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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them.
Since Webnovel is only allowing people to read on the app, for those reading on PC or browsers, I wanted to tell you that the story is available on Fanfiction (dot) net. Just search the story na and you'll be able to find it. I am planning on adding it to other platforms, but it'll take so ti because of the large number of chapters in this story. It should be done this week though. I will make a post about it later.
I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
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13th March 2012, New York City
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
I have to say that the last few days have been quite relaxing, especially after a very long day where I pretty much traveled through the multiverse, fought an alien invasion, went to Asgard, secured an alliance with Odin to help during Entropy's inevitable attack, and for so reason acted as so kind of a therapist to the King of Asgard. After a day like that, I needed a few days of just sleeping in and staying at ho with my family.
Speaking of family, I have to admit that I didn't see Rose's presence coming. She had grown into a fine young woman, and she had gotten a lot better at using her magic. I had underestimated how much I missed my sister in the last few years, and it was heartwarming to see her taking care of Wanda and Jean.
Another thing I didn't see coming was her eting Wanda and Jean. I did my best to keep the magical world and the non-magical world separate, but Rose seed insistent on breaking the walls between the two worlds and taking care of my daughter in my absence. She had done a very good job too, Wanda was now an emotionally stable adult, with so very slight abandonnt issues which my disappearance didn't help in the slightest.
Unfortunately, without being there, Wanda couldn't advance properly in her reality magic. Selene had done her best, but this branch of magic is one that only Wanda and I seed to have the ability to use, and I was very careful not to write down too much about it in books in case soone realized the potential danger that it possessed and would kill anyone who had the slightest inclination to that type of magic, or even any magic in general.
As for Jean, she seed to have hit a ntal block in the use of her abilities, probably in fear of accidentally hurting soone or losing herself to the power. It was sothing that I could understand, at the very least, whenever I had used Death's cosmic power, I ceased to be human, well, I haven't been human in a very long ti, but what I an, is that it was like I was standing in front of ants. I didn't care about their little anthills, their little weapons or their lives. They were unimportant. When you possess that kind of power, anyone would change. Everything feels small, aningless. The beauty of the universe starts to fade into a blank wall. It creates a sense of apathy that I always hated.
That was the main reason that I never even tried to gain more power. I was afraid of how little of would be left afterwards. I could understand Jean not wanting to subrge into her powers. She was afraid, and she was right to be. Once she inevitably takes that jump, nothing will be the sa for her. She will be different and she will see the world differently.
Even now, after I stopped being Death's avatar and returned her gifts, I still feel the imprints that she left , small abilities that I subconsciously used when I channeled my cosmic powers. I started to notice them during my first trip into the multiverse. I didn't realize what had happened until I returned to my universe. Perhaps, I had but I just didn't care, being stranded away from my ho and my family. But now that I have returned, I started to think back and realized how ridiculous my actions in the Harry Potter Canon universe were. Yes, I was powerful, I was very knowledgeable, but what I had planned was beyond any seer. It involved months of subtle manipulations that resulted in the exact outco I wanted.
It was mind blowing that I didn't realize what had happened to . Sohow, Death's cosmic energy imprinted on my magic. One of the gifts that required cosmic energy to use had latched itself on to my magic. It was a very dangerous gift and a very agonizing one, for at the very least.
Because Death wasn't just the end of life, it was the end of everything. Anything that is created in the universe will die. That's one of the most fundantal laws of reality, and that's just not people. Any object has an identity. A table is a table, and when it ceases to be one, it dies, in the taphysical sense. Death is the end of all things, alive, dead and nothing is spared, not even groups and ideals.
My little gift allows to see how to kill anything. I learnt how to destabilize the Ministry of Magic with a few words, I learnt how to destroy Harry's loyalty to the world and to the magical world. I learnt how to destroy his suicidal tendencies by getting him to et Daphne Greengrass, I knew exactly how to dismantle the prophecy strand by strand until only a single one would be left, and I would rupture it violently, gaining Fate's attention.
I hadn't even realized what I was doing. I was a very good manipulator. I could be cunning, but not to this extent, no one could. But now, I realized that my gift was growing stronger, and it hurt.
It hurt so much. I couldn't even turn it off. It was so hard, to not only see the world, but to also know how to destroy it. I was barely holding on; a mind, even one like mine, was never ant to process information like that without outside help, in my case it was Death.
I had used my Death sense before when I was serving the cosmic entity. It was how I could destroy wards and traps without even trying to. It was how I was able to dismantle armies, commit total genocide without a single survivor. Couple that with the rest of Death's powers, and nothing could survive , let alone hurt .
But now, without cosmic energy helping process the data, I was constantly in pain. I had it sowhat under control, but it was getting worse. Fortunately, I had a plan for that, one that I had planned to enact properly. But this was still a very bad sign, because what else could have been imprinted into my magic, into my soul?
