Stranglehold kept sending waves of gleeful thoughts and an insatiable thirst for slaughter, forcing Su Ming to pause several times to calm it down before continuing his work.
Monarch, meanwhile, retched even harder as he watched the creature on Deathstroke's body devour entities hundreds of times its size.
As a mage, Monarch had seen plenty of bizarre creatures during his astral projections. Many people unknowingly carried extradimensional parasites, completely unaware of their presence.
To Deathstroke, the streets of London appeared quaint and ordinary. To Monarch, they were a vibrant jungle, teeming with life. Humans were never truly alone.
With "astral vision" active, a mage walking the streets would see people hosting massive centipede-like or starfish-like extradimensional beings, living their lives oblivious to the attachments.
Buildings were crawling with extradimensional flora, parasitic entities from the third dimension, mottled like shipwrecks at the ocean's floor.
These creatures fed on human emotions, while the plants accelerated the decay of structures. Most posed no real harm to human health.
Only a rare few were dangerous, and for ordinary people, losing a bit of emotion wasn't a big deal—emotions were renewable, after all. The British, famed for their politeness, were no strangers to this.
Chatting about the weather with acquaintances before and after having emotions siphoned—what difference did it make? Mages typically ignored these entities.
It was a matter of dimensional balance. Mages only banished those that posed a threat to humans.
The challenge was convincing regular people to undergo an exorcism.
Not everyone believed in the supernatural. In Monarch's younger days, magic and witchcraft had a foothold, especially before the Victorian era.
But with the rise of science, fewer people trusted in the occult.
If Monarch stopped someone on the street to warn them of an invisible extradimensional pest draining their soul and vitality, who would believe him? They'd be more likely to call the police.
To many, science and mysticism were opposites. Of all occult theories, people only believed in The Presence, and even that couldn't be proven.
So, for the past century, Monarch had kept his business discreet. If someone plagued by a parasite sought him out for an exorcism, he'd charge for a ritual.
Without clients, he didn't go preaching on the streets. Using magic against the police was a surefire way to end up in the Tower of London.
But now, despite his experience with countless extradimensional beings, none had ever affected the mind and will like the creature before him.
Monarch's nausea came from a dizzying sensation, as if something was yanking his brain into a wild spin while he rode on horseback.
To Su Ming, these creatures were eerily silent. But Monarch's world, viewed through his soul-sight for safety during action, was different.
The creatures' cacophony and their death throes pierced his soul like a drill.
When Stranglehold stuffed its segmented tendrils into its maw, Monarch could almost see countless eyes and tiny mouths sprouting from them, shrieking endlessly.
Monarch's mind remained sharp. He knew this was merely the backlash of his spiritual vision. He could endure it, but it drove home a truth: sometimes, ignorance was bliss.
Su Ming kept an eye on the mage's condition. Monarch looked rough, but his flushed, glossy complexion suggested he was fine.
Besides, wasn't vomiting a normal reaction to encountering "Cthulhu" mythos creatures? Every investigator went through it. With enough exposure, you got used to it—and maybe even glimpsed some ancient wisdom from The Presence.
After all, Elder Gods didn't care about sides. Their power was just power, no matter who wielded it.
Take Belasco. He'd kidnapped and assaulted Dante's girlfriend, leading to her death. When Dante came for revenge, the Elder Gods—whether through whim or lack of thought—granted Dante their power when Belasco prayed for it.
The once-frail poet defeated the Hell Lord in a few moves, and the Elder Gods even sealed Belasco away until decades after Dante's death, when an accident freed him.
Talk about frustrating—Belasco couldn't even confront the Elder Gods about it. He just had to swallow the loss.
It was pure bad luck. The Elder Gods didn't target anyone; they lacked the concept entirely.
When Belasco fought other Hell Lords, his luck was stellar. Whatever power he sought, the Elder Gods provided.
But against Earth's heroes? His dice rolls tanked. The Elder Gods always backstabbed him, twisting his wishes into their opposite.
Like the time he was surrounded by the X-Men and refused to surrender.
He performed a ritual, praying to the Elder Gods, "I don't want enemies in front of me anymore!"—meaning he wanted them dead.
The Elder Gods granted his wish—by compelling Belasco to apologize to the heroes.
The X-Men, ever the bleeding hearts, saw no need to keep fighting a Hell Lord they couldn't kill, especially after achieving their goals of saving people or the world.
