[Draul St. Cross POV]

The void faded away leaving me in the Sol System that housed the eight planetary bodies that were sister planets to Earth.

"Fucking hell." Due to the abruptness of which I left the Overvoid, my form was still nothing more than a swirling mass of darkness and chaos that would douse the most pious believer with the most hellish nightmares.

In my oversight, I had blocked the sun from shining its rays on Earth and the nearby planet, causing over five planets to spin in perpetual darkness. Even now I could hear the most hardened atheist screaming about the world coming to an end and even some proclaiming that the Armageddon was near.

I was darkness, chaos and destruction personified – a normal mortal would lose all sense of their mental faculties if they were to gaze directly at me which was the reason for my initial panic as my little stunt was about to send no small population of Earth into a madness induced parade. Thankfully it was nothing a little reality manipulation couldn't fix.

The darkness shrouding my form dissipated away leaving only my physical form as I descended back to Earth. Being back in the material world was vastly different than what I felt it used to be.

Right now, I could feel the souls of the damned and also those that were drawn to torment in the Dark Dimension, screaming and cursing at whoever they could. It wasn't only just humans, alien lifeforms too. While I could hold all the souls within numerous universes, those in the Dark Dimension had always been out of my reach but not anymore.

My talk with Yog-Sothoth had given me a lot to think about now that I knew what I was.

Different from other beings that could be killed and may even scale up to his level, the only way to kill an Ultimate God like him or any of his kin was to kill the Archetype that was the coagulation of them all.

When basically explained, they were all part of Azathoth's imagination and the only true way for them to seize existing was to make Azathoth 'think' they don't. And doing that was easier said than done.

The most I could do was force them back into the Overvoid and prevent them from entering this multiverse because the number of universes that were being turned into dust was getting progressively numerous by the second.

The only beings I couldn't sense were the Abstracts, most of them at least. Celestials, two beings I could only identify as Lord Chaos and Master Order due to the laws they were exuding… and The Living Tribunal. If I focus harder, I could feel them practically appearing and reappearing all over different universes. And not only that, the darkness I could feel bubbling inside a part of this universe was something that even I dreaded.

Knull – The King in Black.

There was something bothering me about the sudden revival of Knull and try as I may, I couldn't banish that fucking planet away from this universe. It was like cancer inside my own body – I just couldn't cut it away but rather deal with it symptom by symptom.

Knull was someone who had no way to be killed. He had the Celestials and their strongest forces literally running away due to the fear of death and the despair of continuously empowering himself with each Celestial that he killed.

He was as much of a threat as that of anybody from the nightmare mythology.

Klyntar had been in my senses since my apotheosis and I was sure the Celestials were already aware since I had felt a few of them popping on and off the vicinity of the planet, most likely estimating how long it will take for him to rise up from his biblical death.

I was sure I could more than match a few Celestials but I didn't know how I would fare against those on the level of Arishem, a fully grown Tiamut and One Above All – The Celestial, not the Marvel singularity. Seeing as how none of these Celestials would win against Knull in a 1v1, maybe a fully grown Tiamut could but fingers crossed, it probably meant that I still was not on the level that they were. That probably would have been the case if I was going with the stellar scaling that had completely lost its credibility since the heydays of Marvel Comics.

The Infinity Stones were more than enough to propel someone to a level that few characters such as Franklin Richards and Adam Warlock had attained, but the only caveat was as far as they could achieve that. And then there was Dormammu. To be honest, scaling my abilities at this level is getting stupid because I was coming to realize that there was a simple scale that could only apply to beings of my level.

You either win against me or you can't – that was the only scale that proved true, and the only one that was proven to work at any time.

Despite me not knowing how truly strong I've become, I didn't really feel that I'd lose against Knull, if not factoring the weird feeling I always get when I look at him.

Knull might be really strong but there was something I had learned from my time with Yog-Sothoth. As much as Knull was called the God of the Void, he was only a tenant in it, the strongest tenant, and not really the manifestation of the primordial darkness. Darkness was as much his power as it was mine. He was as much as Dark God as I was and even though he had a special sword – The Necro Sword – so did I. While my axe was nowhere near as strong as his weapon, the realization of my Null ability was an edge that I was sure would evenly balance me against the King in Black.

Unlike my time as a human where I would spend days and weeks literally trying to get used to a new ability, my fusion with the Mind Stone changed all that and the Soul Stone served to bolster what was already there.

