First Khalid tripped and gave his warning, then Thea set up her formation as if facing a great enemy. The remaining old Robert and Hawkgirl were infected by their tension and drew their weapons, carefully maintaining their guard.
Just as Thea waited and waited until she was drowsy again, a blood-red teleportation wave appeared before them.
Thea gave a dry chuckle and pointed at the red fluctuation, looking at Khalid. "Is this that so-called thousand-year enemy you warned about?"
Khalid felt it carefully and nodded.
The young heiress cursed under her breath: "Weakling!"
From the blood-red energy fluctuation, a handsome man in a large red cape and dark green leather suit walked out as if no one else existed.
Using some kind of sensing ability, his gaze turned toward Khalid. "Khalid Ben-Hassin, you should not have come to Nabu's domain. The power of the greatest mage is not for someone like you... a nobody...?"
He was smugly showing off when his peripheral vision caught sight of the young heiress. He immediately choked up, unable to continue.
Is this even human?! Magical power surged like substance. Even just standing there casually, waves of pure magic power continuously operated automatically according to some special rhythm.
Her body was unconsciously absorbing surrounding magic power. The handsome man felt his own magic power wanting to escape from his body. Frightened, he involuntarily stepped back.
"Why'd you stop? Continue!" The young heiress looked at him curiously. To be honest, this guy's strength wasn't weak. He was far stronger than Earth's Mister E and Papa Midnite. In New Genesis's magic legion, only about a hundred or so people could surpass him.
The handsome man's heart was in turmoil. Could this be an illusion? That was his first reaction. He quickly tossed that thought to the heavens. Nonsense! My magic power is about to lose control—what kind of illusion could be this powerful?
Simply the incarnation of magic power itself! This... is this really human? Even the strongest mage he'd ever seen, Nabu, compared to this woman, was worlds apart. The handsome man felt his face burning.
The handsome man almost instinctively tried to activate teleportation to escape.
However, after exerting himself for a long time, his magic power seemed to be thrown into the void. Like constipation, he strained repeatedly, but the teleportation that was normally easy and reliable, both offensive and defensive, completely failed to activate.
By now he completely believed this wasn't an illusion. Her magical attainments had completely crushed him. The gap in understanding was too vast.
Actually, he'd wrongly blamed Thea. The young heiress could indeed lock down space, but the reason the handsome man was now terrified was because Thea had already fixed this space to prevent Khalid's "thousand-year enemy." Teleporting in was possible, but getting out? Several high-level spells were running. Even Thea herself would have trouble teleporting out.
"What's your name? What are you doing here?" the young heiress asked calmly.
Although she wore casual clothes completely mismatched with this desolate environment, the handsome man didn't dare ignore her. He bowed respectfully. "Master, I am Wotan. I came here to..."
When it came to his purpose, he hesitated a bit. I came here to steal the prize. But how can I say this without causing a misunderstanding?
Fortunately, Thea helped him out. "You have a grudge with this Nabu?"
The handsome man Wotan immediately nodded. "Yes, I desire to obtain his knowledge and skills, but he defeated me."
Thea looked at him deeply, as if seeing through him. "You're very persistent, full of passion for knowledge. I won't make things difficult for you. You may go." After speaking, the young heiress lightly tapped her left foot on the ground. Invisible fluctuations spread out, and the teleportation restriction was lifted.
The handsome man originally wanted to run, but the question that had lingered in his heart for a thousand years made him hesitate. Gathering his courage, he asked, "Master, could you please enlighten me—why... why am I inferior to Nabu?"
Thea felt there were too few magic practitioners in this world. Losing even one was a pity, so she didn't plan to make things difficult for him. Now hearing his question, she smiled.
Her eyes scanned Wotan like lightning. "Your body is perfectly normal, but your soul is already overburdened."
"You once thought about using magic to extend your lifespan, right? Don't deny it—many people have done this. But your attainments haven't reached that level, so you found another way, using magic to carry and continue memories. Am I right?"
The handsome man's face turned ashen. Having someone see through you so completely felt terrible, but he still nodded. "You're completely correct, Master."
Thea asked another question. "Do you know why many ancient masters with far deeper magical power than you chose death rather than this method of continuing memories?"
The handsome man already vaguely knew the answer but still asked with a trace of hope, "Why?"
"The soul cannot possibly bear such massive memories. You rely on accumulation from several lifetimes, trying to find magic's true mysteries. Good idea, but the wrong path. Each reincarnation doubles your soul's burden. Though knowledge increases, magic affinity constantly declines because of your soul. This is your current problem."
To support her words, Thea pointed at Hawkgirl. "I met her in another universe. Reincarnated 206 times. Each time weaker than the last. The human soul has limits."
"Now let's talk about your old acquaintance Nabu. In some worlds, he eventually ascended to godhood, but in this world, he also chose death, leaving only simple consciousness remnants. You could say this timeline's Nabu is already dead. Do you understand? Your path is wrong."
Thea's words were directed both at Wotan and at Khalid behind her.
"Go." After speaking, with the bearing of a great master, she walked toward the distant tower. The others followed suit, leaving only the dumbfounded handsome man standing alone.
"You've really met me? I've reincarnated over two hundred times?" Seeing the young heiress casually talk the menacing "thousand-year enemy" into stunned silence, Hawkgirl began using respectful forms of address.
Thea looked at her strangely. "Yes. In the multiverse, anything is possible."
They stopped talking and slowly moved forward. Old Robert came to her side and whispered, "That guy is still following us."
Thea had noticed long ago. Wotan was dejected, not knowing what to do with himself. Now he was absent-mindedly following behind them.
Thea shook her head, indicating to ignore him. Most of her attention had already been drawn by the giant tower ahead. An unimaginable mighty force was suppressed here.
What terrifying power—the purest, truest evil. Perhaps "evil" wasn't even the right word to describe it. Evil seemed too narrow before this mighty force. At the end of Thea's mutated vision, everything was indescribable shadow.
Nabu used his mage tower, gathering at least half of this world's order power, to suppress this trace of shadow.
Yes—Thea felt this was just an insignificant trace of shadow, perhaps just a wisp the original owner didn't care about that drifted into this world.
Later, Nabu accidentally discovered it. This mage with a bright future gave up his chance to become a god and absorbed half the world's order power to suppress the shadow.
The result was an imbalance of order power. Steppenwolf took advantage of the opening, the superheroes were badly defeated, evil gained the upper hand. Thea felt her guess was probably close to the truth.
But what was this shadow? In her view, it was no less than the Spectre she'd seen that day—perhaps even higher level, more pure.
Oh my god! Thea's heart churned like stormy seas. She nearly cried out. The natives might not know, but she knew there was a mighty force that could contend with God himself—the Great Beast! That most primordial shadow that existed before everything began.