Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).
Kamar Taj[August 2015]
–Jack Sullivan–
“So, who is ing with me?” He asked the A One si was still a day for Thor’s ation and he didn’t have a lot to do, in his opinion. No bigger threats that needed his personal attention, aside from his regur patrolling around the world.
So far, he had rescued a giant ship that was blog the Panama al, saved a small tropical isnd by shielding the ehing from a thuorm, while he sipped martinis on the isnd. Also, the world was now rid of a possible demonivasion by demons inhabiting Inhuman bodies and also taken care of the Inhuman vilge led by a woman who held a deep seated hatred for humanity.
Jiaying’s hatred might have been justified if she had just chosen tet it on Whitehall and his ilk but bming all of humanity for the as of a small fa? That was wrong, no matter how one looked at it.
“Master Sullivan, you are a Master of the Mystic Arts and should act like one,”
He deadpa her, “So..no one? I’m going by myself?”
The A One didn’t even ge her expression as she stood up, cpped him on his shoulder, a on her way, but not before telling him, “Kamar Taj ot spare additional ma the moment, Master Sullivan, and you are worthy of representing Kamar Taj. I wouldn’t worry too much about the ceremony. Regent Thor seems to know what he's doing,”
He opened his mouth to reply but wheurned around, she was not there and the door was even locked. Damheatrics.
“Alright, think!” He said to himself as he tried to think of what could have happened and what he could do to keep himself busy for at least the 24 hours. He didly know how to rex and especially not for just a day. He o be ba work mode for the ation and after the ation was done, he and Thor were going to leave to look for Eitri.
Then, a metaphorical light bulb lit above his head, “Oh! Wakanda!”
He grinned, “Wakanda Forever,” and then stepped through a portal that opened up straight above the cool ass shield that Wakanda had above their entire try. He could feel the slight thrum of the energy shield and he could also feel the distinct presenagiot of dimensional kind, all around Wakanda.
He wondered why he did not feel something like that when he first came here. It was not as if his senses had improved dramatically sihen. Oh wait, they did improve ever since his body was literally rebuilt using fluids from the stro species iire universe
Oh. Oohh.
Another metaphorical light bulb lit up above him as he ighe ining Raptors and opened another portal and flew straight through. What greeted him was a rge white ndscape filled with sharp pieces of ice that hit his barrier stantly. Visibility was near zero as well, even for someone like him with enhanced eyesight. He couldn't tell where he was but he khat somewhere, deep in the Arctiething was buried.
A Celestial Corpse. An intact Celestial Corpse.
Something like that was rarer than finding a shard of Eternity in the vast universe. Arishem should have immediately snatched this body up but for some reason, it tio remain buried in the deep areas of the ice, where the really old ice was.
He didn’t know when the celestial was killed but he did know that it was before humans were even a thing, so a really long time but for Celestials? A drop in the o that was their natural lifespan.
He didn’t even know if Celestials had any natural lifespan limit or not. Usually, they were either killed, left the universe because of boredom, or roamed the universe or the multiverse, aimless. The only real mass death of the Celestials occurred when Knull, the Death God, or the Symbiote God hunted down a bunch of them, f the stro of them to band together and seal Knull or something.
Wasn’t that a scary thought though? Knull esg his seal.
So there was no reason to leave the celestial here, except if it did serve some purpose, an unknown purpose that nobody knew about. A lot of theories were thrown around in his previous world, some of which he did agree could be true but he was here now, with substantial power and also a little bit of time to kill, before he was whisked off on his mission.
So he could be fiven if he could indulge in his curiosities for a bit. Wakanda would have been as a sightseeing option and also because he could enjoy the Royal Treatment without any guilt and also it would be o see the ges that Wakanda has brought about in its internal structure in how they ied with the rest of the world.
But this? This could be something else. IT almost made him feel excited, something that hadn't happened for a while now. A new mystery to uncover? Something that he didn’t know through his meta knowledge?
Hell yeah.
