Marvel: The Psychologist Who Stole Wanda and Gwen's Hearts!

The Ancient One was gone. Lorien and the others watched her leave.

As her hands fell to her sides, her spirit emerged from her body and drifted free. She bowed to Lorien one last time—so low it was almost to the ground. After that final gesture, her astral form withdrew, departing to find a place where it could stabilize.

She had just lost her physical vessel. Now, she would need to adapt to this new existence, for she might remain in this form for thousands, even tens of thousands of years. Otherwise, after slowly forgetting what she once looked like, she risked becoming nothing more than an abstract shape.

...

Once she was gone, the silent Stephen slowly stood. He reached out and gripped the Eye of Agamotto, then raised his gaze to the massive Eye of Dormammu in the sky—the harbinger of the Dark Dimension’s descent.

By now, Dormammu’s true form had received word of what was happening. Its enormous pupil shifted, locking onto Stephen below. For any ordinary person, being stared down by something like that would have been enough to shatter their sanity.

But Stephen held firm. He removed the Eye of Agamotto from his neck, gathered his power, and unleashed the Time Stone within it against the Eye of Dormammu high above.

"Dummm~~~!"

A green beam burst forth from the Eye of Agamotto, surging upward. From above, Dormammu answered with a final, chaotic blast from the Dark Dimension.

"Boom~~~!"

The two beams collided, releasing a violent shockwave that rippled through the skies over Hong Kong like a tsunami.

From afar, Lorien watched with growing interest. The two eyes were fighting.

Gwen clutched his arm.

"Who do you think will win?"

Wanda focused on the clash, then said,

"Their energy levels feel about the same."

She wasn’t wrong. Dormammu in the Dark Dimension was Universal-level, but he hadn’t fully descended, so his beam wasn’t at full power—only around Sky Father–level. The Time Stone was also Universal-level, but in Stephen’s hands, its output was similarly limited.

This was a clash between downgraded Universal-level forces—both operating at Sky Father–level. Fortunately, that meant the planet would survive. A true Universal-level fight could wipe out Earth with a casual throw.

Lorien gave his verdict.

"It’s about who can last longer. Either Dormammu will run out of energy to sustain his descent, or Stephen will collapse first."

In other words—whoever had the better endurance would win. If Stephen won, everyone would be happy.

But Hela, ever the pessimist, asked suddenly,

"What if Dormammu wins?"

Lorien shot her a glance.

"Dormammu won’t win."

"Huh?" She frowned. "Why not?"

"Because if he’s about to win, I’ll quietly give Stephen a boost so he can blast Dormammu away. Then Stephen wins."

Hela froze.

"You’re cheating!"

"Haha~" Lorien laughed outright. Pulling his hands free from between a pair of "pomelos", he pinched her cheeks before putting them back.

"Let’s get one thing straight—we’re here to back him up, not to play fair."

"You think we came here for justice?"

Wanda and Gwen laughed at that. Of course they hadn’t come for fairness—they were here to make sure the fight ended in Stephen’s favor. Lorien was their godfather, after all.

Hela pouted, but couldn’t deny the truth.

...

In the sky, the duel of energies raged on. Slowly, inevitably, Stephen began to falter. Dormammu had already torn open the rift, likely consuming the spirits of every sorcerer who had ever touched dark magic.

How could Stephen, still so new to his power, possibly match him?

Dormammu’s eye could not speak, but the mockery in its gaze was unmistakable—Stephen had overestimated himself. And behind that mockery was anticipation... for the new world it was about to claim.

"Snap!"

Far away, Lorien saw this and snapped his fingers.

Stephen suddenly felt an endless surge of energy flooding his body, as if he could never run out.

"Ugh!"

Gritting his teeth, Stephen forced the Eye of Agamotto to unleash its power. In an instant, an even greater beam of energy shot straight toward Dormammu’s eye.

"!!!"

Dormammu’s eyes widened at the sight of it. This strike was nearly Universal-level! How was he supposed to block it? With his eyes?

But just then, a rainbow beam of light pierced down through the dark sky, descending from even higher than Dormammu’s eye.

"Bifröst!" Hela exclaimed.

