American comics: Starting with Luke the Maker

The two brothers returned to Asgard via Luke's Rainbow Bridge, carrying a bill and the modified [High-Dimensional Core]. We won't discuss Odin's reaction to the bill for now. Luke has a more pressing matter to attend to.

...

The dark warrior's eyes snapped open, and he was met with absolute, impenetrable darkness. It was as if a black cloth had been draped over his eyes, rendering him unable to see. However, the dark warrior could sense that his eyes were unharmed.

He floated in a deep, silent void, unable to see, surrounded by utter stillness and devoid of light.

The surrounding area was the deepest darkness.

This was the world the dark elves loved most.

And the world Malekith most wanted to create.

However, the dark warrior did not feel the peace and joy he should have felt in this darkness. Instead, his sixth sense was sending him a subtle warning, as if some unknown danger lurked within this darkness.

The dark warrior pondered how he had come to this dark place.

A door!

That dark behemoth had opened a door leading to who-knows-where, and then the door had sucked him in. He had instantly lost consciousness after being swallowed by the door.

His dark armor was still on, and the lingering Aether energy within him gave the dark warrior some sense of security, even though he was still covered in injuries. He wanted to contact his king, but the special communicator that the king had given him before leaving had malfunctioned in the darkness. No matter how much Aether energy the dark warrior poured into it, using Aether energy to power the communicator, there was no response.

The machine was working hard, diligently sending out signals, but it just couldn't connect to the other end. It was as if it had lost its [signal]. The nearly omnipotent Aether energy had lost its omnipotent properties in this strange space, reduced to mere energy.

Unable to contact his king, the dark warrior calmed himself down and slowly tried to figure out what kind of place he was in.

The universe?

No, it wasn't.

The dark warrior didn't need oxygen and could operate and fight in the vacuum of space. So he could tell even better that this wasn't the universe, even though it resembled it in many ways.

Based on the knowledge and experience he had accumulated over thousands of years, he believed that this was probably a dimension. As for how large the dimension was, whether it was a space, a world, or a dimensional universe, he couldn't determine at the moment.

He needed to observe more.

Ordinary lifeforms would find it difficult to endure a dark world, but dark elves could adapt quickly. So darkness was not a problem for the dark warrior. The problem was the ever-present, subtle threat that permeated his surroundings.

Faint, fragmented sounds echoed in his ears. The sounds were so fragmented and faint that he couldn't make out what they were saying. When he focused on listening, the sounds seemed to grow louder, but he still couldn't understand their content or determine their source. He couldn't even be sure if these sounds were the voices of living beings, or the rustling of insect-like creatures crawling around.

The sense of crisis intensified.

The floating dark warrior once again squeezed out the little Aether energy he had left, using the dark armor to activate the dark elves' dark vision. It allowed dark elves to be at home in the dark, to be in harmony with the darkness, and to see and hear things that were invisible and inaudible to ordinary vision.

To put it figuratively, it was like humans using technological instruments to observe a world invisible to the naked eye.

As the energy flowed into his eyes, the dark warrior's vision suddenly changed. In the new vision, the surrounding deep darkness, like black mist, gradually thinned, revealing things beyond the darkness.

Suddenly, the dark warrior's senses went into overdrive, his mind sounded alarms, and his entire body tensed up. He stared wide-eyed at what appeared before him.

What was it?

It was incredibly distorted and unforgettable, something that could never be forgotten once seen, yet impossible to describe in words. The dark warrior felt his mind being subjected to some kind of contaminating erosion. The other party's appearance was deeply imprinted in his mind. The mere inability to describe it was nothing to the dark warrior. But what if it also carried some kind of erosion and influence?

The fragmented whispers suddenly intensified, gradually changing from faint to loud. The dark warrior still couldn't understand their content, but he felt as if his head was being assaulted by a violent sound wave, as if needles were piercing his brain.

The dark warrior severed the new vision before he lost control.

The indescribable monster and the surrounding whispers disappeared and diminished. He gasped for breath, feeling a sense of relief as if he had narrowly escaped death.

He keenly sensed that a part of his mind had been tampered with, along with his body. His mind and body were undergoing some secret change, and he wanted to stop it, but he was helpless to do so.

He desperately tried to stop thinking about the scene he had seen in the new vision, but his mind uncontrollably went back to it. Each time he thought about it, he felt his soul and consciousness move closer to a bottomless abyss.

He had realized where the sense of crisis he had always felt in his heart came from.

It came from the surroundings, from those whispers, from those monsters that were deeply integrated with this space, like organs or flesh of this dimension!

This place was filled with some kind of powerful, domineering, contaminating high-dimensional energy that could even disable Aether energy, or rather, make other energies ineffective.

No, after personally experiencing a bit of this energy's power, the dark warrior vaguely realized that it wasn't disabling other high-dimensional energies, but that this highly polluting energy was polluting other high-dimensional energies and adapting and fusing with them!

The dark warrior, who had participated in many battles with Malekith, suddenly felt a trace of fear inexplicably rising in his heart. The last time he had felt this way was a long time ago. He had even forgotten this emotion, and with his incredibly resilient will, he believed that this emotion would never appear in him again. But now, he suddenly, unexpectedly, experienced this forgotten emotion.