He took a meditative pose, took out the power stone as well, something of a risk since celestials were known to use the INfinity stones as regur tools in their work but sihe celestial was dead, he figured he could do something about it.
Holding the Power Stone in his barrier was very much manageable for him, especially si allowed him to use the stoo supercharge any spell. He personally could not hold the stone in his hand and then cast any spell si messed up his internal energy flow. That was because the Power Stone was something that could emute any and all types of energies, so the stone provided him the dimensional energy required, in spades.
tally, because of that power in spades, he had no filter around the entry of energy in his body, messing up all his spells. But when it was embedded in one of his barriers that he could manipute outside his body?
That was when things got iing. Now not all spells could be charged by the power stone si did not hold a miracle all spell boosting energy. What it could do rovide exactly the type of energy required for the spell, regardless of its ins.
Demonic? Divine? Dimensional? ic? Light? Heat? Electricity? Kiiergy?
EVERYTHING.
That was how broken the Power Stone was, so he used it to boost a simple search spell. The Search spell was designed with colboration in mind. So, theoretically, the more dimensional energy one supply to it, the more distahe Power Stone cover. It could either give him a 3D map of his surroundings or it could ping the dimensional energy off the surroundings and give him readings based on the energy disturbance recorded in the zones where it hit.
It was also one of the simplest and the first basic spells that they taught everyo Kamar Taj because it also helped undo the low to mid level illusions that many demons cast during Invasion or eveo the demonic mist that some high level demons use to create chaos and fusion among the defenders of Kamar Taj.
A really nifty spell, something that he was going to use to find a dead celestial for himself. He didn’t know what he was going to do with the dead body of a God but he couldn;t wait to find out.
Drawing the spell ruructure on another barrier and then bringing both the barriers together, he grinned as the runes lit up before projeg a spell circle above him, which glowed sht with dimensional energy as the Power Stone tio glow purple due to its activation.
The spell reached its pinnacle and then it began sending out massive waves of dimensional energy all around himself. If he was in a crowded zone or in any city on the p, for that matter, a brazen a like this would have had several species desding on him in a matter of minutes with the A One being forced to intervene because every single magical race would want him and the Stone obviously, for themselves, sparking the great magical war that would, once again, be suppressed by the Iron Hand that was the A One.
But here? In this frozen wastend, he khat nobody existed. If they did, it would have been written in the magical species pendium that he read in Kamar Taj’s library when he was curious about all the magical species that still survived despite the rapid and dare he say, rabid expansion of human activity in all areas, even the historically hostile ones, like deserts and deep forests.
In the middle of his introspe, he felt a ping in the spell, with what could only be called a magical inferno of energy, “Bingo!”
He hurriedly started the step of the spell which dispelled the spell and the magic circle above him ached as a small magical arroeared in front of him, tilting down at an angle.
“Well, time to get digging but before that,” He muttered before using the Power Stone on a barrier that appeared above his already sed skin barrier, and then he used the most basic spell to use dimensional energy to gee heat. As one imagine, using the Power Stone as an lorified heater had very drastic effects on the surroundings as steam immediately filled his vision.
Unheeding of that, he tried his best tute the energy supply of the Power Stone since he could do it roughly, just not on the same level of precision as required for spells to properly work si all people could be reality ers and just brute fory spell ience.
He succeeded somewhat sihe steaming subsided after a while and he was only left floating above a small puddle of water that was no longer boiling. He tentatively touched his feet on the ground and smiled as the ice gave way, but not in an explosive way.
He then followed the arrow pointing him at the magical inferno, hoping that the spell couldn;t distinguish between magical inferno and an energy inferno. Ice gave way as soon as his barriers touched them, which made digging deep very easy but soon he came across a problem.
The deeper he went, the older the ice, the bluer the id that meant that more heat was required, so he had to stute the flow, get used to it, and then begin digging deep ahe same thing happened after a couple of minutes as well. WIth no light ing this deep, it was mostly dark but he could still sehe amount of effort required to pierce this ice was much higher than before.
