Sorcerer in the Marvel Universe

Conquest was a simple concept.

If you wanted to claim a piece of land as your own, you first had to send troops there, take it, and hold it. Everything else was just paperwork.

Evenson didn’t have an army yet.

That would change if his plan succeeded.

Once he secured the Felscar Rift, he would gain command of an entire demon army, along with a complete arsenal of Legion war machines.

And this wouldn’t be some ragtag force.

The Burning Legion had never lacked elite soldiers or veteran commanders. True, this particular army had spent tens of thousands of years stationed in the rear without seeing a battlefield, but demons didn’t forget how to fight. Combat was practically woven into their nature.

If Evenson could bring them under his command, that army would become the single greatest weapon in his arsenal.

Which was precisely why he had chosen this planet.

He hadn’t simply stumbled across an unclaimed world and decided it would make a convenient military base. He had targeted this planet because he needed somewhere to station the army once the Felscar Rift was under his control.

Demons could survive almost anywhere. Give them a chunk of a planet and they’d probably find a way to thrive on it.

The problem was what happened to everything around them.

Demons were destructive by nature, and even under strict orders, the fel energy radiating from their bodies and machinery wouldn’t simply disappear. One or two demons were manageable. An organized army, accompanied by countless fel-powered war machines, was another matter entirely.

Their presence would poison the land beneath them.

Eventually, the planet would become a wasteland.

Anyone who had seen worlds occupied by the Burning Legion knew exactly what that looked like. For the native inhabitants, a demon army arriving on their doorstep was nothing short of an apocalypse.

Naturally, they’d fight.

What else could they do?

Demons weren’t exactly known for diplomacy, and surrender usually wasn’t an option either.

That was why Evenson wanted to avoid dropping the Felscar Rift onto an inhabited world after bringing it into this universe.

Did he feel a little guilty about potentially dooming an innocent civilization?

Maybe.

Possibly.

He might even spare a few minutes for a respectful moment of silence.

But that wasn’t the important part.

What mattered was that he had no desire to start a pointless war.

Wars meant casualties, and Evenson hated waste.

He was stingy by nature. Losing soldiers for no reason was practically a personal insult.

Besides, for all the staggering size of the universe, habitable worlds weren’t nearly as common as people might imagine. The ones that did support life tended to attract attention from one power or another.

Earth was the perfect example. Asgard had been keeping an eye on it for years.

And demons were not exactly subtle.

The moment an entire demon army appeared, Evenson didn’t want half the universe showing up to stare at his new headquarters.

People had to buy tickets to visit a zoo.

Why should his demons be any different?

If he could choose, an uninhabited planet was clearly the best option.

At one point, Evenson had even considered the Moon.

He’d spent enough time boasting that Umbrella’s base was hidden on the far side of the Moon that the idea had lodged itself in his head.

The Moon should be lifeless.

And even if something somehow lived there, dropping the Felscar Rift on it would solve that problem rather permanently.

The only real concern was whether this was actually Earth’s Moon.

If some advanced alien civilization had secretly built a military fortress there and was pretending otherwise, that could complicate things.

There was another advantage, too.

The Moon was close to Earth.

If something went wrong, they could respond quickly even without a portal.

Unfortunately, that same advantage was exactly why Evenson rejected the idea.

It was too close.

According to Gernos’s calculations, the Felscar Rift was at least half the size of the Moon.

Half.

If something that enormous suddenly slammed into the Moon, there was no chance Earth wouldn’t notice.

Invisibility wouldn’t save them.

Even if Evenson created a magical barrier capable of making the entire structure completely invisible to every satellite on Earth, it wouldn’t matter.

Mass was still mass.

If the Moon suddenly gained another half-Moon’s worth of material, Earth’s tides would have something to say about it.

So this planet was practically perfect.

Evenson still had no idea how far it was from Earth, but that could be dealt with. The Legion had extensive experience with long-range teleportation.

As far as he was concerned, that was the planet’s greatest value.

Everything else was secondary.

Its natural resources needed to be surveyed first. There was no guarantee they’d find anything particularly useful.

And if the planet turned out to have absolutely nothing worth harvesting?

Fine.

Evenson could always burn the soil into bricks and ship them home.

He owned an entire planet.

Surely there had to be money somewhere in that.

Agriculture was another matter.

The environment wasn’t suitable for ordinary farming, and more importantly, a massive demon army would soon be occupying the place.

Food grown under heavy fel radiation might technically qualify as organic.

Evenson wasn’t volunteering to eat it.

"Anyway, owning this planet comes with a lot of benefits." Evenson stood in the shelter of a windbreak, patting his chest as he spoke confidently to the Eredar Twins. "You two just wait for the good news."

The twins had seen far too much of the universe to get excited over something as simple as acquiring a planet.

Salorath merely glanced at him.

"All those benefits depend on you securing the Felscar Rift first."

Oleseth folded her arms. "Don’t lose sight of your priorities. You know what actually matters right now."

"I know..."

Evenson turned his face away.

The two of them were starting to sound like landlords chasing a tenant for rent.

Couldn’t they offer a little encouragement?

A few nice words?

Warlocks needed validation too.

They needed praise.

"You know me. When have I ever given you reason to worry about my work?"

He paused.

"Wait. That came out wrong. I meant, when have I ever given you reason not to trust me?"

The twins exchanged a perfectly synchronized sigh.

Oleseth crossed her arms tighter.

"The wind is terrible for my skin. We’re heading back. But before we go, I have something to tell you."

Evenson immediately looked over.

"What?"

Had they somehow bought out the entire remaining stock of Three-Eyed Venom Emperor while he wasn’t looking?

"Ross called me last night," Salorath said. "Apparently, our company may have a competitor."

"A competitor?"

Evenson was mildly surprised, but he didn’t think much of it.

"That’s nothing to worry about. Gernos has all his assistants now, so everything should finally be running properly. With his technology, once he gets the finished products out, he can flatten any competitor we have."

"I’m not talking about competitors in mechanical exoskeletons."

Salorath sounded increasingly irritated.

"Have you already forgotten what kind of company we claimed Umbrella was supposed to be?"

Evenson froze.

Umbrella.

A company with that name had better be involved in biotechnology. Otherwise, what was the point?

For the first time, the news actually made him uncomfortable.

He had raised that banner himself.

He wasn’t about to let someone else steal it.

"A competitor in biotechnology?" Evenson asked, his expression sharpening. "Are you sure the information is reliable?"

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