Marvel: The Sole Player

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Black Sky didn’t expect Darian to be so ruthless as to have actually planted a bomb inside Madam Gao’s body beforehand.

And he detonated it so decisively, blowing it up without a second thought.

Black Sky considered himself a demon with no bottom line, a bad seed even among his peers—the kind who never touched a good deed and committed every evil imaginable.

But this human before him had one dirty trick after another, and his methods were extremely ruthless, never hesitating for a moment.

This style of acting was simply more demonic than he was!

With Darian’s "enthusiastic" help, Madam Gao successfully escaped Black Sky’s clutches, but the other leaders weren’t so lucky.

The black mist enveloped them, leaving them with nowhere to run; the moment their skin touched the mist, it began to fester, and flesh peeled away from bone bit by bit as a pungent stench of rot quickly spread.

Screams rose and fell, but they fell silent after only a few seconds.

Those leaders, along with the ninjas beside them, instantly turned into dark red blood-water, swallowed whole by the black energy without a single trace remaining.

The Five Fingers of The Hand, who had long plagued Hells Kitchen, were wiped out just like that, without any dignity.

The five of them couldn’t even put together a single complete corpse.

Darian watched the scene and clicked his tongue: "Truly a naturally evil demon, not even sparing your own four loyal subordinates. How heartless."

Black Sky’s lip twitched.

Bullshit, one of them was clearly killed by you.

However, he was already too tired to argue with Darian.

Bickering with this guy brought no benefit other than making himself half-dead with anger.

But this incident made him even more determined to kill Darian.

This human before him had a face as thick as the Sorcerer Supreme’s, and his level of insidiousness was an eye-opener even for a demon like him who had lived for countless years.

Most importantly, Darian was currently the person in charge of Kamar-Taj.

For the Sorcerer Supreme to entrust such an important position to him spoke volumes about Darian’s importance; he was likely to be the next Sorcerer Supreme.

A shameless and ruthless Sorcerer Supreme.

Just thinking about it made Black Sky’s scalp tingle.

Back then, facing that bald one, he had suffered enough. If another one emerged who was even more insidious and ruthless than that bald one, making trouble on Earth in the future would be harder than reaching the heavens.

Rather than leaving such a scourge, it was better to deal with Darian directly now, before he had fully grown.

Having made up his mind, Black Sky controlled the black mist, shrouding all the remaining ninjas of The Hand on the battlefield.

The immortality of these ninjas was useless against the black mist; they were directly consumed by it, with no room for resistance.

This was the price of borrowing power from a demon.

From the moment these ninjas of The Hand accepted the Beast Power, their bodies and souls no longer belonged to them; Black Sky could take them whenever he pleased.

"As expected, you should never touch high-interest loans."

Darian shook his head without any sympathy; The Hand had brought this upon themselves.

In just a few breaths, all the members of The Hand on the battlefield had turned into blood-water and been swallowed clean by the black mist.

The entire battlefield suddenly became empty, leaving only the pungent smell of blood and the churning black mist.

After devouring so much flesh and soul, the concentration of the black mist was an order of magnitude higher than before; as it churned, one could even hear faint wails—the cries of the remaining souls of those consumed.

Immediately after, the black mist was summoned and converged from all directions toward Black Sky’s body.

Black Sky spread his arms, allowing the black mist to pour into his body, a look of enjoyment appearing on his face.

As the black mist continued to pour in, Black Sky’s power surged wildly, the surrounding air distorting under the pressure of the black energy, and the ground even began to vibrate slightly.

And the mental power he had just expended against Darian was instantly refilled by the black mist, even overflowing significantly.

"Fortunately, I still have a trump card."

Black Sky felt both relieved and pained.

One must know that the physical dimension was protected by the joint efforts of the Sorcerer Supreme and the three Sanctums; it was not easy for a Dimensional Demon God to invade Earth.

Only by developing his own forces on Earth, like he had, could one descend upon Earth through smuggling.

However, Kamar-Taj was no pushover; as long as a Dimensional Demon God reached into Earth, the mages of Kamar-Taj would chop them off one by one.

Because of this, many Dimensional Demon Gods wrote their own magic grimoires or created magical items to secretly drop onto Earth, waiting for someone destined to pick them up, thereby slowly developing their followers and influence.

Simply put, it was fishing.

Some lazier Dimensional Demon Gods would even package a portion of their power and send it out, directly converting humans into their lackeys.

