The Wanderer - 192 (Patreon)

Chapter 192 – Ideal Gift

[2009 – October]

Meeting Selene as a Realm Lord, I realized how much things had changed. And it was without a doubt a testament to how truly inhuman my perception had become since my ascension that I could so easily see through her now.

The fusion of my soul and the nexus core of the Darkforce Dimension, as well as the empowerment through the Darkforce Dimension that was enabled by my Energy Vessel, both of them made it so that even a truly ancient sorceress and schemer like her could not hide her true emotions from my eyes.

It somehow gave a bit more perspective to how powerful I had truly become after ascending as a Realm Lord since the power balance had shifted so drastically in my favour now.

All the caution and trepidation from before were mostly gone as I could now read her almost like an open book, her micro-expressions unable to escape my eyes while my ears could easily pick up changes in her heartbeat and my nose could detect the faintest alterations in her scent.

Even my comparatively weakest sense allowed me to somehow understand her emotional state by the taste on the tip of my tongue, the air itself changing minutely with the different hormones that her skin released whenever her mood changed.

It was still a bit unusual for me to be so hyper-perceptive of my surroundings, which was why I often suppressed my senses to a more human level and only unleashed their full capabilities regularly as a form of training.

But even without my physical senses having reached a superhuman level, my instincts and Extrasensory Perception as a higher being alone were certainly enough to give me an understanding of what she was truly feeling considering that the strength of my mind was simply colossal.

Still, aside from all that, the meeting had gone more or less as I had expected.

Also, asking Selene to take care of Ulysses Klaue, who I had spoken about with Emma just over a week ago, was not something that I had just done one fluke.

I was obviously aware that I had already helped Emma out by saving Celeste but I didn't want the actions that I had taken to save a member of my family to be seen as payback for all the help that she had given me, so I did not plan to go back on my word when it came to Klaue and the Vibranium that he had stolen.

This included the fact that overall, I was still resolved to limit my interference to avoid being drawn into another's cycle, as once that happened it was impossible to free myself of the 'karma'. After all, the cycle could not be broken, not even by an existence of my level.

It was after all the ultimate rule of existence. Creation invites destruction, and destruction sows the seeds of creation. Every action had its consequence, and every consequence its origin.

Not interfering in the life cycle of another was my own decision, this resolve being a chain of my own making. And naturally, I was free to loosen this chain, if I deemed it necessary and was willing to shoulder the consequences of my actions as I had done for Celeste and to intimidate Fury for example.

In this particular case though, I had decided to act to give something back to Emma out of gratitude, knowing very well that this would most likely create a domino effect on future events, which might possibly implicate me, even if unlikely.

Additionally, I wasn't overly concerned with disrupting the plot as I remembered it, since my mere existence would have already created many ripples, changing the outcome and course of many events.

At the same time, Klaue was a black market weapons dealer that had no backing, so the actual impact of his disappearance and possible death was somewhat limited.

The same was true for the Vibranium, as while it was a very valuable material, he had stolen less than a quarter ton. He had probably also sold some of it while using up some for his own projects.

As such, the actual amount was only around two hundred kilos and as I saw it, the damage this amount of Vibranium could cause was thus limited.

Ultron might have been able to use it to initiate an extinction-level event but he was a rather special case, and as much confidence as I had in Emma, it was highly unlikely that she or those under her could do the same. Not to mention that doing something like this was not in her interest at all.

Emma loved power and influence, so she would most likely try and forge connections while using part of the Vibranium as a bargaining chip and designating the rest for scientific research.

She had no interest in planning a man-made apocalypse as, without the world, her power and influence around the globe were useless.

On the other hand, I had also chosen Klaue because it might disrupt Ultron's plans in the future, the reason being that I was inclined to interfere and make sure that Ultron never even came into existence.

Ultron was easily one of the most dangerous beings around, even if his actual impact in the MCU was limited.

As an AI lifeform, it was incredibly difficult to kill him once he had been created and set free, while his learning capabilities and intelligence were weapons of mass destruction.

I still vaguely remembered having read about him in some online forum in my last life where it was mentioned that there existed a timeline where he came into possession of all six Infinity Stones and was able to wield them thanks to his body being made out of Vibranium.

Personally, I wasn't too afraid of facing anyone with an Infinity Stone since I could shield myself from their effects with my barriers. And while it was said that they contained infinite power, most beings in existence couldn't ever hope to draw out their full potential.

Things were different though when it came to beings that wielded more than one stone.

The power that could be unleashed by all of them together was enough to change reality on a Universal-scale, and that was something that could very possibly endanger even a Realm Lord such as myself.

I still wasn't sure if I should gather all the stones myself at this point as I didn't really need them to advance my power, but I certainly couldn't let someone else gather them. Especially not the likes of Ultron and Thanos.

I wasn't really that antagonistic towards their ideologies and I didn't really care about their crimes. Unfortunately for them though, I had people that I cared about and wanted to protect so there was a certain conflict of interest.

How much I would have to interfere to stop them, I didn't know yet though.

Another point was that Klaue might be useful in dealing with Wakanda but not useful enough to really forge a strong connection and business relations with them.

After all, they wouldn't just agree to sell someone Vibranium in exchange for a single criminal, since they had their priorities straight. Not to mention their traditions and pride which forbade them from doing so.

Klaue was only really useful as a bargaining chip for someone like N'Jadaka, better known as Killmonger, since he was a Wakandan himself and had a claim to the throne. For outsiders, he was barely useful as a tool to gain some common ground with Wakanda and maybe make them more cordial.

In that sense, Emma could use him to forge a connection with Wakanda but it wouldn't be enough to gain any substantial advantage in the short run.

All this meant that the monetary value of the Vibranium was definitely the most valuable part of the gift, while the opportunity to use it to buy herself some favours from different people was a close second.

In essence, it was pretty much the ideal gift for someone like Emma.

As for why I had asked Selene to take care of this for me? Well, the reason for that was rather simple considering that she owed me a debt and I could use this chance to see how willing she was to sincerely repay it.

The fact that it saved me the minor effort of having to deal with Klaue personally, and helped me realize that the Dark Priestess had obviously heard of the man, those were just additional and partly unexpectant benefits.

Leaving the Hellfire Club Mansion and Boston entirely, I returned home by dispersing my physical body into pure shadows made out of Darkforce and using my own realm as a gate that connected two different parts of space.

Soundlessly appearing in the short hallway behind the entrance, I could hear Jean's melodious laughter and Arya's happy hoots greeting me, the scene of the two playing together falling into my eyes.

My love was seated cross-legged on the large leather sofa and slowly reached out with her hands to try and catch the tiny owlet on the cushion beside her while Arya made use of her new-found connection to the Darkforce Dimension to avoid capture, hopping around and hooting gleefully whenever she escaped.

Since the little featherling was still a bit new to the whole process of jumping through dimensions though, she failed every now and then, which caused Jean to catch her and caress and tickle her with abandon.

It was such an innocent and beautiful scene that I just stood there for a few long moments and watched them until Jean turned towards me with a bright and gentle smile, her cute dimples visible on her soft cheeks while laughter filled her eyes.

"We've been waiting for you.", the gorgeous redhead stated softly, her hand reaching out in my direction.

Unable and unwilling to resist her charm, I took a few steps forward and grabbed her hand, letting her pull me behind her so that I could wrap my arms around her waist while she leaned back against my chest, her head half-turned as I tasted her lips intimately.

“Hu hu!”, Arya called out to me too, eager to welcome me as she appeared on my shoulder in a cloud of dark smoke.