I moved like lightning, cutting down beast after beast as I pushed forward.

  The menagerie of monsters Chamabra had assembled was absurd in its scope. It looked like someone had taken a zoo, fed it through a horror blender, and turned it loose.

  Luckily, beyond the grotesque body-warping, none of them had any esoteric powers. Physically, they were tough enough to be dangerous, but not enough to slow me down.

  Space folded, and I reappeared a heartbeat before a moose's antler ripped through the air where my head had been.

  I pivoted, let the momentum carry me, and backhanded a ssh that would have been impossible even yesterday. The lightsaber carved through fur and limb in a blur I didn't bother identifying.

  Another shift, my bde already in motion. Three strikes flowed together, cutting down the towering snake as its massive body colpsed to my right.

  I leaned back as cws hissed past my face, then countered, wrist flicking once as I severed the paw at the joint.

  I kept moving, lungs burning, forcing my breathing steady as I scanned the chaos around me. Three, maybe four chained teleports were my limit. Push past that, and the vertigo would creep in; even with my rings, I couldn't risk it messing me up.

  But no matter how many I cut, they just kept coming.

  There had to be hundreds of the damn things. I'd already torn through what felt like a small army, and there was still no end in sight.

  Thank god for the lightsaber. Their flesh was unnaturally dense. I'd tried punching and kicking early on, and even with my super strength, it barely left dents.

  Three massive wolves burst from the treeline, jaws wide as they barreled straight toward the fleeing X-Men and prisoners.

  I inhaled once.

  Thunder cracked as my feet shot off the ground.

  "Ichi no kata: Hekireki Issen Rokuren."

  I blitzed with the technique. Twin sshes per target, clean and precise. Each wolf split neatly in two, bodies skidding apart in smoking halves before they ever hit the ground.

  "Go, go!" I waved hard at the frozen group. "Run!"

  That finally snapped them out of it. The younger X-Men reacted first, shouting, grabbing arms, and dragging people along. They herded the prisoners away from the fight as fast as they could manage.

  Good. As long as they got into the woods, there was a chance.

  [Feat Achieved! Jailbreak!]

  [+1 Silver Gacha Ticket]

  I turned just in time to bring the bde down through a charging bear, cleaving it from shoulder to hip before it could slip past me.

  The remaining beasts slowed. They began to circle instead, eyes fixed on me now.

  Good. If they broke past and chased the prisoners, I wouldn't be able to save everyone.

  My grip tightened.

  I could use a little help. Come on. Give me something good.

  [Rolling Silver Gacha Ticket]

  [Seamster]

  |Uncommon Trait|

  You are naturally very talented at sewing. You can spot fws in clothing and easily make your own or fix others.

  "Goddammit!"

  I didn't even get a second to process my brand-new, deeply unhelpful talent before a titanic roar tore across the clearing. The sound rattled through my bones and snapped my attention back to the real problem.

  Titan Logan was still locked in combat with Chamabra.

  It was a full-on kaiju brawl, two giants tearing into each other amid the wreckage of the forest.

  Logan had one foot buried in the earth, cws sunk to the wrist in warped muscle as he wrenched himself free from a sweeping rack of antlers. Chamabra answered by smming both hands down, eldritch force rippling along its arms as the ground cratered beneath Logan's heels.

  Logan went flying, plowing through trees like matchsticks before skidding to a stop. He was already back on his feet, blood pouring from a dozen gashes that sealed almost as fast as they opened.

  Without hesitation, he charged again, ducked under a horn, scrambled up the creature's forearm, and drove both cws straight into its shoulder.

  Chamabra shrieked. One horn cracked. Bck ichor sprayed. Then it retaliated, twisting in a way no sane anatomy should allow and smming Logan point-bnk with a burst of bck light that ate through the air.

  Logan hit the ground hard enough to make the trees shudder.

  He still got back up.

  That was the difference. Chamabra had size, brute strength, and whatever eldritch nonsense it was dragging in. But Logan knew how to fight. Even blown up to ridiculous proportions, his movements stayed disciplined. He took hits that would have fttened tanks and kept coming, grinding the monster down inch by inch.

