Chapter 123: Regret

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"We must destroy the black hole! Resist his influence, and give it everything you have!"

Stephen nodded at the Ancient One, before he felt the world darken.

Confusion set in, along with a headache, making Stephen frown. As he tried to sort his mind out, he heard a familiar yet foreign voice, "Stephen, are you alright?"

Stephen opened his eyes with difficulty, only to be blinded by the sun. Shielding his eyes with his right hand, Stephen manages to spot a feminine figure through the gaps between his fingers.

After a few seconds, Stephen exclaimed, "Donna!"

The young woman before him laughed, "Yeah?!"

Stephen blinked at his sister for a few seconds, his confusion still there. He looked around, and saw they were at a lake, and it came back to him. He had just entered medical school, and he came to this lake for his celebration.

A grin came to his face as he remembered the occasion, and he said, "How come I see new bruises every time we go swimming?"

Donna laughed, "What can you do, I'm too beautiful for the world to accept me!"

Stephen chuckled, and watched as Donna jumped from the cliff into the lake. But seeing she did not immediately emerge, Stephen started excessively panicking for some reason.

However, he sighed in relief though as he saw her re-emerge. Taking a couple of seconds to adjust back his breathing, Stephen followed as he too jumped down from the cliff.

Stephen dived with a great posture as he reached deep underwater, though he was far from the bottom, or they wouldn't dare to jump. Well, Donna would.

Speaking of whom, as he swam back to the surface, Stephen looked around, but saw no trace of Donna, and he instead heard a muffled scream because water entered his ears.

He looked in the direction of the scream, and saw his mother with a horrified face, while his father was diving into the water, a look of urgency on his face, not caring in the slightest about his clothes.

Finally, Stephen's ears cleared up and he heard what his mother was screaming. It was the name of his sister.

Stephen quickly put two and two together, and dived down, searching for her. Once again, Stephen's earlier panic came back in full force, his heart was beating so fast he could hear it.

For several minutes Stephen searched, he had already begun crying as the realizations settled in, but finally, he felt something. Something heavy.

Pulling with all of his strength, Stephen pulled, his body produced a stunningly strong force as he managed to pull the weight out of the water, which revealed itself to indeed be his sister.

She was no longer breathing, so Stephen tried to apply what he knew of CPR, but as he frantically pressed his sister's chest and tried mouth to mouth breathing, she did not move.

Stephen cried, his body continued trying to revive her, but his mind knew that she was beyond saving, and he was crying.

Then, everything turned into a blur, and Stephen found himself back on top of the cliff, his sister calling for him. Confused, he did exactly the same as he just did, only for another loop to begin, and so on.

However, as the loops came and passed, Stephen's mind finally cleared as he finished a loop, but wasn't sent in another one. Instead, as he opened his eyes, he was back in the Black Hole.

Thinking back about the loops he went through, Stephen wouldn't be able to count them, he probably went through thousands, and if he didn't wake himself up he would have continued until insanity.

Focusing on the situation at hand, Stephen saw that both the Ancient One and Edward were much closer to the black hole's center than him, both awake, and more importantly, out of the disk's area of influence.

Understanding they had taken a big risk just to protect him, Stephen clenched his teeth as anger set in. Not at them, of course, but at himself for dragging them down. The Ancient One came to them for help, and yet all he did was endanger them.

Stephen quickly bonded with the disk, which he found to be very easy, a bad sign as it meant it's current owner was very weak.

Once the bounding was successful, Stephen sent a look at Edward, who looked back and shook his head, so Stephen flew past him and neared the Ancient One.

Yao, seeing his disciple arrive, smiled as he stopped throwing spells, and said, "You came out of your dream faster than I expected… Help me attack the center, don't put your all in attacking though, we must gain time, not destroy it."

Stephen nodded as he felt the peculiar aura rising from Edward, and understood the destruction of the black hole would depend on him.

Fuelling a part of his powers to heal the Ancient One, Stephen used the rest to throw one spell after another at the center of the black hole, all of them just strong enough to reach the gateway without being disintegrated first.

Meanwhile, Edward, who was advancing ever so slowly, but rather steadily, first felt the aura of Shuma-Gorath increase, thus making the pressure of the black hole decrease, but seeing it did not have any effect and only made Edward advance faster, Shuma-Gorath decided to go for the opposite, and reigned in his aura to make the black hole stronger.

But no matter what he did, Edward continued advancing, soon reaching fifty meters, then thirty, twenty, fifteen, and finally, ten.

Edward had long gone past both the Ancient One and Strange, and Edward was so close to the center of the black hole that if he stopped using his Space Concept to protect himself, he would be torn apart in atoms in an instant.

But as he reached 10 meters, he stopped for the first time. The reason was simple, he felt his Space Concept hit a limit. Again.

