[2009 – October]
Conjuring up a myriad of weapons, his magical energy boiling and raging, Agamotto sent them toward the demonic being in front of him while simultaneously invoking hellish flames and sky-piercing bolts of lightning.
Empowered by his own realm, his every strike was filled with the strength to sunder the earth and shatter the sky.
And yet, with a single demonic roar, a blackish shockwave spread out and extinguished all his attacks, pure Darkforce devouring his own dimensional energies as a strange and invisible force suppressed his magic ruthlessly.
Treading through space as he left tears in the dimensional wall of the Mirror Dimension, the Lord of Darkforce appeared next to him as he swung his black scythe ruthlessly.
Eldritch Mandalas forming on his forearms and glowing with an intense golden light, Agamotto didn't shy away from a direct confrontation as he clashed with the younger Realm Lord. Empowered by pure dimensional strength, he exchanged blow for blow with the abyssal existence, the aftershocks of their fight leaving the Mirror Dimension in ruins.
His form splitting in three, Agamotto grew two extra pairs of hands and legs, as well as another two heads, chanting, casting, and conjuring up magical attacks that only ended up shattering against the indestructible form of the horned black devil, the raging Darkforce around him invading his Sorcerer Realm to drain its light and life.
The fragment of the lightless realm ruled by Elijah erupted with dark and malevolent strength as it clashed directly with the fragment of his Sorcerer Realm that he had summoned, fearlessly corroding and devouring his dimension as if an eternal night was trying to shroud his world.
With every step the shadow devil took, magic constructs shattered around him like glass. He moved with speed that was beyond time, the space of the Mirror Dimension unable to endure such strain as it broke bit by bit.
With his Darkforce Scythe in hand, Elijah fully displayed what it meant to be a demon made out of shadows and darkness, his attacks being tempestuous and insidious.
His figure seemed formless at times as he become part of the shattered space around them while turning indestructible an instant later as he ripped apart his magic constructs with his darkened claws.
He was one with the Darkforce, almost indistinguishable from the ever-starving energy force that he embodied.
It was clear to him that Elijah was a true Realm Lord born for destruction and bloodshed, combat techniques and intelligence so formidable that it could bring shame to a lot of older higher beings.
Agamotto also quickly realized that the young Realm Lord before him was not only the bane of life and light but also the ruin of all things magic.
His cosmic perception could faintly detect the energy field that the fledgling higher being had surrounded himself with, which acted as a null-magic field that disallowed not only the formation of spells but also exerted a strange force on any magical construct as if to extinguish it at its root.
Agamotto had to fuel his spells with manyfold the magical energy than normal just to counter the energy field's effect but even then, his spells produced only a fraction of their real power.
The mandalas on two of his forearms, which he used to block the malicious blade of the black scythe, suffered from the same suppression which forced him to expend great amounts of dimensional energy to ensure that their structure would be kept intact.
Still, Agamotto realized that his greatest strength, which was without a doubt his ability to cast a myriad of different spells, ranging from conjuration to transfiguration, had turned into a blunt blade when facing the young Lord of Darkforce.
He had cast hundreds and thousands of spells with sealing and banishing purposes in an attempt to cut off his opponent's connection to his own realm, which was the most effective way to battle a Realm Lord and force him back into their own domain.
Those seals and formations though had been met with great resistance before being shattered by a breath of Darkforce that was intermixed with the strange and ethereal energy force that seemed to be the archenemy of magic.
Decisively giving up his casting of spells, Agamotto opted to simply channel the strength of his realm directly into his physical body and engage the shadow devil in a pure contest of power.
Roaring loudly, the circular mandalas on his hands glowed even brighter, the light turning from gold to blinding white as he clashed with Elijah, the illusionary Sorcerer Realm moving with him as it crashed into the lightless abyss behind the younger god.
The Mirror Dimension could only silently suffer as it was ravaged during the battle of those two immortal titans.
