Reborn with Steve Stand
Chapter 522: The Invited Performers

Thanks to the unfortunate blessing of the Ender Dragon who doesn't distinguish between parents.

Until the end, the little demon still couldn't uncover the secret of the sex devil.

Of course, after listening to his partner's inner monologue, Fang Mo was truly moved, but he didn't forget the task at hand.

That was to use the authority of the Dimensional Demon to swiftly send the unfortunate pink-haired child away.

Afterward, the two of them chatted for quite some time.

Through these exchanges, Fang Mo gradually calmed down and began to understand the current situation of his partner.

To use the little demon's joking original words:

Her current state is like "the soul is out, the body stays home."

Initially, Fang Mo found it strange because, well... although he did have a fondness for her, the feelings she had for him online were not as intense as they are now. It was more like treating him as a close, goofy friend.

Honestly, Fang Mo almost decided on what to name their child.

This development was indeed pleasant, but after calming down, Fang Mo felt something was odd, so he asked her many serious questions. He also activated his Dimensional Demon authority to carefully study her current situation.

After all, she mentioned having manipulated her memory, which was indeed baffling.

Fang Mo couldn't figure it out; she was just an ordinary person, how could she precisely manipulate her own memory?

Which part was copied?

And which part was cut out?

However, after inquiring, the response he got was... she wasn't clear about it herself, she thought she was dreaming at the time and just went along with it.

The result was she thought about it and snapped her fingers.

The Infinity Gauntlet mysteriously arranged everything.

When she woke up, she was in the Marvel Universe, and aside from becoming physically smaller, she felt no other discomfort. At most, her memories of the past were very vague, except those memories of being with Fang Mo and playing games online became particularly clear.

Fang Mo stroked his chin and pondered for a long time.

He figured the problem must lie here.

But if you forced him to explain it, Fang Mo couldn't really say what the issue was. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ NƟvelFɪre.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

This little thing had also explained to him, saying her personality was typically lonely, so she didn't have many friends and lived a very miserable life in reality, coming from a broken family where her father favored sons over daughters and was a scoundrel. Nearly all her happiness came from the internet, and Fang Mo was the guy she enjoyed the most.

The two had fought side by side in more games than just Minecraft.

But then, Fang Mo was killed in creation.

Perhaps because of this reason, or maybe just from pure disappointment with a miracle-less reality, she snapped her fingers in her dream.

As for their relationship now.

Honestly, even these two themselves were somewhat unsure.

You could say it was friendship, but it seemed to have changed a bit, and to call it love... it felt like something was missing.

Fang Mo was not adept at studying these matters, thought for a while, and began to have a headache. He was too lazy to continue thinking about it. After all, emotions are inherently ambiguous and hard to articulate. He simply didn't think about it anymore, optimistically considering it a pure yet impure super friendship between a man and a woman, or pessimistically just calling it a male BFF relationship.

Of course, there was another very versatile explanation, which was the so-called "bond."

However, this only works in Japanese anime, and this here is the Marvel Universe, so no more will be said about that.

This little crazy girl was willing to snap her fingers and forsake all of reality to wander through the myriad worlds of fun and horror with him... Fang Mo, being a real man, of course, would accompany her to the end, whether it was friendship or love.

That's basically it.

The two, like fools, stood in the pure white space for a long time.

And the one to interrupt all this was not someone else but the pure white space that started vibrating again.

"Damn..."

Seeing this scene, Fang Mo then belatedly reacted, slapped his head, and said: "I was so busy talking nonsense with you, I forgot about our dog..."

"It's your Shoggoth."

Little Demon gave a meaningful look: "Isn't it the one you and Ah Xue raised?"

"Cough cough."

Fang Mo coughed awkwardly: "These are all creatures materialized from MC, so theoretically, they are yours too..."

"Have you unlocked the research on dragons yet? Titan creatures are okay too."

Little Demon suddenly asked.

"Ah?" Fang Mo was baffled, not understanding why she asked this question: "Seems... not?"

"Aren't you the one who said you could unlock modules by touching them?"

Little Demon frowned slightly in confusion: "Forget the research on dragons since you haven't been to many dungeons with dragons, but titan creatures... isn't Thanos a titan? Didn't you touch him before fighting him?"

"Damn, what's wrong with me?"

Fang Mo commented with disdain: "Before fighting, I furiously stroke a purple sweet potato essence. What if this guy thinks I'm fierce? And then suddenly raises his butt while fighting..."

"How so, are you scared?"

Xiao Yao raised an eyebrow: "Who sent me the Thanos butt figurine back then? And then chuckled creepily, saying it got hard."

"It was my fist that got hard, okay? Who on earth came up with such a thing."

