After the euphoria faded, Soren exhaled deeply.
He closed his eyes and condensed the chaotic emotions in his heart.
The steady thrum of new strength pulsed beneath his skin, a comforting hum in the otherwise still.
Now, with clarity, he began to truly feel the transformation.
The benefits of Extremis did not simply end at enhanced muscle fibers, rapid healing, or searing flame conjuration.
His perception had expanded. The world around him felt… clearer, alive in a way it hadn't before.
He could sense the air moving in gentle currents.
Every cell, every nerve, every part of his being was reborn.
Soren took his time, meticulously sorting through his system panel and his abilities, cataloging and theorizing.
Because here, in the Marvel world, to be unprepared was to be dead.
He knew better than to be lulled into a false sense of safety.
Crisis was everywhere here.
The moment you thought you were ahead, some cosmic horror or ancient god would descend from the stars, or an experiment gone wrong would threaten the planet.
Even with this new power surging through him, an inexplicable sense of urgency still gnawed…
Soren was no stranger to the Marvel storyline.
He had seen its rise and fall, read the comics, watched the movies, and followed the alternate timelines. And he knew painfully well that the powerful beings he had crossed paths with so far were only the tip of a cosmic iceberg.
In this world, the strong came by the dozens.
Beyond the Earth, beyond the quiet veil of the sky… there lay a universe teeming with ancient races, godlike entities, cosmic empires, and horrors beyond understanding.
The day Earth made contact with those forces…
That was when Marvel's truly grand stage would open.
In that era, S-classes roamed like wild beasts.
A-classes were countless, like dogs in the streets.
And anything below that was little more than fodder.
Even with a dozen abilities at high levels, Soren was not yet invincible.
After familiarizing himself with his upgraded body and abilities, Soren turned to something he had kept hidden for a long time.
Two shimmering, unfathomably powerful stones.
He reached out, and in the flickering light of the lab, the Space Gem and Time Gem floated gently into his hands.
They were ancient, born at the dawn of the universe.
Yet…
He couldn't use them.
Though he had tried every conceivable way, combining his magic, sage abilities, and psionic force, the Space Gem stubbornly resisted his control.
Only the Time Gem had yielded slightly, granting him glimpses of its power through his magic.
But to truly master it, to bend its will and shape time itself, he would need something more...
It was cruel.
To possess treasures capable of reshaping reality, and yet remain unable to wield them.
Holding the mountain of treasures, but with no key to the gates.
His gaze hardened as his thoughts turned to the Mind Gem… currently embedded in the scepter Loki wielded when he invaded Earth with the Chitauri.
There was something unsettling about that fact.
Why would Thanos, ruthless, cunning Thanos, willingly hand an Infinity Stone to Loki?
Soren didn't fully understand the reasoning yet, but what mattered was this, the scepter was now in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s possession.
Recovered by Black Widow after the Battle of New York and locked away in some classified vault.
And that scepter… would be the key.
Not only to completing the Infinity Stone set, but to unlocking the Tesseract itself.
He remembered the chain of events well, how the scepter's energy interacted with the Tesseract, how HYDRA had tampered with it, how Vision was born.
A heavy sigh escaped Soren's lips, and a trace of quiet depression settled over him as he stared at the Time Gem.
But in the midst of that disappointment, something strange happened.
A flickering sensation, like a cold wisp of smoke brushing against his consciousness.
Traces of dark power.
"What…?"
He carefully extended his senses, and there it was, a dark thread of energy, subtly connected to the Time Gem.
It wasn't residual magic. It was a tether… to somewhere else.
After meticulous inspection, a realization dawned on Soren.
This wasn't his first contact with such power.
When he had used the Time Magic Array in a moment to banish Dormammu, he had unknowingly created a tear in the fabric of reality that exiled Dormammu into a temporal prison.
A fragment of that dark space was still connected… through the Time Gem.
When Soren let go of the Gem, the feeling vanished.
But the moment he touched it again, that dark space called to him.
A spark of inspiration flared in his mind.
Soren raised his hand and began tracing intricate patterns in the air, lines of golden light spiraling into a complex sigil.
His voice dropped into a low chant, uttering syllables so ancient, so alien, that reality itself seemed to hum in response.
Had the Ancient One seen this, she would have been impressed.
It was her magic circle, the very same technique used to draw power from the Dark Dimension.
But Soren wasn't a student of Kamar-Taj.
He was a system user.
The moment the magic circle stabilized.
An oppressive force surged through the rift as the power of the Dark Dimension bled into the room.
Holding the Time Gem steady, Soren activated the magic circle and felt it.
Raw, pure dark energy.
Cold as the void.
Ancient as the stars.
And it flowed into him.
A thrill shot through his body. Limitless power that sorcerers had craved for centuries.
With this, he could fuel spells far beyond what his body's natural reserves could handle.
His issue had never been talent, it had been capacity.
Now, using the Dark Dimension as a reservoir, Soren could construct grander, deadlier magic arrays, he could fight like the sorcerers of legend.
Ordinarily, such dark power came with a cost, negative emotions, spiritual corruption, madness.
Not for him.
Soren's ability mind shield, wrapped around his mind like a fortress.
The invasive, corrosive whispers of the dark power struck the barrier and dissipated harmlessly.
Negative emotions? Dark influence?
He was insulated.
That security allowed him to focus on the power itself, and it was astonishing.
Even simple spells cast through this dark power became monstrous.
A minor energy bolt now carried with it a wave of psychic terror.
A defensive shield throbbed with predatory menace.
Soren couldn't help but laugh softly.
No wonder so many magicians had fallen to darkness throughout history.
Why struggle for years when the shadows offered everything you wanted now?
With this discovery, Soren began reimagining his future battles. He never cared for personal, close-range combat. Now, he didn't have to.
Why get your hands dirty when you could obliterate your enemies with world-bending magic?
He tested his spells one by one adjusting sigils, channeling pure dark energy, shaping it with his will.
If it weren't so late and if he weren't in the Doctor's Hall, bound by certain restrictions, he might have tested some forbidden spells he'd always yearned to attempt.
But that could wait.
By the time half a day passed, Soren had achieved more than he'd hoped. The Extremis integration was complete.
He had mastered the extraction of dark power.
He had uncovered a forgotten tether between the Time Gem and the Dark Dimension.
Perfect day.
With the satisfaction of victory and discovery, the fatigue of sleepless effort finally caught up with him.
He cleaned up his tools, sealed the stones within protective arrays, and lay down with a contented sigh.
For once in this dangerous, unpredictable world, Soren felt ahead of the curve.
As sleep claimed him, a quiet, ominous thought lingered in his mind.
"All will tremble."
꧁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