'Why are dinosaur bones here?'
He saw some bones embedded in the walls while he was walking inside the creepy corridors. His main body was outside, waiting for his clone to lead the way.
He received multiple notifications from Natasha and the Avengers at that time. He turned off all contact to prevent them from getting involved in the matter in case someone bigger than him was peeking through the veils of the realms and noticed who he was. That's why he wore a disguise.
His covered face suddenly turned at the swamp area next to the cavern entrance.
"I guess you're here to fight the demons? Wait for my signal. I'll fight with you…" Ryan muttered to the seemingly empty swamp. His heart felt a bit better that a strong ally had shown themselves.
While Moonstone and the others were fighting, he visited a dark underground temple for demon worshippers.
The Temple was built deep inside the mines, and there wasn't any light source for him to see 10 steps in front of him. Only the sound of his footsteps and his guide's footsteps were heard in the cavern's tunnel.
All members of the Serpent Society had been blessed by their God. They could see clearly in the dark, and have many other blessings. However, the Rothchild person that his shadow clone was wearing hadn't been blessed. The guide used a simple lantern to help him guide his way.
The shadow clone disguised as a member of the Rothchild family that visited him before, and was led into the temple by a member of the cult. Wearing the body of the dead man, the shadow clone has passed all of the inspection necessary to enter the cavern.
"Before the Age of Mankind, when life… yet existed." The guide suddenly opened his mouth and introduced the Rothchild family member to their religion. The discussion the old man had with Ryan before was the final test before he managed to enter the deepest echelon of the temple.
"Our Satha was born from creation itself, the Demiurge," The guide said to the old man.
Ryan mused himself when he heard the guide's words. 'Demiurge is a sentient bio-sphere. He created the old gods, Gaea(Gaia), Oshtur, Chthon , and Set. I guess Satha is Set in this one as Satha means a Giant Serpent in Egyptian.'
The guide kept explaining even though Ryan already knew everything there is to know. Rather than listening to the guide's rambling, he recalls the information he has on the Elder Gods while spreading a few scout drones to all the forks in the path that he didn't take.
'Let's see. Set was the First Murderer. He found out that he could devour other Gods to raise his power. The Era of Gods didn't move well after that. The gods degenerated to become Demons by eating each other to raise their power. Set and Chthon were the worst out of all the Gods.'
'So Gaea, the uncorrupted, summoned the Demiurge again and 'mated' with the biosphere, creating Demogorge, the God Eater…and also named the Sun God. Her son ate all the Gods except those who escaped to other planets and other dimensions. '
'Gaea merged with the Earth after that and tried to help humanity's evolution. Humans were called her favorite sons and she has been protecting them ever since.'
Ryan didn't know why he felt a sense of longing when he thought about Gaea. 'Maybe because Dawn's an elf?' He hypothesized inwardly and continued thinking about the history of this universe.
'Set bounded with the dinosaur and escaped to a pocket dimension, and was enraged when Gaea caused the dinosaurs to go extinct to make ways for the mammals. So he merged a lot of dinosaurs together to attack Gaea, thus creating the Serpent. She summoned her son, the Demogorge, to fight Set's avatar.'
The battle lasted until all the dinosaurs were extinct. Demogorge then returned to the sun when Set was kicked out of reality again.
'Gaea mated with a lot of gods that showed up after the first generation, thus becoming the Mother Goddess in all of mythos. I think she even mated with Odin under the guise of Jord, and gave birth to Thor as she wanted an Asgardian that could become stronger on Earth instead of Asgard? Not sure how this works here.'
Ryan shook his head as he thought about the Asgardians' messy family. Maybe that's why Thor keeps coming toward Earth?
'She protected the humans, and even became involved with the Celestials.'
'While Set and Cthon were still locked away from Earth. Why's that again?' The clone put his hand on his chin and thought carefully.
"Ahh, I almost forgot about Oshtur and Agamotto!"
"What?" The guide was interrupted by the sudden exclamation. Luckily he didn't understand what the clone was talking about as he was fanatically retelling his story about the Elder God's greatness.
"Err. Nothing. Carry on," The clone said. The guide stared at him weirdly and continued telling his story.
'Osthur was interested in realms outside of Earth, so she had traveled long before the Gods fell into degeneration. Osthur married Hoggoth and had a descendant, named Agamotto. They moved together to the mystic realms and lived there.'
'Together, the family created the Vishanti. Osthur also created the Book of Vishanti that became the basis of Kamar Taj today. With her and Gaea working together, Chthon and Set were locked out of reality.'
After the extremely simple explanation of the situation, he has some worries in his heart about how he was going to handle the matter. (1)
A sudden shockwave emanated from the center of the cavern. The guide didn't feel it, but he was almost choked by the terrifying dark magic coming that started to envelop him. He increased his might that he toned down to an ordinary man, and fought off the corruption.