She knew it all too well—she’d even dreamed of it. And whenever the Bifröst opened, it meant Asgard had opened a passage here.

"Who’s coming?" Gwen asked curiously.

Lorien didn’t need to answer. As the sky filled with shimmering light, a stout old man holding Gungnir flew out from the portal.

"That old bastard!" Hela cursed through clenched teeth.

Then, right after cursing, she darted to hide behind Lorien—only to find Wanda and Gwen had already taken both of his sides. So she simply hugged his legs from behind.

Lorien could only think, Good grief. Three of his limbs were now occupied.

"Don’t cause trouble," he reminded Hela.

The moment Odin stepped out of Asgard, he saw Dormammu and Stephen locked in a fierce clash.

Odin knew Dormammu. Their relationship was a tangled web of hostility—never friendly, but neither willing to start a fight, because there was nothing to gain.

So Odin simply asked,

"Dormammu, where is Hela?"

Dormammu’s eye in the sky narrowed. It glanced at the Bifröst passage behind Odin, then at the Universal-level blast it couldn’t withstand.

Its gaze shifted, turning ruthless. The reason it had never attacked Odin before was simple—it had no Dark Dimension power in Asgard. Without that power, Dormammu was nothing.

But now things were different. Odin had descended. And he had opened the Bifröst.

In that moment, Dormammu drew upon every last scrap of Dark Dimension power it had gathered in Midgard, twisting reality itself—redirecting both its own energy blast and Stephen’s toward Odin!

Odin froze, momentarily stunned.

"Destroyer!"

Facing mortal danger, Odin called for the Destroyer armor—the only thing that could possibly shield him from this strike.

But Lorien glanced into his own storage. Your armor’s here with me. What are you even shouting for? Like it’s going to help you now.

The two beams of destruction reached him in an instant.

"No!!!"

Under Hela’s wide-eyed stare, Odin roared—and was blasted straight back into the Bifröst passage by the combined attack.

The twin blasts raged on until every last trace of energy was spent.

By then, Dormammu had completely exhausted the Dark Dimension power it had built up in Midgard over countless years. To twist the attack like that, it had burned through its entire reserve.

With nothing left to sustain it, its Dark Dimension projection began to crumble.

In its final moments, Dormammu fixed Stephen with a fierce glare. Then its gaze swept across the land of Hong Kong, searching for something. But when time ran out and it had found nothing, Dormammu’s eye vanished, full of unwillingness.

At the same time, the Bifröst passage on the other side collapsed and disappeared.

...

Gradually, the sky above the Hong Kong Sanctum Sanctorum returned to normal. The darkness was gone. The rainbow light faded. Everything became calm again.

Only the ruined Sanctum stood as proof that a great battle had been fought here.

"Plop!"

Stephen collapsed to the ground, utterly exhausted.

After a while, a few surviving Sanctum Sanctorum sorcerers hurried over and quickly helped him to his feet.

So, that’s it? The battle’s over?

Lorien thought about it and realized—yeah, it really was over.

The "Battle of New York" had turned into the "Battle of Hong Kong." And it wasn’t just the location that had changed—the timing had shifted forward quite a bit. After all, Stephen didn’t even have the magic cloak yet. That alone proved this was happening earlier.

Still, thinking about it... the Sacred Timeline had done its job of keeping events on track. The outcome was the same: Dormammu forced to retreat, and Stephen awakening as the Sorcerer Supreme.

Now, Dormammu had been driven away, and Stephen would almost certainly become the Sorcerer Supreme. Only the time and place had changed—the ending was exactly the same.

"Interesting."

Lorien smiled. Observing the timeline like this, from a bystander’s perspective, was a pretty nice feeling. He almost felt like one of the Watchers of the Universe.

Hela, still hugging Lorien’s legs, spoke from between them.

"So that old bastard just got blasted back like that?"

Gwen and Wanda nodded in unison.

"Yes."

Hela immediately climbed up and asked with delight, "Then is he dead?!"

Lorien gave her a look.

