Victor von Doom's reproach was justified, and Solomon accepted it without complaint.
Had the Sorcerer Supreme not returned, he very likely would have delved into the Dark Dimension because of the Darkhold, but the news the Ancient One brought back disrupted his plans. It was so important that Solomon had to stop what he was preparing to go receive it, and then temporarily revise parts of his plan to accommodate the Ancient One's methods—Victor von Doom glanced at the scrawny figure huddling behind the shield-bearing Honor Guards. Compared to the giant stature of the Honor Guards, this man looked not only short but also dazed and terrified, as if his soul were not of this world.
Victor von Doom saw the man's condition at a glance; those addicted to extra-dimensional power often wore this idiotic expression. He planted the heavy, spread-eagle-topped staff he held into the ground and activated multiple functions embedded in the battle standard. In an instant, the eagle statue at the staff's head began to heat up. A dense crackle of electricity swallowed the din rising from the valley below. The air abruptly expanded outward, and the low pressure made one's eardrums feel as though they were bulging.
Yet even that heavy thud, which drowned out the engine noise of the tracked vehicles below, failed to rouse the young man, as though the dazzling extra-dimensional realms were far more intoxicating than the material universe. Victor von Doom had seen many like him in those undisciplined minor sects, and without exception they would eventually become targets for Kamar-Taj's purges—sooner or later.
"Who is this?" he demanded of Solomon with undisguised disgust, staring at the dreamlike bubbles shimmering in the young man's eyes. "How could you allow someone like that at your side?"
"He's the heir to the Merlin School—my sword-bearer—just returned from studies among the Druids," Solomon said. "This is probably the aftereffect of forced knowledge imprinting. Everyone is pressed for time now—you and I included. Don't worry, he's trustworthy, but don't trust him too much. Who knows what world-shaking prank Merlin is planning."
Solomon's voice seemed to snap Dave out of his wandering, dragging his soul back to reality.
Hammurabi and Suppiluliumas shifted aside the towering, dizzyingly ornate high-tech shield—taller than a man—to open a path so Dave could come to Solomon's side. Even so, they did not relax their vigilance. The greatswords whose crossguards housed arrays of miniaturized explosive-gun barrels hung beside their raised shields. A century of camp life had left their nerves permanently on a war footing, and those greatswords were ready to hew down at any time—though only a month had passed on Earth, the strange flow of time in the outer dimensions and gravity's effect on time meant that when they completed their first training run, the camp chronometers showed a date half a year prior to their departure. Thus, the true duration could only be measured by the power armor's internal timers. Wherever they were, the Monarch could always find them immediately and, when necessary, give them his voice and counsel, as if he held a spider's web tugging on every Honor Guard.
From the lowest-tier training worlds on up, the two Honor Guards would be dropped into the most dangerous zones and then plot a route to the marked rally point. Whoever reached the objective first earned a brief rest and the right to depart first; only when the other also reached the goal would both be redeployed to the next training planet. This delicate dynamic sparked competition between Hammurabi and Suppiluliumas—though both had grown in accelerated cycles within incubation pods, undergone chemical conditioning and psychic imprinting, then returned to the pods to continue their transformation again and again until mature, and though their modifications emphasized different traits based on their genetic profiles, their combat power was roughly equivalent. Suppiluliumas was more conservative—he liked to prepare meticulously—while Hammurabi could be impulsive at times, a trait which Suppiluliumas immediately exploited once he noticed it.
Yet through one grueling survival battle after another, their designed genetic predispositions began to steer them toward different patterns of action. Only then did Hammurabi and Suppiluliumas fully understand the point of the training. It wasn't a contest of flesh but of wits—how to carve out more advantages, more rest time, and more supply intake when equipped identically.
For example, on the road to the rendezvous, Suppiluliumas would arrange his trophies into taunting patterns to mock Hammurabi, then lay traps to snare him and buy himself longer rest. In turn, after learning from this, Hammurabi adopted a different mode of operation to ensnare Suppiluliumas and gain advantages of his own—for instance, running game-theory calculations upon landing, predicting his opponent's path, and then herding prey toward Suppiluliumas's position.
In the next training cycle, having fully appreciated his opponent's calculating mind, Suppiluliumas used primitive materials from a native civilization to build a very simple yet incredibly well-hidden bunker and trap. When Hammurabi drove a herd of monsters to ambush him, Suppiluliumas sealed both Hammurabi and the beasts inside. But the only ones sealed in were the beasts—not Hammurabi. The seemingly hot-headed one had smeared fluids from a female's reproductive glands onto the alpha male and then sprinted straight to the rally point, leaving Suppiluliumas sitting in his bunker, waiting for prey that would never take the bait. Overall, their rivalry only intensified through training, while their combat prowess and strategic thinking rose in tandem through mutual learning.
After passing their examinations, Hammurabi and Suppiluliumas were permitted to learn certain forbidden knowledge—though not as much as Constantine knew, what Solomon revealed to them was enough to leave them astonished for a long time. After that, Solomon personally presided over a ceremony, awarding them shields and greatswords, marking the first organizational differentiation within the Honor Guard corps.
"Good morning, Dave. Sorry to summon you here at this hour, but I think you need to know what you'll face upon returning from the extragalactic mission," Solomon said, nodding to his old friend of many years, his tone as casual as if asking whether he'd like some tea. "This is Victor von Doom. You hadn't begun studying magic when he left Kamar-Taj."
Victor von Doom's iron mask hid every expression, but his body language did nothing to conceal his loathing. Dave, however, didn't care. Right now, he cared about nothing. The training on the planet En-Galai had long since worn down his emotions. He was no longer the excitable engineering geek he had been; gradually accepting an anomalous reality had made him steadier. If he were still prone to sudden mood swings, he would have died there already.
"I hate magic," Dave said with a long sigh.
Merlin's educational program had completely upended his life. If Kamar-Taj hadn't kindly arranged a leave of absence for him—and if his girlfriend, with whom he'd dated all of two days, hadn't been a decent person—then upon returning to Earth, the only path left to him would have been drinking alone in a tiny studio, sliding into depression, popping pills, and finally slitting his wrists in the bathtub.
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