Ryan kept recounting his memories and prepared himself for the upcoming confrontation. ' I don't know why these Serpents wanted me to keep the country as it was, but I am sure it wasn't a good thing.'
It really wasn't a good thing. The Secret Empire – a bunch of misogynistic and racist men and the Serpent Society had joined forces just to stop him. The old man from the Rothchild family was surprisingly an outer member of both societies and was just waiting to see who would call him first. (2)
Not only that, there was also a third party that was interested in Ryan. The Ruler of the Frozen Hell, the devil, Ikhtalon. Him being the Vice President and trying to change the country had been making him a target among all those entities – as they feared him.
In Kamar Taj, the baldie known as the Ancient One was sipping her tea and waited for the right time to make an appearance. "Good Luck Mr. Knight," she said while smiling slightly.
She foresaw that something dangerous would happen today. However, despite him being unconfident, she felt that Ryan was ready to face his foe.
"Here we are, the temple of Satha. The Old God!" The guide said with great zeal as they reached the destination.
Ryan was led to kneel on the wet and hard floor among other believers. There were more than 1000 believers that made up the country's high society kneeling inside the room.
Paul Destine, a superpowered man who had lived since 1920, was sitting on top of the throne while wearing a golden crown and scanning the worshiper with his reptilian eyes.
Destine has a telepathic superpower in his days. Now, with the help of the Serpent Crown, his telepathic ability has reached a higher level – However he could no longer control his actions.
There was a name for him back in the days. He was named Mentallo, a telepathic supervillain. Now, he was only the speaker for Set.
Beside him was supposed to be a priestess for Set, and also his mate.
But she died after she gave birth to Set's avatar, and the child has lived her life in the outside world. The Priestess died 30 years ago, and no one has managed to replace her since. Destine slept in a suspended animation when his presence was unnecessary. Although he is almost 120 years old, he still has the appearance of a man in his 30's.
Destine started to speak, but to Ryan's surprise it was in Ancient Egyptian language.
"My Kin. We're here because of a terrible threat that will destroy our plan. The fall of humanity will be delayed if he isn't stopped."
The shadow clone listened carefully toward what the villain was saying and conveyed it all to the main body.
"The next period of evolution will be ours. The Serpent Men. However, 'He' will bring Humanity to another age, which is intolerable."
The plan was to lead mankind to extinction by themselves. Set's revenge on Gaea for killing all of his dinosaurs. In less than 100 years, Set's plan will bear fruit as Mankind will face their greatest enemy. – Themselves. It started when the Crown was found in 1920, and it's been 91 years since.
After creating the 'Rat Race', controlling all of humanity's leaders and planting seeds of conflicts all over the world, there will be no doubt that humans will fall. Set created a hedonistic society after Gaea was gone, and let the humans do all the work for him.
Some unexpected variables such as the heroes that showed up did manage to push back his plans, but they wouldn't be able to change anything.
'Yada yada yada, blah blah blah,' The shadow clone felt tired listening to the long villain monologue when he started to mock the man in front of him.
Suddenly, his name was called. "Brethren from the Rothchild family. Did you manage to speak to him about our cause and stop him?"
Set's avatar suddenly spoke to him, causing all the attention to be directed toward him. 'That's my cue,' Ryan thought excitedly.
"Yes. I did speak with him. He refused to stop." The shadow clone spoke in an old man's voice.
"I see. Then, we will kill him and return the country back to before his intervention," Destine said decisively. Suddenly, the crown gave him unexpected feedback. He sharpened his look and stared at the old man of the Rothchild family.
"It seems that we have an intruder in our midst," Destine said eerily.
The shadow clone also had an evil smile on his face. "Too late."
All the worshipers inside the cavern, even the guide that led him before, all shed their skin and turned into the Serpent Man.
Their claws started to elongate and sharpened. Some mimicked the head of cobras, while some showed other snake-like characteristics. Scales appeared on their bodies, and their legs became a long tail.
"Eww!" Ryan exclaimed.
"KILL HIM!" Destine said using a telepathic wave to all the men there. The crown charged a green light, and a lethal mind blast was shot toward the shadow clone!
Instead of avoiding it, the shadow clone just let the blast hit him. Destine raised his brow after seeing the white smoke coming from the husk of what seemed to the Rothchild man.
Flying above the cavern's mine, Ryan stuck his hand together. Then, he summoned a continental destroyer cannon from his inventory.
The 10 meter long continental destroyer was built on the outside of his hand, using himself as an energy source.
He channeled the tesseract spatial energy that he mimicked into the continental destroyer.
"If you guys didn't have extreme magic defenses, I MAY have been more merciful."
He charged an intense blue energy on the muzzle of the cannon. The destructive energy grew bigger until it reached 3 meters in radius. The energy that could instantly vaporize New York City was held in Ryan's hand.