Not only fear, but also despair, sadness, pain, and all kinds of negative emotions surged up like a tidal wave, relentlessly engulfing his consciousness.

The resilience of his willpower rapidly decreased and collapsed in the face of this surging torrent of emotions. As the sound of whispers grew louder and louder again, his mind was on the verge of collapse.

He could clearly sense that his current state was wrong, and he tried his best to save himself, but his self-help was not only ineffective, but also made the emerging negative emotions even more obvious.

He realized that if he really lost his mind completely and was polluted and eroded by the negative emotions here, then he would probably be trapped here forever, becoming a slave of this dimension. He still had the strength to support himself and the strength to resist, but he didn't know how long he could hold on. If there were no accidents, he had already foreseen the future he would face sooner or later.

Being eroded and transformed, becoming a puppet and slave of the dimension. Even a clear will would probably be difficult to maintain.

...

"No matter how many times I sense it, this dimension is awe-inspiring," Gu Yi said with a sigh, watching the dark warrior gradually being assimilated within the dimension, with marks of energy erosion appearing on his body.

"After all, it's a landfill that can accommodate everything," Luke, who had appeared, took over Gu Yi's words.

"Only you would say that," Gu Yi looked away from the dimension with a slightly complicated expression and landed on Luke, saying, "You are its creator, and it was born because of you."

"You also have some ownership of it," Luke corrected. "I don't monopolize it."

"But who dares to approach it casually except you? Mephisto? Although the Hell dimension is a terrifying dimension with a very high energy level, I always feel that in the future, the horror and danger of your dimension will be above the Hell dimension," Gu Yi was able to sense the horror of this dimension's future development precisely because she had the corresponding authority. It might become a catastrophic dimension of destruction.

"It's just a landfill," Luke insisted. "All the emotional energy that cannot be recycled after filtration will be piled up here. As one of the masters of psychic energy, you should understand that the difficulty of dealing with those dregs is more laborious than humans dealing with nuclear waste and pollution. Even to some extent, from the moment they are born, they can be filtered out, but they cannot be completely erased. In other words, when emotional energy is first produced, we don't need to worry about the disposal of filtration residues because of the amount. Anyway, it can be stored in any dimension or space, and that little amount won't affect anything. But as emotional energy becomes richer, we always have to find a place to store the filtered dregs."

"I understand," Gu Yi nodded. "I'm just marveling at its purity and its troublesomeness."

Although Luke kept saying that these were filtered residues, both Luke himself and Gu Yi knew that the so-called residues were no less energetic than the purified energy, and even more difficult to deal with. They were not so-called residues at all, but only energy that could not be absorbed and controlled by most mages.

Even Gu Yi, as the Supreme Mage, was somewhat reluctant to face the dimensional energy that Luke was using to process and accumulate filtration residues, which had already reached a small scale.

Because Luke's technology had purified and filtered the energy to the extreme. It not only had his own filtration technology, but also the energy filtration and conversion technology provided by the Supreme Mage. In short, the energy [residues] that could be thrown into this dimension were the residues that current technology and capabilities had reached their limit. Even if Gu Yi extracted this energy for use, she would not be able to convert it in any meaningful way. They were purely negative energy to the extreme. Even darker than the energy of dark power demons such as Dormammu and Cyttorak. At least with their dimensional energy, Gu Yi could perform various energy conversions after a certain consumption, but with Luke's dimension, she would not even think about using it unless absolutely necessary.

The inability to convert and change its form meant that it was impossible to erase its high pollution and high risk. Once used, it was destined to be a lose-lose situation. Especially the subsequent cleanup and the effort required to clean up the mess was even more scalp-numbing. At least Gu Yi had no way to deal with this kind of pollution at present. The only thing she could do was to use it and then try to recover as much of the scattered energy residue as possible and throw it into other spaces or dimensions. But this was only a temporary solution. As long as there was a little bit of residue, this energy could make a comeback. And once used, there would inevitably be residue. At that time, as long as there was a little bit of fire, it would be necessary to regularly and periodically detect and deal with it.

"As long as no one releases them, they are safe," Luke comforted Gu Yi. As for whether this sentence was credible? Luke himself couldn't guarantee it. Of course, Gu Yi wouldn't believe it either.

"They will always undergo qualitative changes. At that time, it may not only be the fall of life, but also the cancer of the universe. But at that time, that's probably a problem that you will need to consider," Gu Yi appeared quite open-minded. Anyway, she originally had the intention of retiring early, but she only stood guard for an extra shift because of the appearance of emotional energy. But when Strange had completely grown up, she would probably retire according to her original plan.

"By then, I may have new technologies and methods. There is no need to worry about it yet. At least for now, besides being a landfill, it is also very qualified as a prison. No matter what kind of prisoners are thrown in, they will be polluted and assimilated, becoming an inseparable part of it," Luke shrugged, not worried about the future.

"What do you want to name it?" Gu Yi was already planning to leave. She had only found this dimension by following the trail of the Dark Gate. Of course, it was also because Luke hadn't hidden it from her. So Gu Yi followed the power of the same source without any obstacles.

"The Abyss," Luke said, "While staring into the abyss, the abyss is also staring at you. This is too consistent with the energy characteristics of this dimension."

Gu Yi opened a portal and waved goodbye to Luke.