"You’re far too filial, Hela. Not necessarily," he said, rubbing his chin. "When Dormammu uses his full power to reverse an attack, it indirectly weakens its remaining force. If those two blasts had been lethal, Odin wouldn’t have been sent flying back—he’d be gone."

Hela let out a disappointed sigh.

"Ah... that’s a shame."

Such a model daughter. Truly heartwarming.

Lorien shook his head. With the incident over, there was nothing more to do.

"Let’s go."

But Wanda spoke up with a hint of regret.

"Lorien, I’m still not quite done learning my teleportation spell. And... the Ancient One left me a letter, telling me to open it after she was gone. So I need to go back."

"It’s fine," Lorien said with understanding.

They shared a quick hug.

"You’ll master it soon."

"Mm!" Wanda promised with a determined nod.

In the end, Wanda would return to Kamar-Taj to continue her training, while Lorien took Gwen and Hela home first.

Snap!

With a flick of Lorien’s fingers, he and Gwen appeared in a room of the northern building.

"Woo-hoo!" Hela jumped with joy, dashing off to play video games while cheering, "Yes! Odin’s going to die!"

"..."

Watching her bounce around, Gwen suddenly remembered something. She turned to Lorien.

"We haven’t checked on Mars Cybertron in ages. Let’s go—I want to see how far they’ve developed."

Ah, right.

Thanks to Gwen’s reminder, Lorien, who had been happily distracted, finally remembered.

"Let’s go, then."

Snap!

In an instant, he and Gwen headed for Mars.

Meanwhile, Hela, seeing Lorien vanish, ran over to the floor-to-ceiling window and glanced toward where the Bifröst connected to Asgard. She frowned in thought, but ultimately turned back to her game.

...

On Mars—after several days away—

"Wow!"

The moment Gwen arrived, she let out an awed gasp.

Lorien raised an intrigued eyebrow and looked down at the surface.

It had only been a few days, yet half of Mars’s surface had already been transformed. The Transformers had even reserved the 50% allocation Lorien had requested.

They’d divided the entire planet into a grid system. Grids with mineral deposits below were marked as transformation zones—also called construction zones, tech zones, or manufacturing zones. Grids without minerals were set aside as nature zones.

Now, the Martian surface was covered in a dense sprawl of buildings—mostly production facilities. In some areas, Lorien could even spot patches of green.

"Are those plants?!" Gwen pointed excitedly.

Lorien wasn’t sure yet, but he could find out.

"Elders, report all regional building module data."

[Received, Creator.]

Opening his energy panel, Lorien watched as each elder’s project details and purposes appeared instantly.

[Weapons of War: Prepared in case of resistance during off-world resource mining. If anyone tries to stop us, blow them to pieces!]

[Metal Smelting: To improve processing results for metal ores.]

[Mining Equipment: For more efficient extraction of mineral veins.]

[Natural Ecology: In compliance with the Creator’s 50% directive, currently in the atmospheric simulation stage.]

"Wow..." Gwen’s eyes swept over the various modules.

Every elder seemed to have their own focus—some prioritized handling future enemies, others aimed for more efficient mining. Each one was like a separate branch of development, and you could even tell their personalities from their projects.

Take the one working on ecology, for example—it was clearly more laid-back, maybe even fond of slacking off.

"Let’s go check out the ecology module."

Snap!

They teleported straight to it.

Sure enough, the Transformer elder here was unlike any of the others. The smelting elders were covered in molten metal, and the warriors were bristling with weapons—but this one was draped in flowers and grass.

It even had an entire forest growing atop its large, single-eyed head.

Yes, an actual forest.

"Hahaha!" Gwen burst out laughing. "Why is it so special?"

She wasn’t wrong. Among the thousand Transformers here, this one was probably the most distinctive.

Noticing Lorien’s arrival, the elder carefully shifted its massive frame and spoke with deep respect.

"Greetings, Creator."

At their size—tens of thousands of meters tall—just moving took considerable time. And with the ecology zone’s plants surrounding it, even a small movement stirred up a violent wind.

Best not to move at all.

Lorien gestured for it to remain still.

"Tell me about your ecology module."

The Transformer elder blinked in surprise, then quickly replied with excitement.

"It is our great honor!"