"Ahhh!"
Steven screamed, grabbed Mark's arm, and bolted.
Ghosts were the one thing he feared most. As someone deeply fascinated by Egyptian mythology, he always found himself slipping into those terrifying legends, blurring the line between fantasy and reality until they felt one and the same.
Could anyone really expect a mentally unstable man to stand calmly in front of a ghost and analyze the situation rationally?
Of course not.
Steven shrieked nonstop as he ran, never slowing down for an instant.
Mark had no choice but to follow. Steven's grip was impossibly tight.
Seriously? Mark thought. If he fought with half this much strength, he wouldn't get beaten half to death every time.
Unable to pull free, Mark twisted around, trying to get a better look at the so-called female ghost pursuing them.
"Woooo..."
An endless darkness filled the far end of the tunnel.
Somewhere within it echoed a faint cry.
Mark knew that cry.
It was painfully familiar.
That rainy day...
His brother's desperate voice had echoed through the cave.
The boy had reached out to him with trusting eyes...
Only to slip into the darkness below.
Into the cold water.
Into the endless cave.
Pain exploded inside Mark's skull.
It felt as though Volstagg himself had swung Mjolnir straight into his head.
The impact should have killed him instantly.
Instead, the agony remained.
A tidal wave of memories flooded his mind, crashing relentlessly against every corner of his consciousness until it felt ready to burst apart.
Boom!
Mark jolted awake and instinctively grabbed his head.
Still intact.
Good.
Then where had that deafening explosion come from?
Before he could figure it out, something cold landed on his forehead.
A drop of water.
"What the hell?"
Mark and Steven looked upward together.
Cracks had spread across the ceiling of the four-meter-high tunnel.
Concrete crumbled away, exposing twisted steel reinforcement.
Chunks of debris rained down around them while muddy water seeped through widening fractures.
Drops splashed across Steven's face.
"Ah! Ah!"
Steven squeezed his eyes shut.
The smell of wet earth instantly became the smell of blood in his imagination.
"The ghost! The ghost!"
"Khonshu, protect me!"
He desperately called upon the moon god.
Unaware that Khonshu himself was already in grave danger.
Steven dragged the bewildered Mark forward as the tunnel continued breaking apart.
More and more water poured through the cracks.
The darkness behind them seemed alive, as though some monstrous creature lurked within it.
An icy evil seeped into their bones.
Then Steven heard it.
A strange noise.
Growing louder.
Closer.
What was it?
He almost stopped to listen more carefully.
But instinct screamed at him not to.
If he stopped...
She would catch him.
Though he couldn't see her, Steven knew with absolute certainty that she hadn't stopped chasing them.
She was right behind them.
His eyes widened.
He recognized the sound.
Water.
It was rushing water.
The next instant, a towering wall of water burst through the tunnel.
Pipes exploded overhead.
Like starving predators finally unleashed upon helpless prey, the flood roared toward them.
The back half of the tunnel vanished beneath the torrent in an instant.
Steven looked back once.
His face went deathly pale.
"Mom!"
"I want to go home!"
He sprinted faster than he'd ever run before.
If anyone had seen him now, they might have mistaken him for a speedster.
Mark finally snapped back to reality.
His arm throbbed painfully.
It felt close to dislocated.
"Stop!"
He yanked his arm free, grabbed Steven by the shoulder, and dragged him beneath a section of reinforced concrete jutting from the wall.
Running was pointless.
The flood was only a few dozen meters away.
Within seconds it would swallow them whole, smashing them into broken pipes or jagged rock before carrying them somewhere unknown.
There was only one chance.
Hold on and survive.
Steven lacked experience with life-and-death situations.
Mark didn't.
As a mercenary, he'd spent his life walking the line between survival and death.
The moment someone accepted that profession, one foot was already inside hell.
Disaster always struck without warning.
Just like now.
The flood engulfed them.
Violent currents filled the narrow tunnel.
Two minutes later...