Then, he did the same thing as before.
This tio happen about 3 more times before he came across something that he didn’t think ossible.
A sheet of ice that refused to melt, no matter how much heat he pumped into his barriers. He didn’t want to just destroy everything in his search for the Corpse but if the Ice refused to budge and the density of the ice meant that he couldn't see the other side hence his inability to use portals to bypass the issue, but he had no other choice but to destroy this sheet if he ever wao get inside.
A inside he did want.
This close, he could actually feel the energy inferno and there was no mistaking it. He had gotten a feel of the energy that Tivan had fed his body and after he discovered one of the unused vials but that was nothing pared to what he was sensing.
It was as if his body instinctively khat it was in the presence of a superior existend forced him to either flee the se immediately or prepare for a fight. He naturally did her and then used a barrier to cover the ice sheet and his entry point, so that nothing of the outside world came in, creating a quarantine zone around the sheet of id then dropped the Power Stone from the barrier and right into his waiting open palm.
He gasped as he felt the rush from the energy just st its way into his body. Something that he never got used to despite the hundreds of times he had repeated this same exercise to force his body to get used to it.
Fun fact, he could use the Power Stoo flood his body with CHI, f it to heal itself while the Power Stone did minor damage the longer he held onto it, creating a loop that exhausted his entire body within hours of not even using the Power Stoo do anything substantial, like blowing up a giant Spaceship of a certain Purple S.
Then, he did what he felt natural. He didn’t have to do something with effort like punch a hole in the wall. hat was not at all needed.
When one had one of the six building blocks of the universe, one could simply flick a finger and the sheet of ice? The same sheet of ice that refused to melt eves surrounding ice was being boiled away, disied as a rush of air hit him right in the face.
It was hat he’d already anticipated something like this and held enough air in his barrier for days if he was not doing any strenuous activity.
With the rush of air, and ice gone, he could finally see inside and it was…dark.
He nearly facepalmed as he flew ihe hole and thehe barriers to enlighten the spad thehe Power SToo boost that aspect of his barriers as well, shrouding the entire cave, though he would hesitate to call it a cave.
“Good Lord,” He muttered as he turned around, made sure the space was sealed and then slowly, gingerly began floating inside.
“How the hell did they survive?” He said, mostly to himself as he watched hundreds of small creatures, clearly noient scurrying on the ground, with ice spread all around the cave but with a remarkable number of trees around him.
This was literally impossible. Green trees ot live in the absence of any light even if the Celestial corpse gave out more than enough energy to power eies.
He could feel the power source right o him but due to the enormity of the power, the huge distance felt like it was right o him. He could trol the barrier from afar as well but just for safety, he used something that Jarvis gave him just in case he o create a hermetic sealing wall.
Not made for something like this but it worked well so he used it, on top of his barrier obviously.
He then floated deeper into the cave, the smaller creatures not having any light sensitivity because he should be appearing on their radar like the sun, and not the sunlight that gets filtered through the atmosphere. No, they should be running around, in pain as if they were getting exposed to the naked UV rays of the sun but no, they were scurrying about randomly as if it was just another day to them.
Curious and Curiouser, he made his way in and he found…it.
The Massive-MASSIVE Celestial Corpse.
These creatures really were the Gods of this universe.
A, he floated he chest of the Celestial, “How did Knull even do this?”
He couldn’t even make himself touch the obvious stab wound in the tre of the Celestial chest pte, such was the pressure of the iergy that still lingered around the Corpse.
“If it is in such a state right now, just how powerful was this celestial when alive?” His voice echoed out into the cave.
“Not particurly,” He whirled around and brandished the Power Stone as a series of barriers made themselves known around him as he heard a male voice speak in the cave as well, apparently in reply to his rhetorical question. He could not tayone from here but he could open a portal straight to the A One here and he was sure she could kiyone’s ass.
“Who’s there?!” He felt such ge hearing himself shout such cliche horror movie questions.
Oh, so much ge.
Word t - 2830
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