When the red-eyed "Raymond"—actually the shadow clone of the Itachi sub-personality—dragged the black-robed man back, the latter's followers were still locked in an intense battle with the Exorcist sub-personality.
Itachi's sub-personality frowned slightly at the scene. After casually tossing the limp black-robed man to the ground, he vanished in an instant.
A few seconds later, he reappeared.
All of the black-robed man's followers were already lying on the ground, defeated.
The Exorcist sub-personality blinked in surprise. Once he realized Itachi had taken them out, he couldn't help but complain, "Why'd you step in? I totally had that…"
Itachi didn't respond. Instead, he nodded at Raymond, signaling that the mission was complete.
Raymond stepped forward and nodded back with a smile.
Everything that had just happened was part of a plan he had worked out earlier—specifically, a simple but effective strategy he had put together with the John Constantine sub-personality.
Before making his appearance, he had already sent out another shadow clone and transferred the Itachi sub-personality into it.
He had given Itachi clear instructions on what to do.
Only someone like a Silver-tier sub-personality could pull this off effortlessly.
If he had sent Livebearer or the Exorcist sub-personality instead, they might've struggled in a direct fight with the black-robed man, let alone captured him at the perfect time.
Among the Silver-tier personalities, Itachi—trained in covert ops—was the most reliable, the least likely to screw things up.
That's why Raymond chose him.
As for how he and John Constantine predicted all this in advance—it wasn't anything too special.
From the start, Raymond had deliberately dropped clues to tempt the black-robed man into spreading the information.
Whether the man tried to escape and pass on the message himself or sacrificed himself to let one of his subordinates flee—it didn't matter to Raymond.
He only needed one outcome: the message getting out.
And just as planned, it worked.
The black-robed man had staged a perfect little escape and successfully spread the intel.
"What's wrong with him? Did you torture him?"
Raymond asked, looking at the black-robed man who now lay limp and hollow-eyed, as if life had lost all meaning.
He was well aware of Itachi's abilities.
Anyone who had been subjected to Tsukuyomi was bound to suffer severe psychological damage.
"Nope. He was looking all smug before, so I just gave him a 'plot recap.' And then he turned into this."
Itachi answered casually.
Ah… That explained it.
Raymond instantly understood.
For someone like the black-robed man, learning that everything he had worked so hard for had backfired terribly—that kind of mental blow was probably worse than any torture.
No wonder he looked so hopeless.
Raymond smiled and shook his head, then turned to look at Gray, who was still shaking a little.
"Officer Gray, since you used to help my father, I'll give you a choice—
"I won't kill you right now. I'll let you go. But you need to give me a good explanation."
"If your answer doesn't satisfy me, I'll tell everyone that you worked with cultists and got many officers killed. You know what that would mean…"
At first, Gray felt a little happy hearing Raymond's first sentence.
But the rest of it made his face turn pale immediately.
He clearly understood what Raymond meant.
What kind of answer would make Raymond happy? That was obvious.
"I… I understand…" Gray replied in a shaky voice, looking lost and broken.
Raymond walked over, patted his shoulder, sighed, and turned to leave.
"Clean up the bodies and bring that guy along," Raymond said to the Itachi sub-personality without looking back.
"Got it." The Itachi sub-personality nodded.
While Raymond was busy setting up his plan against the man in black,
Somewhere beyond Earth, in the endless void, another dramatic battle was unfolding—
As the Ancient One fought with Dormammu, the fight grew more intense and fierce!
The Ancient One was also a Skyfather-level being.
Among Skyfathers, she wasn't considered weak. She could easily take on beings like Lucifer or Mephisto in a one-on-one fight.
But compared to Dormammu, the most powerful hell lord at the very top of the Skyfather tier, she was clearly outmatched.
If it weren't for the massive magic circle under her feet boosting her power, she would've already been losing.
But right now, she was able to hold her ground, blocking every one of Dormammu's attacks with no openings.
Around that same time, Red Hood's message reached Dormammu's mind.
Since Dormammu was very close to Earth, the message got through quickly, and his angry reply was sent right away.
This made Dormammu even more furious!
"Ancient One, I'll give you one last chance. If you move aside now, I swear I won't harm Earth. But if you keep standing in my way, I'll kill you—even if it means falling into my 'sleep state'!"
This was a heavy threat.
For someone like Dormammu, who had fused with an entire dimension, true death was almost impossible.
Even if killed, he could come back to life in his own dimension after some time.
But that time—called the "sleep phase"—wasn't short.
And if his whole dimension was taken over during that sleep, he'd be gone forever.
So Dormammu didn't want to risk falling into that state.
He was trying to scare the Ancient One into backing off.
But she didn't budge at all. She calmly kept fighting.
"Fine, you asked for it…" Dormammu growled in rage, just about to unleash another attack—
A silver streak of light flashed through the void, stabbing deep into the endless black fog that was Dormammu's body and tearing open a huge wound!
Dormammu cried out in pain, "That's… the Spear of Eternity, Gungnir?!"
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