77 Mephisto's Tomb
The tension all over Earth was so thick that the air itself felt heavy and viscous. A lot of people with weak mentalities even found it hard to breathe. They had to be carried by others.
"It is time now. Doom will take the fight directly to Mephisto in the hell dimension. I will take the fight to Chthon. Blue Marvel will take on Set. Strange will take one of the Vishanti to Dormamu. Atri and a few of the sages will jump into Cyttorak's crimson cosmos." Savant's voice rang out in people's minds as they began teleporting to his side.
Savant wanted to fight two of the dimensional lords at once but that meant waiting for them to appear on Earth. Instead it would be much more efficient to take the fight straight to their dimensions. With the addition of the elder gods in the human camp, it was a viable tactic.
"The commander of the Earth's forces will be Odin, the king of Asgard and an ally of Earth. Every fighting force on Earth is to heed his command. Nobody has fought more wars than our Asgardian allies." Doom declared through the telepathy connection to all the heroes.
This was also the most efficient tactical decision. It wasn't right to ask Odin to take the fight to other dimensions. Earth needs to fight its battles on its own. But using Odin as a commander was possible. They weren't asking him to fight on the front lines but they got the most capable warlord in the nine realms to command their army.
Odin telepathically communicated with the heroes and started grouping them for maximum efficiency against the dozens of minor dimensional lords that he knew about. Each of them had its unique characteristics; some used death energy, some focused on plants, and so on, so it was easier to create units to counterattack the specific being based on their powers.
"The floodgates are now open," Savant said softly as he entered the chaotic dimension of Chthon. It was time to take the war to the invaders.
Doom also entered Hell right away with a short war cry, "Doom be upon those who invade."
With that, the others entered their designated dimensions and the battle for Earth's survival began. Dimensional creatures began appearing through portals everywhere on Earth only to be met by a group of heroes waiting for them.
…
"You walked into my dimension on your own once again? Did you forget all those times when you were beaten back when you came for your mother?" Mephisto taunted Doom.
When he came out of the portal, the first thing Doom saw was the huge body of Mephisto standing in front of a large army of imps and demons prepared for an invasion.
They weren't very strong individually, even a normal soldier with a gun could take down most of the low-level demonic beings. The problem was their numbers. If even just a few slip away from the defense lines, they could cause a lot of damage.
"This fight will not go the way you expect it to. Doom is constantly improving, always evolving to become better. The Doom you see today is a much greater Doom than the one you saw before." Doom spoke as he spread his hands wide.
From Doom's palm, glowing green runes started flowing out. The runes divided themselves into two streams, one stream heading to the portal and the other stream heading to the army behind Mephisto.
"Fuck! When did the Asgardians and the world tree become so generous to hand out runes to humans? And they even handed it to someone like this." Mephisto lamented while preparing for the attacks by the runes.
The first stream of runes had already covered the portal and made it inaccessible from this side. As for the second stream, no attacks came from them as Mephisto had expected, the green runes just melted into the ground in front of his army.
Mephisto did not relax, he remained vigilant while sending out attacks in Doom's direction. He was using the standard magic blasts to keep Doom occupied while he closed the distance. But while he was approaching Doom, something bizarre happened behind him.
Mephisto's army which was warily looking down at the ground, anticipating an attack was literally being swallowed by the ground beneath them. Doom had cast an area-wide spell similar to quick-sand to trap the entire army instead of sending out direct attacks.
For Doom, this was the most efficient method of dealing with them. If his attacks were intercepted or some of the demons survived his attacks, then Doom would have had to divide his focus between Mephisto and the demons who might try to sneak around.
Mephisto sneered as his trident slashed at Doom, "You have become craftier than before. That Savant guy must have rubbed off on you. Or are you taking orders from him? The mighty Doom is trying to take safe measures."
Anyone who knows Doom knows that his biggest weakness is his massive ego which is larger than whole universes. Mephisto was trying to scratch that ego and get him to become emotional.
In the past when Doom came to fight Mephisto to get his mother's soul, he had taken advantage of Doom's agitated mental state countless times. But this couldn't work on Doom this time. He had long since rationalized his acceptance of Savant's 'advice' as a repayment for helping to get his mother back from Mephisto.
Doom sidestepped to avoid the trident but it followed him so he had to create a rune shield to parry it while stabbing Mephisto with a sword. "Your petty words will not change the outcome of this battle. Today I will seal you and your entire dimension. Or maybe not, I'll seal you and use your dimension as a source of energy for Earth."
Mephisto fell for Doom's reverse taunt. It was a humiliating thought to be used by the lowly humans as an energy source. Doom was essentially calling Mephisto and his dimension a battery pack for the humans' convenience.
"You have to leave this dimension alive for that to happen." Mephisto increased the frequency of his attacks while shouting angrily.
When he was in his dimension, Mephisto was an unparalleled being like a god as humans imagine gods to be. Only beings like the Elder Gods or stronger could have a chance at defeating him in his hell dimension.
But unfortunately for Mephisto, Doom who was beefed up with the rune magic was a being who could go toe to toe with the Elder Gods. Mephisto also had an ominous feeling from the moment he had seen Doom. And he was sure that Doom was at least on a similar level to him when he saw the rune magic flowing naturally out of Doom's hands.
But Mephisto didn't think he would lose to Doom yet. When the invasion on Earth begins in earnest, he will get his share of the despairing human souls, Mephisto plans to overpower Doom by consuming those souls.
Mephisto's plan itself was not bad. It could have even worked under normal situations. But there were some variables that Mephisto had failed to notice until the end. It was also because prying into Earth's affairs had become much harder due to the strengthened shielding.
The information that Mephisto had about Earth did not include the addition of the troops from Asgard and Odin being at the command. Doom handing over command was almost unthinkable.
Although the help from Gaia and Vishanti was expected, Mephisto could not have imagined the level of involvement they were showing in the battles. Combined with the EAS and its scientific advancements in the field of teleportation and weapons, Earth's defenses were tighter than any dimensional lord was warned about.
The Federation Army of regular humans was using advanced weaponry that was exclusive to supervillains in the past. Laser blasters, freeze guns, and the like were in the hands of trained Federation Army that would appear out of teleportation platforms in remote villages and towns to defend against the invaders.
Although it wasn't as good as Doom and Savant wanted, the Federation's preparations for war were as thorough as they could be.
After a long drawn-out back-and-forth attack and defense between the two, Mephisto began to feel something wrong. When he concentrated on what was making him feel so anxious, he found that his connection from hell dimension had been cut off at some point. He was gradually weakening without even noticing it.
Mephisto tried attacking whatever restrictions Doom had placed to cut off the connection. When the attack landed, a green glow of runes flashed all around him. He was already trapped in a pocket dimension created out of the runes.
"Such a trick will not stop me. I can break this insignificant dimension you have made."
Doom nodded and attacked Mephisto, "Sure, you could do that if you were given the time to do anything other than defend against my attacks. Welcome to your tomb, Mephisto."
