Chapter 232: The Powerful Great Old Ones
Dormammu was a tyrant, a ruler who would use any means necessary to achieve his goals.
He was an extremely emotional master.
But he would not lose sight of his goal because of those emotions.
For example, Dormammu definitely wanted Matthew and the Ancient One to die as soon as possible, but he would not guide a Great Old One—something ten thousand times more dangerous than both of them—into appearing just for that.
That would be a complete loss.
If Dormammu truly wanted to do such a thing, he would have done it sometime during the past few centuries of the Ancient One's life.
For now, the threat in this area was not too great.
Still, Matthew did not let down his guard.
He disliked threats in any form. The Empire was still in its early stage of growth. Whether the chance was high or low, he had to erase even the slightest hidden danger.
Anything that delayed his growth had to be destroyed.
As for the Great Old One cult, the Ancient One would personally handle it. If a cult like that had developed, the Ancient One would not allow it to remain. She would definitely find a way to dig it out and pull it up by the roots.
As for Parker, Matthew would deal with him.
At the same time, Matthew also prepared to study another thing—defensive methods against the mental pollution and corruption of the Great Old Ones.
In truth, Great Old Ones were somewhat similar to the Four Chaos Gods of the Warhammer world.
The Four Chaos Gods came from the materialized emotions of mortals within the Aethyr's energy vortex. They corresponded to the four basic emotions of hatred, hope, joy, and despair.
Their methods were all mental pollution and corruption.
The difference was that the dimension of the Great Old Ones was on a far more absurd level.
Ordinary energy, magic, divine power, and the like could only drive back a Great Old One's projection. They could not harm its true body.
At the same time, the Great Old Ones' mental pollution—the so-called indescribable nature—was a kind of cross-dimensional crushing. It was like overloading the brain.
Their forms, voices, and thoughts all carried this crushing quality. That was why people would be polluted and corrupted. The human mind could not keep up with the existence of the Great Old Ones themselves, nor could it understand that kind of universal truth and chaotic will.
That was why people went mad, twisted, and eventually had their flesh affected until it changed.
Even someone as powerful as the Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One, could have her mind infiltrated and invaded.
There was even less need to mention everyone else.
Powerful as they were, they were not without weaknesses. Kamar-Taj had magical defense runes specifically designed to resist this kind of cross-dimensional mental corruption from the Great Old Ones.
Later, those runes would need to be enchanted into the equipment of the three Warbands.
At the same time, they also needed to develop targeted defenses for the mind and consciousness.
Tsk.
As Matthew was thinking, he suddenly came back to his senses.
Back when he had still been an ordinary person, he had needed to be cautious. Now, even though he had clearly become stronger, he still felt that this universe was just as dangerous.
There were simply too many powerful threats.
He wanted to become Homelander, yet he suddenly felt that day was still far away.
But the pressure brought by these threats did not make Matthew despair or retreat. Instead, it stirred the heat in his heart.
Being calmly invincible would indeed be wonderful.
But during the process of growth, facing a series of crises, meeting powerful opponents, and removing those hidden threats was also a wonderful thing.
Fighting people, defying the heavens—both were endless fun.
If he felt the Great Old Ones were powerful, it was only because Matthew himself was still too weak.
As for true powerhouses, there was no need to mention the supreme OAA.
Even the Living Tribunal, who was responsible for balance and judgment, had both the authority and the ability to judge and seal several Great Old One branches.
The Beyonder from the Beyond Realm could use his own power to forcibly rewrite reality, restart the multiverse, and treat the Great Old Ones as ants.
There were also the Celestials.
During the Cancerverse War, Galactus, together with the Celestials and Thanos carrying the power of Death, had once joined forces to block the Great Old Ones' cross-dimensional invasion.
All of this proved that the Great Old Ones were not invincible.
Matthew was simply not strong enough yet.
The appearance of traces of the Great Old Ones once again awakened Matthew's sense of urgency and returned him to the state of mind he had at the beginning, when he trained with bitter effort.
He had become stronger now, but at the same time, he was also the Emperor of two million Terrans. He carried responsibility for all of his people.
This pressure, this responsibility on his shoulders, would become the force that pushed Matthew to keep fighting.
It would stop pride and laziness from growing in his heart.
With his will burning again, the strength of his Conqueror's Haki actually rose by another large amount.
…
Just as Matthew had thought, after the Great Old One cult appeared on Earth, the Ancient One rushed over to deal with it.
Kamar-Taj was the expert in this area.
After all, among the threats from other dimensions that the Ancient One had fought, branches of the Great Old Ones were included.
She knew better than anyone that the threat of the Old Ones was no smaller than Dormammu's. In fact, it might even be above Dormammu.
Matthew's training became even harsher and more focused. Before, he might still have given himself some time to relax and rest, but now he abandoned even that.
Because of this, Carrie and Gwen began to notice that they rarely saw Matthew anymore.
They had no choice but to ask Emily, the estate's butler.
From Emily, they learned that Matthew would be training continuously for quite a long time.
The two girls did not understand the reason behind Matthew's change.
But it still affected them to some extent.
A sense of urgency also arose in Carrie's heart, because she could feel that the relaxed atmosphere from before had disappeared. From Matthew's actions, she could sense that he was under some kind of pressure.
But there was nothing she could do about it.
Carrie hated that feeling.
She wanted to help Matthew.
As that thought grew stronger, Carrie suddenly began having strange dreams. In them, she seemed to experience certain things.
But she couldn't remember any of it.
The only thing that remained in her memory was a book.
A book she couldn't see clearly, hidden somewhere.
Deep down, she felt that some mysterious force was guiding her toward it.
The feeling was incredibly strong.
Carrie thought about it for two seconds before deciding to ignore it.
Carrie was an obedient girl.
After enduring her mother's harsh abuse and brainwashing as a child, then being rescued by Matthew and spending all this time with him, there was one thing he had taught her more clearly than anything else.
Do not be curious.
Do not be curious about things that tempt her, and do not think too highly of herself by throwing everything aside to face some unknown matter alone.
Those things or people that seemed like coincidences, that seemed as if they could help her, often hid unknown darkness and schemes beneath the surface.
Although Carrie still kept some innocence and kindness, she was very stubborn in certain areas.
Especially Matthew's teachings—she remembered them deeply.
With those teachings as the foundation, Carrie felt more and more that this dream had appeared far too coincidentally.
She had only just thought about becoming stronger so she could help Matthew, and then she immediately began having dreams that seemed to be guiding her somewhere.
Carrie had never thought of herself as the heroine of some movie or novel.
She believed only one thing.
Someone was trying to trick her.
So Carrie ignored it completely.
She absolutely could not give the bad guys even the slightest chance.
...
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