When Aron left the ocean dimension, almost at the same moment, the Ancient One felt the change.
She turned her head, looked in the direction of Makalu's peak, and simply smiled.
"Smelly boy… you've finally become a Heavenly Father."
She didn't say anything more. She just returned her gaze to what she was doing.
She was training Strange, while Mordo was relentlessly breaking him on the square.
"Faster!"
"Get up!"
Mordo held staff in his hands and mercilessly struck Strange, knocking him to the ground again and again.
Each time he forced him to stand and continue, without respite.
...…
On the other side of reality, Asgard.
God King Odin sat on his throne, just as Aron had said, as if his backside were welded to the seat.
But the truth was that this weary old man wasn't just lazy, but was sinking into what old people often do, memories.
"Hm?"
Odin's single eye suddenly shifted toward Midgard.
"A new Heavenly Father has been born?"
His gaze lingered briefly, then he shook his head, as if unconcerned.
"It's that child… nothing strange."
But his thought quickly drifted into the past, thousands of years back.
"Ragnarok… Ragnarok…"
...…
Meanwhile, in the New York Sanctum.
"Wanda, watch this!"
Aron was showing off his new abilities.
First, Quaggs' annihilation rays. The purple beams that once shone from the monster's dozens of eyes were now firing from his own.
Of course, Aron had only two eyes. He couldn't unleash them in such numbers as Quaggs, but it looked like Superman's laser vision. Only, the power was… something else.
Buzzz—!
Aron's eyes glowed and the purple beam pierced through space.
What was especially terrifying, the beam pierced even the specially reinforced mirror dimension inside the temple.
"This thing truly lives up to the name of destruction." Aron smiled in amazement.
"The destructive power is… unbelievable."
He didn't know whether Superman's laser beams could pierce the mirror dimension, but he knew one thing: these eyes did.
"And now… the second ability."
He closed his eyes.
His will pulsed. Purple energy spread like a wave.
And then the tentacles appeared. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of them.
They emerged from the space around him, each connected to his will.
Aron only thought, and the tentacles moved, perfectly synchronized with his mind.
"Ugh…"
Wanda, who had been watching, suddenly screamed when four tentacles wrapped around her arms and legs, lifting her into the air.
"This is… incredible." Aron laughed, watching them move as though they were part of him.
"It's like having hundreds of fingers, and even a sense of touch."
He approached Wanda with a smile. Thousands of tentacles writhed around him, creating the image of a terrifying deity from cult nightmares.
A true cult god.
"Hey…" Aron suddenly stopped, sensing unease.
"Why do I feel like my style is becoming more… sinister? As if I'm more and more like a villain?"
At that moment, the thousands of tentacles around him vanished without a trace.
"At least you know that much?" Wanda sighed, pouting angrily.
Because at this moment, Aron looked like a walking embodiment of darkness.
Demonic powers, shadow energy, and now this strange purple force. A cloak that radiated an eerie aura. Everything about him screamed evil.
He was the very embodiment of what people imagine when they think of an antihero, or worse, a god of darkness.
"If you had been in the Hydra base back then…" Wanda spoke quietly.
"…not a single child would have dared follow you."
"You…" Aron pretended to be offended.
"So now you're insulting me?"
He lifted Wanda,
Then they fought fiercely in the Mirror Dimension.
---
After a long time.
Aron left the Mirror Dimension.
Then he opened a portal and stepped into Limbo.
"Congratulations, darling."
"I've entered the level of Heavenly Father."
"I wonder which unlucky bastard you tricked again."
Aron's front foot had already stepped through when Hela's voice sounded behind him.
"…"
"How many times have I said this?"
"Can you stop appearing behind me like some kind of ghost?" Aron turned.
With a single motion, he pulled Hela into his arms.
Hela, who was also now at the level of Heavenly Father, didn't resist.
It was obvious, Aron had once again leapt ahead. His power now surpassed Hela's, though she had only just stepped into the Heavenly Father rank.
Of course, perhaps it was also because Hela simply didn't resist him.
"And as for deception… I already told you, this time I really didn't lie to people. Well, I didn't lie to demons either." Aron, of course, left out a few key details of his experience. He briefly recounted it to Hela.
"What!"
"A universal-level being!?"
When she heard that Aron had this time outwitted a dimension lord of universal level, even Hela, who normally feared nothing, was stunned.
Darling? Are you playing at such a high level?
"Don't panic, it's just one cosmic being at its peak. And how many of them are there now anyway…? It's not even certain."
"I'd say that demon's strength is now roughly equal to top Heavenly Fathers like Odin or the Ancient One." Aron shrugged.
To support the brave and let cowards starve, that was his principle.
Not only was he unafraid of Quaggs, but a bold idea had taken root in his mind.
"I want to take him!"
Yes, that was the true reason why Aron hadn't broken Quaggs' seal.
He wanted to find the chance to kill this dimensional lord and take his place!
The ruler's position of the Tentacle Dimension…
Why should it belong to someone else, when it could belong to him?
Of course, one of the main reasons Aron dared to think this way was the promise the Ancient One had given him at the very beginning.
Her words had been clear: "If you summon me, I will resolve the very essence of the problem."
And if the Ancient One, who was at the level of Heavenly Father, was completely confident she could deal with Quaggs, then that could only mean one thing, that demon, though of cosmic level, was not as invincible as he seemed. His power was full of weaknesses.
"???"
But Hela didn't know all these assumptions.
When she heard Aron's plan, she was completely shocked.
Killing a dimension demon, a lord who stood at the very peak of a universe… was that even a plan a human could come up with?
Even if that demon was sealed, even if his power was reduced to less than a tenth of his true strength, wasn't it still only a Heavenly Father who could even attempt to face him?
"Darling… maybe it would be better if I just returned to Helheim."
For the first time, Hela felt fear.
"Why? You don't want to go to war with me? You don't want to conquer Lucifer's hell?" Aron looked at Hela out of the corner of his eye and deliberately asked.
Indeed.
The moment the words "war" and "conquest" left his lips, Hela's eyes lit up.
So what if it was a dimensional demon of universe level!
It didn't matter, what mattered was following her Darling into battle!
"Forward with it!"
"Let's go!"
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