  But it was slow.

  Too slow.

  Logan only had an hour; if the tarot ran out, we lose.

  I'm not sure how much time had passed, but we were on the clock.

  I ducked another wild swipe from a passing beast and clicked my tongue, scowling as I blinked into a new position and nded hard on a thick tree branch.

  I switched to Blessing.Power surged through me, stacked with my ring's strength until it felt like I could do anything. I switched to Catapult, the familiar pressure settling into my hands.

  Below, the beasts kept coming.

  They surged in waves, snarling and shrieking, bodies crashing through brush as they converged on the tree. Cws bit into bark. Something massive, big enough to snap the trunk clean in half, started hauling itself upward.

  I opened both hands.

  Pebbles rose first. Then rocks. Then boulders. I kept pulling, dragging more and more mass into being. Stones the size of people followed, then rger, then something outright absurd. The shadow grew until it swallowed my vision, blotting out everything else.

  I wrapped my hands around the impossible weight and threw.

  The impact sounded like a bomb going off.

  Super strength plus a super-light, house-sized projectile equaled pure devastation. The rock detonated on contact from the sheer force of my throws. A shockwave tore outward as shattered stone and pulverized meat bsted through the clearing.

  The screams came immediately.

  Several beasts were simply gone, reduced to paste in the span of a heartbeat. The rest didn't fare much better. Exploding fragments tore through bodies like shotgun bsts. Supernatural durability or not, they were still flesh and bone in the end. A sb of rock punching straight through a torso was more than enough.

  The ground became a mess of twitching limbs and bone.

  Then more howls rose from the treeline.

  I barely had time to reset my stance before the next wave hit, beasts scrambling up the trunk, cws gouging deep as they climbed toward me with renewed fury.

  So I kept throwing.

  Boulder after boulder. Each heave sent another chunk of earth screaming through the air, crushing bodies and exploding rock across the battlefield.

  [Feat Achieved! Monster Hunter!]

  [+1 Ptinum Gacha Ticket.]

  I tore it without slowing, another boulder already rising at my call.

  [0 - The Fool]

  |Rare Item|

  Tarot Card - Temporarily gives you a skill or minor ability that is best suited for the situation, said abilities rating cannot be higher than the Fool. 168-hour cooldown

  The card appeared in my palm. I gnced down, already about to rip it, when the sound tore through the battlefield.

  Chamabra screamed.

  Every remaining beast froze, then threw their heads back and howled in answer. One by one, they lifted off the ground, bodies going sck as if invisible strings had been hooked into their spines. Wolves. Bears. Twisted things I hadn't even cataloged yet. All of them rose and streamed toward the deer monster, flowing into it like blood drawn into a wound.

  "Logan!" I shouted.

  Titan Logan smmed into Chamabra's chest, cws carving deep furrows as he tackled it with everything he had. The impact shook the forest.

  It didn't matter.

  The thing barely acknowledged him. Its hands were already pulling the airborne beasts inward as they dissolved into bck mass and light.

  Above its head, something began to form.

  Not a shape. A presence.

  My body reacted before my brain caught up. Every instinct screamed at me.

  The sky dimmed, as if something behind reality had leaned closer to look.

  I felt it notice me.

  Reality fractured outward from that point, darkness spreading like a stain across the sky, edges tearing as if the world were thin paper.

  "Oh shit."

  I didn't hesitate and activated The Fool.

  [Void Travel]

  |Rare Ability|

  Legendary Mechanic - Allows you to temporarily slip into the void dimension. While in the void dimension, you can freely traverse space but are unable to interact with the real world. Time in the void dimension is slower than normal. The distance you have covered in the void realm is equal to real life, allowing you to teleport short distances with it. You can stay in the void dimension for 30 seconds, but this can be increased with training. 5 Minute cooldown.

  Thunder Breathing kicked me upward, unching me toward the chaos of Logan and Chamabra.

  The moment I touched Logan, I activated it. As I crossed the threshold, reality peeled away.

  And something was wrong.

