Chapter 119: Du Wa Decides to Take the Initiative: Deity Hunting
It all happened too fast.
Strange felt like he was in a dream. The world he was familiar with had once again become completely unrecognizable.
His lover had died a tragic death, and he had inexplicably joined a place called Kamar-Taj. It seemed he was about to become a Magician.
If this had been a few days ago, Strange might have been overjoyed. He was proud and conceited, but not a fool. In this frantically advancing, insane world, his old worldview had been shattered to pieces in just a few short years. Anyone still clinging to the old way of thinking was completely out of touch with the era and wouldn't even know what hit them when they died.
All sorts of superhumans emerged one after another, and terrifying Deities and demons appeared from the depths of the Universe. Sometimes, after finishing surgery and returning home exhausted, Strange would lie on his expensive sofa, holding a glass of high-end red wine, and ponder philosophically: What would this world be like without Du Wa?
In this new era, someone like him, who could barely be considered part of the upper class, was depreciating in value far too quickly.
But if he could become a Magician, holding the dual identities of a doctor and a sorcerer, straddling the Mortal Realm and the world of mystery, it would be an absolutely wonderful thing.
But if this transformation came at the price of his girlfriend's tragic death, Strange had to think about how to avoid such an outcome.
His skills as a doctor were useless. As for being a sorcerer, he had carefully questioned Mordo and Wong, only to be met with a stern warning. They said things like resurrecting the dead was a taboo and reversing time was a disaster.
But Strange couldn't care less. Their reactions proved that there was a way to reverse this; the price was just too high.
"Demon, it's all your fault Christine is dead!"
Strange wished he could eat Mephisto alive.
The several Mephistos revealed malicious sneers. "Did I kill her? Perhaps you killed her."
"Don't try such a low-level trick on me. I won't fall for it. If you hadn't caused that car accident, Christine wouldn't be dead."
"So that's how you think. Then why not try looking at it from another angle, Mr. Strange? If it weren't for you, how could Christine have died?"
Mephisto stood up, staring venomously at Strange. "It was clearly you who killed your girlfriend. That night, if you hadn't been there, she would have been perfectly fine. Christine would have returned home safely, cooked a delicious dinner, and waited for her lover to return. But in the end, why did she die and not you? Because she had to make a bargain with me."
"No, that's not right! You're the culprit, it was you..." Strange clutched his head, his mind filled with the image of Christine turning into a withered corpse. The scene replayed endlessly in his brain, making him want to retch, yet he couldn't stop it.
"You're the culprit. Think back to that night. If I hadn't saved Christine, how could she have held on until Du Wa arrived?" The various Mephistos let out malicious laughs. "What kind of bargain do you think she made with me, using her soul? Even as she was dying, your girlfriend's first instinct was to use her life to save you... Besides, if Du Wa had just gotten there a little sooner, couldn't he have saved Christine?"
With bloodshot eyes, Strange lunged forward, but Mordo and Wong pinned him down, one on each side.
"This was never a place you should have come to. Bringing you here was already an exception."
"Mephisto is trying to provoke you, and you actually believe the words of a demon? Then we must re-evaluate your talent. If you can't even remain calm in the face of verbal provocation, it will be very difficult for you to become a top-tier Magician."
Mordo and Wong exchanged a look, extremely dissatisfied with Strange's performance. They couldn't imagine that this kind of person would actually be the next Sorcerer Supreme to succeed the Ancient One.
Why did the Ancient One see potential in this guy?
"I originally thought the Sorcerer Supreme would choose a successor from Du Wa's side..." Wong muttered.
Mordo paled in shock. "Are you kidding me? Why would you have such an insane idea?"
"I never joke."
"A person like Du Wa is extremely dangerous!"
"That depends on how you define 'dangerous.' He's saved the Earth many times, and we both know it."
Mordo and Wong decided not to continue this fruitless topic. They forcibly dragged Strange out of the magical prison.
