Chapter 109: Chapter 109: The Witch's Return
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Uncaring about the reactions of the leaders of the world, Edward exited the scene through a portal. For some time, the room remained silent, before chaos erupted.
But while everyone in the room was discussing about how to shut Edward and his ideas down, a woman came up to the podium. Using her left hand, she made a cutting gesture at her throat, and in under ten seconds, the live feed was shut off, and the journalists were pushed out of the room.
But even faster than the live feed, the members of the UN stopped talking in less than a couple of seconds.
Now that only the most important people of the world were listening to her, the woman said, "This man represents a threat, that I think we can all agree on. He has shown in the past three weeks vastly superior capabilities compared to the battle against the Kronans, and if he is allowed to set up his organization, then we can all guess what would happen."
The faces of everyone present was grave, so she continued, "The World Security Council was created after the Second World War to make sure no such thing would ever happen again, and has managed to do so for the past 66 years.
"But if this man manages to do as he said, to gather all the Supers in the world, then a Third World War is inevitable. Hence, a solution must be found. I invite Mr Pierce, Mr Malick, Mr Yen, Mr Singh and Mr Rockwell to the podium."
As she said that, everyone in the room felt their breath stop. The World Security Council was the highest authority in the world, and those five men she called, alongside with this woman, Hawley, made up the entire Council.
Although they were the highest authority in the world, the Council usually remained in the shadows, and when they made decisions, only one of them would speak. But even the most mundane decision made by the Council could change the world.
Ever since the Council's creation, only once did the six members of the World Security Council speak as a whole, and that was when they were created. Other than that, the most members that had spoken at the same time was four, and that was during the Cold War to stop a nuclear war.
Quickly, five men joined Hawley on the podium, and Pierce said, "Serenity… no, Edward Bell's influence is too great right now for us to take any direct measures, the people still take him as a hero because of the events of Trondheim, and doing anything against him right now would turn him into a martyr. But mark my words, SHIELD will do everything within it's power to stop this man before he turns into another Hitler."
Claps erupted from the audience as the reunion on Supers broadcasted to the world turned into a private reunion about Edward.
Meanwhile, the people who had listened to Edward's speech had various reactions, which were mostly positive in nature, especially for those who had powers.
Most people with powers hid their faces, and for the majority, they did not hide to protect themselves from villains, but from the government. Most were scared they would be caught and experimented upon, or turned into weapons as Edward had said.
Still, people wouldn't simply jump onto Edward's words and believe him completely. As people discussed on the internet, one reaction that came out very often was how Edward ignored the non Super population.
His idea was to create an organization for Supers, and use their powers best, but what were normal people supposed to do then? Wouldn't that completely change the social balance too, how could equality reign if the people were categorized into boxes?
As for Edward, after leaving the UN, he appeared in his workshop right away, and began working. Neither Diana or Donna were home anyway, one was in Africa while the other was at school, so he had nothing to do but work.
Working on his techniques and his cultivation allowed Edward to put his mind off things, and he often would not see the time pass. This was a quality that allowed him to learn things very quickly, one shared by Stephen too.
Others might think working under a 1000 times faster array was a blessing, the truth was that most people would either quit quickly, or turn mad.
To put things into perspective, one day of work outside was a thousand inside, meaning that everyday of work inside represented nearly three years for him.
Moreover, three years spent in the real world and three years spent in accelerated time were extremely different. In the outside world, not only would one encounter people and interact with the world in general, just seeing the sun, the moon and the stars, and time pass in general, was important.
But while in the time array, Edward had nothing but himself. To deal with that, Edward did a lot of meditation while in the time array, using his time to reflect on himself. This made him several years older than he should be, but also strengthened his Will by a great deal. His physical body didn't really age either thanks to his much longer lifespan.
Even now that he couldn't use the time array for forging, he still used it for study. Using his teleportation, his connexions and his copy and paste magic, Edward memorized all kinds of books, pushing his mind to the limit as he absorbed as much knowledge as he possibly could.
He already had the entirety of Frigga's library, as well as Kamar Taj's for his magic. He also went to several universities, to increase his knowledge of… well, everything.
The capacity of the human brain was largely underestimated, and even a normal human could memorize hundreds of times more than they did, so for Edward who was much stronger than the average, both in body and mind, his memory capacity wasn't a problem.
