Chapter 135: The Transmigrator of Universe 199999
Blackheart's face was ashen.
He felt like he had stepped into a mud puddle. At first, he thought he could just shake his shoe to stay clean, but he suddenly discovered that not only was the pit bottomless, but it was also buried with some strange things.
He had a preliminary understanding of who Du Wa was, and Blackheart had also assessed what the Aliens were. Even if this race was placed in Hell, as long as they could survive the initial period of weakness, they could secure a place for themselves.
Blackheart had also imagined that, as Mephisto's most outstanding offspring, he might be targeted by many troublesome natives and find his every move restricted the moment he entered this universe that Mephisto had specifically marked.
He also considered that he might provoke numerous powerful enemies to hunt him down due to some unknown deeds Mephisto had committed in this universe. Therefore, he was prepared to flee at any moment from the very beginning.
But now, for some unknown reason, a bizarre thing had inexplicably rushed straight at him, wanting to enter his body.
"What is this thing? I am a demon! My blood is more terrifying than any strong acid created by humanity. I don't care who you are, to dare humiliate me in this way."
Blackheart wasn't flustered, just frowning, not yet realizing the severity of the situation.
He hadn't connected the damned thing invading his body with Du Wa at all. He still thought it was some sneaky human secretly using a curse on him.
But after Blackheart carefully sensed it, his brow furrowed even tighter.
"The opponent's strength is immense. Who has targeted us? I don't recall anyone with such a strange ability."
He had just arrived in this universe and had done nothing, yet he was already being targeted? Could this universe's Sorcerer Supreme react so quickly? Besides, a normal Sorcerer Supreme wouldn't use curse-type magic.
Generally, only a Cosmic God would possess such terrifying perceptive abilities.
Blackheart's expression was grim. He immediately counterattacked, but when he sensed what the thing entering his body was, his entire face changed, and extreme terror flooded his heart.
"Who has targeted you?"
"Strange, I don't sense any trace of magic. Are you sure you're not mistaken? Are you really being attacked, and it's not an illusion?"
The other demons surrounded Blackheart, uncertain and suspicious, wondering what madness this demonic young master was up to now.
In any case, Blackheart was notoriously unhinged. He was truly cunning, but under Mephisto's constant high-pressure environment, he was also truly mad.
Blackheart choked out a single, terrified sentence: "It's an Alien."
"What? Du Wa's vassal race? How could he have possibly discovered us so quickly!"
"Could it be because he became a Cosmic God and incorporated the entire Earth into his territory?!"
"But even so, what method is he using to attack? I didn't sense a thing."
Terror appeared on every demon's face, because the one launching the attack was Du Wa! The Celestial of this universe!
No matter how mediocre a universe was, as long as one could become its Deity, they were fundamentally not something these demons could handle.
Unless Mephisto's main body fought personally, setting aside the battle's outcome, only then could he be on equal standing with Du Wa.
The demons were still unaware that Du Wa had already voluntarily relinquished the divine power of the World Tree to seek the path of a higher-level concept god.
"Bastard! Bastard! Blackheart, you never told us this universe would be so dangerous! We have to face a native God right after arriving?"
"Shut up, Wind Demon. This is not the time for infighting. I just don't understand, isn't Du Wa a Deity? If he were to act, it should be against Mephisto. Why is he attacking us personally? He has several Skyfathers under him, so there's no way he should be acting himself."
If a Skyfather had come, Blackheart and the other demons could have at least put up a fight. The worst-case scenario would be losing a group of their own.
Blackheart was panicking inside, but he also realized this wasn't Du Wa's direct gaze, but rather a manifestation of some regional rule.
But even this alone made Blackheart's scalp crawl.
He first blasted Wind Demon with a demonic spell, burning his insubordinate underling until he shrieked miserably.
"Du Wa isn't paying direct attention to us. We must have entered his domain and are being subjected to the invasion of the rules he established. As long as certain conditions are met, we will have to face his power. It's just... I haven't figured out what went wrong yet."
Blackheart frowned, eradicating the Alien that had nearly completed its implantation, but then he grew afraid that this action might further provoke Du Wa.
"Boss, spare me, spare me!" Wind Demon screamed. "You still need me to help you deal with Mephisto's demons! You also need me to help you resist Du Wa's Aliens..."
But soon, Wind Demon's miserable screams came to an abrupt halt, replaced by a look of sheer horror.