It was a horrible conundrum, one that Selene seed to share as well. Unfortunately, I had to make a public appearance at the company. Selene was able to fake my disappearance using illusions, but now, she wanted to catch up on what has been happening.
We sat in my office, and I asked, "Alright, why did you want to co here. You know how pressed for ti I am with this."
Selene nodded, "we both know that you already designed the runic array and the only thing you're waiting for, is for the full moon to activate the ritual. I'm as worried as you are about this, but this company is important and you're its founder, whether you like it or not, and you've been gone for years. You need to catch up."
"Do we have to do it here and not at ho?"
Selene gave a wry grin, "We both know that if we were at ho, you'd find a way to get out of it, probably by hanging around the kids."
I sighed in resignation. I really hate the business stuff. "Fine."
Selene smirked victoriously, "Look, you're the one who created Marvel Industries, and your reputation as one of the most popular writers on the planet is what made it the world titan it is today. But now, we have a lot of problems, especially since it's our news stations that published the leaked video between Fury and the World Security Council."
"Are they suing us or sothing?"
"No, but Alfred ended up stopping dozens of cyber attacks, only half of which originate from SHIELD computers. Here is what he has been able to track so far."
Selene handed a piece of paper. I looked at the list of attackers. So were expected like the CIA, SHIELD, and the FBI. So were even foreign; MI6 was a bit of a surprise, but not a shocking one. But the few worrying ones ca from Latveria, which actually ca in quite far, compared to the others, Advanced Idea chanics, which seed to be a small bio-engineering company contracted to SHIELD, and so very worrying attackers that seed to be using SHIELD's own probes to piggyback on them. It was probably Hydra.
I gave a serious look to Selene, "So, the most worrying ones are SHIELD, Hydra, AIM, and Latveria. Those are the ones we'll deal with."
Selene looked at questioningly, "I know of the others, but I don't know much about AIM?"
I shrugged, "There's not much to know, to be honest. It's officially a research company that's trying to stabilize a serum that could regrow limbs, heal any disease, and so on."
"That doesn't sound too bad"
"Unfortunately, it also has the small side effect of making the subject explode half the ti, like huge living bombs, and if it works, it gives the subjects so sort of heat control and unlimited regeneration that would make Logan's look almost normal. They turned from a dicinal company into a militarized one and probably want to conquer the world or sothing. They haven't done anything drastic and the only human trials they had done before I left, were done using volunteers who knew the risks properly. But their leader, Aldrich Killian is very ambitions and hates Stark with a passion, sothing about standing him up in a convention or sothing."
Selene looked thoughtful, "It seems that SHIELD hired them or sothing."
I shook my head, "No, it's probably Hydra. SHIELD wouldn't have asked a biological engineering contractor to try to breach our servers. It's interesting that Hydra took note of them this early. What were they even trying to achieve by breaching our servers?"
"They wanted access to everything. Like even the unaired movies and TV Shows, the unpublished books, even the magazines. But I think they wanted access to our database, to see if we had more sensitive information that they could use."
"Were they surprised by our firewalls?"
Selene chuckled, "Yes, but it's not like we hid how well we protect our servers, with overenthusiastic fans trying to leak their favorite movies or sothing. But yeah, they'll know that sothing is up, considering that so of the most brilliant minds in the world can't even crack them."
I shrugged, "Well, they could. But do they really think that we have hidden secrets or sothing here? We made sure that everything we published was as impartial as possible and we were never biased for or against any party. The best they would find are the books and the movies, and not even the popular ones, since we keep those disconnected from the web. I don't think intelligence agencies will accept this in return for the millions of dollars in hardware they used to even try to hack us."
Selene shrugged, "Still, they're being very persistent in this. I found five SHIELD and Hydra moles in our offices just two days after the invasion."
"Well, if SHIELD and Hydra want a fight, they'll get one. I was planning on keeping my hands off and watching as they destroy themselves without my help. But I guess they're not satisfied with this; I'll handle the SHIELD situation myself. I didn't know what I would do with my ti after I was done dealing with my current power issue."
Selene had a very happy smile on her face, "Well, now, let's talk about the company finances during the past five years, and the new partners we made."
I groaned audibly, and Selene laughed at my misery. This was going to take a lot more ti.
And I was right, the damn eting took hours. No wonder she didn't to do it at ho; Wanda and Rose would have distracted halfway through. Still, Selene seed to have things in hand while I was gone.
anwhile, I was driving into the usual parking place where the portal was, so that I could teleport ho. Suddenly, I felt the car being destroyed by a bomb. I had teleported out easily enough, the explosion didn't even do anything more than surprise . Soone had tried to kill , or at least, soone had tried to kill Morgan Evanshade. I watched hidden as a man walked towards my destroyed car I had arrived in Selene's car and chose to return using one of the company cars which wasn't enchanted in any way. He was holding a machine gun in his hand, but what was more noticeable was his mask and his tal arm.
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