Chapter Twenty-One: The Dimensional Demon Lord

Artanis soared into the air, gathering his strength as the clouds above responded to his power, flashes of lightning flickering in the sky. Raising his hand, psionic energy coalesced in his palm, blue lightning shooting upward and merging with the clouds. With Artanis’s gestures, a vast psionic storm unfurled, and countless Chitauri soldiers rained down like hail.

Yet the tide of enemies pouring from the portal seemed endless—one wave after another fell, but still they surged forward relentlessly. More Chitauri behemoths lumbered through the gateway, and Artanis joined forces with Thor to slay them before the portal, attempting to use their massive bodies to block the entry.

But inexplicably, the portal only grew wider. As Artanis watched its ever-expanding maw, a sense of foreboding gnawed at him. That premonition reached its peak when multicolored bubbles began to shimmer around the blue halo encircling the portal.

The instant these bubbles appeared, every Chitauri present seemed seized by a kind of frenzy, heedless of the attacks raining down upon them. At the same time, the attacking aircraft began to lurch and falter in the sky.

Artanis frowned deeply. At that moment, he sensed his protective barrier had been breached. Without hesitation, he flew to where Dr. Selvig was stationed.

Selvig gripped the Mind Scepter in one hand, frantically tracing some wicked symbol on the ground with the other, muttering incantations under his breath. Artanis’s instincts screamed a warning—he could not allow Selvig to complete the ritual.

Without delay, Artanis flashed to Selvig’s side and knocked him unconscious. As he drew close, he caught the tail end of Selvig’s whispered chant:

“…Child of the Void and Chaos! Guardian of the Abyss! Elder God of the First Darkness! Master of Dimensions! Enigmatic Sage! Keeper of Secrets! Lord of the Labyrinth! The Final Pinnacle! Gatekeeper! Pathfinder! The Primal, Almighty, Eternal Lord! Umel-Yat-Tawil! Yog-Sothoth! Your servant calls upon you!”

Artanis set the unconscious Selvig aside and picked up the Mind Scepter lying on the ground. The incantation Selvig had been reciting likely invoked some dimensional arch-demon, but how Selvig had come by such knowledge remained a mystery.

Glancing at the battlefield, Artanis saw only chaos. The Chitauri twisted in a frenzy, American fighter jets plummeted from the sky, and Tony Stark—Iron Man—had landed back on the ground.

Artanis shielded Selvig’s mind with psionic energy, rousing him. “Doctor, are you all right?”

Selvig rubbed his neck. “Ugh, not really. Why did I black out all of a sudden?”

Artanis regarded the apparently oblivious Selvig with a hint of relief. “You don’t remember anything?”

“I recall studying the ever-expanding portal, then nothing. The shield—what happened to it? Were we attacked?” Selvig strained to recall, but his memory was patchy.

Artanis nodded slightly. “Doctor, it’s no longer safe here. Let me get you off the battlefield.”

Selvig’s eyes widened. “If I leave, what about the portal?”

Artanis surveyed the chaos. “This battle is already beyond our control. The Cosmic Cube may have fallen under the influence of an unknown demon god. Your earlier blackout was caused by the power of an evil deity.”

“An evil god?” Selvig looked skyward. When his gaze fell upon the bubbles, a stabbing pain shot through his mind. Artanis quickly strengthened his psionic protection.

“Doctor, please come with me.” Artanis secured the Mind Scepter and held out his hand. Regaining his composure, Selvig hesitated no longer, grasping Artanis’s arm. Together, they swiftly withdrew from the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Steve Rogers, recognizing something was wrong, ordered everyone to retreat over comms. A moment before, he’d felt a force battering his soul. His iron will allowed him to shake it off, and, seeing his allies falling under its sway, he promptly issued the order to withdraw.

Tony Stark had been skirmishing with the Chitauri in midair when it suddenly felt as if his head had been struck hard. Fortunately, JARVIS adjusted the suit’s thrusters just in time to keep him from crashing before regaining consciousness.

“What’s happening, JARVIS?” Tony demanded as soon as he awoke.

“Sir, an unidentified energy swept across the battlefield, affecting everyone’s minds. Captain Rogers has ordered a full retreat.” JARVIS relayed the events, and though Tony frowned, he chose to regroup with his teammates.

Artanis brought Selvig to the Avengers’ rendezvous point. Thor, too, had been affected—he’d fallen from the sky but the impact jolted him awake. After hearing Steve’s orders, he made his way to the extraction zone.

Artanis set Dr. Selvig down, where soldiers quickly took charge of him. The U.S. military had amassed overwhelming force to surround the nuclear plant, but after the mysterious shockwave had devastated most of the air force, the army dared not advance. Instead, they hastily established a defensive perimeter.

“What did you find, Artanis?” Steve asked each returning Avenger, but received no answers—until Artanis spoke.

“It’s an unknown dimensional demon god. Somehow, it’s influencing the Cosmic Cube, which is opening a gateway for it to enter.” Artanis shared his understanding. Only he had witnessed Selvig’s bizarre ritual, and his mastery alone allowed him to sense the demon’s power, however faintly.

“A dimensional demon god?” The group exchanged uneasy glances; among them, only Artanis and Thor seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation.

…

At the Sanctum in New York, the Ancient One was enjoying afternoon tea on the balcony when she suddenly sensed a surge of evil power nearby. Instantly, she conjured a portal and stepped through to the source.

Upon seeing the bubbles drifting around the portal, the Ancient One immediately invoked the Mirror Dimension, attempting to encompass the anomaly. Yet the bubbles seemed to exist apart from space and time, utterly unaffected.

She frowned, puzzled as to how this demon god had bypassed the Sanctum’s defensive wards. Yet, wielding the Time Stone, she was the planet’s unrivaled guardian—even if not at the height of her power.

She first attempted to banish the entity from Midgard using time magic, but inexplicably, her spell failed. The bubbles remained motionless, immune to both the Mirror Dimension and the flow of time itself.