…
Standing on the smoldering ruin that was the Mirror World's Earth, the broken planet nothing but a heap of stones and ash at this point, the atmosphere was filled with dark cracks while the space seemed on the verge of collapse, I quelled the raging Darkforce within me.
The energy matrix in my cells reversed its rotation, pulling back the overflowing energy force as my flesh turned back into a more mortal form again, the infinite dark void behind me closing up slowly.
"Are you done testing me now, Agamotto the All Seeing?", I questioned as I looked at the smiling middle-aged man in front of me.
"Hahaha-!", he just hollered, stretching his neck while excitement gleamed thick in his eyes, "Kid, you're truly something! Haha!"
Sighing inwardly, I couldn't help but shake my head as I looked at the destruction that we had caused to the Mirror Dimension even while only battling with a fraction of our full strength.
I had noticed that Agamotto intended to test me the moment that I laid eyes on him and realized who he was. I wasn't too surprised by this as he was one of the three strongest protectors of Earth and it would only seem strange if he let another unfamiliar Realm Lord walk around in his metaphorical backyard without any care.
As it stood, one might wonder why a short conversation couldn't have substituted all this destruction but the simple truth was that Agamotto would have never bothered to even listen to me if he could just send me back to the Darkforce Dimension and deny me entry to Earth's Dimension.
This wasn't about trust or understanding but about minimizing risk factors.
This 'little' spar made it clear though that I wasn't to be underestimated even though I could sense that Agamotto was stronger than me. Still, 'strength' amongst higher beings was a relative term since pure power was not necessarily very effective in a battle of this level.
As such, while I could not defeat Agamotto, he could not beat me nor banish me.
The principle of 'banishment' was basically for a sorcerer to use his magical strength to reinforce the laws of the dimension that naturally rejected 'outsiders' and 'invaders'. But since my shields made me immune to the rejection forces by blending my existence within this dimension, his spells were useless.
And while he was certainly stronger than me, Agamotto's greatest weapon was the powerful and complex magic that allowed him to battle opponent stronger than himself, which I simply targeted through my shields that were fuelled by my 'Energy Vessel'-enhanced mind, which in turn was drawing strength from the whole Darkforce Dimension.
Without the strength to simply annihilate the whole Darkforce Dimension, it was impossible for the first Sorcerer Supreme to defeat me. And this was exactly where my advantage lay since I was not a normal Realm Lord by any measure.
Becoming a Realm Lord meant fusing one's own existence with a dimensional space that would then transform into a personal realm from which one could draw strength. Creating one's own realm though was something that even normal demons could do given enough time and resources.
It was the strength of the realm though that ultimately decided if one could be counted as a true higher being or not, and I had made the whole Darkforce Dimension my own realm, which was a mature secondary dimension with strength only below the prime dimension of this reality.
Agamotto's Sorcerer Realm, on the other hand, wasn't a secondary dimension but an independent pocket dimension outside of reality that he had created to ascend and it was only marginally stronger than the Darkforce Dimension in power. I could sense this clearly through the brief clashes that we had.
The rest of the strength difference between us came from the fact that he was the son of Oshtur, an Elder Goddess of Earth, which allowed him to borrow strength from the Earth Dimension in every reality that he walked into. He was similar to an 'adopted son' of the prime dimension, for lack of a better allegory.
This also allowed him to battle beings like Dormammu and clash with Galactus without being defeated, his formidable magical strength giving him the ability to warp reality to his will.
It was therefore no wonder that he wished to protect this dimension alongside the other two members of the Vishanti. I didn't think that this was a bad thing but I certainly knew that it wasn't a decision he had made entirely for altruistic reasons.
Still, it was to my advantage since the Darkforce Dimension was currently still part of this reality, which meant that he couldn't fully utilize the power of the prime dimension to face me as that would be akin to someone attacking his own limb.
Only when facing extra-dimensional threats could he fully draw on this strength of his, which I was not part of for now at least.
