American comics: Starting with Luke the Maker

Silent City.

Luke's laboratory.

"My God! What happened here? Was there an invasion?" Nick Fury and Stephen Strange looked at the drastically changed interior, resembling a magical apocalypse, with shock and dismay.

"Who could invade Luke's laboratory? Do you know how many layers of protection Silent City has? Without the coordinates, you can't even find it. At most, you'd find Bright City. Kamar-Taj has established at least two enchantments here! Unless there's an internal problem, serious enough that Luke couldn't handle it," Stephen said sternly and without reservation.

"Can you open that portal?" Nick asked Stephen, remembering that the Sorcerer Supreme had special privileges here.

"No, the surrounding energy is too chaotic; it's hard to stabilize a dimensional portal," Stephen shook his head. He had already tried it; the surrounding spiritual energy was like being caught in a storm. Forget about a portal, even the construction of many spells was affected. For a mage, that's like having a significant debuff applied.

"Then what are we going to do? Do you think we can leave here safely?" Nick held his breath, peeking from behind a stone pillar at some kind of floating, ghost-like black spirit in front of them, and asked in a low voice.

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"I think it's going to be difficult," Stephen gave Nick a look. Almost immediately, he darted forward along the ground to one side.

Nick felt a jolt of adrenaline and almost instinctively activated the spiritual energy ring on his finger. Enveloped in golden light, he created a long golden phantom trail around him.

Two hooded figures, their bodies surrounded by black energy like black cloaks, silently hovered around the stone pillar. The empty eyes hidden under their hoods seemed to be staring at Stephen and Nick.

"Damn it, what are these monsters! They can make me feel fear! This shouldn't be happening!" Nick looked at the two monsters in shock. He felt something familiar about them.

Could this be Luke's latest creation, gone out of control?

"It's the Abyss!" Nick could only vaguely sense it, but Stephen, the Sorcerer Supreme who was now almost bound to spiritual energy, immediately realized where the unease and strangeness in his heart came from!

He had dealt with the Abyss more than once! Although he had never been so bold as to delve into its depths, he was still one of the people who knew the Abyss best and had come into contact with its power. Even though the energy carried by these monsters felt different from the Abyss, the suppression and despair were strikingly similar! It was like a creature born in the Abyss!

He and Nick both thought of the same possibility: either these monsters were creatures naturally born from the Abyss, or Luke had created them using the Abyss, and they were now out of control.

Nick and Stephen believed in Luke's technology and strength, but they also knew that anything involving the Abyss was troublesome. After all, the Abyss had given Mephisto and Dormammu headaches and left them helpless, forcing them to seek help from Luke.

"Are you sure?" The word 'Abyss' also stimulated Nick, and the golden light around him dimmed a little. Although he hadn't dealt with the power of the Abyss like Stephen, he knew of its existence and had it sealed as a top secret by S.H.I.E.L.D. He knew what a terrible force the Abyss was and what it could do!

"Didn't the Abyss dimension give a warning? I remember the Ancient One was responsible for Abyss warnings, right?" As soon as Nick finished speaking, he felt a chill and instinctively used the power of the ring to pull himself through the void. Another black monster was pouncing down from the high ceiling.

A quick glance around the empty hall revealed at least thirteen of these creatures within sight. Worse, at least five of them had spotted them and seemed to regard them as prey.

Stephen also started running immediately. The Cloak of Levitation sensed the danger and practically dragged its master, weaving an abstract path through the hall around the pillars, leaving trails of afterimages.

With the ring's enhancement, Nick was not to be outdone. A golden energy chain connected to Stephen, binding his waist like a rope. It looked like a locomotive pulling a carriage, running for their lives in sync.

"I don't know. I didn't receive any messages," Stephen communicated with Nick mentally through the energy chain around his waist.

"So what? Are we going to find Luke now?" Nick felt like he was going crazy.

"We can't leave now. A barrier and restrictions have been raised outside. No living or even dead thing can escape from the barrier and restrictions. From this, at least, it shows that Luke is still normal and is actively trying to salvage and organize the situation," Stephen affirmed. In the current situation, it seemed unlikely that they could solve it with just the two of them. Now, he could only hope that Luke hadn't been seriously affected; otherwise, they might be in big trouble. Even communication was impossible. The surrounding spiritual energy was too chaotic.

"I think you'd better hurry. Otherwise, we might be caught soon," Nick suddenly said. Stephen glanced behind him and saw five or six black monsters floating in mid-air, pursuing them at a speed that seemed slow but was actually a spatial warp. The closest one was almost touching Nick's butt.

The Cloak of Levitation on Stephen's back bristled like a cat, stretching straight in the air and then rushing forward at maximum speed. The speed was so great that Stephen felt his bones creaking.

But the black monsters still followed seemingly leisurely, no matter how much the Cloak of Levitation accelerated, changed direction, or dodged. They always managed to keep up steadily, constantly closing the distance.

The closest one was less than a meter away from Nick, who was hanging behind. In the midst of the incredibly fast movement, the monster extended a pair of withered hands from the black cloak woven from black spiritual energy. The hands looked like bones covered with a layer of skin, and the monster slowly reached toward Nick in his horrified gaze.

A powerful suction force emanated from the withered hands. Threads of light particles, like smoke and mist, spilled out from Nick's golden energy suit toward the withered hands. The energy stored in the spiritual energy ring on Nick's hand instantly flowed out like a tap that had been turned on, disrupting the balance of energy output and replenishing it frantically.

