---
"I always, always wondered, I was born to die, so what was my reason for existing in this world?"
–Yuuki Konno, (Sword Art Online)
---
<(Atem POV)>
"Doom will never break. You will never make me surrender." Dr. Doom groaned, while bound by a bunch of black receivers made my rinnegan. He had half of his face visible in the open due to his partially molten mask, a result of the constant magical fire along with the various spells I had been attacking him with.
"Yeah, I realized that in the first hour of torture. I was only trying to practice my magic skills for the last two hours." I muttered under my breath, annoyed that none of the magic spells that I had cast till now using my Witcher world magic system were in any way reality-altering.
In fact, the entire Witcher world magic system unlike all the bullshit types of the magic of the Marvelverse was based on the concept of equal exchange which meant even though I had complete unrestricted access to 'chaos' which was the origin of the magic of the Witcher verse, there were still limits on what I could physically do because chaos energy wasn't the only thing that was 'consumed' every time I used that particular type of magic.
For some reason, every spell I used from the system drained my divine energy as well as my never-ending supply of Witcher world's chaos energy, thus limiting what I could do using the magic system beyond the planetary level or higher.
Also, a lot of my powers and abilities like Nirvana fire were much more powerful than their magical counterparts like the sigil/spell of Igni, so using magic for my normal enemies was a waste of my talents. I would much rather reserve my magical abilities for actual versatile sorcerers or reality-altering cosmic threats.
"Okay, now that I am mostly done with my tests, I think it is time to end this with a bang, don't you think?" I threatened with a small smile as I manifested a small crimson-red glow on my fingers, ready to use my divine energy on him directly to enhance my mental attacks on his mind.
As my glowing finger lightly touched the side of his forehead, I felt his mind's painfully constructed mental shields trying to block me from accessing his mind. They were extremely strong hands down, even without the artificial psionic blocker hidden in his suit which was constantly trying to neutralize all my psionic energies directed at his mind while cloaking him from my psychic might. But they still weren't powerful enough to stop me from forcibly tearing apart his mind.
"Yeah, so there is good news and bad news. The good news is that you can finally be free now, but the bad news is that while I am not going to kill you or torture you any longer, I still have to wipe everything out from your memory which means you will be reduced to a vegetable by the time I am done with you." I warned, trying to ease him into the pain and sense of helplessness that he would be experiencing soon.
"You... you won't dare." Victor groaned out in pain as he desperately tried to hold back the panic he was feeling.
"I will actually. I mean, I didn't want to, but this is the only logical option I have to prevent you from stealing from me. In fact, I think you should count your lucky stars that I am not killing you and causing a war to break out in Europe. I am sure any neighboring country of Latveria would be more than happy to conquer the country the moment something happens to its one and only ruler... Although, now that I think about it, a lot of people wanting to take over Latveria for themselves might also try their luck when they find you as a vegetable but eh, whatever, not my problem." I said as I finally began to use a considerable portion of my telepathic might to slowly drill into his mind's shields.
"WAIT... Doom doesn't surrender but he can make a deal if the conditions are right." Victor Von Doom said with a straight face, sounding like he was trying to do me a solid by considering making a deal with me while saving his own life.
He was truly on another level of shameless pride.
"Huh, really? You will? I thought you were too much of an arrogant and entitled spoiled brat to do that but I guess there is still hope for you." I shrugged while savagely insulting him as I stopped my mental assault on his mind.
"I will agree to never again approach the Baxter Foundation, its employees, and anyone relating to you or try to 'use' them for my benefit if you agree to do one small thing for me or should I say, help me do one small thing." Doom proposed with an annoyed and vengeful look as he stared at me with his half-exposed face while ignoring most of my insults.
"You are the one on the losing side here and on the verge of death but you are still trying to negotiate like we are on equal grounds? HAHAHA. Fine, I guess I can entertain you. What is it that you want me to aid you in?" I decided to humor him, already having an inkling of what he was going to ask me to do for him.
Dr. Doom was many things. Strong, hateful, cruel, nefarious. But along with those adjectives, he was also a character with a sad backstory in most timelines, someone who in almost every iteration of his story had tragically lost some or most of his family members and just wanted them to return to him... or something along those lines. So, if he was going to ask me something in that regard, then maybe I could use that to my advantage.
"I theorized after getting various snippets of your exploits that you had the power to bring people back to life even after their death. That the line between life and death does not truly matter in front of the gifts you possess... If you could somehow bring my mother back to life, I would gladly do everything I just mentioned. But if not, then you would never again try to get in between anything concerning me and Reed Richards." He offered.
"I feel like you are not mentioning something important in that offer of yours. Reviving your mother back from the dead should not be that hard at all for someone like you. It should be a walk in the park. Also, you don't look like you have some mommy complex, so why exactly do you want to revive your mother?... unless you don't and just instead want to rescue her from something?" I guessed after remembering snippets of his backstory from one of the mainstream comics I had read.