The entire passage collapsed.
...
Outside, Mark's body suddenly fell unconscious.
Frank stared in horror.
Steam poured from Mark's skin.
His entire body glowed an alarming crimson, radiating enough heat to burn anyone nearby.
The rising vapor mingled with the silver moonlight until it resembled a blood-red mist.
"Damn it!"
Frank rushed forward and caught him.
The intense heat instantly scorched Frank's arms, turning his skin bright red.
Without hesitation, the Spirit of Vengeance awakened.
Hellfire erupted around him as he transformed into Ghost Rider.
The flames of hell burned away all sin.
Frank lifted Mark into his arms.
He needed to find the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj immediately.
He could sense overwhelming dark magic surrounding Mark.
The crimson mist pulsed with the stench of blood and corruption.
Above Mark's head, it slowly gathered into the shape of a human silhouette that lounged lazily in the air.
Sparks scattered behind Frank as he ran through the corridors.
Wherever the hellfire passed, the crimson mist burned away, leaving only blackened scorch marks across the floor.
"What's happening?"
Mordo had only just returned to his quarters.
As an Illuminati member and the new Sorcerer Supreme, he occupied a spacious private suite complete with a library, a meditation room...
And a tea table.
Like the Ancient One before him, Mordo preferred tea over coffee.
His thermos was always filled with freshly brewed leaves.
He had barely taken a seat.
The meeting had left him furious enough to nearly burst a blood vessel.
He desperately needed something to calm himself.
"The Guardian of the Infinity Stones..." he muttered with a sneer. "So ignorant. No wonder. That universe's Sorcerer Supreme is Stephen Strange."
Mordo had never understood why the Ancient One chose Strange.
Because of a prophecy?
Ridiculous.
Prophecies meant nothing.
Only strength mattered.
As the Ancient One's direct disciple, Mordo enjoyed enormous prestige within Kamar-Taj.
He had personally trained hundreds of sorcerers.
His own abilities were second only to hers.
Perhaps he wasn't the Ancient One...
But defeating the Avengers would hardly be difficult.
Mordo was a man of contradictions.
He looked down on ordinary humans incapable of using magic.
He also despised mediocre sorcerers, believing the weak disgraced Kamar-Taj itself.
That belief had eventually driven him to hunt down lesser mystics.
In his eyes, there were simply too many sorcerers.
Only the strongest deserved magic.
He took another leisurely sip of fragrant oolong tea.
The rich aroma soothed his mood immediately.
No wonder the Ancient One had remained Sorcerer Supreme for so many years.
Just as he swallowed his first mouthful—
The door burst open.
Frank charged inside carrying Mark.
Startled, Mordo knocked over the tea table.
Scalding tea splashed across his robes, soaking straight through them.
He leaped up with an angry shout.
"What are you doing?!"
Then he saw the crimson mist rising from Mark's body.
His anger disappeared instantly.
"Chaos..."
His face turned pale.
"Chaos Magic!"
Golden shields sprang into existence around him.
"Throw him out!"
"Don't bring him in here!"
"Chaos Magic can't be cured!"
"He'll die anyway!"
"Damn it, are you listening?"
"Throw him into the prison!"
"He can still be saved!" Frank roared, laying Mark gently on the floor.
Hellfire spread over Mark's body, colliding with the crimson mist.
Flames and scarlet energy battled one another, filling the room with floating sparks.
"Khonshu and the Spirit of Vengeance are holding the corruption back."
"Kamar-Taj has purification spells."
"It's not too late!"
Frank's shout drew nearby heroes from their rooms.
One after another, they gathered outside.
Everyone saw Mark lying motionless beneath layers of crimson mist and hellfire.
Among them, Clint Barton reacted the most strongly.
Only then did Mordo notice something.
The Chaos Magic hadn't actually entered Mark's body yet.
Even so...
He refused.
"He belongs in a cell."
"Or he should be executed immediately."