Rather than train to get used to the ability and have it synchronize itself with me to the level of familiarity I had with my other abilities, all I needed to do now was just understand how the ability worked and that was a one-way ticket to instant mastery.

It was more than just an ability at this point to be honest.

It had far surpassed something inane as heat energy, or any form of energy. It was even more than a concept at this point.

It was a law.

A totality in and off itself.

Even now, merely touching upon the vestiges of that power, all I could feel was the steady unmoving feeling of void. The only aspect which it exhibited was to turn everything into nothing. Even energy.

Excitement filled my body as I began to run scenarios and calculations on just how far and how theoretical I could take it. Since I had fused with the six aspects of the Marvel multiverse, at least some of it, an infinitesimally minute sum, what then would happen when I used my Null ability in conjunction with, let's say… Time.

Yes I could send attacks across the time stream, but it was still through the time 'stream'. With my Null ability, it was entirely possible that I could just destroy the 'stream' and make it affect even acasual beings, since the attack has transcended time itself.

Combining it with reality, oooh! Now that was something that was worth trying. It wasn't until I started my latest venture of manipulating reality that I realized just how much more dangerous it was than anything else I had. To an almost equal degree, the Reality Stone could function as any other Infinity Stone out there and could pretty much make them redundant, and different from what one might think, it was by far the most easiest of the Infinity Stones to use.

It literally worked off imagination. Imagine that.

Tampering with laws and concepts was what it was literally made to do. Turning fundamental laws into something as basic as Hula-hoops was the easiest thing it could do.

It could literally meld with every other Infinity Stone in an unlikely seamless way that the Power Stone could never dream of achieving.

Now imagine fusing that with something like Null.

To be honest, something must have seriously been wrong with my head for me not to realize that I had been sleeping on my most dangerous ability since its conception. I literally only used it to destroy things when I could have been using it for so much more.

My form phased through the room of my house and landed on the dining table just in time for dinner.

The multiverse could worry about itself but now, now I had a dinner that wasn't going to eat itself and a frustrated Goddess to appease.

Could my life get any better?

…

I hope I just jinxed it.

…

[In a dimension outside the totality of the multiverse]

"I reckon you cease your attempt at that human, Infinity. There are other more pressing things to worry about."

Two beings stood side by side and watched as the billion fold specks of light become darker with each passing moment before being snuffed out.

"I'm afraid we are at an impasse. I will not allow a spawn of them to wield my essence, brother. He defeated Dormammu." At the mention of those words, the one identified as brother to Infinity ceased all words he wanted to say. What else could he say?

Someone defeated Dormammu, in his own domain no less. And the said person had also taken a part of both his and his sister's aspect from quite a number of universes and he was steadily progressing as every moment went on.

"You say that, but going there is more than certain enough to bring you harm. He wields both our powers, though to a significantly lesser degree, wields the Darkness he usurped from Dormammu and also the Void he impossibly had gotten. He might not have realized just how much power he had and you going there will reveal just that to him. Let him wallow in his ignorance for a little while longer and let the others take care of him. After they have done their part, we will then take our time to absorb back all of our essence from him since it's almost a true impossibility to kill void after all."

She pondered on her brother's words and knew the truth of them. It was better for everyone if he was still ignorant but there was just one tiny problem.

"I can no longer see him."

It would have been way better, infinitely so, if she had not lost sight of him the moment he absorbed Dormammu. Pun doubly intended. As much as she could feel his presence on multiple universes, so could he feel her presence if she were to be anywhere near those universes.

"What is the Tribunal's verdict?" She asked.

"They believe it's best if we isolate the universes he's already gotten under his influence as that would stop him from growing stronger and absorbing more of our aspects and ultimately cutting him away from our multiverse." Eternity grunted at his own words since he knew that if not for the incursion they suddenly had to watch out for, they would have already done away with the man as soon as the Tribunal gave the judgment.

Unfortunately for them, the recent events had taken them by quite the surprise since no single one of them had ever expected Yog-Sothoth to personally act. As someone who stood at the same plane of existence with Living Tribunal, it was on very rare occasions that he would act and he usually was one that hardly ever devolved into madness like the rest, or most, of his kin.

As if the possibilities of it getting even worse than this was the taboo child of Lord Chaos and the Queen of Nevers, Yog-Sothoth was surprisingly the least of their problems.

...