"N-NO!" Destine could sense the terrifying energy coming from on top of the mines, even though he's protected by 100 meter defense of natural earth formation. And so he levitated and started to swallow the worshipers inside the cave!
Ryan released the energy and it crashed into the earth. It swallowed everything in its path until it reached the main temple of the Settian.
The dark caves brightened up with the presence of the blue orb, causing Destine's reptilian face to be illuminated in a blue hue.
His body enlarged to turn himself into a giant serpent.
BOOOM!!!!!
A massive explosion occurred inside the temple that caused an earthquake in the surrounding area. Blue fire traveled throughout the entire path inside the cavern and disintegrated the thousands of people living there. Ryan controlled the explosion to be contained inside the mines as there was a town a few kilometers from there.
The fire shot to the sky from the hole that Ryan made, and also exited through the numerous exits and entrances around the cavern. The fire continued for a minute before it died down. The cavern area became silent and there weren't any traces of living things inside it any longer.
"Come out. I know that you're there," Ryan said in the direction of the hole he made.
A giant serpent wearing a crown and more than 500 meters long slithered out of the hole and opened his mouth to swallow Ryan.
"You should've brushed your teeth more," Ryan said as he held the mouth apart with his hand.
The snake squirmed to get out of his hold, but Ryan levitated in the air until he pulled the snake's entire body out of the mines and threw it into the swamp nearby before it could release its poison on him.
The snake rolled in the swamp before it raised its head. The Serpent stared at Ryan with its reptilian eyes, and started to engage in a telepathic conversation in Ancient Egyptian.
"Are you a warrior of Gaea?"
"Nah, I just don't like snakes. Especially on a plane," Ryan replied. He knew that the Serpent was trying to corrupt him. He fortified his mind and added to his statement, "I meant this plane of existence, not the transport plane."
"Doesn't matter. You won't be able to stop what's coming. He needs to die today!" The Serpent shot a psychic explosion that traveled to Washington DC.
The Serpent Men inside the city transformed themselves and attacked the white house where Ryan Knight was supposed to be. Ryan was stunned speechless when he noticed the order.
'They're attacking an empty house though… Heh. '
"I thought Arishem already kicked out the Serpent man from existence?" Ryan asked mockingly. Gaea had come into agreement with Arishem to guide humanity's evolution from the man-apes, leading to the existence of the Eternal and Deviants.
Set also tried to do the same things, but his race of Serpent man was hunted down till extinction instead. The only reason the Serpent man was back today was because Set used the genetic potential of humans to guide them into becoming a reptilian.
"DON'T SPEAK THE CELESTIAL NAME IN FRONT OF ME!!" The Serpent attacked Ryan using a dark magic blast from its mouth. Ryan avoided it easily, but the blast was traveling toward the town nearby.
"Annoying!" Ryan muttered as he summoned the mirror dimension and swallowed both the swamp and the dark magic beam inside it.
…
The Avengers received the news about the attack when they were on route home from Texas.
"What's that? Snakes?" Bruce asked as he saw the video that Tony pulled up.
"Thor, Danver. Do you recognize any of those things?" Tony asked in case the creatures were from outer space.
"There are creatures that looked like snakes, but they weren't this. This is a new species," Carol said.
"Rhodes is on his way there to protect the place. Carol, You're with me. Bruce, find out where the Captain is. Thor and Hulk, protect the citizens. Ayala and Natasha, save the people inside the building," Tony made some plans and Bruce accelerated into the maximum speed.
"It seems you will get your debut after all," Tony said to Ayala.
"Bruce, where is Kai?"
"It'll take him longer as…" Bruce glanced at Natasha, but he was too afraid to criticize her.
"...Doesn't matter. Ask him to come as fast as he can." Tony said helplessly.
They arrived at the location in less than 3 minutes, but the Serpent man has generated a lot of destruction there.
"Tony, bullets don't work on them," War Machine said as he shot his machine gun to protect the building from getting breached. He could only shoot them backward, but they would stand back up soon enough.
Thor threw Mjolnir on the Serpent Man surrounding Rhodey and made room for him to catch a breather.
"I sense Dark Magic. A terrifying dark magic coming from inside these creatures," Thor said solemnly.
"Magic? What the hell did he get himself into now?" Tony said while shooting toward the creatures.
In the swamp, Ryan was fighting with the giant serpent. The Serpent shot out multiple dark energy orbs all around the mirror dimension, trying to break free.
Ryan could barely hold the dimension together from the Serpent's power. Although it wasn't Set's main body that descended, the crown could channel Set's power, causing the Serpent to get stronger over time.
"Man-thing, you're not showing up?" He asked urgently in the direction of the swamp while fighting the giant serpent. There was a reason why he swallowed the swamp together in the mirror dimension.
The protector of the nexus of Reality, the Man-thing showed his head from the swamp water and slowly crawled to the surface.
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