem, and others in this time period. It was a power that had to be awakened at birth, and only a few could awaken it. Moreover, it was a power exclusive to women.

It was only a theory, but some believed this power was created through the power of faith. Actually, a lot was supposed to have been created by faith, it was the Theory of the Sphere.

According to this theory, there existed a special kind of energy called Faith Energy, which would be created through the emotions, beliefs and thoughts of living beings. When this Faith Energy gets strong enough, it can accomplish miracles.

No evidence of the existence of this Faith Energy has ever been found, but one example is the birth of the gods. The Asgardian Pantheon was unique as they were among the only gods who were not Immortal, as they were not really Gods, they were simply a race of aliens in the beginning.

However, for the other Pantheons, no one can really date of explain the birth of the gods, and according to the Theory of the Sphere, the legends of the gods started as nothing but that, legends, but as more and more people believed those legends and displayed their faith toward those imaginary gods, the Faith Energy they created accumulated enough to actually give birth to those gods.

And a rather similar theory went for the Asgardians, at first they were simply aliens who landed on Earth, and to Earthlings those people who looked like humans but were many times stronger and possessed a technology so far more advanced it seemed like magic, they took them as gods, and once again their belief gave the Asgardians their Godhoods.

In the same fashion, the frustration women have felt over the years have gathered to create Witchcraft, and so the more women are repressed around the world, the more witches will be born.

The Theory of the Sphere came to become quite popular, and everything that couldn't really be explained was put under it, thus entering the Sphere of Faith.

The only problem with this theory, was that Faith Energy was never felt, and the Gods themselves had no memory of the formation of their Godhood, forcing this to remain a theory to this day.

But whether this theory was accurate or not, for people to compare the creation of gods to witchcraft, it showed the incredible power witchcraft could have.

Going by the logic of the Theory of the Sphere, the belief of a certain region in a certain time could give rise to a pantheon of incredibly powerful beings like Zeus, Odin or Amun-Ra, and Witchcraft was supposed to have been created by the belief of all women across all time.

And despite this, no one ever doubted that, showing that Witchcraft really was an incredible branch of magic. Witches specialized in hexes, which were a special form of magic quite similar to runes and arrays.

A witch would create a hex with a specific function, and add them up together to form more complex spells. The difference with arrays was the power, the mobility, the speed and flexibility of the hexes compared to runes and arrays.

Also, when making an array, the runes had to be perfectly put together for it to even work, and if one is unlucky and uses a wrong rune, everything could go wrong and lead to terrible results.

When Sefako arrived on Earth and used his array, Edward had replaced a rune in the complex array to change it's effects, but this was something barely anyone in the entire universe could accomplish.

Edward had only managed to do so because of his strong Spirit that allowed him to think and calculate much faster than anyone else, and retrieve any piece of information he needed from his memory bank instantly.

Had it been anyone else, they would have been slower, and would either not have the time to throw a rune, or would have been hasty and probably made things even worse.

Actually, this was a bad strategic move because it showed Sefako there was a very capable magician stuck in the city, one capable of threatening him, so Sefako would definitely be on guard.

However, there was no place for strategy when the lives of the people of an entire city were at stack. Edward would never sacrifice the lives of everyone in the city and a good part of the mutants just for the element of surprise.

But back to the subject, the nature of Wanda's magic and her poor mastery of it made it hard for her to use it well to attack, her attacks would be weak. Instead, she worked better as a support, especially with the power of her brother.

A single hex was generally rather weak, and if used to attack the power would be lesser than a gun. For the average person, a gun was a serious threat, but in this kind of battlefield, one might as well hang a stroboscopic light on their head and run around the battlefield. Actually, it might have more effect if Sefako was epileptic…

Edward's thoughts drifted for a moment before he focused back on the combo of Wanda and Pietro. Wanda's attacks were weak, but her supporting hexes could be very useful.

For example, a hex to slow down the enemy, make them a little weaker, or make the allies a little faster or stronger. She could also stack many hexes on one enemy to have their effects stack too, if an enemy is forced to cough, sneeze, cry and perform many such debilitating actions quickly, they would pretty much be out of combat.

With Pietro by her side, she could be out of reach for nearly all enemies. She could use the distance to weaken the enemy, or strengthen Pietro. With the speed he was moving at, a normal punch from him should already be very strong, and if strengthened by Wanda then his punches would pack… well, quite a punch.

However, no matter how well they synergized, those two were not the match of someone like Sefako, a completely possessed Ghost Rider, an enraged Graxus or even Magneto. However, if their powers are used well alongside Roma's, then Graxus wouldn't be able to defeat them quickly.

Graxus was the second strongest after Sefako, and Edward didn't expect Roma to defeat him with only the Maximoff twins, but they could hold him back long enough.

So Edward approved of Roma's initiative to go talk to them, and turned his attention away from them. He was fairly confident they would successfully hold back Graxus.

However, there was another group that he did not hold such hope into. Edward didn't know what happened between Magneto and Logan, if anything ever really happened. Logan seemed to be a feral man, probably because of his mutation, and he must dislike Magneto's ability to completely control him.

That was understandable, anyone wouldn't be happy about having someone capable of controlling their every movement with a thought near them. At least, Edward knew he wouldn't.

This battle went beyond petty thought like those though, so Edward hoped they would be able to ignore their differences to work together. He did not go talk to them as that would only worsen things, so he turned to the last group.

The X-Men seemed to be a cohesive group, and even as they lost contact with the founder of their team, Professor Xavier, the telepath in the wheelchair, they easily rallied around the team leader, Cyclops.

And that despite there being a few more members in the group. On the other hand, the rest of the Brotherhood didn't seem so thrilled being led by their enemy, although it wouldn't be a very X-Men thing to do, the members of the Brotherhood could very easily imagine how Cyclops could use this fight to get rid of them.

They knew he probably wouldn't just kill them, but if danger arose, Cyclops would undoubtedly prioritize the X-Men's safety, and that could become problematic for them. Hopefully, no problem would arise while they fought…

<Scene Break>

On the surface, a bunch of buildings had been turned into rubble, and among the ruins was an intimidating looking throne, on top of which sat Sefako.

At the moment, Sefako's lesser demons were searching through the city for his enemies, while he focused on recovering.

Not far from him was a human, the Ghost Rider, and Graxus the Red Lantern. Graxus growled with rage in his voice, "You better hold your promise, or I will tear you apart!"

Sefako frowned at Graxus' tone, but was once again reminded by his weakness. Taking a few silent seconds to calm himself, Sefako then said, "A deal is a deal."

Author's Note: I finally addressed the matter of the Sphere of the Gods. I am still hiding a lot about it, but for now what you have to understand is that the gods are not multiversal singularities, nor do they live in the Sphere of the Gods, an alternate dimension. In this aspect, the gods are all quite marvel-like as there exists a parallel version of them in most universes, and they all live in pocket dimensions stuck to Earth in one way or another, like Edward is doing right now.

However, where they completely differ from Marvel is that they are real gods, they aren't just a bunch of strong aliens, with the exception of Asgard because a good part of the original storyline and the interactions Thor will have with Earth in the future depends on that. But for the rest, they are, for now, faith creations.

But you all should also be careful about the narrator of the story, as I am not using an omniscient narrator, the narrator discovers things along with Edward, meaning what you are told is Edward's understanding and reactions to what he perceives, which means things could change in later chapters if he discovers additional information.