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"So this is the Border of Hell…"
Nolan stepped through the golden portal and was immediately struck by the shift in atmosphere. The sky was an oppressive twilight, awash in only two tones blood red and pitch black. Sulfur hung heavy in the air.
Classic hellfire.
Mordo walked beside him, his tone grim. "This is one of the closest sublayers of the Hell Dimension to Earth's primary realm. It's the most common gateway for infernal creatures seeking to invade."
Wanda stood frozen, taking it all in. This wasn't just another mission. She was standing in an entirely different dimension. Hell, in the truest sense.
She remembered what Nolan had told her during their training that magic in the Marvel universe didn't come from nothing. All true power came from dimensional sources. Chaos Magic included.
Her own powers were intimately connected to a cosmic entity Chthon.
Whether he wanted to manipulate her or had other plans, it didn't matter. She would master her gifts no matter the cost. She needed that power… to save her brother.
Pietro.
The Ancient One once told her that his soul might be trapped in the Underworld. When Wanda asked Nolan where that was, he only chuckled and said, "Even Thor wouldn't make it back alive from there."
Because it wasn't just the afterlife it was ruled by Hela, the death goddess and eldest of Odin's children.
But Nolan told her one other thing too: "If you get strong enough… not even Hela could stop you."
Nolan scanned the battlefield. Already, the mystic defenders of Kamar-Taj were locked in combat with demonic entities. That was their duty to protect Earth from the outside.
Earth, after all, was special. Too special. Every dimensional power, especially infernal ones, wanted a piece of it.
Demons like Mephisto and Lucifer weren't the only ones eyeing it. Even lesser-known threats, like the beast-kin of hell, wanted in.
That's why the Mystic Order had to act.
Still, Nolan's attention wasn't on the battle. His gaze narrowed on a solitary figure seated on a throne of obsidian and flame.
A blonde woman with glowing blue eyes. Human-looking.
Surrounded by towering hellspawn.
"That's the one behind the latest breach," Mordo muttered. "The ruler of the Borderlands. The Queen of this realm."
Nolan frowned. The name was familiar. Among Earth's mystics and mutants, there were a few known to have connections to the demonic dimensions Wanda… Emma Frost… and one other.
A mutant who had become something more.
Illyana Rasputina. Codename: Magik.
"You damned mystics," she suddenly spoke, her voice echoing across the scorched plain. "I was born on Earth. I just want to go home!"
She fixed her gaze on Nolan. "So you're the so-called Sorcerer Supreme? The one standing in my way?"
Before he could answer, Magik's power surged dark tendrils of corrupted magic twisted around her, forming flaming circles in the air. A black meteor storm rained down toward him like judgment.
Hell had its own rules. And here, her way was to strike first.
But Nolan didn't even flinch.
He exhaled.
A wave of glacial wind burst from his mouth, colliding with her infernal barrage mid-air. Fire met ice chaos met precision. The explosion lit up the dimension like a second sun.
"Wanda. Mordo. Help the others," Nolan said calmly. "I'll deal with the Queen."
In a blink, he vanished from sight.
"Stop him!" Magik shouted.
The creatures around her lunged demons, flamebeasts, horrors shaped in nightmare. A massive fire demon roared, wielding pure hellfire, a flame far deadlier than anything found on Earth.
But Nolan didn't slow.
Clad in arcane armor, he tore through the inferno, unfazed. He drove his fist forward—
Boom.
The demon exploded like a collapsing volcano, molten fragments flying in every direction.
In Hell, demons only truly die if their souls are destroyed.
Which is exactly what happened next.
A spectral shockwave burst from Nolan's palm striking the demon's soul and shattering it completely.
Nolan was a master of dimensional space and soul magic. Even Kaecilius' duplication spells were useless against him he could tear illusions apart by anchoring to a target's soul.
So obliterating one lesser hellspawn? Child's play.
One by one, Magik's guards fell.
She rose, eyes wide. "You… you know who I am?"
"You're Illyana Rasputina. Magik. Sister to Colossus. A mutant with rare magical affinity."
"You know my brother?" she asked, stunned.
"I do."
This dimension, this twisted middle ground between Earth and Hell, was habitable, but not indefinitely. The longer humans stayed, the more they risked being corrupted into demons themselves.
"Then why are you stopping me from returning to Earth?" she growled, fury and confusion mixing.
Nolan hovered before her, calm and unshaken.
"Kamar-Taj exists to stop dimensional threats. And you, Illyana, reek of hellfire and dark magic. You think we can just let that return unchecked?"
Magik's magic was indeed terrifying. In just a few years, she had ascended from student to sovereign of a hell dimension.
In Marvel, geniuses didn't follow rules whether in science or sorcery.
And Illyana Rasputina was one of the worst offenders.
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