The blood orchid was perfect.
Its deep crimson petals shimmered under the morning sun, moist with dew as though it had bloomed just moments ago, because it had.
He twirled the delicate flower between his fingers, inspecting its structure. Petal curvature, nectar concentration, and energy signature it was indistinguishable from one cultivated over weeks.
"Flawless."
"With this… medicinal scarcity is no longer a concern."
A rush of ideas surged through his mind, rare herbs that took years to germinate, endangered roots with slow growth cycles, plants only found in dangerous realms.
With Time Gem, Soren could grow them all, in days or even minutes. His Herb Garden Base, once limited by patience and climate, could soon become the greatest medicinal reserve on Earth.
Just a little longer, he thought.
Once Dormammu is handled… we'll expand. Quiet corners of Tibet, hidden valleys in South America, even alien soils if needed.
Nothing's off the table now.
For the next several days, Soren remained secluded inside the Everlife Medical Center.
The external clinic remained closed, its grand wooden doors barred, the sign faintly glowing with a charm that deterred idle curiosity.
Inside, time itself danced to Soren's rhythm.
He practiced relentlessly.
Time Acceleration: to push nature forward.
Time Reversal: to undo destruction.
Time Stop: to act while the world froze.
Time Rift: to step across moments like stones in a river.
He learned to manipulate localized time fields, using sigils and memory anchors. The very room seemed to breathe different timelines, warping subtly with each of his invocations.
And with every spell, he felt it, the mounting pressure of fate. Something was coming.
Far away, hidden beneath the crumbling ruins of a forgotten cathedral, Kaecilius stood at the center of a shifting ritual circle.
His once regal features were now cracked and shadowed, glowing with tendrils of dark energy that slithered through his veins like ink.
All around him, zealots knelt, whispering fervent prayers to the great dark beyond.
Before them floated an enormous void tear, rippling like a wound in reality.
"Dormammu." Kaecilius whispered, eyes glazed with ecstasy.
"I have followed your will. The spell is complete. Our pact holds, does it not?"
The tear pulsed and a deep, vibrating voice boomed from within.
"Destroy the Three Sanctums. The Earth's barrier will fall. The flow of time will shatter. I shall descend, and you shall be my Heralds, immortal, limitless, untethered by time."
Kaecilius bowed low, trembling in awe.
"It begins… with London."
Back in Kamar-Taj, Ancient One stood in her courtyard, eyes narrowed at the sudden spike of magical imbalance. A humming distortion in the ley lines told her everything.
Kaecilius had made his move.
Just then, Mordo burst into the courtyard, breathless.
"Sorcerer Supreme! It's begun, the London Sanctum is under attack. Kaecilius and a group of zealots. They're drawing on the Dark Dimension!"
Ancient One's face darkened, though a flicker of acknowledgment passed her eyes.
"So Soren was right."
Without hesitation, she lifted her hand and opened a portal with her Sling Ring, the swirling orange light revealing a scene of chaos beyond.
London Sanctum cracked and ablaze, as zealots clashed with sorcerers under flickering shield spells and falling debris.
She stepped through. But before disappearing, she turned to Mordo.
"Go. Find Soren. Tell him it's begun."
Mordo nodded. "Understood!"
He flicked open his own portal, which shimmered into place outside a quiet, reinforced door of Everlife Medical Center.
He rushed to the door and knocked hard.
"Soren! Soren! It's begun! Kaecilius is attacking the London Sanctum, we need you!"
The bustling street outside Everlife Medical Center in New York was usually peaceful, a place locals passed by with reverence.
Everyone in this part of town knew the rules, Soren's clinic was not to be disturbed, not unless death itself knocked first.
So when Mordo pounded the door and shouted, alarmed and out of breath, the pedestrians were stunned.
"What's wrong with him?"
"Doesn't he know the rules?"
"No one yells at the door and walks away lucky."
Whispers passed between those gathered, a mixture of unease and schadenfreude.
Some crossed their arms, smirking as if waiting for the fireworks to begin.
The door flung open with a quiet hum.
A sudden, invisible force dragged Mordo inside, and the door slammed shut behind him like a vault.
Inside the dimly lit medical hall, filled with the scent of herbs and faint traces of suspended time magic, Soren stood motionless beneath a suspended green sigil, like a judge before a trial.
"Why are you yelling?"
Mordo, still catching his breath, looked up with urgency gleaming in his eyes.
"Soren, the London Sanctum is under attack. Kaecilius is there! They're tearing it apart!"
Soren's eyes flickered briefly, processing the information, feeling the surge of dread, then containment. In an instant, he and Mordo vanished, space folding around them like silk drawn tight.
A thunderous explosion tore across the London skyline.
The great stone doors of the Sanctum blasted outward, shards flying like razors.
People screamed from a distance, police sirens wailed, and the skies above the city crackled with unnatural lightning.
Ancient One danced through the chaos, her orange mandalas slicing through the air as she fought Kaecilius, whose form now twisted with Dormammu's shadow. His zealots, corrupted and empowered, unleashed dark runes into the ether, fighting back the defenders with feral precision.
Reality itself was bending walls flickered between real and astral, gravity lost its meaning, and every breath of magic hung heavy with corruption.
Soren and Mordo arrived just as a second explosion rocked the sanctum.
"Duck!" Soren pulled Mordo behind a conjured temporal shield. Stone and flame hit the barrier like glass caught in honey.
Soren rose slowly, eyes scanning the battlefield, his lips tightening. This fight was spiraling out of control.
The civilians, the press, the authorities, the world wouldn't stay silent for long.
"This stops now."
With a wave of his hand, Soren conjured a green circular sigil, pulsing with Time Gem's force. It spun like a gear of destiny, humming louder and louder.
"Time~Still."
The world froze.
Wind stopped blowing. Flames paused mid-flicker. Rubble hovered mid-air. The shockwaves ceased. Even sound itself… vanished.
All color dimmed slightly as if drained by the absence of motion.
Across the battlefield, all combatants, Kaecilius, his zealots, Ancient One, the defenders, were suspended mid-motion, like actors caught in a cosmic freeze-frame.
Only Soren moved, walking through the stillness as if through a dream.
Mordo watched, stunned, eyes wide with disbelief.
"This… this is impossible…"
"No." Ancient One said as Soren deactivated the time-lock around her, her voice reverent.
"This is the Time Gem in mastery."
She looked to Soren, who now stood before Kaecilius, his arm extended, magic swirling like liquid emerald fire.
"What do you plan to do?" She asked cautiously, conflicted.
Soren turned his gaze on the suspended zealots, frozen mid-battle, hate locked forever in their eyes.
"They want eternal life."
"Let them have it."
The green sigil flared, surging with time energy. Arcs of chronal lightning webbed outward, encircling Kaecilius and every fanatic.
Reality cracked.
Behind them opened a Time Rift, a vortex of distorted light and ancient echoes, swirling like an endless spiral of lost moments.
An infinite loop of this single moment, forever locked in time, never aging, never dying, never progressing.
"What is this?" Ancient One murmured, as Kaecilius and his followers slowly dematerialized, not destroyed, but removed from history's river, cast into the Eternal Pause.
Soren turned to her.
"A prison made of seconds. They'll live in the same instant… for all eternity."
Ancient One was silent, both awed and quietly unsettled.
"You've truly mastered it, but power like this… is never without cost."
Soren looked into the rift one last time before sealing it with a flick of his fingers.
"Neither is mercy."
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
Fellow Phantoms and aspiring Phantoms to be, if you seek to access advanced parts of this story procced to my shadowy realm of p@treon.
PhantomDream