----
The battlefield went dead silent.
Smoke parted.
From the crater stepped a man encased in gleaming silver armor, red cape billowing, a gold "S" emblazoned across his chest like a royal crest. Power and elegance merged in every step.
Nolan.
"I'm here."
His voice was calm. Cold.
His gaze locked on Hive and with just a glance, Nolan could already see through him.
Hive wasn't a man. He was a colony.
A living swarm of sentient parasites mimicking a single consciousness. A grotesque hive-mind wrapped in flesh.
Hive's expression twisted in fury.
"Kill him!"
At his command, the Inhuman army turned into one.
Flames, ice blasts, razor winds, and energy beams all surged toward Nolan in a hellish bombardment meant to vaporize anything in its path.
"Damn it!" Tony shouted.
Before anyone could react, Kaecilius raised his hand.
Dark magic erupted, expanding into a shimmering web of Mirror Dimension barriers, encasing the Avengers.
"Really?" Steve growled. "Now?!"
Kaecilius didn't answer. To him, these so-called heroes were noise. His focus was Nolan the Supreme Sorcerer. The man who once humbled him.
Let Hive handle the brute force. Kaecilius would keep the pawns out of play.
The barrage ended.
The smoke cleared.
Nolan was still standing.
Not a scratch. Not a dent. Not even a smudge on the chrome-like armor.
"Impressive," he said with a faint smirk. "But not enough."
Tony stared in disbelief. "He tanked all that?!"
Steve frowned. "That's… not normal."
Daisy swallowed. "Even my shockwaves couldn't do that…"
Kaecilius's eyes narrowed. "When did he become this strong?"
---
Nolan raised a hand.
The Mirror Dimension bent to his will. Kaecilius reacted instantly, conjuring dark wards to push back the incursion.
But before the clash could escalate—
CRACK!
A scarlet bolt tore through the air.
A flaming red whip slashed down toward Kaecilius with explosive force.
His eyes went wide. "The Whip of Seratok?!"
He conjured a circular dark shield inscribed with ancient glyphs.
Boom!
The whip shattered the shield in a flash. Kaecilius skidded back, shocked.
From above, floating down in crimson chaos—
Wanda Maximoff.
"You can call me the Scarlet Witch."
Behind her, glowing portals opened—dozens of decapitated cultists spilling to the ground.
Kaecilius's face drained of color.
Those were his elite apprentices. Dead in seconds?
And the magic… her aura was more oppressive than his own.
"Thanks for the assist," Nolan said to Wanda, eyes still locked on Hive.
"These Inhumans… they're quite the harvest."
Every single one was a potential genetic treasure.
If dissected properly, they could accelerate Nolan's next breakthrough. Especially with the mutated fish-based Terrigen samples incoming.
He was close to building his own Inhuman army.
Hive snarled. "Kill him!"
The Inhumans resumed their assault—fierce, relentless.
But Nolan didn't move.
He didn't need to.
---
The energy exploded around him.
Firestorms. Petrification rays. Sonic bursts. All swallowed by his armor's adaptive shielding and his own Energy Absorption Matrix.
Hive watched in horror.
None of it worked.
"That all you've got?" Nolan asked.
Hive's eye twitched. "You can't kill me!"
He opened his mouth spewing clouds of parasitic mist. The swarm engulfed an Inhuman nearby, devouring him instantly as Hive reformed from the body like some Lovecraftian resurrection.
Nolan's eyes darkened.
"You're wasting my test subjects."
He shot forward faster than Hive could track.
BOOM!
Nolan's fist crashed into Hive's arm.
Bones shattered. Tissue burst.
Hive tried to scream, but it was too late his form unraveled. A thousand parasites scattered like mist in the wind.
But Nolan wasn't done.
Hive began leeching onto another Inhuman desperate to rebuild.
"Enough."
Nolan drew in a deep breath.
Exhaled.
And unleashed a glacial hurricane.
The battlefield howled.
The swarm froze mid-air, crystallizing in waves of solid ice.
Hive, caught mid-transformation, tried to flee but the subzero storm pierced every cell.
"ABHHHBBBBBBB!!!"
He screamed—
And froze solid.
An ice sculpture of a god.
Silent. Shattered. Still.
Hive was dead.
For now.
----
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