Marvel: Hunter

Chapter 430: Shadowed Origin

The Ancient One was definitely considered one of the top beings on Earth. No—even in the universe, she still had her place.

"Don't you want to know my origin?"

"Follow me."

In fact, Blaine was truly curious about the Ancient One's life experience, how she had inherited Agamotto's legacy, and how her magic had come to be. Just now, he had only brought up a random topic, and he had not expected that the Ancient One would actually be willing to talk about it.

Just as Blaine was about to stand up after hearing the Ancient One's words, he suddenly felt a powerful force strike him in an instant. It was so fast that Blaine could not react at all. He had never expected the Ancient One to launch a sneak attack.

Just as Blaine was about to flare up, he looked down and saw his body sitting perfectly on the ground. Looking at his hands, arms, and thighs again, he realized that his entire body had become blurred, slowly floating out of itself.

"I'll go—astral projection."

That was the truest thought in Blaine's mind.

When Blaine looked up at the Ancient One, the Ancient One was also looking at him with a faint smile. With that calm and composed expression, it was clearly not the first time she had forced someone's soul into the astral plane.

As a result, Blaine's heart was deeply shaken once again. At first, he had thought that as a Bounty Hunter on Earth, he could do whatever he wanted. But reality proved that there were always people beyond people, and heavens beyond heavens. The Ancient One's sudden, unprepared move was enough to make Blaine restrain his arrogance.

One had to know that even though Blaine had been unprepared just now, the Ancient One had succeeded, sending his soul out of his body with a single blow. However, Blaine was certain that even if he truly fought the Ancient One, he might not be her opponent. After all, the Ancient One's attack just now had not even triggered Blaine's danger perception.

"Come with me."

Seeing that Blaine had adapted to the state of his soul, the Ancient One spoke again. Then she turned around and headed behind her—no, she flew over. Hmm? It could also be said that she floated over.

As for Blaine, he was already in a soul state anyway, so why not follow? Therefore, Blaine followed directly.

After the souls of the two passed through a wall, Blaine's vision suddenly fell into darkness. Not even Hawkeye's eyesight could face such darkness.

Thump, thump, thump, thump...

Suddenly, there was a sound like the curtain opening on an opera stage, or like the grand background music before a movie. Blaine felt his eyes brighten. His body—no, his soul—seemed to have arrived in another land.

Here, space was filled with colorful magic. Here, the endless Himalayas still stretched on. Here, it was still Kamar-Taj. However, it was not the scene Blaine had seen when he arrived. Instead, it looked a bit like Kamar-Taj from a very long time ago.

Long ago, in the villages of Kamar-Taj, starvation and death were everywhere. Wails echoed constantly, and the streets and alleys were filled with people moaning in pain. The streets were covered with foul-smelling blood, rotten pus, feces, and other filth. In addition to disease, famine also flooded this land, and the scenery was extremely backward.

It was not because of how dirty their clothes were or how outdated the things they used were that made Blaine feel this was a long time ago. Rather, it was because disease and famine were not matters that had plagued Kamar-Taj for mere hundreds or thousands of years. Let alone a sacred place for sorcerers like Kamar-Taj—even some impoverished regions of India would probably not be like this.

"Does it feel like the end of the world?"

"In this era, hundreds of thousands of people suffer from various diseases every day."

"Or starve to death."

"And I lived in such a place."

Listening to the Ancient One's words, Blaine did not speak. Although many people—or alien monsters—had already died at the hands of Blaine and his subordinates, seeing this scene still made him feel unbearable for some reason.

When Blaine had slaughtered so many Xandarians at once on Kristar, he had killed them with a single blow, directly taking their heads. Although he had felt a little guilty, it had definitely not affected him.

But now, this kind of scene was truly too miserable. The wailing never stopped, and his ears were constantly filled with painful groans. At this moment, forget eating dirt or bark—Blaine even saw people eating each other on the street. And because of disease, some of them slowly and painfully stopped moving altogether. For this, Blaine could only feel deep sympathy.

"This feeling of watching life slowly pass away before your eyes is very uncomfortable."

This time, Blaine finally understood why the Ancient One had taken in so many useless disabled people. Yes, anyone who could survive in such an environment—who among them was not a darling of heaven, a lucky one?

Just as Blaine finished speaking, the Ancient One waved her hand. The screen changed, and the scene before them changed again.

At this moment, in front of Blaine was a dense primeval forest. Beneath an ancient tree so thick that it would take ten people to wrap around it, there were two teenagers. Looking carefully, one of them bore some resemblance to the Ancient One.

He saw the other boy holding a mass of black matter in his hand while speaking to the other person. Because there was no sound this time—perhaps the Ancient One did not want Blaine to hear something and had deliberately blocked it—Blaine did not know what they were talking about either.

However, when Blaine focused on that mass of black matter, he felt his spirit tremble. It seemed to carry a sense of déjà vu, but that feeling was not friendly. It made Blaine feel a little afraid. Just imagine—there should only be a handful of energies or substances in this world that could make Blaine feel fear.

"This is me."

"This is Karoo."

"You may not know him, but he was my friend."

"We learned magic together."

"And that is what he is holding."

Not noticing Blaine's abnormality, the Ancient One continued to explain.

For some reason, Blaine kept staring at that piece of dark matter and did not notice that the Ancient One had waved her hand again. In his mind, Blaine vaguely seemed to remember the Collector—no, no, it was what the Collector had once said.

He still remembered that when he was on the Collector's planet, the Collector had once described to him the origin of Planet Bri and the origin of the high-level space fortress-like wreckage.

In his memory, the Collector had once said that there was something like a dark cloud covering the sky and chasing those spaceships, swallowing them and shooting them down.

Although the Collector had not described in detail what that black cloud was.

*************************************

You can get access to early chapters on patr*on

If you like my work and you want to support me then you can become my patron on patre*n.

My patr*on account is Lord_Immortal_0170