Maximum Temperature

The Bald Woman.

At that clue, Mercer's expression darkened completely.

That confirmed that The Ancient One had orchestrated this, but why would she do it?

When they had talked, she had asked him to help deal with the spacetime issues surrounding the future Doctor Strange, yet now she had done this.

Could it be... An almost unbelievable possibility occurred to Mercer.

The Ancient One had not become the upright Sorcerer Supreme of Earth he remembered.

Perhaps, over all those years of absorbing Dormammu's power to sustain her life, she had succumbed to the darkness and become his follower!

"Forget it. Now isn't the time to think about that. First things first, I need to deal with the situation here."

Whatever he thought now was only speculation. He had to deal with the creature in front of him first.

He could not let the portal keep expanding. If the Great Old Ones entered this world, they would deal a devastating blow to humanity!

He checked the energy Galacta had just transferred to him. For this battle, he could use it freely.

"Galacta, stay back and watch. Don't interfere. Let me handle this myself."

Since this had happened because of him, Mercer wanted to resolve it himself rather than rely on someone else's strength.

"All right. Be careful."

Since Mercer had not asked her to intervene, Galacta stood to the side and watched. That was what she said, but her...

"If your complete form were here, even fifty more of me couldn't kill you. But you've only got a few tentacles here right now. If you think that's enough to throw your weight around, you're sorely mistaken!"

Light flashed in Mercer's hand, and two cards appeared in his grasp. One was the Dark Saber; the other was Lockdown.

The Dark Saber's beam blade was already active, while Lockdown transformed into his combat form and stood beside him. There was no need for words between them. A single thought was enough for Lockdown to know what Mercer wanted him to do.

The tentacles understood Mercer's words. Their curved lengths targeted him like countless vicious giant snakes, then sliced through the air, surrounding Mercer and Lockdown in seconds.

The countless tentacles abruptly tightened inward, trying to entangle them both.

If those massive tentacles, each several meters thick, wrapped around them, they could easily crush them into pulp.

A cannon barrel sprang out of Lockdown's forehead, and he produced two submachine guns from somewhere, firing at the incoming tentacles.

Mercer swung the Dark Saber. Although he had said these tentacles could do nothing to him, he still raised its temperature to the maximum.

At full power, faint distortions surrounded the Dark Saber's beam blade. Its maximum temperature reached two hundred million degrees!

Nothing on Earth could withstand its slash. Even the Vibranium Shield could not endure that terrifying heat. Anything it touched would instantly vanish into nothingness.

With a fierce slash at two hundred million degrees, Mercer severed a section of the huge tentacle that had remained unscathed after his lightning-infused punch. It dropped to the ground, writhed for a while, then went still.

From the cut, Mercer even caught a whiff of grilled squid...

"Smells good."

Mercer's instinctive remark utterly enraged the tentacles.

Their attacks grew far faster than before, until only faint blurs could be seen in midair.

He hurriedly raised the Dark Saber to guard himself. A tentacle slammed against the beam blade, and a layer of char rapidly formed over its tough surface.

The force behind the tentacle was not to be underestimated. Mercer gritted his teeth, his body dragged back a full seven or eight meters before he regained his footing.

With a flourish of his blade, Mercer broke free of the tentacle's contact and slashed at it again.

This time, the tentacle knew how hot the Dark Saber was. Rather than meet it head-on, it drew back, then dropped down and gripped the ground.

"The damned thing is trying to crawl out!"

Mercer instantly saw what it intended. Four or five enormous tentacles gripped the ground and pulled hard, dragging several more meters of their lengths out of the portal.

Lightning surged over his legs and burst beneath his feet. Clutching the Dark Saber, Mercer became a blur as he raced toward the tentacles.

Seeing Mercer move to stop them, the unoccupied tentacles attacked him.

But Mercer was faster. The enormous tentacles packed tremendous power, but they were slow. Every time one was about to strike him, he slipped aside at just the right moment, leaving it to withdraw in frustration.

Even when an attack came from behind, Mercer reacted as though he had eyes in the back of his head. He performed a backflip and used the momentum of his descent to plunge the two-hundred-million-degree Dark Saber straight into a tentacle.

The intense pain sent the tentacle thrashing wildly. Mercer used that force to leap away, but even in midair, he did not stop attacking.

His lightning could not reach the Dark Saber's terrifying temperature of two hundred million degrees, so it formed a long, slender chain in his hand instead. He held one end and threw out the other.

Even in the air, Mercer could control the Dark Saber and sever tentacles. It was even more agile than when he held it directly, and its reach was greater.

In the fewer than ten seconds he spent airborne, Mercer severed three tentacles before landing!

Just as I figured, this Great Old One isn't good at close combat. It looks like their entire race is known for psychic attacks, Mercer thought.

The Great Old Ones were indeed powerful, and their bodies were enormous. Even a blue whale, the largest creature on Earth, would become a whale fall after a single slap from one of them.

Their psychic attacks were even stronger. If the true body behind these tentacles appeared here and unleashed a psychic attack, Mercer's current abilities would be utterly incapable of resisting psychic power at the single-universe level.

But these were only a few tentacles. It was not yet powerful enough to leave Mercer helpless.

After landing, Mercer took advantage of the brief moment while the tentacles were still reeling from the intense pain. Lightning flashed beneath his feet again, and he appeared beside the Tesseract in an instant.

As he watched the Tesseract continuously release energy, Mercer's gaze fell on the Magic Array beneath it. Within its pattern was a streak of silver light-the very lightning he had injected!

"So it really was that lightning. Ancient One, you've really outdone yourself. You dragged me right into your scheme!"

His lightning was not wandering aimlessly through the Magic Array. It was circulating through it in a specific sequence.

After seeing the Magic Array, Mercer did not look annoyed. Instead, he grinned.

For all her careful calculations, The Ancient One had failed to account for Mercer's Sharingan, which could instantly learn any magic.

Perhaps, after seeing Mercer learn the entire Book of the Vishanti in less than half a day, The Ancient One had privately panicked.