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Chapter 21 Marvel's Corrupt Exorcist
🕑 Added 2025-05-10 02:35:01 +0000 UTCLarge-scale netizens meet offline.
After a quick phone call, Luke finally met the so-called 'Bald Baby'—Agent Coulson.
"I’ve taken them in," Coulson said calmly. "I’ll send over the bounty later."
Soon after, Coulson’s SHIELD team arrived and escorted the three shadow cultists from Luke’s garage.
As for that reward money? It wasn’t really the point. Just a convenient excuse to wire over some cash.
SHIELD's profile on Luke made one thing clear—aside from gaming, the guy really liked money.
So, if bribing with a few bucks helped keep the relationship warm, then why not?
But while Coulson turned to head back to his van, he stopped dead in his tracks.
It hadn’t even been ten minutes since he arrived—and somehow, in that short time, Luke and Skye were chatting like long-lost friends.
Laughing, exchanging phone numbers... bonding over something Coulson couldn't quite understand.
"...Seriously?"
Coulson blinked, baffled.
He’d played online with Luke for three straight days just to get him to stop calling SHIELD 'Snake Shield.'
And now? Skye waltzes in, says a few things, and suddenly they’re practically glued together.
Heart slightly bruised, Coulson motioned for his team to pack up and leave.
On the way out, he finally broke.
"Skye. What exactly were you two talking about just now?"
"Huh? Oh! Nothing serious, just our favorite games, y'know?" Skye said quickly, tucking her phone behind her back like a high schooler hiding texts.
That wasn’t helping.
Realizing the suspicious looks she was getting from the rest of the team, she quickly added, "Wait! Don’t we want to recruit him? I was just… building rapport!"
Coulson stared blankly.
Skye’s face flushed red.
"It was on purpose, okay? Totally intentional."
Yeah, right.
As Coulson watched one of his top agents get flustered over a guy they were supposed to be keeping tabs on, it hit him:
This is exactly why Nick Fury doesn’t approve of the honey trap tactic.
They hadn’t even made contact with the target for long—and now Skye was halfway to switching sides.
"Fantastic," Coulson muttered under his breath.
He now knew what it felt like to lose both the mission and the agent.
…………
Elsewhere…
Luke looked down at the last text from Skye, a smirk curling on his lips.
"Trying to recruit me now, huh? Cute."
Their connection wasn’t as complicated as Coulson might’ve thought.
It was just that random spark of a relatable vibe with someone of his age, same interest, and, well… her looks did help a little.
'She's gorgeous," Luke inwardly thought while chatting Skye with a smile plastered on his face.
Plus, Skye was still new to SHIELD, probably still figuring out where she fit in.
Luke glanced at the sky. Dawn was creeping in.
He didn’t feel like going back to sleep. At this point, with his his innate demonic energy keeping his body strong, he could stay up for weeks and still feel fresh.
Besides, after that shadow ambush? He wasn’t in the mood to jump back into matchmaking queues.
Also, Coulson wasn’t online to play the support role, and Luke wasn’t about to carry games solo all night.
"Wait a sec…"
He snapped his fingers.
"Didn’t Master Daniel tell me to visit the New York Sanctum?"
Luke facepalmed.
With everything going on, he completely forgot about that man’s invitation.
"Probably not urgent, right?"
Still, best not to ignore a master of the New York Sanctum.
With a flick of his hand, he summoned a shadowy portal and stepped through it, arriving in front of 177A Bleecker Street—the home of the New York Sanctum.
It looked just like any other building on the outside…
Except for the one iconic circular window on the roof that resembled the Eye of Agamotto, the rest of the building looked almost identical to the others on the block. Hidden in plain sight—just how the sorcerers liked it.
When Luke pushed open the door, he instantly felt the shift. The inside of the New York Sanctum was something else entirely.
Thanks to space-warping magic, the interior was at least four times larger than what it appeared to be from the outside.
It was massive—more like a mystical museum than a home.
Everywhere he looked, there were arcane artifacts, enchanted weapons, and ancient tomes floating slightly off the ground.
"Hello? Anyone here?" Luke called out, his voice echoing off the temple walls.
But after a few seconds, there was no response.
"No one...? Weird," Luke mumbled, walking slowly through the hall.
His steps echoed as he wandered.
"They always say in the movies that the artifacts in here chooses their owners... is it true?" he muttered, peeking through glass cases filled with relics.
He wasn’t planning on leaving empty-handed. After all, he’d made the trip, right?
Luke soon spotted some familiar objects: Doctor Strange’s legendary Cloak of Levitation, the Cauldron of the Cosmos from the Avengers Endgame, and even the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, the same ones that had restrained Kaecilius once.
But none of those were what he was looking for.
He needed something practical—something that could store items.
A spatial artifact.
A real-life version of the 'storage bag' you’d read about in fantasy novels.
Otherwise, how was he supposed to carry something like the demon sword he snatched off Belasco?
The thing was nearly taller than him.
Carrying that around casually? No thanks.
He lingered in front of the case with the Cloak of Levitation.
It was cool, and honestly, he was tempted. But the cloak didn’t react to him at all.