Because he, too, had heard that cold, indifferent voice and felt something trying to fuse with his body.
Unfortunately, Wind Demon was an energy being, without a true physical body of flesh and blood.
Just as Wind Demon was completely bewildered, a powerful surge of energy erupted, soaring from over a thousand kilometers away and pouncing directly at Blackheart and his group.
"Damn it, so that's the mechanism! Saying that person's name a certain number of times gets you parasitized? I've never heard of such a goddamn universal rule! What the hell did that person go through to establish a rule like this? Right now, it's just saying the name. In the future, if I even think it a few times in my mind, will I get parasitized too?"
Blackheart's hair stood on end. He didn't dare mention Du Wa's name again. Every drop of blood in his body felt as if it had been plunged into a ten-thousand-year-old iceberg, trapped in a long, deep chill.
He grabbed his other subordinates and fled like the wind, but still remembered to smack Wind Demon, leaving him behind.
Sure enough, Skurge had come to kill.
Skurge, having obtained the immense divine power of the World Tree, had advanced further from his original sub-Skyfather level, and was basically considered a Skyfather-level Deity. At this moment, sensing the failed implantation on Wind Demon's side, he ruthlessly charged over to eliminate Wind Demon immediately.
This half-Asgardian, half-wind-giant Bushwacker, didn't even use a weapon. Relying only on his fists, he grasped the immense divine power and threw a punch at Wind Demon.
"Blackheart also rejected Du Wa's power, why aren't you chasing him? Is it because you can't beat him?" Wind Demon didn't even have a chance to escape. He looked at Blackheart's group fleeing at light speed with hatred, a look of despair on his face as he stared at Skurge.
"No. Du Wa can accept a failed implantation, but he cannot tolerate creatures like you, who don't even have a body, continuing to run free. He detests bodiless beings like you the most."
*At least, that's how it is until the Aliens evolve the ability to parasitize rules, energy, and the like,* Skurge thought to himself.
"??? Many Cosmic Gods are incarnations of rules and conglomerates of energy. Is your God going to kill all of them? As far as I know, not even Knull in many universes did that!"
"That's why Knull now lives a life worse than death, surviving only as a part of Du Wa."
Skurge paused for a moment and replied earnestly before punching Wind Demon to death.
He looked up in the direction Blackheart had fled, a flicker of intent in his eyes. He really wanted to rush over and kill this group of demons one by one, but after a moment of hesitation, he confirmed that Du Wa had not given him the command to pursue and could only leave with regret.
Du Wa's gaze had fallen on this group of invading demons the very first moment Blackheart said his name.
In the past, monitoring spatial fluctuations and stopping invaders from Other Dimensions was the Ancient One's job.
"Oh? Strange is actually taking action. What a rare sight."
Du Wa sensed the magical fluctuation appearing on Earth. He glanced over, and that single glance was enough for him to see Strange's current state clearly. The physique beneath the large robe was distinctly that of a demon.
Du Wa immediately understood what Strange had done.
"He actually walked the path of devouring? Fine, let him devour, but to be so indiscriminate as to devour even the bloodline... he's even more extreme than Black Strange."
Du Wa stroked his chin, a look of amazement on his face.
Black Strange was a version of Doctor Strange so unhinged he was a rarity across the entire multiverse. He had performed a cutting on the positive part of his personality. The positive personality Doctor Strange, as the true Sorcerer Supreme, handled Earth's various affairs, while Black Strange hid himself, fully activating a summoning array to call forth all sorts of demonic creatures from countless dimensions. For every one that appeared, he would absorb it, growing stronger and crazier with each absorption. Once he was powerful enough, he forcibly altered the time node, causing the fundamental structure of the universe to collapse, the entire universe imploding into a singularity.
And Black Strange himself ultimately became so formidable that he could fight Ultron with Six Gems on even terms.
This universe's Doctor Strange had now walked the path of a demon.
"A demon... Forget it. Let's just see how Strange performs. In any case, the one thing the Multiverse doesn't lack is oddballs with peculiar ways of thinking and madmen who don't take the beaten path. One more of him doesn't make a difference."
Du Wa shook his head, unconcerned.
With his current standing, even though he was no longer a Cosmic Celestial and had fallen back to the level of a Skyfather, there were few fools in the entire universe who would cause trouble for Du Wa over some trivial matter.
Even a Cosmic Celestial would have to think twice and weigh the consequences before doing anything involving Du Wa.
