[A/N]: We hit 200 Powerstones, so here's the first bonus chapter! Next goal is 400 Powerstones. If you're enjoying the story, please vote, comment, and share!
"You talk too much for an old hag."
And his Power Theft activated with full, desperate, violent force. Like a thirsty man finding an oasis and drinking until he couldn't hold more.
The sensation was immediate and overwhelming.
It felt like reaching into molten metal bare-handed. Like grabbing shapes made of broken glass.
Selene's power wasn't separate from her magic. They were one thing woven together. Life force vampirism stitched into psychic manipulation stitched into immortality stitched into spells older than civilization. Everything was tangled and interconnected. Separating them would require precision and time.
Jay had none of those things.
So he just tore. Ripped and pulled with brute force.
He grabbed the strands of stolen life force first. Thousands of years of accumulated vitality, taken from victims across centuries.
He pulled. And Selene's body convulsed, her back arched and muscles spasmed.
Ancient flesh that had remained perfect for millennia suddenly remembered what aging felt like. She thrashed against him, but the Muramasa held her pinned. Her power bled out like water from a broken dam.
Next came the psychic might. Her telepathy and telekinesis. Jay grabbed it, and when it tried to attack back, all it faced was an insurmountable wall of mental shield.
Jay pulled harder. His power theft ability straining as blood vessels burst in his eyes, nose and ears.
Meanwhile, far above, the Ancient One and Mephisto paused in their battle.
Their attacks held in frozen tableau. Green energy and red hellfire locked in stalemate. Both combatants recognizing something significant happening below.
The demon's yellow eyes tracked what was happening. Watched Jay draining Selene with visceral intensity. His grin faded and became less playful.
"No, no, no." His voice carried annoyance. "We can't have that. I just got her back to fighting shape. Wasted good hellfire on those regenerations. That's expensive, you know. Can't just go around throwing healing flames at every broken toy."
His hands moved, breaking from combat with the Ancient One to form a devil's horn gesture. Fingers crooked as Hellfire gathered between his palms. A spell designed to freeze. The kind of magic that even gods feared because it negated free will itself.
He aimed it at Jay. At the connection between drainer and victim. One gesture and it would all stop. The theft would fail. Selene would survive. And Mephisto's investment would be protected.
But before he could finish the incantation, before the hellfire could coalesce into its final form, new energy flooded the dimension.
The Ancient One's hand moved to her robes. A decision crystallized in her mind, weighing the cost against necessity. This battle required more than conventional means.
She pulled out a second Eye, smaller and newer than Agamotto's, pulsing with yellow light instead of green. The Mind Stone, gifted by her beloved student to be used in an emergency.
This qualified.
She pressed it to her forehead, right where the third eye existed in mystical traditions.
The stone sank into her flesh, and the Mind Stone embedded itself in her skull with a wet sound that was perfect.
Power erupted outward in a tsunami of pure cosmic force that made the dimensional walls scream. The Mind Stone's yellow light blazed like a sun being born.
The corruption from Dormammu's Dark Dimension, the subtle influence that had been eating at her for years, the whispered temptations that came in quiet moments, the slow decay that trading with darkness always brought, burned away instantly. The Mind Stone's cosmic purity couldn't coexist with dark dimension taint. So the taint died. Screaming. Writhing. Consumed by light that showed no mercy and accepted no compromise.
Her eyes blazed yellow, amplifying her mental capabilities to levels that shouldn't be possible for beings bound by physical form. Every spell she'd ever learned crystallized into perfect understanding. Every technique refined over centuries became instinctive. Every mystery of the mystic arts revealed itself like opening a book she'd always been able to read but never had the light to see by.
Time manipulation became effortless like breathing and heartbeat.
Her connection to the Vishanti strengthened. The trinity of cosmic entities that empowered Earth's Sorcerer Supreme felt her ascension and approved as they sent more power, knowledge and themselves.
She'd reached her peak. The absolute pinnacle of what a Sorcerer Supreme could be while still remaining recognizable as human.
And Mephisto felt it. Felt every erg of power and Felt his advantage evaporating like water on hot stone.
"Oh, you cheating—" His complaint cut short. Not from fear, Mephisto didn't do fear. But from recognition, that continuing this fight would cost more than he was willing to pay. "That's not playing fair, you bald—!"
She didn't let him finish. Both Time and Mind working in concert. Golden mandalas formed, Hundreds of them, then thousands.
"Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, hear my call! By the Vishanti's Light, by Agamotto's Eye, by the Power Primordial, I COMMAND THEE!"
Reality itself leaned in to listen, the fabric of existence bending to her will.
Green and yellow energy collided with hellfire. Time and cosmic consciousness against infernal power. The dimension couldn't handle it. This pocket hell was Selene's creation, designed for her power level; this was beyond its specifications. Beyond its capacity.
The walls cracked like eggshell. Light bled through from other dimensions.
Their fight intensified. Became something beyond mortal comprehension. Too fast for normal eyes. Too complex for three-dimensional beings to process. Each exchange rewrote local physics.
They became absorbed in their cosmic chess match. In proving dominance and showing the other that this time, this encounter would end differently than all the previous ones across their centuries-long grudge.
Meanwhile, below, Jay continued draining Selene.
His body began to heal. The transformation was visible as the cuts closed like time-lapse footage of wounds healing, flesh knitting together, and blood stopping its flow. The cracked rib popped back into place with sounds like breaking branches, then fused, bone rejoining bone until no fracture remained.
The stolen life force flooded through him. Centuries of accumulated vitality forced into his system all at once. His stamina refilled past normal now overflowing. His exhaustion didn't just fade. It burned away.
Selene's form began to wither. The transformation was horrific as her once-flawless skin, wrinkled rapidly. Becoming parchment-thin, translucent, then transparent. Her bones became visible beneath tissue-paper flesh. Her veins stood out in stark relief, black lines against gray skin, blood flow visible and slowing, thickening.
Her limbs shriveled as muscles atrophied in seconds. Her body, maintained through constant vampirism, collapsed as the foundation was ripped away.
She tried to scream. But Jay's hand kept her mouth covered. Only muffled sounds escaped. Wet and desperate.
Her eyes that had watched Rome burn and Atlantis sink were now filled with understanding that she was dying. Finally, terror replaced rage.
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