"Figures... I bet its waiting for Strange's arrival," he sighed, staring at the floating red fabric.
Just as he was considering whether he should try yanking it out anyway—
"That cloak already has a master."
A voice spoke calmly behind him.
"Could you not sneak up like that? Seriously, that's creepy," Luke turned around with a start.
Standing there, as calm as ever, was the Ancient One.
"My apologies. I'll try to be less sudden next time," she said with a small nod.
Of course, judging by her tone, she definitely wouldn’t.
"...Right. Anyway, Master Daniel told me to come here. Is anyone else around?"
Luke decided to get straight to the point.
"Daniel’s recovering at Kamar-Taj. He was badly wounded. And from what I heard... he asked you to come days ago. Why the delay?"
She looked at him with mild disappointment.
"Uhh..." Luke scratched his head. Yeah, no way he was going to admit he got distracted playing games.
"The temple’s been without a guardian for three days, Luke. That’s incredibly dangerous," she said while leading him deeper inside the Sanctum.
"The Avengers protect the world from what we can see—aliens, threats from space. But we protect it from what people don’t see. From magic."
As they walked, she began explaining more.
"Long ago, Agamotto—the first Sorcerer Supreme—created three Sanctums: one in New York, one in Hong Kong, and another in London. Together, they form a magical barrier that defends our world from interdimensional threats."
Luke nodded, quietly taking it all in.
"You remember what I told you about how hard it is to cross dimensions? That’s why I was so curious about you, Luke. You're just a regular person... yet somehow, you've crossed timelines."
She looked at him seriously again.
"Crossing dimensions isn’t supposed to be easy. But you did it. That makes you very... interesting."
Luke didn’t answer.
His demonic powers, combined with his system, had brought him this far. But even he didn’t understand the full extent of what he was becoming.
"I know it’s not easy to travel through universes, but... what now?"
Luke furrowed his brows, confused by what the Ancient One had just told him.
Of course, he knew universal travel wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. And let’s not even get started on Omniversal travel—which, technically, was what had happened to him.
But he didn’t correct the Ancient One’s assumptions.
What would be the point?
He wasn’t about to risk anything, especially since his system was tied to the extradimensional beings to begin with.
If anything, being honest would only make her more suspicious of him.
This Marvel universe was cool and all—but also terrifying.
He just wanted to go home.
"This time, Belasco and his demon army broke the rules," the Ancient One said, her face solemn.
It wasn’t that she didn’t take this invasion seriously.
Quite the opposite.
While others were focused on the chaos the demons caused on Earth, she was more concerned about the dimensional shifts happening in the background.
"Wait... You mean Belasco wasn't supposed to come here at all?" Luke asked, puzzled.
"No," she replied, waving her hand.
Golden strands of magic lit up the air, forming a floating holographic display. The image showed what looked like Limbo Prison—demons stacking energy, building a dimensional gate.
"I mean they shouldn’t have been able to come so easily."
"That passage was only meant to let Belasco and maybe a couple of his elites slip through," she explained.
"Even then, once on Earth, they should've been heavily suppressed by our dimension’s laws. Weakened, limited."
She flicked her fingers again, and the projection shifted to scenes of chaos—demons running wild across the streets of New York.
"But now... not only did they make it through, their powers barely got nerfed at all."
She turned to Luke.
"And the biggest reason for that... is you."
"ME!?"
Luke’s eyes shot open. It sounded like she was blaming him for starting some kind of apocalyptic crossover.
"What did I even do?!"
Luke looked down at himself—just a regular guy, mostly. Okay, maybe a bit good-looking, but not exactly world-ending material.
"Have you ever tried to summon a Quagus?"
The question came out of nowhere.
"I mean... kind of? I tried once. It didn’t work though."
He remembered that one moment—just one sentence away from accidentally bringing a dimension lord into the world. Luke scratched the back of his head and shrugged.
"That’s a relief," the Ancient One said with a slow exhale.
Then she started to explain, her tone calm but clear.
"The reason Belasco and the others slipped through so easily... is the demonic power inside you."
Luke blinked. "Wait, what?"
"I don’t know how you’re doing it, but when those energies pass through you, they change. They become... refined. Like they’ve been purified somehow."
Luke’s brain clicked.
The system—his Supreme Exorcist System—it always did something to the energy he got.
Every time he absorbed new power, the system stripped it clean, erasing the original soul imprint, turning it into something purer... stronger, and his own.
"Looks like you already understand why," the Ancient One said, noticing the look on his face.
"Don’t worry, I won’t press you. Everyone’s got their own secrets."
She gave him a small nod, then continued.
"This energy inside you—it's nearly as pure as the original force that created a dimension. That makes you... a bridge. A connection between two worlds."
"Like a beacon in the dark, or a lighthouse in the middle of a raging sea."
Her tone grew serious.
Something like this had never happened before.
And no one—not even her—could predict how it would end.
"What if... I just keep evicting them every time they show up?"
Luke asked.
He wasn't joking either.
His system didn’t care about balance. It only cared about results.
Evicting demons? That was its shtick.
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