Chapter 29: Hunted, Pt 1
[Marcus Martin POV]:
[Phoenix, Arizona — Day 12 Post The Start of Cross-Country Quest]:
A single black Camaro made its way across the black asphalt of the city of Phoenix, Arizona. The afternoon sun rose high overhead as said black car tested the speed limits by at least 20 miles over the 25 MPH.
VROOOOM!
In the driver seat of the speedracer was one Marcus Martin — The biologically, mystically merged result of the warlocks Luka Martin and Jonas Martin infused with Max's blood; their souls and memories merged to create Marcus.
Outside of Maximus, he was the only being on Earth who could possibly perform adaptive magic, albeit nowhere near as powerfully as Maximus, but even to a lesser extent it was still adaptive magic — It made him naturally ahead of most witches and warlocks.
'Thanks to this mission, I've visited 6 different covens, four of which I was allowed to waltz through their repertoire in exchange for the opportunity to copywrite a few Martin coven spells. Being the last direct male descendant of the Martin coven has unlocked many doors to various unique forms of magic that differentiate per coven,' Marcus thought before suddenly smirking at a thought.
'I, of course, gave them the lesser of powerful, more common spells of those in the coven. For covens of lesser strength and influence, they hadn't even noticed that they had gotten the rotten end of the stick while I got access to their entire repertoire.'
'The last thing we need is for them to come at us with our own spells.'
"Of course, two of those covens weren't very friendly to outsiders," Marc thought aloud, rubbing his right shoulder soothingly. "I, of course, dealt with them in a permanent sense. Both the living ones and their ancestors — are all here."
Marc rubbed his jade pendant, a homemade talisman that he created, shaped like a triangle that could fit in a single grasp. Its jade-green surface was smooth to the touch. An Eye of Heru was carved into it on one side and filled with a dyed sapphire-moonstone to give the symbol its natural ambient glow.
It was attached to a black-brown leather string that wrapped through the top of its triangular form in multiple bands.
It radiated a significant amount of magic energy and was one of Marcus' new, self-made, favorite tools.
He calls it the "Martin Stone," as only Martin blood can use it, as is how he made it.
[Martin Stone Reference Image]:
It captures the essence of beings — mind, body and soul — and converts what it absorbs into magic power that I can use to power myself, increasing my natural power, or I can use what's left to strengthen it or the next spell I need to cast, augmenting myself temporarily, Marcus thought, grinning mischievously.
Those two covens who tried to kill me have increased my base magic power tremendously. Though I reckon their ancestors gave me more juice than their living counterparts, but it's still quite the haul.
Putting the necklace back around his neck, Marcus looked in the backseat in the center rearview, taking note of the massive load of artifacts, grimoires, journals and various items — both magical and ordinary.
'They will make excellent repertoires for the coven,' Marcus thought aloud, before looking to the passenger seat where, marked X in red and circled in blue, were locations that were either visited or were to-be visited.
'Though I've been to 186 different locations, only 178 had any actual winning lotteries — any at all — and of that 178, only 7 had over a million and 5 had over 2.5 million in earnings. The rest were 250,000 and below.'
'The total winnings right now is at 31.752 million, and all of it has been uploaded to a private bank account.'
"And yet, I haven't even become 50% finished with what's covered by the map; maybe 13%, but at this rate I'll be finished within another 3–4 months."
Sighing heavily, Marc focused on the road in silence.
He drove that way a few more hours, making the occasional stops at highlighted locations to purchase the tickets. When he went in-store, his eyes, specially enchanted to find the winning lotteries by Maximus, led him to the right ones.
It was one of such cash-ins that Marc felt it — the magical sense that someone or someones powerful were watching him. He typically wouldn't have reacted to the feeling of being watched. He has been winning lotteries for over 12+ days. Multiple people have eyes on him by that alone.
This time, however, was different.
These weren't physical eyes.
These were of the magical brand.
'A locator spell?' Marcus stayed outwardly calm, but on the inside he was thinking of solutions to this problem. 'How are they choosing to locate me? I haven't left any blood or hair around anywhere outside of the car, so it can't be regular Earth magic. Representational magic, perhaps? Or Expression?'
As Marc exited the store, he quickly made it to his car, grasping his necklace. Channeling it with magic, he coated his body in magic energy, shielding himself from intrusive gazes.
Instantly, he felt his tracker lose their lock on himself.
'I need to hurry up and finish this mission. I have no idea who's trailing me, but I refuse to fail Maximus. They evidently have to be powerful, but they won't get in the way of my success. The Verbatim Coven needs me to succeed. Maximus needs me to succeed. I cannot fail; I will not,' Marc thought, before hitting the gas, far exceeding the speed limit.
He was unaware that, in the distance of the nearby woods, multiple pairs of eyes watched him from afar even as he sped away…
[MaximusWestphall−Bennett POV]:
[The Forks Estate]:
In one of the many rooms of the mansion on the $9.6M estate, Maximus sat alone on a paper-covered desk, writing on various formations and equations.
"This would be the — Oh, yes that works," he muttered as he continued writing like he was running out of time [A/N: Pun very much intended. After all, all roads lead back to…]. Frowning, he vigorously erased a few lines before rewriting something else in their place. "Maybe this… that ought to… Yes! This one should… Hmm… That's a problem… Oh, wow, I messed up again. Fuck!"
These mutterings had been going on for the last 6 hours since Maximus first arrived here. Kai and Kol left him to his work at his own request. It took serious convincing, but eventually he convinced Kol to go hunt as he hadn't eaten in awhile and Kai to just do something else for a few hours — He needed the privacy.
