Tony looked utterly baffled, disbelief written all over his face.
"No—this is insane. How could succubi be used to extract energy from the Mind Stone? And on that kind of scale, at that intensity?"
Harry wore a self-assured smile and explained at an unhurried pace, more than a little pleased with himself.
"Succubi are born with an instinctive grasp of mind-bewitching magic. Greater succubi even more so—and when they fight, their own magic actually grows stronger.
"So I used the Mind Stone as the core and built a massive virtual reality, one that's basically indistinguishable from the real world. I let the succubi fight inside it to boost their strength.
"Once their strength rises, with several hundred greater succubi, plus their extreme compatibility with mind-aspected power, their bodies can withstand even more higher-dimensional energy.
"After that, I use their bodies as the cores to build conversion arrays. And just like that, the flying city's energy source is complete.
"Even better, greater succubi live a very long time—and with a steady energy supply, their lifespan increases dramatically. They also have absurd regenerative abilities.
"They're seriously the best workhorses. This power system can run for centuries!"
Everyone: "!!!"
They all looked at Harry with complicated expressions, collectively screaming inside their heads:
They're demons? No—you're the real demon!
...
Next, using the mountain peak as his foundation, Harry threw himself into expanding the flying city's area and building out all kinds of basic infrastructure.
He intended to forge the flying city into Kamar-Taj's most powerful weapon—at minimum, something capable of long-range travel through space.
Of course, while the current energy system could meet present operational needs, as the flying city continued to expand and gain more functions, the existing reserves would eventually fall short, unable to support its ever-growing consumption.
So Harry figured he needed to find a way to head back to the Hell Dimension and grab more succubi.
He couldn't help it. They were just too useful.
Besides, demons were demons—by nature they did evil in the world, and their track records were filthy.
Especially the long-lived, higher-ranked demons. The atrocities they'd committed over the ages were countless.
So making them pay their debt as living batteries was actually a pretty lenient punishment.
...
That day, sunlight streamed through the window lattice into Harry's lab, laying a warm golden filter over everything as he sat there updating Hedwig's program architecture.
By now, after upgrade after upgrade, Hedwig's computing power had multiplied several times over compared to the beginning, and her operation was far smoother.
But as Harry's research projects kept piling up—spanning broader, more complex fields—Hedwig's current capacity still felt stretched thin, nowhere near enough.
At present, Hedwig's main tasks were:
Maintaining and servicing the stability of the lending system. This was Harry's foundation, and also his primary way to increase the amount of magic he could reliably control.
Deriving a complete phonetic transliteration for Parseltongue. This project should finish the fastest. Even though Parseltongue had magical properties, it would only take a week or two to fully crack it.
If Hedwig devoted all her computing power to it, it would be even faster—there just wasn't any need.
Deriving an improved Assassin Pathway potion formula.
Exploring the mysteries of primordial chaos power.
This was Harry's most important research project, and he'd recently made a major breakthrough.
He'd discovered that primordial chaos power really could let him travel across different worlds. If his controllable magic power grew to a certain level, he might be able to set out for the potion world—or the dragon world.
Researching the flying city.
Using two Infinity Stones to derive time and mind magic.
Only then did Harry suddenly remember: he now had two Infinity Stones.
And the Space Stone he'd traded to Asgard—given the relationship between Kamar-Taj and Asgard—was basically available for him to use whenever he wanted. That wasn't much different from owning three Infinity Stones himself.
He'd heard that once you gathered five Infinity Stones, you could summon Shenron (Dragon Ball). Harry wondered whether the power unleashed by five Stones could boost his control over primordial chaos power again.
The chances were slim—primordial chaos power was on a completely different tier from the Stones—but he still planned to try, if he ever got the chance.
Just as he finished sorting out his future plans, Harry was about to head back to the cozy little nest he shared with Gwen—so he could "spar" properly with his beloved girl—when Tony's call came through the lending system.
The connection opened, and Tony's voice rattled out like a machine gun—fast, urgent, and carrying a faint trace of fear he couldn't quite hide.
"Harry, I need your help. I was attacked by terrorists!"
"Attacked by terrorists?" Harry's brows drew together, confusion plain on his face.
With Tony's current strength, even without the Iron Man armor, most terrorists shouldn't stand a chance. How could he be afraid of an attack like that?
