The forge-lab's hall dissolved.
In its place unfolded an infinite, gleaming expanse—a perfect repetition of itself, each surface polished to the purity of sacred steel. Every reflection bled into another, endless corridors of glass and light folding into the horizon. Even the air hummed faintly, a vibration that resonated in bone and machine alike.
Luthar stood still, augmetic optics sweeping the mirrored geometry. He could feel the tension in the lattice of this realm, like a cogwheel spinning under strain. A flaw in the mechanism. Useful.
From a ripple of golden light, the Ancient One emerged. As she carried herself with the poise of one who commanded the unseen, her presence was a weight pressing evenly upon every soul present.
"I don't know what they promised you, but you shouldn't have brought god from another universe to my world," she continued. It's time you and your goddesses get removed from this world before causing any disaster."
Freya's divine aura stirred, and Hephaestus prepared her hammer, but Luthar raised a mechadendrite in silent command. His voice, when it came, was calm—layered with vox-harmonics, as though more than one presence spoke.
"I am the Voice of the Omnissiah's will in this place. Your sanction is irrelevant."
Her eyes narrowed, the mandalas flaring brighter. "Then you leave me only one—"
"Correction," Luthar interjected. "You have many options, but you have decided to choose the most dangerous one."
He turned his mind to the system energy module.
The Mirror Dimension trembled.
A deep resonance filled the air, the mirrored floor beneath them fracturing into thin, glowing fault lines. The walls—or the idea of them—shuddered, each reflection distorting, their angles bending as if reality's frame was coming apart.
Luthar's voice deepened, vox-tones resonating like a litany across a cathedral vault.
"This is the raw energy that helps me to travel to any world, but it is also dangerous without the help of the Nexus gate at its core. It's just energy, which is made to destroy the fabric of reality." The rıghtful source is 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝✶𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✶𝕟𝕖𝕥
The cracks in the mirrored realm spread further, light bleeding from them in slow, molten streams.
"So if I were in your position," he continued, "I would not contemplate battle. For the Omnissiah's hand is already upon the lever; do not become the reason for this world's demise."
The Ancient One's hands stilled. The mandalas slowed. The light around her dimmed.
For a moment, priest and sorcerer faced one another, threat suspended in perfect balance.
She felt it—a fracture in the pattern of reality itself, raw transition force straining against the world's frame. A single thought, and it would tear space apart, consuming all within reach. Even victory here would mean nothing if the battlefield itself ceased to exist.
Then, with a measured gesture, she folded the Mirror Dimension back into itself. The hall of the forge-lab reasserted its presence in the blink of an eye, the infinite glass gone as though it had never been.
"But know this—this isn't over," she said while thinking about her next steps to handle this new problem without compromising the safety of the world.
So without any other world, her image faded.
Freya's aura receded, though her gaze lingered on Luthar, lips curving into something between a smirk and a sigh.
"You know," she began, tilting her head so that the gold of her hair caught the forge-light, "instead of threatening to tear this little world apart, you can just let me show my face. That sorceress would've immediately surrendered."
Her tone was lilting, almost playful, but her eyes were sharp—as if weighing whether Luthar's choice had been prudence or unnecessary theater.
Luthar's augmetic optics whirred faintly as they adjusted to her gaze. "Perhaps," he said, vox-filters lending his voice the steady cadence of scripture, "but it doesn't matter anymore."
Freya gave a soft laugh. "Or perhaps you just wanted to test that energy."
From behind them, Hephaestus made a low, approving hum as she adjusted her weapon. "I think you lost your mind previously; you were threatening people; now you're threatening the entire universe."
Freya tilted her head, eyes narrowing in mock reproach. "And was all that posturing really necessary? We could've simply fought her. That woman might be a little strong, but cut enough of them, and she would fall."
Luthar's gaze drifted away for a moment. In truth, the danger was not in the clash itself but in the way the board could be reset. The fixed anchor of their arrival meant that if the Ancient One brought the Time Stone into play, the battle could be forced into an endless loop—a prison of repeating moments, like the fate of Dormammu. For her, it would be a single confrontation revisited again and again. For them, it would be an unending war with all its memories.
He refocused on Freya, optics clicking into place. "I'm not the only one playing with time and space," he said, voice calm but final. "I can't tell you why I chose to end the universe instead of fighting because I am afraid someone might be listening."
After this statement, everyone tried to relax first. Freya leaned against a workbench, Hephaestus methodically put away her hammer, and Luthar's mechadendrites moved with quiet precision over a data slate. No more words of threat passed between them—only the silent calculus of what came next. They would need a plan and prepare the countermeasures for everything.
Far away, in the quiet of Kamar-Taj, the Ancient One lifted the Eye of Agamotto. The green glow spilled across her hands as the Time Stone's power unfurled, rewinding, twisting, and projecting possibilities. She sought only one glimpse—how the battle would have played out had she pressed the attack.
Ten minutes later, her eyes opened.
In the vision, there had been no Luthar. No two goddesses, made of divine energy. Only herself, the silent void where the battle should have been.
Not finding any solution from the time stone, she decided to investigate herself before making her next move.
Author note: I didn't want to write about the fighting with her as that would be stupid + MC does have this weakness and I do not want to close the doors of learning method specially since they are magic is all about energy manipulation by the way this chapter is written in two days because I am taking break so I would be restarting the writing thing for Monday and at least try to write 10 chapters 8 of tpm 2 for other novels