So, with the Hell Lord's groveling escort, the X-Men happily teleported away.
No enemies left. Wish granted.
Su Ming was intrigued by the Elder Gods' power. As a source of dark magic, it could achieve the seemingly impossible, as long as one didn't dive too deep into forbidden knowledge.
Sadly, his own limitations—no magical aptitude, his mind shielded by X-Metal—cut him off from the Elder Gods. No whispers in his ear, no dreams of R'lyeh under the sea. He'd never be an investigator.
Besides, Marvel's Elder Gods were a bit of a mixed bag, not exactly a pure Cthulhu mythos.
Marvel used the Cthulhu concept as a backdrop. Few Outer Gods remained active. Shuma-Gorath, Doctor Strange's nemesis, the Eye Demon, was one of the more prominent ones, able to frustrate Strange to the point of suicide to escape reality.
At the top of Marvel's Outer God hierarchy, Azathoth, the blind idiot god, was firmly stuck in the background, forever rocking out in some unknown corner.
"What abilities did you pick up? Learned any new tricks?"
Su Ming glanced at Monarch, satisfied he wasn't losing it, then turned his attention back to his work.
Standing in a pristine, empty cavern, he removed his helmet to take a smoke break. The tendrils were slippery and sticky, making weapon strikes tricky. Every attack required precise angle calculations—thousands in mere minutes—leaving him a bit irritated.
He jammed his weapon into the ground and patted his chest, checking in with Stranglehold. A new ability might lift his mood.
Stranglehold struggled to describe its new powers, opting to demonstrate instead.
First, it activated a partial transformation, encasing Su Ming's hand in Asgardian-style gold armor. Then, it secreted a mysterious, viscous fluid from the armor's surface.
"Enhanced defense, huh? Doesn't seem that useful, and it makes things greasier when activated."
Su Ming smirked, unimpressed.
With both he and Stranglehold boasting healing factors, the Icon Armor was mostly there to prevent looking like a bullet-riddled mess.
Unlike Deadpool, Su Ming didn't want to return from missions in tatters. Even with regeneration, getting shot full of holes or blown to rags wasn't ideal.
Extra defense from Stranglehold just meant tighter grips when it strangled foes—hardly groundbreaking.
The symbiote sent a wave of hurt feelings, stung by its host's dismissal. Undeterred, it showcased a second ability.
It grabbed a rock from the ground, sprouted a mouth on a tendril, and swallowed it. Seconds later, it extended a long tongue to show Su Ming—the rock was completely digested.
"Hm, devouring inorganic matter? Handy for digging through mountains or clearing paths without me using Godslayer."
Su Ming nodded in approval. Not a game-changer, but more useful than the last one. Everything's relative.
Stranglehold's big, white eyes squinted happily at the praise, but it wasn't done yet.
It extended another tendril, waving it like a magic trick before transforming it into the appearance of stone. It tapped Su Ming's chest plate with a clank.
"Oh? Mimicking atomic structures? Now that's big."
Before, Stranglehold's mimicry was superficial—suits or armor that still felt like cold, soft symbiote tissue. Anyone touching it could tell the difference.
Now, after consuming the rock, it could replicate the material's elemental composition, fundamentally altering its own substance.
That was a game-changer.
Su Ming's first thought was to feed it X-Metal.
Unfortunately, X-Metal, despite its name, was pure energy. Stranglehold tried, holding a droplet in its mouth before spitting it out, sending a frustrated "can't do it" vibe through their neural link.
If X-Metal was a no-go, then power-infused stones like the Lantern Rings or Gems were likely off the table too.
Stranglehold's ability was limited to mimicking pure material structures, not energy.
Even so, this was a massive upgrade. Symbiotes had limitless growth potential—maybe it could evolve further.
"Good job. When we're back, I'll take you to Chinatown for some spicy fish head."
Su Ming gently patted Stranglehold's tendril, like petting a cat, though it was slick and slimy.
The symbiote sent a protesting vibe—it wanted raw fish heads. Spicy fish head was clearly Su Ming's craving.
"Alright, alright. I spotted traces of a demon army at the other cave entrances. We'll chase them down, and you can snack on a few demon heads. Deal?"
Su Ming pressed the tendril back to his chest, exasperated. He wasn't sure if demons even had brains, and if they didn't, Stranglehold wouldn't be happy.