However, the risk was high, as there was a chance of raising a rebel who might turn around and beat them up.

And Black Sky was a lazy one; back then, he had rubbed a ball of mud containing his own power from his body and casually tossed it onto Earth. It was picked up by a certain Japanese person, and only then did The Hand develop.

Fortunately, The Hand was very loyal to him and had no thoughts of betrayal; through Black Sky’s cultivation and guidance, it became The Hand of today.

And now, to counter Darian, he had no choice but to personally destroy his own life’s work.

At the thought of this, Black Sky’s heart bled.

His eyes glowed with a crimson light, his voice cold to the bone: "To be the first human to push me to this extent, you should feel honored."

That bald one didn’t count, because that time he had descended in his true form; the situation was different.

As he spoke, Black Sky raised a finger, and a fist-sized ball of black energy quickly condensed at the tip. The surrounding black mist poured into it, and in an instant, it grew to the size of a washbasin, emitting a suffocating pressure.

Suddenly, the black energy ball blasted toward Darian.

Darian reacted extremely quickly; almost the instant the energy ball was fired, he leaped back several meters, barely avoiding the Impact of the black energy ball.

Boom!

The energy ball hit the ground and exploded on the spot.

The massive Impact kicked up a cloud of dust, blasting a crater several meters wide into the ground. The walls of the crater were blackened by the corrosive black energy, with wisps of black smoke rising, and the rubble inside had turned to powder.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Several more black energy balls condensed around Black Sky, pouring toward Darian one after another.

Darian didn’t stop moving, dodging left and right in the gaps between explosions. The black energy balls kept detonating around him, the explosions forming a continuous chain that shook the entire underground space violently. Soil and rocks rained down from above as if it might collapse at any moment.

While Black Sky was firing energy balls, the shadow beneath his feet suddenly writhed, and a Shadow Soldier holding a long blade emerged from the ground, thrusting a sword at Black Sky’s face.

Splat!

Black Sky noticed immediately and looked down, crushing the Shadow Soldier with a stomp.

With this interruption, there was a slight pause in Black Sky’s barrage. Darian seized the opportunity, pushed off hard, and charged straight at Black Sky.

He covered the distance of over ten meters in two steps, closing in within a single step of Black Sky in the blink of an eye.

Darian’s right fist was clenched tight, a burst of light blooming on its surface.

With the momentum of his charge, his right arm swung from behind, his waist and hips twisting simultaneously. The light on his fist grew stronger as he swung, trailing a white arc aimed straight for Black Sky’s face.

Charging!

Boom Punch!

Black Sky did not dodge.

He threw a right punch, his dark red fist carrying a searing wave of air, meeting Darian’s fist head-on.

The two fists collided in mid-air.

Bang!!

With a dull, massive boom, a visible shockwave exploded from the point of Impact, washing over the surroundings.

Darian and Black Sky each retreated several meters.

Black Sky looked down; white smoke rose from his right fist, marks from the holy light’s burn remained on his knuckles, and a layer of dark red skin had been scorched off.

But that wasn’t the point; the point was that the holy light had penetrated his body, and several debuffs instantly appeared on him.

Weakness, Slowness, Poison, Bleeding, Dizziness...

Such evil holy light!

Black Sky was shocked.

Is this really a mage from Kamar-Taj?

Mages of Kamar-Taj usually use white magic, so how was this guy’s black magic even smoother than his own?

Black Sky’s crimson eyes stared intently at Darian: "I remember Kamar-Taj’s greatest taboo is black magic. Aren’t you afraid the Sorcerer Supreme will find out you’re using it like this?"

Darian didn’t care at all: "I believe the Sorcerer Supreme will understand me."

One must know that the black magic grimoires he had flipped through in the Kamar-Taj Library had quite a few annotations.

When Darian was bored while reading, he studied them; the annotated content was incisive, showing such a deep understanding of the principles of black magic that it could absolutely not be achieved without extensive practice. The annotator was certainly a master mage proficient in black magic.

Coincidentally, he also found that the handwriting was very similar to the textbooks personally written by Ancient One.

The black magic those evil mages were playing with now might just be things Ancient One had finished playing with decades ago.

Those evil mages would never dream that the top boss of their own faction was actually the leader of the opposing faction.

Black Sky snorted: "You humans talk about peace and justice, but behind the scenes, you play more tricks than anyone."