This was the powerful deterrence brought about by Du Wa's defeat of Knull. Du Wa also had immense confidence in his own strength. As long as he wished, he could reclaim all the World Tree's divine power that had been distributed to Female Thor, Skurge, and the others at any time, making himself the God of the World Tree once again.
However, Du Wa couldn't be bothered to do such a thing. If another battle between Celestials were to break out, Du Wa would be too lazy to even act, at most sending out Female Thor, who wielded most of the World Tree's divine power, to fight.
...
Du Wa paid no mind to Blackheart. He could ignore visitors from Otherworlds he wasn't interested in, but Strange was interested in guys like Blackheart.
"Wind Demon is dead. Fortunately, that person didn't act against us and doesn't care about us at all."
Blackheart was still shaken, feeling a sense of having survived a disaster. "From now on, no one is to say that person's name! In this regard, he's even more terrifying than Mephisto. As long as we are within his domain, saying his name too many times will lead to misfortune."
"It's a misfortune for us demons, but a blessing for the native humans... But we just extracted the souls of a few humans to interrogate them for information, that shouldn't be a problem, right?"
"Idiot. Even if we don't act, humanity itself is dying every moment—of old age, of sickness, in car accidents, by suicide. Can that person save all of them? Unless he built this universe's Earth into a Utopia without slaughter and despair from the very beginning. The fact that he didn't do so already shows his stance."
On this point, Blackheart was unconcerned, believing he had gained a preliminary understanding of some of Du Wa's psychology.
Although losing a powerful subordinate was a bit of a pity, on second thought, Blackheart felt that being able to test some of Du Wa's boundaries with a mere Wind Demon was actually a huge gain.
"Avoid that person and his Aliens as much as possible. It doesn't matter if Mephisto had a conflict with him; that's not something we can interfere with. Our main objective is to find the descendant Mephisto left in this world and then kill him by any means necessary."
Blackheart looked utterly vexed. He hadn't been in this world for long, but his time here had been incredibly oppressive and painful. This made his cruel nature urgently need to be unleashed.
Just then, a golden portal opened in front of Blackheart.
Strange, 1.9 meters tall with blood-red skin, appeared before Blackheart.
"Aha, so you must be the descendant that old geezer mentioned. But I didn't expect him to choose you, Strange. He's a bit abnormal, and you're even more so."
Blackheart only needed a single glance at Strange to feel the connection of their bloodline.
Things between various universes are not set in stone. The relationships between different natives can also change depending on the universe they are in.
A typical example is Iron Man. In some universes, Iron Man's full name is Tony Odinson. He himself doesn't have a super-strong physique, but with the iron suit he built, he can perfectly wield the power of Mjolnir and command the power of Thor.
If this universe's Strange had been, from birth, the offspring sired by an avatar of Mephisto, Blackheart wouldn't have been too surprised.
But for Strange to have absorbed Mephisto's bloodline after the fact, modifying his own genes to turn himself into a demon—that was somewhat astonishing.
Strange was as cold as a block of ice. "I am not Mephisto's descendant, but that doesn't matter. As long as I can confirm that you are, that's enough."
"Ha, you dare to challenge the great Blackheart?"
"More than a challenge. I'm going to absorb you, just as I devoured Mephisto."
When Strange attacked, he was exceptionally brutal. From the very first move, he directly used the Time Stone, causing the once-confident Blackheart's face to darken once again.
A powerful green light in Strange's hands condensed into a temporal ring, expanding wildly and distorting the time in the adjacent region.
Although he couldn't unleash the full power of the Time Stone, even using just a part of it was enough to completely overpower Blackheart.
But then again, the Time Stone directly affects the operation of time throughout the entire universe. Even altering a small part of it would cause trauma to the entire universe's temporal structure.
More importantly, Du Wa's subordinate, Moira, already possessed an extremely high level of control over the entire universe's time and had already used this authority for an infinite reboot to seal Knull.
Now, with Strange forcibly manipulating time, when viewed from the scale of the universe, even the most subtle temporal fissure could have an enormous impact on certain groups carrying out special operations.
A group of outsiders encountered a subtle ripple in the timeline, which directly caused a huge deviation in their actions.
"Excellent. Although we almost fell out of the time tunnel, we made it through safely. According to the original plan, we must obtain the Infinity Stones as quickly as possible without affecting this period of history... Now, let's first calibrate the current time..."
(end of chapter)