Chương 58: Trapped

Mason heaved dramatically, his laughter coming in haggard wheezes as he held his trembling fists. This had taken everything out of him. His three energies had been nearly completely consumed by the attacks, especially his Divine Sense. But the result spoke for itself. Four demons about as powerful as the Incarnation of Set, and they had all been killed. The dimensional suppression of his energies over theirs had certainly helped, but that was still an extremely powerful attack.

Far more importantly, though, Mason felt that he had discovered the path to taking that step. It felt obvious, with hindsight, but it was all about bringing all three of his treasures to their peak, and causing a qualitative transformation in them. Though he had been unaware of it at the time, he had already gotten started on that when he first performed a Chi Manifestation at Fisk Tower, with the dragon head.

That was a preliminary fusion between his Chi and a Concept he still did not truly grasp, so not quite on the level of a Concept, but it was definitely related to the Dao. Recovering his breath, Mason looked around Kamar-Taj, feeling invigorated despite the huge energy spending he just did. His actions had only distracted the others for a moment, and they had already gone back to fighting. And most noticeably, Yao was absolutely mowing through the demons.

She fought with a pair of energy mandalas, slicing through a demon with each wave of her arm. Her fighting style was a lot more martial than one would expect of the Sorcerer Supreme, but that did not mean she was any less scary to face. Since he did not have much Chi left, he kept it internally to revolve around his body to improve his stamina, and ran by Izo's cane sword to join the fight.

Although a plain sword was not as effective as a Chi-empowered strike, Mason remained plenty powerful even without his Three Treasures. With the demon heavy hitters dead, it did not take too long to clear the rest. Flicking the demon blood off his blade, Mason approached Yao, who looked like she had only taken a light jog through the park, and said, "So, the old man is dead." He stared at her, and she nodded peacefully.

"I heard. I am saddened at the passing of an old friend, but I have seen too many for it to break me. I am surprised you are this calm about it. You were quite bloodthirsty the last time the Hand tried to kill your friend." Mason looked down at the cane sword, sighing, "It was different. She was an innocent, defenseless bystander who got attacked only to hurt me. The old man died fighting. Don't get me wrong, I feel saddened by his departure, but I'm sure he died without regrets.

And besides, I will see him again, even if possessed." She offered him a kind smile before asking, "If you don't mind my asking, what did you do to those demons? I never saw or even heard of anything quite like it." As always, Mason did not see a problem sharing. He, too, realized he had certainly made a monumental discovery, something others would have hogged for themselves till the day they died, but that was just not him.

So he said truthfully, "I haven't given a name to it yet, but I think that was the first step of the method to breakthrough. I mixed the powers of two Treasures together, first my Spirit and Breath, then my Breath and Essence. I was aiming for complete fusion, but I could only manage to mix them. I discovered this a while back, but I only realized what I was doing just here. I got inspiration from our friend Fat Cobra." If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent.

Report it. Fat Cobra had used lightning blasts with his palm strikes, which no doubt came from his connection to Xuanwu, the Immortal Beast whose Chi he held within. It had been an even more rudimentary application of the power than Mason's first attempt, but because it involved the flashy Lightning Dao, it had been easier to notice. Yao was deep in thought for a moment, a slight frown marring her face, before she said, "We should take our time then. We have two Immortal Weapons with us, so-""Ancient One!

Ancient One! They took the Fat Cobra!" Mason and Yao sighed in unison, turning to look at the Apprentice running over. Yao asked him, "What happened?"

"It was Stick, Ancient One! He had been corrupted!" Mason looked at Yao blankly.

"You did not check that Stick had been turned?"

"Of course I did." Yao frowned, her gaze cast down as she muttered, "But that's impossible, the conversion should take hours, and they only left for five minutes. And I would have felt the Mark of the Beast on a recently turned person…" Mason looked at her suspiciously, finding it hard to believe any of this could have eluded Yao.

"Then you think he has been compromised for days? Weeks? Longer than that? And none of us felt it?"

"That's what's troubling me. I could not possibly have missed it if he had been turned. The Mark of the Beast is not exactly a subtle thing. But I still find the possibility of all of us missing it more probable than Sadhan working willingly for the Hand. You must understand, it was his life's purpose to take down the Hand." Mason frowned and asked what he felt was obvious, "Have you considered other forms of mind control?" Yao pursed her lips, but kept her expression vague enough to elude Mason.

"Sadhan might not have become a Grandmaster or continued with the Second Form of magic, he was a master of psionics. I do not think I could have manipulated him so seamlessly myself, and I've had nothing but time to master my craft."

"Couldn't it be the work of a mutant? They don't exactly answer to the rules of logic." Yao thought about it for a moment, countless possibilities streaking in her mind.

"Possible, but highly improbable. There is a reason there are so few mutants left today. The truly powerful ones should have all disappeared as well, or their powers muted at the very least." Mason cocked an eyebrow, curious.

"You know the reason behind their disappearance?" She sent him a look like he was asking something obvious before sighing, "It was an incident some years back. I don't know how it came to be exactly, but there was a spell that affected nearly the entire mutant population, trapping them in time."

"Trapped in time? A whole race?" Yao nodded gravely.

"It was powerful magic. Or at least it appeared to be magic of some kind. But it is neither here nor there. The point is that over 99% of the mutant population was time displaced, trapped by the space-time barrier protecting our world. The odds for a mutant powerful enough to mind control Sadhan without my knowledge are abysmal. Too low to seriously consider. But since I can't think of another reason…"

Mason tapped the cane sword's handle, his mind on the mutant situation rather than the mystery of Stick's manipulation. The way she spoke of it, it almost sounded like Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet. Although he had wiped them out of existence in the MCU, when they came back it was like time had not passed.

Mason did not believe that was what had happened here, since he doubted anyone capable of gathering all six stones from the universe would care about wiping out mutants alone, and even if they had, they would have gotten 100% of them, not 99%. The other similar event Mason could remember from the comics was M-Day. He had not read the storyline, but he was pretty sure it was the Scarlet Witch who had gone bonkers and erased the power from all mutant.

But there was a rather large step between removing their powers and trapping them in time. Shelving it for now, since he was still missing critical information to truly grasp the situation, Mason said, "So, nothing Stick told us could be trusted, but that doesn't really matter anymore, does it? They already got everything they needed for opening the gate, and we have no idea where they are." A smile returned to Yao, a sneaky, devious one at that.

"Not exactly."