After Clark entered the space, he noticed the surrounding space begin to shift, and the ground beneath him started to ripple and fold. Clark was clearly moving forward, but with the ground warping like that, his trajectory suddenly turned into a downward motion.
Realizing this, Clark stopped in mid-air. He then noticed a figure appearing in his field of vision.
A man was standing on the roof of Clark's childhood home, wearing a long yellow robe reminiscent of ancient Chinese clothing, with a hood that covered his entire face.
Just seeing the man's attire made Clark instinctively feel a sense of danger. Even without using his telescopic vision, Clark knew exactly who this hooded figure was.
It had to be the current Sorcerer Supreme of Kamar-Taj—the Ancient One. And this must be the Mirror Dimension, a world built entirely from magic.
The moment the Ancient One noticed Clark had spotted him, he pulled down his hood, revealing a bald head and a neutral, androgynous face.
With a casual wave of his hand, the ground beneath him folded upward like a sheet of paper, forming a perfect 90-degree angle.
After this move, the Ancient One was now on the same horizontal plane as Clark. Then, with just a few steps, the Ancient One crossed several hundred meters and appeared directly in front of Clark.
It was as if the space itself folded and unfolded with every one of his steps.
Looking at the ancient sorcerer before him, Clark couldn't remember ever doing anything to provoke Earth's most powerful mystical guardian.
But then a thought struck him: the Sorcerer Supreme's role was to safeguard Earth from cosmic threats, especially from extraterrestrial beings.
Speaking of which, Clark realized he could be categorized as an alien from many perspectives.
First, Clark's soul came from another universe—possibly a higher one than the Marvel universe itself. At least in Clark's former world, Marvel was just a fictional setting, a small universe dependent on Earth.
Then there was his physical origin. Clark remembered his father telling him he had arrived on Earth in a meteor-like spacecraft. While he wasn't sure if it matched the Krypton lore of Marvel's version, it still technically made him an alien.
With that in mind, even if the Ancient One didn't know Clark was an interdimensional traveler, it made sense that he'd seek him out—perhaps even to eliminate him.
But then again, Clark reminded himself that he had already lived on Earth for 25 years, and until now, the Ancient One had left him alone.
To be honest, there were very few beings on the planet Clark was wary of. In fact—none, really. Only one made him uneasy, and that was the person standing before him now: the former master of Kamar-Taj.
After all, regardless of the setting, Superman's resistance to magic was notoriously low—on par with an ordinary human.
But that didn't mean he was weak. While Superman might be vulnerable to magic, his durability and power were immense. Under the sun, he was already nearing the full release of his powers.
So even against the Ancient One, Clark only felt caution, not fear.
But when he remembered the Infinity Stone in the Ancient One's possession, his head started to hurt. That stone could manipulate time. While time manipulation wasn't necessarily lethal to Superman, it was something he couldn't easily counter.
Doctor Strange had used the Time Stone to stop Dormammu, and Thanos had used it to resurrect a destroyed Infinity Stone. The Time Stone was no joke.
So if possible, Clark really didn't want to fight someone who had that kind of power.
"Strange… You seem to know who I am."
The Ancient One looked at Clark with mild curiosity. His reaction clearly implied familiarity—but under normal circumstances, the Ancient One was sure Clark shouldn't know him.
After all, the Ancient One had never appeared in front of Clark, and Clark didn't seem to possess any kind of clairvoyant ability.
But the Ancient One didn't wait for an answer and continued speaking calmly:
"I don't know why, outsider. I can't observe you within the normal flow of time—I can't see your past, nor your future. I don't know if your arrival is a blessing or a curse for this world.
You're like a stone dropped into a lake. It's there, yet not. Visible, yet invisible. A paradox."
Despite the seemingly philosophical words, the Ancient One's face remained blank and emotionless—like a person with no facial expression at all.
"Until just now, I didn't know why... But something happened—I felt the future of Earth shift, as if something had bent the timeline. That's when I finally noticed your presence."
His tone sharpened suddenly, and his once-gentle gaze became sharp and piercing.
The next moment, Clark felt an overwhelming pressure surge toward him—like a mighty tide crashing in, bursting forth from that seemingly frail body like a towering mountain.
"Your presence is now affecting the balance of this world."
The Ancient One stepped forward with his left foot, and the ground beneath him rolled like waves, crashing toward Clark.
Seeing this irrational spectacle, Clark knew he couldn't counter it directly—he instinctively flew upward to avoid it.
But the moment he took off, the ground below surged up like a fountain, catching Clark mid-air and wrapping him in a cascade of magical concrete waves.
Within seconds, he was trapped inside.
The concrete slabs that originally felt like tofu had, under the influence of magic, become incredibly hard and durable. Clark realized the Ancient One's goal was to trap him permanently.
But while Superman's resistance to magic might be low, that only applied to direct magical attacks. This was simply an enhancement spell applied to concrete—not direct magic damage.
Besides, even if it were pure magical shielding—it still came down to raw power. In the end, whether it was magic or physics, force was force.
A magical explosion generating 1 ton of force wasn't stronger than 1 ton of regular TNT.
So Clark wasn't intimidated. Even if the hardened slabs of concrete were magically enhanced, they still had limits.
Clark's strength? Far beyond those limits.
With one mighty push, Clark shattered the magical concrete restraints.
Freed from the Ancient One's trap, Clark stopped wasting time. If the battle had already begun, then they'd settle it the old-fashioned way.
Clark shot forward at Mach 20, closing the few hundred meters between them in a fraction of a second, and threw a punch straight at the Ancient One.
BOOM!!!
A powerful shockwave exploded from the point of contact, rippling outward for nearly a kilometer.
Under the immense pressure, even the twisted Mirror Dimension structures began to crack—the buildings and warped roads buckling under the force.
Clark's punch had carried the weight of twenty times the speed of sound and thousands of tons of kinetic force—but to his surprise, the Ancient One raised a glowing shield made of sigils and blocked it.
Though the shield was clearly on the verge of shattering, it still held. Clark's mighty punch couldn't reach the sorcerer behind it.
"Then let's try that again!"
Unfazed, Clark stepped back, preparing to unleash a new ability he'd been working on for some time...
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