Karl Mordo stood in the ruins of an abandoned castle in Transylvania. This place once belonged to his grandfather, Viscount Heinrich Krowler, before the Ancient One killed him decades ago for practicing dark magic.
Mordo remembered that day well. He was just a teenager when the Ancient One took him in.
He asked why, why take him in when he was an offspring of a sorcerer dabbling in the dark arts, and then she had simply told him that he wasn't responsible for his grandfather's sins.
She saw his talent and raised him in Kamar-Taj, teaching him discipline and the laws of magic from a young age.
And he grew up to respect her.
But now, everything has changed.
Knowing the Ancient One had broken her own rules by using the Dark Dimension to prolong her own life made him feel completely betrayed. Even if it was her, even if her actions held good intentions, the violation of the ordinance always leads to catastrophic repercussions.
He vehemently tried to talk to her when she sent Satoru Gojo away for a task, he told her to stop before it was too late, to just die and he would take her place as Sorcerer Supreme. However, it was for naught. The Ancient One deemed him unworthy of the mantle.
She told him: "Your arrogance is in believing there is only one way to serve the greater good, Mordo. You mistake rigidity for strength. I have served this world for centuries, and I did what was necessary, not what was easy. Because you cannot understand the necessity of this darkness, you are not ready to lead. Do not mistake my sacrifice for a weakness you can inherit."
After that talk, Mordo eventually chose to believe he had to enforce the repercussions himself… by stripping away the sorcerers he deems unworthy of their power.
Whether it was the darkness in his bloodline or his own anger, he didn't care anymore.
He knew he had to act, no matter what the cost.
What he didn't know, however, was his thoughts were filled with conflicting hypocrisy.
That's the corruption brought by the Book of the Damned to its readers. It twisted their logic until their hypocrisy felt like righteousness. Mordo believed he was saving the natural order, even as he used the foulest magic in existence to do it.
Mordo looked down at the ritual circle he had carved into the stone floor as dark smoke began to spill from the pages of the Darkhold at its center.
"Come forth," Mordo commanded. "I know you seek what was stolen from you."
A rift tore open in the air above the ritual circle. From the darkness of the rift, an apparition of Belasco's head came out. The demon lord looked around the ruined castle with a look of pure disgust before his yellow eyes settled on Mordo.
"A sorcerer of Kamar-Taj," Belasco said. "Why have you disturbed my rest?"
"I want to make a deal," Mordo said, his voice steady despite the darkness coiling around him. "An equal exchange. I want you to help me kill a few people and grant me your power. I want them gone, forever."
Belasco's apparition blinked. He leaned forward through the rift. "Aren't you a sorcerer of Kamar-Taj? Or was I mistaken?" He let out a mocking laugh and shook his head. "Regardless, you want me to be an assassin? Pft. I care nothing for your petty squabbles, human. Unless, what you will offer is of interest to me."
Mordo didn't panic. He took a step closer to the rift. "It does. I know what you care about. You want the girl, Illyana Rasputin. She is currently at Kamar-Taj, protected. But I can help you. If you do as I ask, I will lower the wards and give you an opening to take her back to your dimension."
Belasco went still. Before he then thought.
'So, it was a sorcerer of Kamar-Taj that killed me before,' He narrowed his yellow eyes at Mordo, studying the man's face for any sign of deception.
'But, this kind of resolve…' He looked around the ruined hall once more, his gaze eventually dropping to the ritual circle and the book at its center. '...The Darkhold. I see.'
His eyes flashed with a mysterious light before he looked back at Mordo. "Very well. However, I will need ten living sacrifices to start, and a body to inhabit."
Mordo frowned. "Don't you have your own body, demon? Or is it that you just don't trust me?"
Belasco didn't react. "If you want my help, give me what I ask. Don't ask questions, human."
Mordo was thoughtful for a few seconds, before he stilled his resolve.
"I will find you the sacrifices," Mordo whispered. "And the body."
But then, Belasco remembered something and his expression became unsightly. "Even… even if you do have my help and access to the power of my dimension, can you take on the sorcerer guarding little Illyana?"
Mordo nodded confidently. "I can. The Ancient One won't be a problem," He looked confused as he stared at Belasco. "With the two of us, surely you wouldn't worry about her?"
"Her?" Belasco was puzzled. "I'm talking about the white-haired teenage sorcerer, not a woman."