Inside the middle of the Earth, a gigantic glob of golden energy suddenly started thrumming with activity as it felt a connection being established with it before a pull drew in the consciousness inside the blob of energy.

"Your consciousness has been stirred, Tiamut. This means your emergence shouldn't be too far off." A gigantic black and golden armor Celestial stood in front of Tiamut's summoned consciousness as he addressed his golden armored brethren.

Like every other notable Celestial out there, the one in front of Tiamut had a designated name and title – Oneg the Prober.

"Yes, it should. I feel urgency in your tone, Oneg. For you to be here personally suggests that something has happened in the multiverse. Something outside its expected course." Tiamut was as connected to other Celestials as they were to each other so he was very well aware of basic information but there were still things that were outside his scope of omniscience.

"You would be correct in your statement. Arishem has judged it necessary that you emerge as soon as possible. I also came here personally with a question in mind: The cause, the main pivot, of the stir in the multiverse emerged from your universe, your planet specifically. Does he know about you yet? Are you in any danger?" Most of the Celestial's roles often collide with one another but they were carefully carried out while taking special care not to step in each other's way. Oneg's was to enquire and verify.

Like Arishem was the main spokesman of the Celestials and his voice was their ever-leading judgment, it was Oneg's and a few other's role to bring information on anything that caught their attention to Arishem and though Arishem had said that the man had made contact with the consciousness of Tiamut, Oneg had taken it upon himself to verify all claims from Tiamut himself.

"He does know about me as we've spoken once but other than that, I'm afraid he hasn't made any other connection with me. And as for whether I'm in any danger…" Tiamut remembered the agreement between him and Draul and how he proposed to facilitate his emergence without harming Earth if Tiamut's information about the stones were true, and considering he's left the universe and came back stronger, Tiamut could only acknowledge his part of keeping to their agreement. "… I don't believe I'm in any danger despite being in his senses all day long. He's rather amiable and level-headed should the need for a conversation ever arise." Tiamut gave his honest impression of Draul to Oneg, not seeing the need of withholding anything from his brethren Celestial when they were already aware of his presence.

"I see. I will tell Arishem of your impressions of the human, but unto another question: how long will it take before your emergence?" Oneg asked, being extra careful not to scan the planet and risk having his presence known to the singularity of this universe.

"Hmm." Unlike Oneg, Tiamut wasn't under the impression that he needed to hide himself nor his actions from Draul as he was constantly under his attention, whether passively or not. Draul had promised him a few planets worth of energy should the time for his emergence come since it would actually take some time to find a universe like that than just syncing him up with a random planet out there in the universe. "There are quite a few factors in play before my emergence but it should be a human decade at least or less than two at most. I'm afraid I will not be available in these trying times for the multiverse but ironically, my emergence is not in my power to quicken."

Oneg remained silent at Tiamut's words because he knew how true they were. A Celestial seed simply could not awaken without the required energy of billions and sometimes trillions of sentient life force. While they were the most ardent advocates of life, they were also the most stoic race that dealt in the favor of the majority and the greater good. What was a negligible few billions compared to the life of one Celestial? What was the same worth of the few billion when then compared to an entire universe? To the multiverse? It was not even worth considering the disparity and level of importance between the two.

"I see." He started, "I will deliver this information so you should await Arishem's verdict." Oneg said before disappearing from Tiamut's senses, leaving the golden clad Celestial on his own to mule about the new choices that were opening up to him with each experience.

"I wonder what Draul would do in such a setting. It'll no doubt be something profound and yet simple at the same time."

…

Draul took a simple step back and seamlessly evaded Yelena's punch while at the same time bringing his hand down in a cleaving motion which forced the young girl to retreat as it turned out to be the correct move as the ground she had been stepping on gained a fine incision without any force acting on it.

At another place a bit farther from them was Natasha and Ororo, both levitating while facing each other in a meditating stance; legs crossed and fingers intertwined together, letting their aura coat their body and paying no attention to what was happening.

Unlike before, Yelena's body was fully covered in lightning even while she was stationary which gave her some form of super strength and heightened all her physical abilities. Improved senses which included bioelectric sensing and thermal sensing, heightened danger sense, improved regeneration which mainly worked on her energy output, heightened durability, and like the rest of them she had some form of resistance towards other energy forms.