That wasn’t wrong, and Darian didn’t refute it.

With a wave of his hand, the shadows beneath his feet surged wildly, and several black chains flew out, quickly binding Black Sky.

Next, he grasped the air with his right hand, condensing a magic sword that was even larger than usual.

Darian’s arm muscles tightened, the blade pulled back slightly in a Throwing posture.

Mana poured continuously from his palm, the light on the magic sword growing brighter and brighter, and a slight spatial distortion began to appear around the blade.

At the moment the light was most dazzling, Darian stepped forward with his right foot, twisted his waist and hips, and exerted force from his shoulders and back. His entire right arm, like a spring stretched to its limit, hurled the magic sword out.

Charging + Throwing!

The moment the magic sword left his hand, a visible white channel was torn through the air. The blade trailed a wake, moving so fast that even afterimages were blurred, heading straight for Black Sky.

"Pointless struggling," Black Sky said dismissively.

Between the pair of horns on his forehead, a ball of pure black energy suddenly condensed, compressed to the size of a fist. Its surface was smooth as a mirror, yet the surrounding space was being crushed inward.

Just as the magic sword reached half a meter in front of Black Sky’s chest, the black energy blasted out.

The two forces collided instantly in mid-air.

Rumble—!

A deafening explosion rang out.

A ring of white and black energy exploded from the center of the collision, turning into a shockwave that swept across the surroundings. The ground was torn up, rubble melted in the high temperature, and the air was filled with a pungent burnt smell.

The entire underground space shook frantically, large areas of the ceiling cracked, and huge chunks of rock wrapped in soil crashed down.

The strong tremors spread nearby, shaking the ground of Hells Kitchen.

"What’s happening?"

"Is it an earthquake?"

"Are the Aliens attacking again?"

People on the streets were in a panic, looking around.

The tremors from the ground came wave after wave, and the car alarms parked on the roadside were set off in a chorus.

Most people didn’t know what was going on, only Daniel and the others who had run to the perimeter knew that this was all caused by the battle between Darian and Black Sky.

Jessica grabbed a barrier to steady herself, the vibrations under her feet making her almost unable to stand.

She stared at the building in the distance where rubble was constantly falling, her voice tight: "Is that still human?"

"Uh, that’s hard to say."

Daniel had heard some things about Kamar-Taj from his master, knowing that the place had no entry restrictions—not by race, or even by species.

So he wasn’t quite sure if Darian counted as human either.

Boom!

Just then, another massive explosion rang out.

This time the tremor was even stronger, and the group almost fell over.

Rumble—!

Before they could steady themselves, the unfinished building before them collapsed with a roar. Concrete fragments poured down like a waterfall, smashing into the ground and kicking up a massive cloud of dust that obscured half the street.

Before they could recover, the pile of ruins suddenly exploded from within.

Amidst flying rubble, two figures—one white and one black—leaped out, landing on high points at opposite ends of the ruins.

The white one was Darian, and the black one was Black Sky.

At this moment, Darian was covered in wounds, looking in very bad shape. The white light on him had become very dim, no longer solid as before, and it flickered erratically like a light bulb with a bad connection.

In contrast, although Black Sky was completely naked and looked somewhat scandalous, he was largely unharmed.

The black mist on him was even denser, frantically eroding the white light on Darian and constantly compressing his space.

The range of the white light around Darian began to shrink rapidly, gradually leaving less than a meter, appearing as if it would be completely swallowed by the black mist at any moment.

Black Sky stood on high, looking down at Darian with a clear sneer on his face: "A human is a human after all. Are you finally unable to hold on?"

Darian didn’t speak; he took out a pill and tossed it into his mouth.

[Item: soldier pill (Restores a certain amount of mana after consumption and fills the stomach; an essential medicine for every ninja on a mission.)]

After eating the soldier pill, his nearly depleted mana was instantly restored.

"Did you think you were the only one with a trump card?"

Darian said calmly: "It seems it’s time to use some illegal methods."

As he spoke, a powerful magical aura erupted from him, and the previously dim white light suddenly flared up, instantly pushing back the surrounding black mist.

Seeing this, Black Sky’s expression became wary.

A mage’s illegal methods were nothing more than performing forbidden magic with a great cost, which might even lead to their own downfall; he had to take it seriously.

"Let you witness the true power of a mage."

Darian shouted, his arms suddenly spreading wide: "Mecha, Fusion!"

Black Sky: "???"