NOVEL NEXT Chapter 141 – Lord
[2009 – September]
It was said to be impossible for Demons to leave Hell. Their innate nature would cause other dimensions to reject them which meant that while they could live and survive in that extra-dimensional realm, Hell was also a prison for them.
Still, he had been lucky as he had stumbled upon a chance to leave Hell and arrive in the Darkforce Dimension.
Truly fortunate though, was the fact that his own talents allowed him to wield and harness Darkforce instead of being consumed by it, which was also the reason that this dimension had not devoured him as soon as he had stepped foot in it.
The Darkforce Dimension was special in a way as it did not reject life forms from other dimensions.
The reason for that wasn't that the laws of this dimension were incomplete, instead, the inherent nature of the Darkforce made it welcome 'intruders' so that they could be drained of their life and light to increase this dimension's powers.
So naturally, only those able to wield Darkforce without being devoured by it or those unaffected by it, could safely travel through this dimension and/or live within it.
This was why he thought that he was lucky as only very few beings fulfilled those criteria, which made the Darkforce Dimension a haven for him to slowly accumulate power.
In any case, he was a Demon and blessed with longevity so there was no need to worry about dying from old age, not to mention that he was able to use Darkforce to drain other beings of their life force and gain a small part of the drained vitality to extend his own life and advance his own power.
He could not gain all the life force that the Darkforce drained from his victims though, as the majority went to feed this ravenous dimension itself.
Truly, this dimension was the bane of living creatures, eternally hungering for life and light.
He had used his own demonic magic in conjunction with the surrounding Darkforce to build himself a small realm within this dimension and had lived there for several millennia already. In fact, he was the being that had lived the longest in this god-forsaken dimension.
He had thought that he understood the Darkforce Dimension better than anyone else, his skill in wielding Darkforce simply unmatched.
So when the whole dimension started to shake and tremor while the nebulous Darkforce ignored his commands, rejecting his control with ferocity and malevolence, he was at a loss as he could not understand the reason why something like this would happen.
In the thousands of years that he had occupied his realm in this dimension, nothing of the sort had ever happened.
Watching his realm, his own home being corroded by the very energy that he thought would pave the way for him to ascend until he could even fight the likes of the King of Hell, he knew that something was terribly wrong with the Darkforce Dimension.
For hours this went on, and his realm was almost completely shattered when the tremors and violent tides finally subsided.
Internally sighing in relief, he thought to use the Darkforce to first repair the damages done to his home but to his absolute shock, the Darkforce no longer accepted his command.
He tried again and again, and in the end, he finally managed to manipulate a silver of nebulous darkness in front of him while using all his might. Still, its movements were dull and full of resistance, barely allowing him to even start fixing his own realm.
He naturally wasn't relieved at this discovery. Instead, he was on the edge and fearful about the reason for this sudden change in his surroundings.
He didn't know what had caused the Darkforce to resist him so much but his instincts told him that great danger lay at the origin of this change.
Humans and most other intelligent creatures might try to find the reason why this had happened but he was a Demon, and he knew to trust his instincts. The only thing he planned to do was repair his realm and lay low to avoid attracting danger to himself.
He understood very well that curiosity was a dangerous thing, especially when it involved a being of a higher order.
He didn't know if this change was something that had happened naturally or was caused by someone. If it was the latter though, then it had to be a being of incredible power to affect this whole dimension so greatly, and a confrontation was sure to end with him at a disadvantage.
Therefore, like any self-respecting Demon, he was going to prioritize his own life and pretend that nothing had happened.
He would not actively seek his own death, so he was left with only a few options, the most attractive of them demanding that he lay low and pretend that nothing had happened.
Naturally, he could try to return to Hell where it might be safer but once he did that, his freedom would be lost forever. He was smart enough to understand that he was lucky to escape that prison the first time, hoping to do the same a second time was a foolish and unreasonable hope.
…
Slowly, I came to myself again
I could feel my senses returning to me, and together with that an overwhelming sense of power and strength.
Opening my eyes, I looked down at my hands, feeling as if I could shatter a planet with my bare fists. My muscle fibers felt indestructible, my bones unbreakable, the power in my body simply limitless.
