Twin cloaks, one red and one blue, raced through the air, anchoring themselves around Martin's left arm and legs. Despite risking damage to their very fabric, the enchanted relics gave everything they had to restrain his rebellion.
Then came the Cauldron of the Cosmos, crashing down with thunderous force, directly upon Martin's skull.
Only by wielding the Book of the Vishanti, the Eye of Agamotto, and the Time Stone together had the Ancient One carved out this once-in-a-lifetime chance. She seized Martin's Polarity Gauntlet, unleashing the last of her power in an attempt to tear the Infinity Stones from his grip.
Out of the fourteen million futures she had seen, this was the only path to victory.
But as she began extracting the Stones, she found herself staring into Martin's face, cold and unreadable, with just a glint of cruel amusement.
"Ancient One… when did you become so naïve?"
Martin turned his head toward the two Cloaks grappling him. With a sneer, he clenched his fist. A shockwave of brute force detonated from his arm, and the enchanted cloaks creaked ominously, fibers groaning as if on the verge of shattering.
"The futures you see are laced with illusion and deceit. The Infinity Stones? Their upper limit lies within a single universe. The moment they face anything beyond that scale… they become nothing but junk."
His voice was quiet, but it chilled the Ancient One to her core.
And then he activated the Matrix of Leadership.
He had only one minute of access remaining. But he didn't need the whole minute.
He didn't even need three seconds.
Just one would suffice.
VMMM—
A sudden surge erupted from Martin's body, monstrous, overwhelming, and amplifying his already terrifying power. His energy tier didn't just rise, it spiked to a completely new echelon.
"What have you done?!"
The Ancient One's eyes widened in shock.
Though the boost lasted but a second, it was enough. Martin now stood far beyond the level he had when dueling Odin. His control over relics, his synergy with divine tech, it had all escalated exponentially. What he could do in one second now rivaled what once required extended, focused effort.
One second.
RRIIIP—
The red Cloak shredded in his grasp.
"I've never cared much for fashion," Martin growled, "I'll just tear this apart."
His voice was a death knell. With an unnatural burst of force from his left hand, he pulverized the red Cloak, then immediately snatched the blue one mid-escape.
"You spent centuries crafting these for Stephen, didn't you? What a shame... he's going to need new clothes."
Martin's grip tightened around the blue Cloak, his power compressing matter at the subatomic level. The relic's weave unraveled, its magical architecture crumbling under the strain, until it, too, was obliterated.
The Ancient One's face went pale. She tapped into the last of her life force, marshaled every artifact at her disposal, and went for the Infinity Stones on Martin's right hand.
But then she froze.
Even as she pushed herself to the brink, she couldn't pry off a single one.
"What… what is this gauntlet? Where did you get it? Even the Infinity Gauntlet, forged for the Stones themselves, shouldn't be this stable!"
Her voice trembled in disbelief.
"This," Martin said coldly, "is the Polarity Gauntlet, a sacred relic of my own making. I won't claim it can harness the full might of all six Stones indefinitely… but two? That's child's play."
His tone was derisive.
The full set of six Infinity Stones, housed within the Infinity Gauntlet, could just barely scratch the surface of multiversal power. It was enough to injure a Multiversal-tier deity, enough to make even the Five Cosmic Abstracts wary.
But the Polarity Gauntlet was something else entirely. It could replace the Infinity Gauntlet. In fact, comparing them was laughable.
The Ancient One's expression grew dim. She realized, she had lost. The future she had glimpsed through the Time Stone had never come to pass.
"Ancient One," Martin said, voice soft but firm, "Your rank limited your vision. Your arrogance sealed your defeat."
BOOM!
A jagged rift tore open as the Space Stone flared. The Ancient One recoiled instinctively, the dimensional fracture nearly slicing through her. But Martin's left hand clamped down on her shoulder—
SHRAKK!
A chunk of her body was sliced clean off. Blood sprayed across the astral plane.
She gasped, body reassembling as the Time Stone triggered reflexively, restoring her, barely.
Martin extended his hand and seized the Cauldron of the Cosmos. With the Space Stone pulsing at his fingertips, he drove both hands into the artifact.
It screamed.
And then—SNAP—he tore it in half.
Another relic, gone.
The Ancient One closed her eyes in pain. When she opened them again, her aura changed. She no longer suppressed the Time Stone's full brilliance.
"From this moment on… you have surpassed me."
Her voice was calm now. Accepting.
"You are Earth's strongest human. Perhaps the only one who might ever reach the edge of a universe. Maybe you were right. My perspective was constrained. But your ambition… your ambition is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen, in human or god."
Martin remained silent.
In his eyes burned something ancient. Something bottomless. Something called ambition, raw and unhidden.
He would lead Cybertron to glory. He would challenge the Ancient Gods who stood in his path. Crush the divine orders of the multiverse beneath his heel. Stand atop everything, and look down on all creation.
A dream too vast for the Earth-bound to comprehend.
The Ancient One, still shackled to a single-universe worldview, was no longer the wise master who once returned in Strange's darkest hour.
"You've lost."
Martin said it flatly, like a law of nature.
As if to punctuate the point, he reached out and snuffed out a nearby star with a thought.
The Ancient One exhaled slowly. Her posture eased. She coughed twice, then said:
"You're right. I've lost. I misjudged you."
A flicker of green surged through the Eye of Agamotto.
"I'll give you the Time Stone. But we need to strike a new bargain. Otherwise, I'll cast the Eye of Agamotto into a random universe. Without the anchoring laws of this one, the Stone will become inert, a simple gem."
She looked him in the eye.
"Help me… and I'll hand you the Time Stone myself."
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