Marvel: I Am The Lord of the Shadow Dimension

With Tony's immediate crisis temporarily stabilized, Luke's thoughts drifted back to a passing comment Tony had made earlier: General Thaddeus Ross had been nagging Stark Industries for military-grade sonic cannons.

Clearly, the old man had too much free time on his hands and was gearing up to hunt Bruce Banner again.

Thinking about Banner, Luke honestly felt the man was a prime candidate for the title of 'Most Miserable Superhero in Marvel.'

He was a super-genius with seven PhDs, boasting an intellect that rivaled Tony Stark's, and he had a beautiful, brilliant girlfriend. But after one botched gamma radiation experiment, he was cursed to turn into a massive, uncontrollable green rage monster.

After accidentally injuring several people during his initial transformations, he became a top-tier fugitive. And the man leading the relentless manhunt to capture and weaponize him? General Ross, his own prospective father-in-law.

Banner had spent the last few years constantly on the run, bouncing from country to country, never finding a moment of peace. He had eventually settled in a favela in Brazil, trying to lay low, but Ross had tracked him down anyway. Now, Banner was being forced back to the United States, where he would quickly discover that his life was still a complete disaster.

Even though he eventually reunited with his girlfriend, Betty, his condition made intimacy physically impossible. And after going through absolute hell to help his father-in-law clean up a massive military blunder, he was forced to abandon Betty all over again and go back into hiding with absolutely nothing to show for it.

It wasn't until Nick Fury officially assembled the Avengers that the government finally called off the manhunt. If it weren't for Fury, Banner's life would have been infinitely more tragic.

In the grand Marvel Misery Olympics, probably only Frank Castle, the Punisher, could rival Bruce Banner.

As much as he pitied Banner, the Hulk was terrifyingly strong. Even with his newly unlocked Troll Ninjas, Luke had zero desire to wade into that mess and fight the Green Goliath.

However, remembering the sheer devastation of the upcoming Duel of Harlem, Luke frowned. When Emil Blonsky transformed into the Abomination, he went on a brutal rampage, slaughtering innocent civilians and military personnel alike just to draw the Hulk out.

Luke decided he would intervene when the time came. He would deploy his army to evacuate the civilians, minimize the collateral damage, and when the dust settled, he was going to personally execute the Abomination.

In the original timeline, the Hulk nearly strangled Blonsky to death but spared him at Betty's pleading. Honestly, Luke never understood why Betty wanted to spare a homicidal monster. Regardless, Luke was going to kill Blonsky to permanently prevent S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra, or any other ambitious idiots from trying to recruit or weaponize the Abomination in the future.

Luke shook his head. 'With great power comes great responsibility...' He chuckled at the cliché. His mindset was definitely shifting closer to that of a superhero.

But it didn't feel too bad. Glancing at the small potted plant he had been watering on his balcony, Luke gave a mental command. Two Shadow Ninjas melted into the darkness, dispatched to New York City to keep a 24/7 watch on Dr. Samuel Sterns—Mr.Blue.

He needed to monitor Sterns to know exactly when the Harlem plotline kicked off. Though, it would likely be a while; Banner had to hitchhike and beg his way all the way from South America to the US East Coast.

With his immediate plans set, Luke opened his System interface. He had over a million Energy Points burning a hole in his pocket, and it was time for a shopping spree.

Based on his recent experiences fighting Andrews and the unknown dimensional Lord, Luke had a solid grasp of how combat operated in these micro-dimensions. It was time to vastly expand his military might.

He didn't bother saving up for his next personal [Stat Enhancement]. To trigger the next bodily upgrade, he needed to raise his base Shadow Ninja count to 5,000. Based on the previous exponential price scaling, that would likely cost upwards of five million Energy Points! That wasn't a small sum; he'd have to conquer five or six dimensions just to afford it.

It was much smarter to invest that million energy into upgrading his army's sheer combat power first, which would allow him to conquer dimensions faster.

Thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of his various units, Luke realized that deploying them in massive, homogeneous clusters wasn't tactically sound. It was better to organize them into balanced, self-sufficient strike squads.

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He finalized a standard squad composition: 50 Shadow Ninjas, 5 Razor Claws, and 1 Troll Ninja.

In this formation, the Troll acted as the heavy tank and siege breaker, the Shadow Ninjas provided an impenetrable defensive phalanx, and the Razor Claws served as rapid-response assassins to eliminate high-value targets.

Having decided on the ratio, Luke began furiously tapping the 'Purchase' button.

He bolstered his total forces to exactly 1,500 Shadow Ninjas, 150 Razor Claws, and 30 Troll Ninjas.