This allowed Mephisto to settle back down comfortably. He wasn't afraid of human hatred; hatred itself was a powerful driving force, giving a demon like him an opportunity to exploit their weaknesses.
But Mephisto's mood quickly soured, because Du Wa was seizing his other clones and turning them all into Xenomorphs.
"About what I expected. They're all quite weak, not even coming close to the Skyfather-level."
Du Wa looked at the Xenomorphs before him, which had just chestbursted from Mephisto's clones.
This was normal. If these clones carried the potential to reach the Single Universe-level, Mephisto would have found a way to cultivate them himself. There would have been no room for anyone else to interfere.
After all, Mephisto's main body was only at the Single Universe-level, and he was the type whose strength would grow weaker the longer he was away from Hell and lacked the support of the Hell Dimension.
"Demon... I know what to do."
Du Wa immediately arranged for these demon Xenomorphs to head to Kamar-Taj.
He had long been using a large number of Xenomorphs within Kamar-Taj to frantically absorb knowledge about Magic.
After such long-term effort, it was now time to reap the rewards.
"Have you finally decided to make use of these Xenomorphs that have been studying Magic? But as far as I know, you haven't sent a single Xenomorph to ask any Deity for power."
The Ancient One closed a teleportation portal and spoke to Du Wa.
One of the Xenomorphs nodded. "Dealing with a Deity is extremely dangerous, especially when it comes to borrowing power and manifesting it as Magic. That is the most direct form of interaction, and I wouldn't do it unless absolutely necessary."
"So, now is that necessary time?" the Ancient One said. "With your current strength, forget Earth, even out in the Universe, you are more than qualified to occupy a vast Star Domain as your own territory."
"You're right. But rather than establishing a Xenomorph empire, I can take this opportunity to spread more Xenomorphs across the Entire Universe."
"Establish an Alien Universe? What an insane idea. A horde of Cosmic Gods will do everything in their power to stop you. However, I'm afraid I won't be here to see it. I am about to leave this World."
As the Ancient One was speaking, she saw Mordo and Wong drag Strange out.
The moment Strange saw these bizarre, dark-red-skinned Xenomorphs, he immediately began to plead loudly, "Du Wa, you must have a way, right? You can even defeat a God! Saving one ordinary human shouldn't be a problem for you! Please, I beg you, save Christine, just like you did last time during the car crash, from Mephisto..."
"Strange, Mephisto caused the car crash, and Christine was tricked into giving up her soul. I don't need to think to know she sacrificed herself to Mephisto in exchange for your chance to live. But Mephisto never intended for you to die in the first place. So, Christine was deceived by Mephisto. This whole tragedy was a scam orchestrated by a demon from the very beginning."
One of the Xenomorphs paused. "I defeated the demon. That doesn't mean I have to save everyone harmed by him."
"But you have a way! Please, act. What price must I pay? If I can't afford it now, I will in the future! I can sign a soul contract with you—you must have a way! I will learn powerful magic, I will serve you, how about it? If you still don't trust me, you can even implant a Xenomorph in me..."
"You're not worth enough," Du Wa said dismissively.
The Ancient One helped Strange up and said gently, "Everyone in Kamar-Taj has lost a great deal. It is precisely because of this that we walk the path of the sorcerer, to protect more innocent people from the ravages of Demon Gods from Other Dimensions. Of course, learning magic also requires a price. See? This is Hamir the Mage. He paid with his left hand."
The Ancient One pointed to a disabled mage and said, "I hope you can understand this truth. When your perspective expands to encompass countless dimensions and an infinite stretch of time, your loved ones will, for you, become part of the past."
Having lived for several hundred years and outlived all of her relatives, the Ancient One was qualified to say such things.
Those present left the devastated Strange behind, giving him enough time to think.
"Do you really have a way to resurrect Christine? Mephisto consumed her as a material to cast Singhson's Banishment; she's completely dead. Unless you can snatch her back from the hands of Death." The Ancient One was very interested in this.