She was making real good of the ability she chose for herself to the point that compared to the others, she had had the most progress ability-wise. Due to the fact that she lived with two lightning users, and also that she'd seen them fight with it most times than not, it was way easier for her to pick up bits and pieces of their utilization and apply it to hers. There was also the fact that Draul had once commented on her abilities and how if she went fast enough, she could break through the space-time barrier and move inside the space-time continuum and time travel. The theory that if something could go past light speed then it was quite possible that it could time travel was one that had been proposed for years now but like most revolutionary theories that science had put forth, it had never been proven, at least until now.

If a living Time Stone said that with enough speed one could time travel, then that was as much proof as anything could ever need to be valid.

"Again. You're still holding yourself back subconsciously." Draul commented as he watched Yelena's eyebrows twitch in annoyance. Unlike the girl, Draul wasn't moving at that high a speed but the space around him was so thick that she was finding it had to move a single limb, talk less two.

"I wouldn't if you removed that shitty space around you." She huffed but the lightning around her body only crackled more fiercely.

"That's a misconception of your own doing, Yelena. You can already phase through material things, why are you limiting yourself from phasing through space too? You are too focused on me instead of yourself. Now again." This exercise had been going on for a little over an hour and Yelena was slowly getting frustrated because no matter what she did, Draul always forced her to move back with every single motion of his hand. It wasn't fair how stupidly powerful he was!

Flooding every single cell in her body with lightning, she disappeared, running faster than the very vibrations she produced with every little movement of her body straight towards Draul.

The only part of Draul that she could see that was moving at the same speed as hers were his eyes. His eyes were following every single movement of hers in a way that was borderline creepy that she would have definitely voiced a complaint had this not been an important training exercise.

Pushing her thoughts about how creepy his eye movements were, she braced herself and stepped inside his space which made her feel that she was dropped into a vat of quick acting super adhesive. It felt as if she was wearing over a thousand kilograms of weight strapped to each of her limbs while running through quicksand.

All she needed to do was touch him and the automatic win would be hers but the space in here was wack as hell to the point that she didn't know if he was at an arm's length away or a 100 meters away.

Before she could ponder much on the distance, she felt his hand moving, a little bit slower than she was which made the experience all the more confusing as she was sure she was a lot faster than his bodily functions due to his restrictions but his hand movement was a little behind hers, a negligible difference, and though she was pretty close, at least according to what her senses told her, she was once again forced to move back as his attack was almost instantaneous.

Draul let out a frustrated sigh and looked at her with an expression that told just how pissed off he was by her repeated actions.

"What? You know there was no way I could have dodged that." Yelena defended herself as soon as the stare was leveled on her. "In case you don't understand, trying to 'phase' is a lot harder for a normal speedster than you can imagine."

"But you're not a normal speedster, are you? This goes beyond just vibrating at a higher frequency. You have to connect with what you're vibrating with, not in a phasing sense but in how your cells respond to it."

"And it's not coming to me that easy. Maybe if you told me without going through circles, then I would have picked it up rather than playing tag with you for an hour and pissing you off in the process." The two stared at each other, none willing to concede ground to the other. This continued on for a minute until Yelena arrived at a misconception of hers: Draul had all the time in the world…

The frustration that coursed through her body was felt by Draul who smirked as he saw her backing off and politely asking him what it was that she was doing wrong.

"It's the same concept that Ororo uses in traveling with lightning. She becomes lightning in a way that shouldn't have been possible. A few Gods of the Sky can do it but not all. Case in point – Thor. He's not completely in sync with his own divinity which is what is impeding his growth and unless he finds what he's lacking, his Authority over the Sky will stagnate. Rather than just phasing through objects, your speed basically connects two distances in space and time with each other with the fastest time possible. All you have to do is find another way to access that route and you'll find yourself moving quicker instead of just going faster. Super speed is not always meant to progress at a straight line with ironic speed. Rather than move faster towards me, find a way to get to me quicker, either by moving faster, not advisable… or moving through space itself. You don't have to run through every square meter to reach me, just connect to the point you want to get to and bam! You're there."

"…A portal?" She asked flabbergasted but Draul corrected.

"A breach. One in space. Like I always say, there is no linear ability. The path you take determines how your abilities will grow."

Yelena appeared deep in thought as she mulled over Draul's words. It was pretty theoretical at best, but then again he was Draul. He could manipulate reality as he wished and if he said it was possible, then it was entirely possible. Which meant she could do it.

"Again!"

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Read all remaining chapters ahead on /Draul_TheOminous.