And even though Edward recently stopped jamming libraries' worth of knowledge into his head, he used the time array for research, especially magic research as he had already learned all the knowledge he could get his hands on. It also allowed him to assimilate it.
Unfortunately, his magical research inside the time array was restricted in the same way as his smithing, the fragments of creation took a while to come back.
And today, Edward decided to spend some time in the time array, before working on his smithing. However, after a few weeks inside, which represented less than an hour outside, Edward felt one of his artefacts send him a signal.
Concentrating on the signal, Edward felt that it was his house's arrays that detected a strong presence approaching it.
With a sigh, Edward walked out of the time array before teleporting in the sky above his home.
Back in New York, Edward felt his Chi Sense extend to his surroundings, and found the strong presence to be flying in the sky too. Turning around, Edward saw an old enemy of his, one of the main reasons why he first used a mask, Circe.
The ginger haired witch looked at Edward with a wicked grin as she said, "So it was really you, how did I not see it?"
Edward looked at her unimpressed, he was still in his Serenity armor, but without the face mask. Although that was only a slight change outside, it signified quite a lot for Edward as he was no longer only Serenity, he was facing her as Edward too.
And now, was the time to face his first big threat as Edward Bell. The Greek Witch summoned a large number of bird hybrids in the air around them, and as soon as they arrived they dived for Edward.
Edward looked at the incoming hybrids, but ignored them after waving his hand slightly. At his gesture, the world around them was suddenly trapped into the mirror dimension, the dimension in which magicians fought.
Edward showed a great feat of magic though as he not only sent himself and Circe into the dimension, he also sent all the hybrids into a different fold of the dimension, separating them from the fight easily.
Even Circe was a little shocked by the feat as she knew she was incapable of doing the same. But now was not the time to be shocked as Edward was a very real threat.
Contrarily to her expectations though, Edward did not go for a physical fight, but once again waved his hand. Once again, space was easily shaped after his will, and this time a being of great proportions appeared before her.
Circe couldn't hide her shock as she saw a dragon appear in front of her. The dragon was easily ten meters long, had purple scales with a golden underside and golden horns, and emitted a strong presence.
As it appeared, the dragon roared out, and Circe was forced several meters back from the sonic attack. Her eyes widened as she finally registered the threat, and brought her palms together.
The ground below them instantly shifted to form a giant earth golem that came to protect Circe, enveloping her within it, forming a giant armor and weapon.
Meanwhile, Edward landed on top of the dragon, and looked at the golem with interest as he ordered the dragon, "Go have fun."
The dragon roared at that and with a flap of it's wings neared the golem. The dragon had two wings in it's back and four legs, all of which ended with sharps talons that resembled an eagle's. As they approached Circe, Edward threw a spell on the dragon's talons, sharpening them.
The talons tore the earth golem with ease, and even as the magical construct tried to hit the dragon, it was too fast to be caught. In under a minute, the golem was turned into broken blocks of earth as the witch controlling it was now looking at Edward in fear.
At that moment, she understood this was not the same man she faced a year ago. And unfortunately, that was both true in strength and mental.
Showing no hint of mercy, Edward took out Aeglos and jumped off the dragon's back. Circe tried to slow down the time around her, but as Edward neared the time was forced back to it's normal speed.
The snow white blade approached Circe, and her eyes widened as she understood she couldn't dodge it. Panic blossomed within her, and she still did her best to dodge, but it ended up being useless as the spear impaled her.
A spear blade now going through her body, Circe spat out a mouthful of blood as she looked at Edward with a pleading look, and begged, "Please, spare me!"
Edward slightly shook his head but did not kill her. The flesh around the wound had started freezing, so Edward quickly sealed her power. He took out a ring he had forged while training his smithing, made of Mithril, and sealed the entirety of Circe's power inside it. Then, he took Aeglos out of her and healed her wound.
The witch looked at Edward in shock, she begged but she still expected to die, it was only a last ditched effort. Seeing her relief, Edward said, "We are going to have a discussion, one that will decide your fate. Don't think you are saved yet."
Circe nodded, but sighed in relief inside. Although she believed what he said, it was better than dying outright.
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