There would inevitably come a time when I had to separate the Darkforce Dimension from this reality as this connection restricted its growth.
If I ever wanted for the Darkforce Dimension to be on par with the Dark Dimension, which was the realm of Dormammu who could rival a whole reality by himself, there was no way around this step.
But it was dangerous to do this hastily and there were still many considerations that I had to make before that.
After all, if I separated the Darkforce Dimension from this reality at this point in time, I would be nothing more than a Realm Lord of a secondary dimension that would be seen as an extra-dimensional threat in every reality that I visited, which was clearly a very bad thing.
Even now, the Earth Dimension had a certain resistance to my existence and I was still part of this reality, even though I had become a higher being and was essentially immortal.
This rejection would be a million times worse once my realm was separated from reality.
It was like this for all Realm Lords, whose realms existed beyond one reality. Dormammu would be the prime example, as were the Lords of Hell. They were not Multiversal-beings in the sense of power that they had but they could easily influence more than one reality at a time due to the fact that their realms existed beyond the time of one reality.
Still, influence was different from true interference as it was almost impossibly hard for them to step into the prime dimension of any reality without truly herculean efforts as strength alone could not grant them this privilege despite them being Realm Lords at the very top of the pyramid.
The only existence stronger than them were Multiversal-beings like The Pheonix Force or Eternity.
As such, it was rather clear how careful I had to think about separating the Darkforce Dimension from this reality if I wished to return. I had some ideas that could facilitate this but still, I wasn't one to act recklessly so this required more thought.
"Let's take care of the aftermath of our spar.", Agamotto addressed me again and I pushed those other thoughts to the side for the moment, "You go take care of things on Earth, I will repair this place."
As a member of the Vishanti, he was clearly used to ordering people around but I only gave him a deadly stare before I turned and left, forcing open a passage out of the Mirror Dimension while leaving this place to him.
I simply choose to see this as a chance to call it even between us since I had kinda murdered one of his incarnations before.
As a Realm Lord, one not only embodied their own personal dimension but vice verse their dimension embodied them, and without destroying both it was impossible to do any true harm to a real Realm Lord.
Naturally, that wasn't true for those 'fake' Realm Lords whose realms didn't have the power to fuel a resurrection, which was mostly the case for weak demons or other weak mystic entities.
Still, Agamotto was a powerful principality for whom my killing of his incarnation was a nuisance at best.
[A/N: Damn, those were some hard chapters to write.
The power levels of the different beings in the comics and the MCU are just a mess to figure out! For example, there are times were Agamotto seems kinda incapable of stopping Strange because of some weird 'hero-bullshit'-reason but the next moment he whops Dormammu's ass back into the Dark Dimension and battles Galactus to a draw.
This is rather annoying for me as I have to find a place for Elijah to fit in amongst them all, which is f*cking hard.
Now, a little explanation for the content of this chapter.
First of all, yes, Agamotto is definitely stronger than Elijah. But unfortunately for him, our Lord of Darkforce is not just a Realm Lord but also a double Omega-level mutant, which makes him an existence at the level of a 'Beyond Omega'-level, who can face real gods and hold his own.
And as you see, Elijah most precious weapon at this point is still his Shield Creation and Manipulation that has been empowered through his status as a Realm Lord. It gives him abilities way beyond what mere Darkforce is capable of, which is already a whole lot.
Also, yes, Agamotto is one-hundred percent the type to just fling Elijah back into the Darkforce Dimension if he could do it as he is not some benevolent guardian angel for Earth.
There are times in the comic when he outright wants to kill Strange because the latter doesn't want to listen to his orders or acts against them because he has a different view of the situation. Agamotto isn't a purely kind-hearted individual at all and I would argue that he has the worst temper amongst the Vishanti.
Well, that's kinda it but if you have any remaining questions just ask them and I will try my best to answer them. Hope you enjoyed the chapters!]