Chapter 91: Return

To read up to 20 chapters ahead: https://www.patréon.com/SlyOW

-------------

A few hours after Bilbo and Gandalf left Dale, Edward was under the great lake, about to enter the portal. He had already gotten everything he sought here, and even more, and it was now time to come back to his world, and take care of his own matters.

Putting back his Serenity outfit, Edward entered the tunnel.

Eru was not here this time, but Edward could feel a connection coming from a certain direction. Normally it would be impossible to navigate in this messy Spacetime Tunnel, but thanks to his understanding of their Concepts he could do so.

Guessing it was home calling him back, Edward moved toward that location. As he flew through the tunnel, he also tried to understand the surrounding spacetime, but with his current understanding he could not make much progress in minutes.

Quickly, Edward reached the entrance to his universe. It was nothing but a crack, something one could find plenty of in this tunnel. Unless one knew this was the entrance to a universe, it was impossible to find.

And even if someone found it, their power would be sealed by the universe they invade. That's if they came from another multiverse, that is.

Edward took a deep breath, before he stepped into the crack.

The moment he appeared though, he felt like he was suffocating. He looked around in panic, and recognized his house, he was back where he left.

He checked his body, and he was breathing normally, this feeling of asphyxiation came from all around his body. After a second, he realized… it was the Chi.

He was always spending some Chi with his two Spatial Bracelets, for the monument and things he wouldn't be able to access for a long while, he used basic arrays that fed on the surrounding Chi, but for the things he kept on him he used his own method, meaning he always used Chi.

It wasn't much, his regeneration covered it, but here was the problem. As his body absorbed the surrounding Chi, he found it to be insufficient. The speed at which he recovered Chi was faster than the speed at which the world was recovering.

Back in Arda it wasn't a problem as the world was full of magic and probably had more ambient Chi, but here on Earth, he was feeling uncomfortable. That was something he would have to take care of too.

But for now he had more pressing matters. He opened a portal to Frigga's library. The goddess was not in her library, but she had already given him the permission to come here anytime he wished. She was a nice woman.

As he arrived, Edward felt the shortage of Chi disappear, making him take a deep breath. So Asgard had more Chi than Earth, maybe the solution would be here to find, for a later time that is.

Edward moved to the Life and Death shelves and began copy and pasting the books into his mind quickly. Life Magic and Death Magic were related to one another, and could be quite powerful if rightfully used.

He had done some research on it, but his time had mostly been spent on learning elemental magic so his knowledge was lacking for what he wanted to do. Also, he was heading to Hell and was going to beat it's god to a pulp, so knowing his enemy would probably be a good thing.

With his new method of absorbing books' content into his mind, he quickly finished reading all the books on both shelves, and although he felt a headache appearing, he opened another portal to Kamar-Taj.

There, too, he had access to the library. Although he was no longer a Sorcerer, he was still considered a disciple of Kamar-Taj.

As he arrived in the library though, he found two other people to be there. Both of whom he knew, as one was Zatanna, who brought him to Camelot, and the other was Morgana, whom he brought from Camelot.

The two were in the middle of a lesson when they suddenly spotted a strange portal being opened, one that did not belong to Sorcerers.

Morgana showed a smile, but without any hints of seductiveness, much Edward's surprise. The woman loved to tease from what he remembered.

As for Zatanna, she jumped from her seat and exclaimed with wide eyes, "You were bloody awesome!"

Edward raised an eyebrow in surprise and replied, "Thanks?"

Morgana rolled her eyes and chastised the younger woman, "He doesn't even know what you're talking about."

Edward scratched his head, he was gone for a few months, he thought about it for a second before asking, "You are talking about the Kronan Invasion?"

"Well duh!"

It had been many months since then, and seeing how he could completely crush them with utter ease now were they to fight again, he only shrugged.

Something about reaching the Revolving Core Realm was that while he got somewhat stronger in duels and small scaled combats, the biggest improvement was for large scaled battles.

Before, he was stuck to use attacks that could take out four or five people at best most of the time, but now his spells could kill dozens or even hundreds for the better ones, and with his immense Chi he could easily throw this kind of spell like candy.

If he were to fight Diana at her full power right now, he would be able to fight for a while, but he would eventually be defeated.

However, if they were to be both thrown into the middle of an army, then he would be able to destroy them with a much greater efficiency. Actually, even Thor who wielded lightning and could use it to take fields of enemies, was probably not as effective as he was.

Zatanna, seeing Edward simply shrug, opened her eyes wide, but Morgana laughed, "It was pretty impressive. Do you intend on doing the same in hell?"

A boom echoed in the library as Zatanna found Edward to have appeared right in front of her, looking deep into his eyes as he asked, "How do you know?"