This gave him exactly 30 fully operational, elite strike squads. The massive purchase drained his reserves down to roughly 100,000 Energy Points. He intentionally left this buffer for Mordo's sorcerer legion. Since Kamar-Taj had doubled the number of sorcerers fighting for him, their energy consumption during combat had increased significantly. However, with Luke's passive regeneration now sitting at an absurd 6,000 points per minute, maintaining that buffer wouldn't be an issue.

With his newly expanded army ready for war, and his current micro-dimension fully mined out, Luke pulled out his phone and texted Mordo.

'Bring the squad. Time to raid the next dimension.'

A Shadow Ninja retrieved the Ancient One's ledger from Kamar-Taj, and Luke selected the next set of coordinates.

A few minutes later, Mordo stepped through the permanent portal in Luke's living room, leading an expanded legion of thirty senior Masters. Luke noticed with amusement that many of the sorcerers were now proudly sporting bizarre, otherworldly magical staves and amulets they had looted from the previous dimensional war.

Signaling them to get ready, Luke linked his domain to the new coordinates and tore open a spatial rift.

A System warning immediately flashed, indicating the presence of hostiles.

Luke cautiously poked his head through the rift.

His eyes widened in shock. The dimension wasn't filled with humanoid armies or goblin hordes. Instead, the entire realm was occupied by a flock of absolutely colossal, bird-like behemoths. They were currently in some sort of deep, hibernation-like slumber.

He couldn't sense any localized dimensional Lord, but the sheer scale of the creatures was terrifying.

'What the hell is this?!'

Curious, Luke sent a squad of Troll Ninjas through the rift to test the waters. He ordered them to try and lift one of the slumbering bird's wings.

Ten massive, five-meter-tall Trolls—each capable of easily lifting twenty tons—strained with all their might... and the wing didn't even budge an inch.

Luke's jaw dropped. 'Nope. Nope. Nope.'

He immediately ordered the Trolls to retreat back through the rift.

It was almost comical. If ten of his heaviest hitters couldn't even lift a single feather, what would happen if the beast woke up? It would probably squash his entire army flat by accidentally rolling over in its sleep!

He estimated he would need tens of millions of Energy Points, and an army magnitudes larger, just to scratch these things. And these were just the sleeping grunts! Who knew what the actual boss of this dimension looked like? There were over a hundred of these behemoths scattered across the realm. If he accidentally woke them up and aggroed the boss, a single sneeze from the entity might completely wipe out his Dark Dimension.

Judging by the sheer size of the realm, Luke guessed it was teetering on the edge of becoming a medium-sized dimension. It seemed the local Lord was content to just sleep rather than actively plunder other realms.

Realizing this was entirely above his paygrade, Luke hastily severed the connection to the dimension. He grabbed a red marker and drew a massive "DANGER" symbol next to the coordinates in the ledger.

As he closed the book, a nagging thought tugged at the back of his mind. The giant birds had looked strangely familiar. He felt like he had seen them before. But he couldn't quite place the memory, and honestly, he didn't want to think about it too hard right now.

Shaking off the dread, Luke selected a different coordinate.

This connection felt much more normal. Peering through the rift, he saw a standard micro-dimension filled with a humanoid army, very similar to his previous conquest.

No longer needing to micromanage, Luke simply deployed all 30 of his elite strike squads and stayed behind the rift with Mordo's team to guard the chokepoint.

The battle was a one-sided slaughter. The organized shadow squads systematically dismantled the enemy forces. When the opposing Lord finally emerged to fight, he managed to destroy a few squads, but the Shadowkhan simply respawned instantly and swarmed him again. Completely drained of energy and realizing he was fighting an immortal tide, the enemy Lord fled with his tail between his legs, abandoning his dimension to Luke.

While Luke's army didn't currently possess the overwhelming burst damage needed to guarantee a dimensional Lord's death before they could teleport away, driving them off and stealing their territory was still a massive victory.

Luke smiled, incredibly satisfied. He decided that once he expanded his army to 50 squads, he would just set them to automatically invade and conquer micro-dimensions while he went AFK.

After allowing the sorcerers—who had barely needed to cast a single spell this time—to cross over and scavenge for magical loot, Luke shut the rift down.

The entire raid had taken a few hours. It was a long grind, but it was incredibly safe and stable.

With his System passively mining the newly conquered dimension, Luke suddenly found himself with absolutely nothing to do.

He had spent the last month cooped up in his hotel room playing video games, and honestly, he was starting to get incredibly bored of screens.

Looking out the window at the bright afternoon sun, Luke realized he hadn't just gone for a casual stroll in a long time.

He freshened up, grabbed his camera, and decided to go for a walk around New York City. To make things interesting, he secretly dispatched a dozen Shadow Ninjas to monitor the surrounding blocks for any undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

If he was lucky, he could intentionally "bump" into Nick Fury on the street and pressure the Bald Egg into finally handing over the Stark Expo diorama.

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