My thoughts moved at lightspeed, the nebulous darkness around me coming to a crashing halt as my perception of time was slowed to the extreme, my brain processing an ocean of information faster than any supercomputer could.
The bio-electrical matrix in my cells was filled with a truly endless amount of energy, pure Darkforce coursing through my veins like it was my lifeblood.
My whole form was covered by a storm of Darkforce. Like a raging typhoon, it flowed around my limbs, torso, and head but it didn't feel violent or aggressive. On the contrary, the dense life-devouring darkness concealing my form felt almost gentle and protective.
The endless expanse of lifeless and life-devouring space around me was still filled with black fog-like Darkforce but it could no longer obstruct my senses.
To be more precise, I couldn't just sense my immediate surroundings. I could sense every inch, every single microscopic particle inside this whole dimension. Though I didn't do so with my physical senses, but with my very soul.
It was as if the whole Darkforce Dimension was now part of me, as if it was just an extension of myself. And it wasn't just that, I could also feel every being that tried to borrow the strength of this dimension, and more astonishingly, I instinctively knew that I could deny those beings access to this dimension's power.
Focusing inwardly, I could sense my own Astral Form with basically no effort, my Extrasensory Perception having been dialed not to eleven but seemingly a hundred and ten.
My soul still had a humanoid form but instead of looking like a mirror of my physical form, it was made up of a deep, lightless darkness. My own soul looked like a living shadow, an existence made out of pure darkness.
It took me only a few moments to realize what had happened to me but once I did, I wasn't sure if I should believe what my senses and my instincts were telling me.
My soul hadn't just connected with the nexus of this dimension, somehow I had fused with the very origin of the Darkforce Dimension. I hadn't just connected to this place, I had become the very incarnation of this dimension.
The results of trying to use the Quantum Tail to connect with the very core of the nexus were almost too shocking to believe, as my soul was no longer mortal, nor was I human any longer. I had become a being similar to Dormammu and Agamotto.
I had become the Realm Lord of the Darkforce Dimension, which meant that in this dimension, my will ruled supreme – I was god.
Forcing down the shock and surprise at this development, I knew that I needed time to fully comprehend what all this meant, especially for my future. My power had grown to such an extent that I didn't even know if there were any limits to it.
And while my mind and soul had recovered perfectly after being crushed and shattered under the pressure of the nexus core, the only thing that I wanted to do at this moment was to go home and lay in bed next to Jean.
Activating Farsight on instinct alone, my sight suddenly pierced through layers of space without any effort, seemingly ignoring all distance as my eyes burned with white flames while my gaze settled on Jean.
I could see her sitting on the floor of the training room with Emma next to her, and my senses could easily pick up on her distress even while we were in separate dimensions.
I wasn't even sure how I did it but as soon as I thought about going to her, my will just seemed to force apart the space around me, pressuring reality to bow to my desires as I arrived back in the training room under the Hellion Mansion.
Emma seemed to tremble as she gazed at me in horror and I even felt Laura tense up in fright at my appearance, while only Jean seemed to be completely unaffected, life and joy returning to her dim eyes as she whispered my name in a longing tone.
I wanted to walk toward her but I felt some kind of resistance in the space around me as if something was trying to force me back into the Darkforce Dimension.
Not only that but the sheer pressure exuded by my body and soul seemed to be too much for the space around me to bear as cracks and tears spread out with my appearance.
My thoughts moved fast and I understood that I was no longer the same. Existences like myself were not allowed to move as freely as they wished, their own power turning into shackles that bound them.
I now belonged to the Darkforce Dimension and like the other Realm Lords, I wasn't allowed to move freely through other dimensions.
At least that was how it should have been.
Snorting lightly, which caused the space around me to ripple, I forced down the storm of pure Darkforce that just naturally raged around my physique, suppressing the sheer power of my own existence to a level that wouldn't directly destroy the space around me whenever I moved while summoning an ethereal barrier that shielded me from any sort of restrictions.
And a moment later, Elijah Frost reappeared in the training room, the Realm Lord of the Darkforce Dimension gone for the moment.
“I'm back.”, I stated with a light smile, my voice no longer causing tremors in the fabric of reality.
And like a flaming missile, Jean dived into my embrace while Emma and Laura just looked at me with wide eyes, seemingly unable to comprehend what it was that they had just witnessed.