Zatanna smiled, she was a bit surprised by his speed that clearly was faster than sound, but she had felt he was much stronger than before, so she replied, "No need to threaten me, I'm a good guy, remember…"

"Answer the question."

She was cut off by Edward's cold voice, and Zatanna felt a shiver as a pressure appeared from Edward. Compelled by the aura, she replied, "Hermes and Hephaestus are currently in Kamar-Taj, asking for help."

Edward restricted his Chi Sense to a few meters around him while in Frigga's Library and in Kamar-Taj because he was treated well in both places and didn't want to infringe in anyone's secrecy, but hearing her words he let his Chi Sense spread to it's limit.

As he did, he felt several strong presences gathered together. One he recognized as Yao, the Ancient One, another as Stephen, but the three others were unknown to him. However, he knew they felt his probe.

Opening a quick portal, Edward arrived there, leaving behind a speechless Morgana who eventually sighed to her student, "I'm the one supposed to give the cold shoulder."

Arriving on the other side of the portal, Edward saw the Ancient One was sipping tea, as he always was, and he had several guests. Stephen was standing in a corner of the room, leaning against a wall with a thoughtful frown, while the three guests were sitting down.

One of them had greyish skin, jagged teeth and a few strands of hair. His arms looked like molten lava, and his eyes were grey in colour. He was ugly, very much so, and looked a little, well, stupid.

Standing on his side was quite the exact opposite as he looked very handsome, one of his eyes blue, the other brown, and his short blond hair along with his rather angular face.

And the third, blond too, had winged sandals on his feet, and wore a white outfit.

Seeing Edward arrive, Yao seemed to be expecting him as he said, "Speak of the devil… This is Edward, Diana's lover, and he seems to know about her predicament."

The man wearing winged sandals got up from his seat and greeted with a disarming smile, stretching out his hand, "Hello, I am Hermes, and those are Hephaestus and Eros."

Edward took his hand, and replied, "Nice to meet you, you are here to help Diana?"

Hermes shrugged, "We're all here for different reasons, Eros wants his bow back, Hephaestus wants to help the lad and I… well, Hades went back on our deal, so he needs to be taught a lesson."

Edward nodded slightly, before asking, "When are you going there?"

Hephaestus, was had remained silent until now, grunted, or maybe his voice was really deep, "Hades will have the wedding tomorrow, and invited a whole bunch of gods to come. It's easier to enter Hell invited."

Edward didn't agree with him though, "I'm not leaving her in there one more day."

Eros chuckled, "No need to get excited, although Diana was hit by one of my arrows Hades won't touch her before they are married."

"Your arrows?"

"It's a long story, but basically Hades stole my bow and shot an arrow at Diana, making her fall in love with him."

"… how long has she been in there?"

"Only a couple of days, no need to worry. Hades is only a fool who wants to be loved, he wouldn't have done anything to her."

Edward replied, "I'm going there right now. Master, I'll be going."

Yao nodded while the three gods looked at each other, and Stephen, who had remained silent until now, said, "Wait for me."

Edward nodded and opened a portal back to the library.

"How many god damn times are you… Oh, hi Stephen."

Morgana prepared herself to insult Edward for interrupting their lessons twice and giving her the cold shoulder when she suddenly stopped as she saw the second person.

Edward looked at her with some surprise before looking away, while Stephen nodded with a small smile.

Edward already knew the libraries of Kamar-Taj like the back of his hand, so his Spiritual Energy slipped into the books about life and death magic as he copied everything it had into his mind.

The headache became worse, but after a couple minutes of short meditation he managed to integrate all the knowledge and make the knowledge go away.

Although he had absorbed a whole bunch of knowledge about life and death magic, he obviously hadn't become a master of said magic, he still needed to create spells, but the process became much easier all of a sudden.

Edward was tempted to absorb the rest of the library right now, but it would take a while, and he didn't have the time. He sent a look at Strange and said, "I'm going to Hell you know. Hades is a powerful god."

Strange snorted and replied, "Had you told me it was Mephisto's Hell I would have worried, but Greek? I can manage."

Edward remained silent for a second, before thanking him, "Thanks, Stephen."

Stephen nodded without a word, and Morgana quipped in, "I can come too!"

Edward sighed, "I don't need a weakened witch."

Morgana replied by sending a bolt of darkness at Edward, who easily caught it. The magical spell did not do anything to him, but it was fast, and made his hand back a few centimeters. Considering his current strength, it was about as strong as when she had hit him for the first time and almost killed him.

"You have recovered. Fine. I guess you'll be coming too Zatanna?"

The younger woman was grinning from ear to ear, answer obvious. Edward smiled slightly before taking out Diana's diadem.

However, as he was about to cast a spell on it to get a better direction, Morgana snorted, "I can teleport us to the entrance of Hell."