Mordo raised his hands into a combat stance.
If Frank insisted, his magical whips would strike without hesitation.
Mordo wasn't weak.
Although he couldn't overpower Ghost Rider or Moon Knight head-on, he excelled at exploiting weakness.
Renzo arrived through the growing crowd.
The Mind Stone's warning still echoed painfully inside his head.
"What happened?"
A beam of psychic energy flowed from him, enveloping Mark while separating the hellfire from the crimson corruption.
Renzo frowned.
He recognized the energy.
Wanda.
He crouched beside Mark.
The Mind Stone blazed brilliantly.
Black energy suddenly burst from Mark's body.
A ghostlike spirit lunged into the air with a shriek, claws extended toward the gathered heroes.
Its first target—
Clint Barton.
"...Why me?!"
Clint stared in disbelief.
"Do I really look that easy to kill?"
Apparently, yes.
The spirit saw everyone's aura clearly.
Among them...
Clint looked like the weakest.
Even ghosts knew to pick the easiest target.
"What a vicious spirit."
Ghost Rider's blazing chain shot through the air, wrapping around the creature in a single motion.
The overwhelming stench of sin nearly blinded him.
"What a murderous soul."
The Penance Stare had already shown him countless lives stained by blood.
Whoever this spirit had once been...
They had been a murderer.
Moments later, the last traces of Chaos Magic were extracted from Mark.
Fortunately, the corruption hadn't lasted long.
Combined with Khonshu's blessing and the Spirit of Vengeance's hellfire, the infection had been contained before it reached his mind.
Otherwise, given Mark's fragile mental state...
He never would have survived.
Renzo finally let out a long breath.
If Moon Knight had become infected as well, the balance between both sides would have tilted even further.
Balder alone had already created enough pressure.
Adding Moon Knight to Wanda's forces would have been disastrous.
"What happened?"
After confirming Mark's vital signs had stabilized, Renzo turned toward Frank and Mordo.
"It wasn't me," Mordo answered immediately.
"I was drinking tea."
"He burst in and scared me into spilling it."
He pointed at the damp stain across his robes.
Frank ignored him.
He calmly recounted everything from beginning to end.
Every detail.
Even the color of the aurora outside.
"Cairo..."
Renzo's expression darkened.
"So something happened in Egypt."
Could Wanda have targeted the Egyptian gods?
Moon Knight served as Khonshu's avatar.
The two depended upon one another.
Without his avatar, Khonshu's influence over the mortal world diminished.
Without Khonshu's power, Mark lost the strength of Moon Knight.
If either fell...
The other would inevitably suffer.
Neither wanted that outcome.
Which was why, despite constantly arguing with Khonshu, Mark had never abandoned the role.
Khonshu had been imprisoned by the other gods for countless years.
Only through Mark could he once again interfere in human affairs.
Without him...
He would remain trapped until his divine power eventually faded and another moon god took his place.
Their partnership was filled with resentment.
Yet neither could leave.
Renzo quickly reached his conclusion.
Something had happened to Khonshu.
Through their mystical connection, he relayed that realization directly into Mark's unconscious mind.
...
"It looks like I'm going to Egypt."
His voice was low but resolute.
"Be careful."
Charles looked at Renzo with obvious concern.
Deep down, he couldn't shake his guilt.
This was their universe.
Their responsibility.
Yet someone from another reality was risking his life to protect them.
It was a bitter feeling.
Renzo removed two Infinity Stones.
"The Space Stone and the Mind Stone stay with you."
"If anything happens, we'll be able to contact each other immediately."
Naturally, they were this universe's Infinity Stones—not the ones from Renzo's own reality.
Reed accepted the Space Stone.
Charles took the Mind Stone.
With them, both men's abilities would be greatly enhanced.
"See you tomorrow."
__________________________________________
You can read early chapters on Patr*on. If you enjoy my work and would like to support me, consider becoming a patron. My Patr*on username is Renzo28557.