Tony clearly heard the doubt in Harry's voice. Without even pausing to catch his breath, he rushed to explain.
"No. They're different. They're not normal terrorists.
"They have this rapid-healing ability—and they can drag other people into dreams.
"Right now, villages and cities along the U.S. border, and even parts of other countries, have huge numbers of civilians falling into a deep sleep. Nothing wakes them up.
"I'm sure this is a supernatural incident, so you were the first person I thought of."
Coma?
Dragged into dreams?
Hearing those keywords, Harry's mind stirred, and he immediately thought of a powerful dimensional demon-god.
This being wasn't as strong as the very top-tier entities—maybe not even on the level of Shuma-Gorath, let alone Mephisto or Dormammu—but it was infamous for being unbelievably hard to deal with.
Because its power ruled over dreams, and even the dimension it governed was a vast, illusory Dream Dimension.
The controller of dreams, the sovereign of the Dream Dimension—Nightmare.
Nightmare's power was strange and sinister, with a very specific focus: everything centered on the dream world.
In the waking world, its strength was heavily reduced—possibly not even stronger than an ordinary Skyfather-level powerhouse. But once you stepped into the dream world, that changed completely.
There, Nightmare's power would surge dramatically, enough to contend with the most elite dimensional entities.
And that was exactly why—even for someone as powerful as Shuma-Gorath—Nightmare wasn't something you went out of your way to provoke.
After all, nobody wanted to deal with an annoying pest that could hide in dreams for ages, almost impossible to truly destroy.
The best solution was simple: out of sight, out of mind. Avoid conflict whenever possible.
Still, even if the situation looked like Nightmare's doing, without hard evidence, Harry couldn't confirm this supernatural incident was Nightmare's handiwork.
The multiverse was vast. There were plenty of dream-related abilities out there, and Nightmare wasn't the only one who could manipulate dreams.
It was just that compared to Nightmare, other dream-related methods were nowhere near as effective—or as terrifying.
Before leaving, Harry thought of something and confirmed that the Eye of Agamotto hadn't sounded any warning. He let out a quiet breath.
That meant it was highly unlikely a dimensional entity's true body had entered Earth. The situation hadn't escalated to the worst-case level.
To be safe, Harry used the lending system to send a message to any lenders who were currently idle, telling them to stay on standby and be ready for sudden emergencies.
After arranging everything, Harry didn't rush straight to Tony. Instead, he returned to his warm little home first.
After explaining the situation to Gwen—who had clearly been waiting forever and now wore an aggrieved expression—he immediately opened a portal and arrived at Tony's seaside villa.
As for poor Gwen… he'd have to apologize properly tonight.
Stepping out of the portal, what greeted him wasn't the original luxurious villa, but a stretch of shattered ruins.
At that moment, Tony and Pepper were hiding in a room that was still mostly intact. Both of them had obvious burn marks from flames, clearly having just gone through an exceptionally fierce fight.
Tony was on full alert, nerves wound tight. The instant he heard movement, he swung an energy cannon toward the sound.
When he saw it was Harry, his body relaxed slightly—but his expression stayed ugly, anxiety still stamped across his face.
"Harry, hurry and treat Pepper. She got cut by shrapnel in the fight just now!"
Harry sped up and ran to Pepper.
But the moment he got close, he shot Tony an exasperated look.
Panic really did make people stupid.
Pepper had a wound more than a few inches long—but it was visibly healing right before his eyes.
Clearly, Tony had already given her a healing potion. If Harry had arrived a few seconds later, the injury might have been completely gone.
Still, since he was here, Harry wasn't going to ignore it. He pulled out his wand, aimed it at Pepper… and jabbed forward.
When the wand touched her chest, it immediately released a gentle golden glow. The light sank quickly into her body, moving through her over and over—mending tissue while flushing impurities out.
Soon, the glow faded. Pepper's color returned to normal—she even looked noticeably younger.
Pepper knew Tony was overreacting. She gave Harry an apologetic look.
"Sorry, Harry. Tony's just been making a fuss. I think I scared him when I got hurt."
Tony shot back without hesitation. "He has to check. Magic gets into the soul and all kinds of things—healing potions aren't foolproof!"
Just as the three of them were about to leave the villa ruins and head for somewhere safer—
A shrill tearing sound suddenly ripped through the air behind them, a strike aimed straight at Harry!
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