Marvel's master of cosmic magic-Chapter 786

George reviewed the knowledge he had just obtained, a faint smile settling on his face.

It was more than adequate.

The complete body of esoteric lore tied to the Diviner path unfolded clearly in his mind. At its core, it was not a path of brute force, but one of survival, deception, and catastrophic reversals.

At the mid stages, the practitioner became something infuriatingly hard to kill. Even if the body was destroyed, fragments of the soul could scatter and linger, allowing resurrection as long as not every anchor was erased. Past that threshold, the discipline shifted toward something stranger. One could reach backward through time itself, borrowing strength from a former, more complete version of oneself. At its peak, echoes could be pulled from history’s cracks, phantoms of people or artifacts that once truly existed.

The deeper the understanding of the subject being summoned, the longer and more stable the manifestation.

For most, this meant calling upon heroes or relics native to their own world.

George was not most people.

He knew beings that had never belonged to this universe at all. Architects of reality. Cosmic arbiters. Entities whose names alone bent laws. If even a fragment of such existence answered his call, the result would be obscene.

The cost scaled brutally with the gap in power, and nothing summoned could ever manifest at full strength. Still, even a shadow was enough to shatter balance.

Higher still, the path allowed miracles. Wishes accumulated, shaped, and finally detonated into reality-altering outcomes. Death itself could be rewritten, undone through sheer narrative force.

At the very top, it became something else entirely. A presence that could tamper with concepts, stitch rules together, or quietly erase them. A being that thrived on obscurity and misdirection. Devastating when allowed to act freely, fragile when confronted head-on.

A glass cannon dressed as a god.

George exhaled slowly. Dangerous. Ridiculous. Perfect.

"I have an idea about your return," he said calmly. "You may not like it."

Across from him, the man’s expression sharpened instantly. "Say it."

George laid out the plan in full.

As he spoke, the other man’s eyes grew brighter by the second.

"Yes," he said at last, voice tight with restrained excitement. "That’s it. That’s exactly it."

The problem with resurrection was never the act itself. It was the noise.

If he fully returned now, the shock would ripple outward. Powers both righteous and monstrous would feel it immediately. Some would move out of fear. Others out of spite. Certain gods would descend without hesitation, not to negotiate, but to erase.

They could tolerate a successor. They would never tolerate the original.

The royal house would not sit idle either. Too much had been invested. Too many hands already stained. They would bring allies, cults, and forbidden rites to bear just to keep the past buried.

Even George, for all his strength, would struggle to hold that many blades at once.

So they would wait. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

When the coronation ritual began. When the tomb was sealed. When every divine eye was fixed on the wrong figure.

He would rise from within the sanctified grave itself and take what was being prepared, not from the world, but from the usurper standing at its center.

By the time the truth surfaced, it would already be too late.

"There’s still risk," the man said quietly. "I’m clean now. Uncorrupted. If I move, someone will sense it."

"Yes," George replied. "Which is why you won’t move."

He gestured, and space folded inward.

"I’ll keep you hidden. Sealed somewhere even foresight struggles to reach. When the moment comes, you act. Before anyone can react."

The man studied him for a long moment, then nodded once.

The agreement was sealed.

Soon after, George put everything into motion. He secured the final tool he needed, returned home, and descended into a private world of his own making.

At its center, he placed the object on a stone platform.

A golden lamp. Small, ornate, etched with symbols that hurt to look at for too long. A single blackened wick protruded from its mouth.

The air twisted.

A distorted, pale-gold silhouette rose above the lamp, its voice edged with confusion.

"You intend to destroy me?"

It studied him, sensing the pressure behind his presence, then hesitated.

"No," it said slowly. "That makes no sense. You are far too weak."

George did not answer.

He simply watched, eyes cold, as if already imagining how many wishes it would take before even this artifact learned fear.