"What? Gojo?" Mordo asked, genuinely lost.
As far as he was concerned, the Ancient One was the only real threat. She was the one who held the Time Stone — a variable Mordo had already accounted for in his calculations. Gojo was powerful, sure, but he was still just a boy. He admits, he might be ignorant of his full capabilities, but what can he really do against him with the power gained from the Darkhold and the dimensional lord of Limbo, Belasco?
Mordo looked at Belasco's distorted, fearful expression. "Why are you concerned about him? He's one of the people I want your help with killing. He's just a brat."
"FOOL!" Belasco roared, the sound vibrating through the stone walls of the castle and causing the ritual candles to flicker violently.
The demon's yellow eyes burned with a mixture of terror and repressed rage. "You speak of killing him without fully knowing what that sorcerer can do! I take it you knew of him taking the child, little Illyana, away from my dimension? Did you really think I didn't try to stop them from leaving? From my very own dimension?"
Belasco's apparition snarled, the smoke around the rift churning violently. "I locked him out from the outside of Limbo, but he used a technique I haven't seen before in all my time living. He didn't even break a sweat!"
Mordo shook and cold sweat broke on his brow. He had heard reports from Wong and Rintrah, but he had assumed Gojo had simply used a clever portal trick or a relic. He hadn't imagined a Master of a Hell Dimension being completely overpowered in his own home.
"I don't know about your grudge and I don't care," Belasco hissed. "But if you don't have anything on your plate to handle him, then forget about killing him — he will kill us instead!"
"He's away for the time being," Mordo informed him. "A fellow master told me he left for—"
"And what if he comes back in time?" Belasco looked down on Mordo from above. "Are you sure the others wouldn't be able to contact him anyhow?"
Silence reigned in the hall for a moment before Mordo spoke. ""Then what do you propose? You've seen what Gojo can do yourself. I haven't. You still want the child, yes? Then tell me what we should do to accomplish both of our wants."
'Gotcha,' Belasco grinned on the inside.
His trap had caught the rabbit. He looked at the Darkhold with greed; as a demon who was frequently summoned to satisfy human desires, manipulating a desperate man was second nature.
"You have the Darkhold..." Belasco began.
"What do you want with the book, demon?" Mordo interjected immediately. He didn't trust Belasco, but he was listening.
"Hold your fork and spoons, human," Belasco drawled. "Since you have the Darkhold, you should know there is a spell within those pages that would allow you to channel the magic of the Elder God, Chthon. I don't know if you realize this, but I, too, serve Chthon. I know the secrets of that book better than any mortal."
Mordo stiffened. He knew the spell Belasco was referring to, and he knew the reputation of the god who had authored the book. "The price of my soul is too much for me to offer," Mordo countered coldly. "Besides, if I were to go ahead with such a thing on my own, what use are you?"
Belasco let out a raspy chuckle, his head leaning further through the rift. "You misunderstand. If you offer your whole soul directly to the Elder God, it is indeed too much. But I am a Lord of Limbo. I can act as your buffer. Use the ritual of 'shared burden' found in the margins of the ninth chapter. By channeling the ritual through me, you will get the Elder God's blessing for the price of half, instead of one."
Belasco's eyes glinted at his own words. "I get the girl. You get the power of an Elder God for your use and my assistance which will be enough to handle the white-haired sorcerer."
"What do you say?"
Mordo looked at the book, his fingers trembling. The logic was flawed, but born of the book's corruption, he was seriously considering it; does taking care of Satoru Gojo really require such drastic measure?
"Alright. We have a pact, Demon. Shall we begin?"
…
[ Present — Kamar-Taj ]
The courtyard was a mess of rubble.
Mordo stood in the center, his eyes glowing with a dark light. He wasn't using the standard orange mandalas anymore.
He threw bolts of black energy that moved like liquid, snaking around the pillars to find their targets.
Every time Wanda tried to shield the group, the red sparks of her magic clashed with Mordo's dark energy, creating small explosions that cracked the ground.
"Rintrah, stay on the right! Don't let the demon get behind us!" Illyana yelled. She lunged forward, her Soulsword humming with a blue-white light. She swung at Belasco, who was inhabiting Kaecilius's body.
Belasco didn't even move to dodge. He raised his hand and a wall of green hellfire erupted from the floor.