He even had Sebastian leave, using his Rune of Privacy to keep the ghost from spying on him. He's had the Rune of Focus on ever since he started this.
After all, he had 3 issues he needed to find solutions for:
1.) How would one assimilate the power of all versions of oneself across timelines?
2.) How would one contain / slowly assimilate the power of Inadu?
3.) How to access the OMNIVERSE?
If the others knew what he was planning, they would've never agreed to let him have this privacy time. It was why he was so set on figuring it all out — because he knew their patience were short and his privacy time wouldn't last much longer.
'To bind and assimilate the Hollow, I would need a total of three things,' Maximus thought, at an epiphany at last, as he wrote it down. 'First, I would need an object of such immense power as to act as a prison or battery capable of holding a bound Inadu. I can create something for that myself instead of looking for one that already exist.
'Second, I would need a stronger, more fortified mind — One that can withstand her whispers and attempts at possession. The ROB gave me a resistance to possession but I doubt I could hold from someone like a primordial magic spirit — i.e., the Hollow.
'The solution to this would be to assimilate the full psychic powers of the sirens, Sybil and Seline, then go after Cade and assimilate him and his psychic powers.
'Season 8 of the show wasn't really peaceful for Bonner anyway. Eliminating the literal Devil of this world and using his power to boost my own is honor. I'm sure he'll enjoy it… Probably not. Yeah, he won't like that too much, but he's the literal devil, from literal Hell, so his opinion doesn't matter in my decision making.'
The final thing Max needed was the greatest magical cumulative power this world has ever seen — he needed to channel it and replicate that power; claim it as his own.
'Channeling these people from across space and time will be dangerous,' Max looked at his list with the names of various witches and warlocks from across the timeline. 'It will single handedly be the greatest wellspring of magic ever channeled by me or anyone else — ever. Which makes it incredibly dangerous, and possibly very lethal, even to me….'.
Maximus laughed, almost to himself at the thought. "I'm a phoenix and this doesn't involve a golden arrow, so I'll be perfectly fine."
With the solution to one problem solved, Max thought of the solution to the next — or in this case, the very first. It was probably the most do-able currently of all the issues: How to assimilate the power of every branching version of oneself?
'To ensure that I am the only version of me in all the timelines, I would need create a spell that continuously absorbs any version of me that is branched from my decisions I've made,' Maximus thought. 'Take out the ones who's made wishes that resulted in their deaths and the ones who are already dead. I would say that there would be roughly 900–900 different variants of me out there right now. The mentality necessary for this kind of spell — to endure the assimilation and not lose myself in the process — would be immense, but very much in my skill list.'
After considering this for a while, Max stood up, decision made. Pulling out his necklace, Max took a step forward, using a spell he'd seen a few times from the series OUAT —
A violet-black tornado appeared around him, teleporting him to the thick woodsy forest area of the Estates' 500 acres of land.
As the smoke cleared, Max immediately went into action, pulling off the necklace around his neck, containing the Verbatim Stone. He knew himself and he knew that he wouldn't be entirely comfortable with himself if there were variants of himself just out there.
Plus, the power boosts and insight he'd receive he was sure it would be mind-boggling.
Waving his hand, he was suddenly at the center of a massive circle of salt, candles unlit.
With a single command of "Ignis," he lit the candles and the salt circle.
"I can't assimilate all of me directly — I'd go insane — but I can use the Verbatim Stone and have it assimilate them and their magic power as its own and a source of power for me to draw on for later usage," he muttered to himself, mentally going over the on-the-fly incantation he came up with. "I might be able to assimilate the power of 10 without losing myself and, because magical traits often overlap, the combined power that I do assimilate is more likely to compress rather than stack linearly.
"In essence, I would be thickening the raw magical reserves I possess by 3.5x, increasing my casting efficiency by 8 times while the stone itself gets a higher magic reserve 120 times larger."
Without another word of thought, Maximus began chanting and, soon enough, the Verbatim Stone began glowing…
[30 Minutes Later]:
Max had finished the chanting, the Verbatim Stone glowing a myriad of different colors on a constant basis — blues, greens, reds, violets, golds, whites and blacks.
He himself looked positively radiant. As he placed the stone in his psychic realm via his Rune of Storage, Max took in the changes made to himself.
He was just slightly more muscular — not enough to make him buff like a workout junkie, but definitely enough to be noticeable to someone who knew him. His hair had grown slightly, again not a lot but noticeably enough. His facial structure seemed to have matured slightly, so he seemed like he was more like he was closer to 18 than 17 years old.
[Maximus Westphall-Bennett Upgrade Reference Image(For readers on WebNovel) ]:
Clenching his fists, Max suddenly had an idea. Eyes widening before a grin tore across his lips — it was a mischievous grin and one that was sourced to a just-as-mischievous plan he had every intention of following through with.
Turning off his Rune of Privacy, Max immediately sensed the presence of a psychic vampire appearing near him, but he ignored the ghost.
With a wave of his hand, no incantation required, he summoned forth Sebastian's coffin, surprising the observing ghost.
'He seemed different before. Now I know for certain,' Sebastian quietly observed Maximus as he walked up to the coffin, looking in on the open-lidded coffin, Sebastian's physical body inside. 'He's gotten stronger in these last few hours; to summon my body across the continent without even an incantation… But I wonder what it is he intends to do with me.'
As Sebastian watched Maximellus look down at his physical body, he noticed a glint in Maximus' eyes that sent a chill of arousal down his spine.
And then, Max grinned and he was certain Maximus would be up to no good — But, at least, he sensed that they would soon be having a lot of fun…
P.S: Next chapter will have some nice, long awaited surprises that I'm certain you'll enjoy 😏. Stick around to find out what I mean XD 😁