At the same time, many dark and desperate emotions involuntarily arose in Nick's heart. If the spiritual energy ring hadn't been protecting his body and consciousness, his mind would have already experienced the shallow contamination of the Abyss and begun to mutate.

"Stephen!" Nick frantically warned Stephen in his mind.

Musical notes, like spells, played a grand and inspiring melody in the air, capable of evoking resonance in people's hearts. They bypassed Nick and poured out from Stephen's open hands toward Nick, striking the black monster in front of Nick.

Stephen's current state was that the Cloak of Levitation was dragging him and Nick as they fled, while he turned around, facing the direction where Nick was behind him.

The black monster took Stephen's spell attack head-on, its black body recoiling as if electrocuted. The darkness and obscurity of Nick's emotions were immediately cleared up a lot, and the loss of energy stored in the spiritual energy ring was greatly reduced. The ring's airtight protection was restored all over his body, becoming stable.

"Thanks," Nick said, breathing a sigh of relief after experiencing the terrifying moment, as he was pulled next to Stephen.

"Don't rush to thank me yet. We need to find a way to get rid of those guys," Stephen had realized that if they couldn't find a way to get rid of these monsters, they would be caught halfway before they reached Luke's laboratory. Even worse, they couldn't even determine how many black monsters there were in this Luke's experimental base. Was the number here large or small?

If the number of these monsters increased as they went deeper, their behavior would be like moths flying into a flame. But even worse than that was that the only paths they could choose were to find Luke, and there didn't seem to be any other better options.

"What are you going to do?" Nick also understood Stephen's thoughts, and he agreed with them. After all, those monsters weren't slow. No matter how fast they ran, the monsters could steadily keep up and even continue to close the distance. Simply running away in this situation would undoubtedly not get them far.

"Let's try to find a way to deal with them first," Stephen made up his mind. Although the chaotic spiritual energy around them greatly affected the release of spells, there were still many spells that could be successfully cast. This included the musical note spiritual energy magic he had once created in a flash of inspiration.

"What are you going to do? Your spells don't seem to be effective against them," Nick said, feeling a headache as he watched the seemingly unharmed black monsters chase after them again. He was also impressed by the monsters' tenacity and power. He had clearly felt the power of the note explosions from the side. Each one was enough to shake the energy suit on his body to the point of collapse. After a set like that, even with the highest level of protection from the energy suit, he definitely wouldn't be able to withstand it. At that point, he was afraid that only the spiritual energy ring on his hand would survive, and his whole body might be blown to pieces. The power was terrifying.

But even this kind of spell, when smashed hard on a monster, didn't seem to cause any damage except to make the monster take a few steps back. It was simply frightening.

"If one doesn't work, then try another," Stephen waved his hands to both sides, his fingers moving quickly in the air like a conductor of an orchestra. One by one, musical notes leaped out from between his waving fingers, and these notes flew and surrounded them, forming a spherical cocoon that wrapped around and protected him and Nick. Finally, with the return of the last note, Stephen's gestures scattered into a cloud of flying fireworks in the air, and then re-formed into a musical note ouroboros, encircling the five black monsters that were chasing them in the center.

"Success!" After a moment, Nick breathed a sigh of relief and said in surprise as he watched the monsters, which were still unable to break through the note blockade despite their attempts to rush left and right.

"No, it's only temporarily restricted," Stephen didn't share Nick's surprise. Nick, limited by his vision and perception, couldn't accurately detect the subtle anomalies, but as the caster of this spell, he understood very well that although his spell did restrict those monsters, this restriction required a lot of energy to replenish.

The monsters were constantly weakening and eroding the power of the ouroboros bit by bit. As one of Stephen's proud spells, this spell, which excelled at binding and restriction, had the characteristic of automatically absorbing various energies from the void dimension for conversion in order to maintain its own existence. It could be said that as long as there was a continuous supply of external energy, this spell could exist permanently.

But the current situation was that the energy replenished by the ouroboros was less than the speed at which it was being eroded and consumed by the black monsters. In other words, this spell could only trap them for a short time.

But that was enough.

The Cloak of Levitation accelerated again, and the figures of Stephen and Nick quickly disappeared into the hall.

The two ran all the way, and finally had to stop when they approached their destination. Because in front of them floated a dense mass of black monsters, numbering dozens or even hundreds. They wandered and guarded the only path to Luke's core laboratory like loyal guards.

"It seems the worst has happened."

Stephen and Nick's moods were extremely heavy. Ahead was a dead end, and behind them, the shadowy figures of the black monsters had reappeared. The five monsters seemed to have identified them and caught up to them almost simultaneously after breaking free in a way that no one could determine.

A pincer attack.

This was really terrible!

"Can you bind them again?" Nick looked at Stephen, whose face was ugly, with hopeful eyes.

"That spell model has its limits. I can use it again, but I'm afraid it will be broken free in an instant," Stephen also had a headache. These monsters seemed to be immune to any attacks, and the only thing that could restrict them were some restrictive spells. But these spells couldn't really restrict them for too long. The most critical thing was that these monsters had [good memories]. Judging from the relentless footsteps of the five monsters chasing from behind, once they were targeted, they would definitely chase you until you couldn't get rid of them.