Du Wa thought for a moment. "Strictly speaking, Christine doesn't truly belong to Death yet."
When ordinary people speak of death, they're referring to the death of the body.
But in the Marvel Multiverse, Death isn't just a state of life; it is an omnipresent Creator Deity in itself.
Even if the body is gone and the soul has completely dissipated, as long as it isn't claimed by another Deity of multiversal standing, it will fall under the purview of the grander concept of Death, governed by Death, one of the Creator Deities.
Otherwise, if only physical death counted as being truly dead, wouldn't all those beings who abandoned their physical forms to exist as souls be able to defy the very concept of Death?
So, normally speaking, since Christine was used up as a consumable by Mephisto, her soul completely consumed, one would have to negotiate with Death to get her back.
But in reality, things hadn't reached that point, because before Christine died, there was a Xenomorph inside her...
"This is why I rushed here so quickly after acquiring the demon Xenomorphs. I've devised an astonishing project that can be achieved in just a few simple steps. If it succeeds, the resurrection of a single Christine will be no trouble at all."
"A project to become a Cosmic God?"
The Ancient One, of course, knew that Death was one of the Cosmic Gods, a being that was both real and also a representation of the final state of all things.
To reach a level where one could snatch a person from the hands of Death? And in just a few simple steps? If these words hadn't come from Du Wa, the Ancient One would have truly believed she was facing a deranged monster.
"You haven't even dealt with the Cul from the Parallel Universe yet."
"Cul is tied to a troublesome World. He has already fallen into my hands and can't escape. Now is simply not the right time to execute him."
"I hope you can win. While I don't care about the future of this Universe, I can't just abandon the position of Sorcerer Supreme only to see Strange fall to Death because of your failure." The Ancient One was troubled. She wondered how many of her counterparts in other Parallel Universes were "lucky" enough to run into someone like Du Wa.
"I won't fail. I'm just making the most out of a problem that has to be solved eventually. If I fail, Earth is doomed anyway."
Du Wa began to brainstorm, mobilizing the countless streams of consciousness in his mind to share the computational load, frantically calculating every possibility.
He now possessed a demon's bloodline. Although it was created by Mephisto and wasn't of the highest quality, it was enough to give Du Wa a crucial insight. Coupled with the magical knowledge painstakingly acquired by so many Xenomorphs, now was the time to put it all to use.
"You'd better not disappoint me... Knull!"
This thought surfaced in Du Wa's mind, filled with deep anticipation. He turned to the Ancient One and said, "Lend me a few mages who have mastered ultra-long-range teleportation spells, like Wong for example."
"What are you planning? Wong is a good teacher. He should be spending more time teaching Strange."
"I don't like to wait around passively. Instead of waiting, I'd rather take the initiative and personally create favorable conditions for myself."
The Ancient One didn't interfere further. Her current mindset was that of a retiree; she was ready to abandon this body and her current identity at any moment, leave this Universe, and prepare to roam the infinitely vast Multiverse.
Soon, as Wong took action, a continuous stream of teleportation portals appeared, sending vast numbers of Xenomorphs away from Earth.
Adding to the batch that Kruger had sent out previously, these Xenomorphs would rapidly undergo metamorphosis into queens and begin reproduction upon reaching their new destinations.
An immensely vast network was taking shape in Du Wa's hands.
Du Wa never let any of his enemies go; he simply dealt with them one by one according to his own needs, squeezing the maximum possible value out of each.
Now, it was time for Knull to make his contribution.
But hunting a cosmic evil god who had lived for untold billions of years was immensely difficult, especially since this evil god was rapidly recovering his peak power.
"All the conditions are met. No, actually, if I have to be picky, there is one more angle to exploit. If I can pull it off, it will weaken Knull as well..."
All-Black the Necrosword!
(end of chapter)