  The void shuddered around me. My stomach lurched, vision doubling as nausea cwed up my throat. Even here, I could still see it, the dark wound above Chamabra's head twisting the void itself, bending reality in ways it shouldn't. My skull felt like it was splitting as sights and sounds flooded my senses, more than any human mind was meant to endure.

  Then the void cracked.

  Sound and weight smmed back into existence as we burst out, momentum carrying us forward into reality as we fell from the sky.

  —

  Wong loved being a sorcerer. It was his calling, the work he had chosen and would choose again without hesitation.

  Still, he would be lying if he cimed there weren't moments when it became… taxing.

  With a sharp exhale, he drove his fist through the chest of yet another darkling. The distorted thing shrieked as it unraveled, banished back to whatever sliver of the Dark Dimension had spat it out.

  In another time, this would have been righteous work. The kind that brought quiet satisfaction to his face.

  But did the bsted sorcerer truly need this many?

  Darklings were gssy and fragmented, bodies half-formed and shaped like poor pantomimes of insects. Individually, they were little more than pests.

  Unfortunately, there was never just one or two. Wong had destroyed over a hundred by now, perhaps more. He'd stopped counting once the first wave blurred into the second.

  A hiss of dispced air warned him just in time.

  His fingers snapped into a familiar pattern, a manda fring into existence as a cwed limb smmed into it. The shield bowed under the impact, runes bzing brighter as Wong dug in his heels and grunted, forcing it to hold. He twisted his wrists, rethreading the spell under strain, then shoved a surge of purifying force through the circle.

  The darkling screamed.

  Then it shattered, fragments dissolving into nothing as the magic burned it cleanly out of this pne.

  Wong turned and strode toward the ritual grounds at the heart of the sanctum, boots crunching over fractured stone and scorched sigils. Kaecilius and Mordo stood over the bound figure at its center, quietly arguing.

  The bound man was emaciated, skin drawn tight over bone, eyes sunken and unfocused. Around his neck hung an amulet glowing purple and green, its aura thick with bck magic that crawled unpleasantly across Wong's senses.

  "Are all the darklings gone?" Mordo asked, turning toward him.

  "Yes. I've banished the st one." Wong nodded and lowered himself onto a nearby sb of stone, fatigue finally catching up. "Any luck freeing the security guard?"

  "None," Kaecilius replied, frowning as he studied the amulet. "It overrode his soul entirely. The moment the amulet is removed, he will perish."

  "…Unfortunate," Wong said quietly.

  He exhaled and looked between them. "You two should go retrieve our wayward companion."

  Mordo bristled immediately. "And the ritual?" He gestured sharply at the etched circles and half-burnt runes carved into the ground. "We cannot simply abandon this, even if we are in another dimension."

  "I've seen simir ones," Kaecilius said, interest flickering behind his eyes. "I can document it, unravel what remains, and report to the Ancient One. It will be dealt with safely." His gaze sharpened. "But Jack and that other man may be in immediate danger. You should not waste time lingering."

  Mordo hesitated, jaw tight, clearly torn.

  Wong opened his mouth to agree when a sudden wave of wrongness washed over him. His head spun. The air thickened, turning heavy and hostile, like it resented being breathed.

  Mordo swayed, catching himself on his staff. Kaecilius went pale, eyes snapping upward.

  They all felt it.

  A breach.

  Not a minor tear in the dimensions. This was vast. Invasive. A pressure that made reality feel thin and fragile. Wong had dealt with dimensional breaches before, but never anything like this.

  He looked up.

  The sky had shattered.

  Light fractured into jagged seams as two massive shapes tore through the firmament.

  One was unmistakable, a giant version of the man he had met before, filing through the air. The other was a towering monstrosity, a grotesque fusion of deer and man, antlers sprawling like a crown as it plunged downward beside him.

  Wong tracked them as they fell, breath locking in his chest.

  The monstrosity hit first, smming into the center of the ritual grounds with a thunderous impact that sent stone and dirt flying in every direction.

  The ritual circles fred to life all at once, runes igniting in violent color as the air screamed and reality began to break once more.

  Ah… that's not good.

  ***

  Comments and Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Likes are like a drug to me and boost my creative juices.

  I have advanced chapters on my if you wanna read ahead.