Chapter 129: The Unfortunate Mage Bru

That night, Kyle rested in a room provided for him in the Stark Industries Tower.

The next morning, Kyle emerged from the building and walked along the sidewalk in a leather coat with a built-in hood, letting the newly risen sunlight bathe his body.

While bonded with him, Venom could mitigate the genetic mutations caused by radiation. It was, in a sense, the only thing currently keeping his life from ending in less than a year.

As he watched a laughing family of three pass by, Kyle recalled his final conversation with Howard the night before:

“As for my condition, don’t tell anyone except me—not even the members of the Carl family.”

“Are you afraid they’ll worry? I think everyone should know. You’re the indispensable pillar holding us all up. If you suddenly left, the heavens themselves would collapse.”

“I’ll tell them when I’m about to leave Earth for outer space. Telling them now would only add to their troubles and anxieties.”

“Three months. I’ll help you keep it hidden for three months, and no longer.”

…

Kyle sighed, thoroughly miserable. He felt like an old man arranging his affairs while concealing from his family that something had gone wrong with his body.

There was simply too much weighing on his mind. On one hand, he had to race against death to seize what little time remained. On the other, he had to spend that time laying the foundation for his family’s power.

“Six months. At most, I can remain on Earth for half a year. After that, I’ll use the Space Stone to travel into outer space and seek abilities beyond blue-grade cards!”

Having made up his mind, Kyle continued walking through the modern streets. Then, all at once, he looked up in alarm. The surrounding cityscape began to warp and shift according to some unseen pattern.

The voices and figures of the pedestrians rapidly faded away. In the blink of an eye, he found himself standing in an empty, elongated, desolate city.

“Not this again. The Mirror Dimension?” Kyle raised a vexed eyebrow. He swept his gaze around and, sure enough, spotted a black man standing not far behind him—the likely caster.

“I am Bru, a sorcerer,” the black man said with a slight air of arrogance.

He wore a plain black sorcerer’s uniform. A strange square ring adorned one hand, while the other held a delicate wand shaped like a short, slender rod.

“You’re Kyle, the one the Sorcerer Supreme mentioned? I’ve wanted to meet you for quite some time, but you rarely enter the part of New York under my jurisdiction.”

“By the way, you must be wondering how I accomplished this. Unfortunately, for a mortal like you, it’s simply too supernatural, too—”

Bru was speaking with smug pride when he suddenly noticed that Kyle’s clothes had changed into a black battle suit. Kyle was coldly flexing his fists as he paced toward him.

A bad feeling surged through Bru’s heart.

“What are you trying to do?”

“My mood happens to be terrible. I never expected someone to deliver himself straight to my door.”

Kyle revealed a sinister, demonic smile. After loosening his muscles and joints, he lowered himself slightly, gathering strength.

He stamped down hard, launching himself at Bru like a cannonball.

“So fast!”

Bru’s expression changed dramatically. He hurriedly raised both hands. As his wand spun, sparkling golden magic rapidly formed a circular sigil that blocked his path.

Almost the instant the defensive barrier was completed, Kyle’s fist slammed into it. Golden light burst in all directions as the sigil shuddered beneath the impact.

“Not bad.”

Kyle licked his dry lips. Looking at the battle spirit and killing intent rising in his prey, he extended dark blades from both fists and drove them fiercely into the floating sigil.

He had merely lost his healing ability for the time being. That did not mean he had lost the combat power that ruled this era.

Under Bru’s incredulous gaze, the magical barrier hovering before his hands began to fracture and collapse. The tips of the blades were dangerously close to piercing his palms.

He was shattering a magical shield with nothing but brute strength and claws?

Was this a monster?

Bru had no time to think. He swung his raised hand in a circle, rotating his short wand. Tough golden threads of magic extended from its tip, condensing into shape.

“Wand of Wato!”

With a low shout, the wand transformed as if into a long whip and lashed forward through the air.

Kyle twisted aside. The whip of condensed magical threads struck the street, scorching it and sending countless golden sparks flying.

“I can do that too.”

As Bru continued cracking his magical whip, Kyle withdrew the claws from his left hand and raised it. Venom imitated the technique, condensing its black fibers into a whip.

Venom battle suit—whip form!

Kyle snapped the whip in his left hand. Amid a violent howl of wind, it struck Bru’s magical whip and coiled around it.

Bru had just begun to pull hard when a terrifying force far beyond his expectations surged through the whip. At the very last moment, before his wand was torn from his grasp, he hurriedly dispelled the spell.

“That’s it?”

Kyle curled his lips. He flicked the whip in his left hand, its crack exploding through the air as it lashed toward Bru.

No matter how deeply a sorcerer understood the laws of nature, no matter how well he mastered the supernatural force known as magic, his body was still that of an ordinary human. How could he possibly take a whip from Kyle, whose strength was ten times that of a normal man?

And so, Bru fled without the slightest trace of dignity.

His boots were magical artifacts known as Boots of Leaping. With every bound, golden circular sigils appeared beneath his soles, allowing him to step on empty air as if it were solid ground and leap through the sky.

By the time Kyle looked up, Bru had already leaped more than ten meters into the air.

“Since you came, how could I possibly let you escape?”

Kyle smiled. He canceled the whip form of his left hand and accelerated toward a nearby high-rise.

He stepped onto walls and glass windows set at a ninety-degree angle to the ground, running and climbing as effortlessly as if he were on level ground. The distance between him and Bru rapidly narrowed.

“That’s not fair! He isn’t even using magic!”

Bru was dumbfounded. As he watched Kyle pursue him along the side of the high-rise, utterly disregarding the laws of physics, a chill rose along his back.

“Then don’t blame me for holding nothing back!”

Bru gritted his teeth and muttered an incantation, sweeping both hands backward.

The Mirror Dimension was not merely a realm cut off from reality. Within it, sorcerers could also use its rules and laws to manipulate its form to a limited extent.

Kyle was running along the wall when he suddenly felt space twist around him. The high-rise beneath his feet began to shift and rotate, folding downward and crushing him between itself and the ground.

A moment later, the face of the building pressed flat against the street, and Kyle’s figure vanished inside.

Bru landed lightly on the reverse side of the building. He stared down blankly at the silent city streets below and murmured, “Did I just kill someone?”

“Don’t flatter yourself!”

A cold voice suddenly rang out from within the high-rise. A humanoid monster covered entirely in black, leather-like material burst through the building’s glass and vaulted into the air.

Bru had just raised his wand to cast a spell when a black tendril shot outward, wrapping tightly around the short wand in his hand.

“You—”

Before he could finish his cry of alarm, Kyle, fully transformed, surged in front of him and delivered a carefully controlled punch.

Bru’s head took the full impact. His eyes rolled back, and he toppled stiffly to the ground.

“An idiot who came straight to my door. A walking card dispenser.”

Kyle shrugged. The hood covering his face dissolved into black tendrils and peeled away. In excellent spirits, he began processing his humanoid trophy, Bru the Sorcerer.