"Why stay here, Little Rasputin," Belasco said, with his voice laced with sinister intent. "Gojo was it? He already left you, he doesn't care about you."
"Shut up!" Illyana snapped. she summoned two stepping disks, appearing above Belasco to strike down.
But Belasco was too fast. He grabbed her wrist mid-air and slammed her into the stone tiles. Rintrah roared and charged, his head lowered and spells began to hover on his horns.
He hit Belasco with his full weight, but the demon simply turned into a cloud of black smoke, making Rintrah crash into a crumbling courtyard.
Wanda tried to intervene, blasting Mordo with a concentrated beam of red energy. Mordo didn't use a shield; he simply held up the Darkhold. The book absorbed the blast, its pages flipping rapidly.
"Your magic... it's familiar, isn't it?" Mordo asked, walking toward Wanda. He looked at the red energy around her hands and smiled. He lifted up his own hand that began to produce its own Chaos magic, but darker and more vile. "It's the same magic I'm wielding now. You and the Elder God have a connection, I'll bring you with me once this is over."
"We need a plan!" Rintrah shouted as he pushed himself out of the debris. His fur was singed, and his breathing was heavy. "They're too strong together!"
"We separate them," Illyana panted, standing back up and gripping her sword. "Got any ideas?"
She looked at Wanda who was busy fending back Mordo while dodging a green pillar of flame herself, then she shifted her gaze at Rintrah who was deep in thought.
"Rintrah, you got a play? You better say and do it now!"
"I'll support you," Rintrah suddenly spread all his eight fingers in front of him and closed his eyes. Using a type of magic, he hasn't been forced to use it before since he arrived on Earth, the magic he learned from his first master — the art of the Weaver Magic. "Fight them as you are, I'll find the masters and support you!"
Illyana nodded, she didn;t know what he would do, but she trusted him. Wanda also nodded, not having any other ideas to add on her side.
"By the Veil and Weft of the Woven World!" Rintrah uttered an incantation to invoke his magic.
Rintrah's eyes snapped open, glowing with a vivid emerald light.
To his heightened senses, the chaotic courtyard transformed into a sea of shimmering, translucent fibers. Every stone, every person, and every flickering flame was connected by a thread of fate.
"The threads... they are tangled," Rintrah murmured.
He spread his eight fingers. From the four fingers of his left hand, thin green silken threads shot out like tracers, weaving through the rubble and disappearing into the distance.
They were searchers, latching onto the fates of the other Masters scattered across the temple, subtly pulling their paths towards their location.
With the four fingers of his right hand, Rintrah began to play the air like a harp. The threads found its way and attached to Wanda, Illyana, Mordo, and Belasco each.
He wasn't controlling them like puppets — he was manipulating the probability of their environment.
Illyana lunged at Belasco again. The demon sneered, preparing to counter by casting illusions and warping the local landscape between them for offense, but as he stepped to gain a solid foot, his heel caught on a jagged rock that hadn't been there a second ago. He stumbled and interrupted his focus, therefore cancelling his concentration to cast his spells.
"What is this?" Belasco snarled.
Mordo fared no better. He raised one arm to summon a wave of chaos tendrils to crush Wanda, but just as he released the energy, a heavy wooden beam from the ceiling — one that had been precariously balanced since the initial blast — shifted.
It fell right between him and Wanda, acting as an accidental shield that absorbed the brunt of his attack. Even though it eventually tore through the wood, it gave Wanda more than enough time to dodge the tendrils.
Wanda noticed the shift. She felt lighter, her movements more fluid as if the wind itself was pushing her out of the way of Mordo's spells. She didn't question it. She unleashed a massive scarlet psionic wave
and just as Mordo tried to teleport away, his foot slipped on a patch of spilled oil from a broken lamp. He crashed onto one knee, leaving him wide open.
"Chance!" Rintrah screamed.
Rintrah gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his furred brow. Maintaining the Weaver Magic while also luring reinforcements was a massive mental tax. "I can... hold the weave... only for so long!"
Mordo looked up, his face twisting in rage as he saw the green glow in Rintrah's eyes. He realized the minotaur was the one sabotaging their movements.
"You meddling beast," Mordo hissed, the Darkhold's pages turning to a serrated spell. "I'll kill you first!"
...
[Author's Notes]: Expect chapters to be this long from now on. Approx. 2,500-3,000 Words per chapter.
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