I didn't know exactly how close I was but going by the aggravated look on Doom's face, I realized I wasn't too far off.
"... She is a prisoner of a Hell-lord named Mephisto." A lightning strike suddenly lightened up the sky as soon as he spoke the name, an indication that the famed Hell lord had probably become aware of this conversation due to his name being mentioned just now. "My mother's imprisonment in his dimension is a smudge of insult in my name, my rule, and my heritage. I need my mother freed. It doesn't matter if you have to bring her back to life or free her soul and let it go somewhere else, I don't care. I just want her out of Mehisto's claws." Doom growled.
Aah, so it seems it was a matter of kingly pride rather than pure motherly love.
"Fine, I will help you but of course, I will change some of the conditions since it doesn't seem fair to me that I will have to make one of the most dangerous beings in the universe my enemy while all you have to do to pay me back is just stay away from a particular place and some people. By the way, I also do not trust you to uphold your side of the deal just because of its legality. So, I hope you understand that you will have to sign something more... magically binding for this to happen." I revealed as I took out a certain contract paper once given to me by Selene.
Of course, I avoided mentioning the fact that I already didn't like that particular Hell Lord a lot since he had tried to sabotage a lot of things I did over the years. The feeling was also mutual since he too didn't like me much as well especially after I helped Ghost Rider once kill his son. In fact, there was even quite a good chance that I would probably even have agreed to do this for Doom for free, just to mess with Mehisto.
"Words of Marduk! Quite a valuable magical contract, it costs a fortune and is thus unaffordable for most common grade sorcerers. Do you want me to sign on that? Breaking that contract no matter the reason can have disastrous effects on the ones who sign it. Even a mental death would be better than the spiritual agony it would cause while tormenting the soul of the one who breaks it, let alone the fact that the first thing it will do in that case is strip of all of your powers and..."
"Then don't break the contract. It's as simple as that. I know for a fact that I will keep my word. The question is, will you keep yours?" I smirked as I offered him the contract which he begrudgingly took and began to read it carefully.
"Wait, it says here that I have to be your herald for the next six years as well. What does that mean? Doom is nobody's servant." He spoke as a matter of fact as he angrily clasped the contract.
"Well, I always wanted to have a herald and you look like you could do the job very well. Anyway, I am literally going to declare war on an entire hell along with its Hell Lord for you, so the least you can do is fight a few of my battles and become my herald for a measly period of six years." I reasoned.
"... Hmm. But I want to add another condition. I will only become your herald once you manage to rescue my mother's soul. Until then, I will keep away from Reed and Baxter, provided that they don't do anything that directly antagonizes me. But, if you fail to rescue my mother within the next four years, you will have to serve me instead." Doom tried his best to be the one who would profit from this the most.
"Becoming greedy, are we? Fine, I accept that too... However, in that case, you will have to be my herald for ten years after I rescue your mother and you in no way can do anything to stand in my way to rescue your mother. How about that? It's plenty fair, isn't it?" I offered as I changed the contract details with just a flick of my hands.
Of course, I could have tried to cheat in the contract by writing additional conditions in microscopic or transparent print but unfortunately, magical contracts aren't exactly that easy to cheat your way through especially if one was as high level as this one. Anything I do to mess it up will just be held void by the contract itself.
"It is 'fair', I guess." He sneered in contempt and signed the contract with a drop of his blood after reading it twice and using a couple of magical spells to make sure it wasn't messed with in any way. He didn't look happy but didn't look particularly sad either. It was probably either because he had already figured out a way to cheat the contract much like I have which was just to beat up Marduk, the one whom the contract was made in the name of, or he didn't believe that I could do it at all and just expected me to be his slave after failing to do the job.
"Looking forward to working with you," I said with a small chuckle and a warm smile as I too dropped a single drop of my blood on the contract after cutting apart my thumb with a small blade made of my divine energy.
"Huh," Doom grumbled and harrumphed as he watched the contract disappear into bits of dust.
'Great, Now I have a potential general for my interplanetary invasions on alien civilizations. All according to my plan.' I happily remarked to myself while nodding my head, feeling that even Aizen would fail in front of a genius, meticulous, and absolutely non-narcissistic planner like me.
---
Don't forget to 'vote' and 'comment' if you like the chapter.
Also, you can check out my Patreøn page as well to read ahead or to support your amazing author.
Right now I have about 20 chapters in advance there.
(My Patreon uses the new billing method which means if you pledge on the 15th of this month, you will have to pay again on the day you pledged, i.e., the 15th of the next month. So whenever you subscribe, you will get a whole month.)
patreon.com/God_Doom