Sorcerer in the Marvel Universe

"Ah... haha..."

After hearing Evenson’s grand declaration, the Eredar Twins looked around at their magnificent new gift.

Then they exchanged a few awkward laughs.

It wasn’t because Evenson had summoned them while hiding in a little ravine to escape the wind. From where they stood, the visible terrain was barely large enough to fit a modest suburban house.

No.

They simply had no idea how they were supposed to react.

By any reasonable standard, conquering an entire planet was an extraordinary achievement for an interstellar civilization.

Giving someone an entire planet as a gift was even more absurdly generous, particularly when that planet was still capable of supporting life.

But the circumstances surrounding Evenson’s acquisition of this particular planet were...

Questionable.

The twins had personally led Burning Legion forces in the conquest of countless worlds.

They had destroyed just as many.

None had ever been this easy.

Sometimes a world simply happened to cross paths with an advancing Legion army.

In those cases, the Legion attacked, fought a few battles, crushed the opposition, and moved on.

Simple.

But there were still battles.

Other worlds were slightly more complicated.

Occasionally, one of the inhabitants would have spent an entire life convinced that fate had personally singled him out for suffering. Then the Burning Legion would appear, offering power to anyone willing to become a warlock.

And suddenly, that miserable nobody would go from being a complete failure to standing at the pinnacle of his world.

It was practically a miracle.

Naturally, such people tended to become extremely enthusiastic recruiters.

They’d gather their fellow citizens and announce:

Yes, I’ve gained incredible power.

Yes, I made a deal with the Burning Legion.

But I’m not going to keep the secret from you.

Anyone can do it.

All you have to do is join us.

Then they’d open a portal.

And the Burning Legion would arrive.

Even on worlds where the Legion already had willing collaborators on the inside, there were usually a few people with enough sense to realize what was happening.

They’d resist.

A few battles would be fought.

People would die.

Then the planet would finally fall.

That was conquest.

What Evenson had done was something else entirely.

He’d gone to someone’s home, eaten dinner, chatted with them for a while, said a few convincing things...

And somehow walked away with an entire planet.

Even Sargeras himself hadn’t had it this easy when he’d personally traveled to Argus to recruit the eredar.

Velen had still taken one look at the situation and fled with his people.

Yet here?

Not even token resistance.

"What kind of idiot..." Salorathis stared across the barren landscape in disbelief. "Would possess something like this, fail to realize its value, and then hand it over to you?"

"Idiots?"

Evenson didn’t sound particularly smug.

"Not exactly."

Hydra had survived for thousands of years in this world. Every generation had produced influential, formidable figures.

They couldn’t possibly all be fools.

"They were simply too rigid in the way they thought."

The Eredar Twins exchanged a glance.

For some reason, both of them felt as though the flow of time had shifted ever so slightly after Evenson said that.

Salorathis frowned.

Evenson continued as though he hadn’t noticed.

"For generations, they’ve been taught the same story. Their master was exiled to the world beyond the portal, and this portal was their only means of bringing him home."

He shrugged.

"That idea became so deeply ingrained that they eventually forgot something rather important."

He gestured toward the horizon.

"The other side of the portal doesn’t contain only their master."

"It contains an entire planet."

"A planet waiting to be conquered."

"They never thought of it that way."

Evenson smiled.

"So I benefited from their lack of imagination."

"I’ve always considered your ability to think outside the box one of your better qualities."

Aureseus glanced up at the murky sky.

"But this planet..."

She looked around.

"...isn’t exactly exciting."

The civilization was gone.

The ecosystem was barely functioning.

The world seemed to be only one final step away from complete destruction.

Blow it into pieces, and the job would practically be finished.

"Keeping it doesn’t seem particularly useful," Aureseus muttered. "But throwing it away feels wasteful."

She sighed.

Salorathis suddenly laughed.

"My dear sister, I think it’s time you finally abandoned some of the habits you picked up in the Legion."

"Yes, yes. I knew you’d lecture me the moment I said it."

Aureseus rolled her eyes.

"We spent tens of thousands of years in the Legion. Of course some of those ideas are still stuck in our heads. It’s perfectly normal to judge things by Legion standards."

She pursed her lips.

"And besides..."

She looked toward Evenson.

"This is the first time we’ve received an entire planet as a gift since leaving the Legion."

She considered the matter more carefully.

"I understand that even a world like this has plenty of value. At the very least, when we expand our factories in the future, we won’t need to buy land."

She smiled faintly.

"And we won’t have to deal with zoning permits."

"Exactly."

Salorathis nodded.

She looked around at the devastated landscape.

"This place is already ruined anyway. We can move all those heavily polluting projects here. The kind environmental regulators would reject immediately anywhere else."

"Excellent idea."

Evenson wholeheartedly approved.

"And we can make good use of the planet’s natural resources."

He began listing possibilities.

"Oil. Coal. Or whatever equivalents this world has. There should be plenty of mineral deposits too."

He looked around thoughtfully.

"Who knows? Maybe diamonds are practically lying around everywhere."

"Exactly."

Salorathis’s eyes brightened.

Then she suddenly looked dissatisfied again.

"Although it would be even better if the environment were a little healthier."

She gestured across the wasteland.

"Then we could claim several thousand hectares and grow whatever we wanted. No one would care."

"Though that’s a problem for later."

Aureseus sniffed, then pulled out a specially made cigarette and lit it.

"Conquering a planet isn’t as simple as showing up and planting a flag."

She exhaled a thin stream of smoke.

"One of the most important symbols of conquest across civilizations is establishing a permanent military presence."

She gave Evenson a sidelong glance and a playful smile.

"You’ve already decided where to put the Fel Rift, haven’t you?"

"This is an excellent location."

Salorathis closed her eyes, carefully sensing the world around them.

"When this civilization collapsed, countless people died horribly."

"Most of their souls probably moved on long ago. But many were left bound to this world."

"Time has destroyed most of them. Their souls have fragmented to the point where they’re practically useless to a warlock."

She smiled.

"But the Soul Engine doesn’t care."

"High-quality souls are preferable, of course."

"But if the quality isn’t there..."

Salorathis spread her hands.

"We simply make up for it with quantity."

She looked across the dead world.

"There are enough fragments here to keep the engine running for quite some time."

Evenson listened quietly.

He suddenly felt an urge to point out that he wasn’t picky either.

If quantity could make up for quality, he was perfectly happy to work with that arrangement.

But he decided to keep the thought to himself.

...

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