Dormammu howled in rage as Odin's spear slammed into his skull again. Even bound to the Dark Dimension, his soul still reeled under the blow. The connection meant he could reform, but it required time time filled with agony.
Why endure that pain if it could be avoided?
The Ancient One answered with another strike. Golden sigils spun into a blazing wheel, smashing into his head like a collapsing star.
Dormammu screamed. His titanic skull split with fractures, dark energy spilling out in torrents. The impact carried soul magic shattering yet another piece of his essence.
And within, something pulsed.
Like a beating heart.
The very nucleus of the Dark Dimension.
Nolan's eyes narrowed. He'd seen such cores before dimensional anchors. Without hesitation, he flashed to Dormammu's side, hand reaching toward it.
"NO!" Dormammu bellowed, panic flaring for the first time. If that core was seized, the wound would deepen beyond repair. He summoned shadows to defend it but scarlet light lashed out.
The Darkhold's chaos power unraveled his defense, stripping away control. The Dark Dimension itself, which normally answered only to Dormammu, faltered under her intervention.
Nolan's hand brushed the core. Dormammu's laughter returned, jagged and cruel.
"You think you can claim my dimension? Fool! You've never studied dark sorcery. Your essence isn't attuned. The Dark Dimension has a master and it is ME!"
"Teacher!" Nolan called.
The Ancient One slammed down another golden wheel, shattering the fragments of Dormammu's reforming soul. He howled again, his vast body convulsing.
Odin frowned, his aged face showing rare doubt.
"Ancient One… are you certain? If he fails, the corruption will consume him. If the Dark Dimension takes him, even the three of us together may not stop what he becomes. Shouldn't you claim it instead?"
The Ancient One shook her head, dark runes flickering faintly across her brow. "No. I trust him."
Nolan's body was already marked with crawling black sigils, his flesh resisting the corrosive tide pouring into him. Dormammu sneered.
"You're finished. To devour a dimension? Madness! You'll burn from the inside. Then you'll kneel to me, bound forever as my puppet!"
But Nolan only smiled. "Almost there."
Behind him, two-dimensional spheres spun into being, orbiting like twin suns. Odin's eyes widened. Even Dormammu faltered.
It was unheard of. A dimensional lord fused their soul with a single plane, powerful but limited. Their strength was capped by the dimension they controlled. To merge with more was impossible… at least, it should have been.
Dormammu's shock turned to fury. "Those aren't mature dimensions! You can't possibly use them to consume mine! And this is my realm how are you drawing on them here?"
Then he realized. Nolan wasn't drawing from a distant dimension. The power was fused inside his body.
Instead of merging into a dimension, he had dragged dimensional gateways into himself. His own flesh had become the anchor, the conduit.
It was insane. No sorcerer survived such an inversion. To channel a dimension through the body was suicide.
A single misstep, and the vessel would explode, soul annihilated, dimension destabilized.
But Nolan wasn't just surviving.
Dormammu's vast form convulsed as the truth struck him his power was being siphoned away. The Dark Dimension itself shrank, its energy bleeding into Nolan's body.
The corrosion meant to destroy him reversed course, flowing inward like a black tide swallowed by a greater abyss.
Dormammu's voice broke with disbelief.
"Impossible! That… that's the Abyss! How do you carry the Abyss within you?!"
The unthinkable had begun.
Nolan was devouring the Dark Dimension itself.
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