The feeling was strange, but he felt like he had reached completion, that his Concept couldn't go any further. It had probably reached the peak, and to further advance it, he would have to make it evolve to it's next form, which could possibly be a Divinity.

However, it wasn't so simple to make his Concept evolve, and Edward could feel that he wouldn't just be able to do so through meditation here, he would need something special to trigger it.

Moreover, as he got closer, time passed slower, and so even though since the start of the fight probably less than an hour had passed in the outside world, Edward felt his spirit was getting quite exhausted as he had spent way too much time in here.

Fortunately, Edward felt that his gains from this endeavour were more than worth it. First, he hadn't even felt the passage of time as he had been in deep meditation, which for his spirit was more similar to deep sleep than anything.

At the same time, Edward felt his power over space, as well as his understanding of it, had increased by a huge margin. Now, perfecting his Space Bracelets was only a step away, he only needed to actually do it.

Also, Space and Time were connected, and so time seemed to have become much easier to understand, thanks to his current understanding of space.

But more importantly, Edward also felt that his influence on space had finally become strong enough.

Opening his eyes, Edward ignored the distorted light around them, and looked straight at the center of the black hole. There wasn't actually anything to see, a point in space without light is invisible, and would be automatically filled up by the brain to make a coherent image.

But through his Chi Sense, Edward felt the gateway, and knew how to destroy it. Gathering the power of his Space Concept, the chaotic black hole around Edward started getting even more chaotic.

This meant the impact on Edward's body was getting stronger, but he ignored that as he continued increasing the pull of the black hole. Then, Edward started moving his body, which came at the cost of a great effort thanks to the strengthened pull, but he managed to form a fist, and punch out.

The simple punch was not so simple though as the principles of space were hidden within, and the space in front of Edward's fist began folding on itself, before jolting back in space, in a similar fashion to a spring.

And just like a spring, this created energy, which attacked the center of the black hole.

If Edward was back on Earth, or in any normal place, this technique wouldn't be very strong because the more stable the space, the harder it was to influence.

But here, in the middle of a black hole where space was extremely chaotic, the effects of his punch were magnified instead as a giant rip was formed in space.

Edward didn't stop there though as he punched a second time, and this time the fold was even bigger, meaning even more energy was being released.

Edward had reached the limit for his Concept, and now he was learning to use it through his martial skills.

Space itself was ripped apart as the energy following Edward's punches increased, when finally traces of damage started appearing on the gateway.

Then, under the extremely chaotic environment, Edward didn't need to attack anymore as the cracked gateway couldn't handle the immense transfers of energy being created in it's center.

Then, Yao, Stephen and Edward saw a spectacle few saw in their lives in this universe, the destruction of a black hole.

It wasn't a lengthy process, it was quite instantaneous actually. A bright light appeared in the middle of the gateway, before a huge flash of light and energy.

Yao and Stephen were forced to close their eyes and shield them with their arms as they were sent flying away by the wave of energy.

However, Edward was a different case. The light did not blind him, and the energy did not send him flying. Instead, Edward felt the energy to be extremely familiar, as it was Chi!

Moreover, it wasn't just any Chi, it was the purest kind of Chi, one without a single blemish in it. The energy washed over Edward's body, filling it to brim as Edward felt his Core fill up in an instant.

Just like that, Edward felt his Core reach the peak of the Revolving Core Realm, and there was still a lot of energy left in his body, refining it to make it become stronger.

This all lasted for an instant, the energy barely made contact with him and pushed him to his peak, before continuing on it's way. Edward had only absorbed an extremely small part of that energy wave, which continued expanding in space, soon travelling across the entire galaxy at a speed many times faster than light.

Washed in such pure Chi, Edward didn't move for a few seconds, appreciating the changes brought with his eyes closed, before he finally opened his eyes and looked at Yao and Stephen.

The two had also received some damage from the black hole earlier, despite all their protections, but they had all their injuries healed. Moreover, the damage from the spells they used over the years, which had accumulated to be quite the burden, had completely disappeared, leaving behind a healthy body.

But as he examined his two friends, Edward felt something disturbing in his Chi Sense, and turned to look back where the black hole was.

The space there looked normal, but Edward could feel there was something that should not be there, or instead a lack of something.

Edward wasn't really sure why, but he decided to follow his instincts as his body began moving in strange ways. Yao and Stephen looked at Edward in surprise in the distance as he seemed to be dancing strangely.

After a few seconds though, they were shocked to see a new black hole form, and quickly expend to take the place of the last one.

Before they could worry though, Edward stopped his dance, and suddenly teleported between them, not using any kind of portal, to say, "Don't worry, I am only following the natural order."

Author's Note: To clear any misunderstanding, Strange's flashback was an actual thing, and his sister is really called Donna, but this isn't the same Donna as the one in the story, they only share the same name.