Hearing this, Fang Mo touched his forehead but quickly changed the subject: "So why did you ask me about unlocking these two modules? The Titan creature module is so challenging, even the Infinity Sword can't kill the titans inside..."

"I'm also quite curious about this reality manifestation ability, I want to ride the Chaos Dragon."

Xiao Yao shrugged: "Witherzilla works too."

"You can ride J'zahar," Fang Mo thought for a moment and said: "I've already cleared the Abyssal Realm module, I'll catch one and send it to you in the Ender Sword."

"Let's skip zahar, his mouth is all tentacles, feels a bit gross..."

Upon hearing this, Xiao Yao waved his hand: "Alright, stop beating around the bush and go handle that Shoggoth thing."

"Aren't you coming?"

Fang Mo asked.

"I'm not going, I don't feel much for this series of monsters." Xiao Yao shook his head, then pointed around and said: "I plan to wander around here for a bit and test my abilities, is that okay?"

"Oh, that's fine."

It's quite safe in the pure white space-time, Fang Mo nodded and said: "Then shall I go first?"

"Please."

With a mere thought, Fang Mo had already left the pure white space-time.

Suddenly, the surrounding white light vanished, and in the next second, it was replaced by the darkness of the abyss.

However, just as he arrived in the dark dimension, Fang Mo suddenly felt empty beneath his feet and inexplicably started falling downwards.

Looking down instinctively, he noticed that the entire dark dimension had completely changed; the originally void and spacious world had disappeared, replaced by an endless brown rocky terrain.

This terrain, made of brown rock, was endlessly rugged and bizarre.

All around were plains made of odd stones, hills, or deserts made of stone powder, numerous giant stone columns standing on the ground, and strange mountain ranges towering into the clouds.

This land was incredibly gloomy, and devoid of any living creatures, with only the howling winds adding to the desolation and eerie silence.

However, right in the center of this lifeless brown rock continent, there stretched a massive rift almost crossing the entire world. The interior of this rift was even more profound than its surroundings, filled with a liquid-like darkness that seemed to swallow all light and hope.

Unlike the desolate wilderness, this rift was eerily quiet.

The howling winds seemed to be devoured the moment they touched it.

This mysterious and inexplicable scene made one wonder what secrets lay beneath this land, a suffocating and terrifying sense of horror looming, enough to drive ordinary people into madness.

But Fang Mo was no ordinary person.

He was a demon god who could govern several dimensions.

So in just an instant, he discovered the indescribable entity beneath the abyss.

It was like an ethereal sea, a vast and motionless amorphous entity, the black entity that had previously fallen asleep here, Shoggoth, only now it had evolved into a higher form.

It had completely merged with its authority.

Becoming a living mass of darkness.

This entire land, and even the space itself, had become a part of it.

The once sticky, cat-eared creature had now completely transcended space and time, and its body had become an ancient existence between consciousness and matter, the abyss itself.

And the changes in the pure white super-space-time were actually caused by Shoggoth sensing Fang Mo's presence and trying to squeeze in.

"Damn, Outer God Shoggoth?"

As Fang Mo felt all this, he couldn't help but exclaim.

However, after this shout, it seemed as if something had been awakened, and the entire brown rocky land began to tremble, and the abyss-like rift also began to churn and boil.

A light chirping sound was heard.

The vast darkness that resembled the sea came alive.

Countless black sticky blobs began hopping out of the sea, bouncing and rolling on the empty ground.

They seemed to be welcoming something, chirping joyfully, and then small tentacles stretched out from their bodies, rhythmically waving at the sky.

And then, a tremendous rumbling sound came from beneath the abyss, followed by the black viscous substance transforming like a fountain erupting from within the abyss, eventually converging into a sky-reaching tentacle of darkness.

The tip of this tentacle swung in the mid-air and soon stretched towards Fang Mo.

"Damn, King of Chirping!"

Seeing this, Fang Mo exclaimed again.

However, although he was complaining, Fang Mo's actions were quick, and he directly pointed his finger at the tentacle.

At the very moment when the tips of the fingers touched the tips of the tentacles,

The dense clusters of small sticky masses below, including the true form of Shoggoth hidden in the abyss, all issued a cheerful chirp.

"Ji!"

The cries of countless Shoggoths converged together, forming a thunderous roar.

If it were an ordinary person, such a shout might well have blasted someone away, but Fang Mo was unfazed, even nodding his head in satisfaction.

"Indeed, this does reach a part of the standard of an Outer God."

Fang Mo's words were not amiss, for it is known that the Outer Gods within the Cthulhu mythos also vary in levels.

Although Shoggoth cannot compare with the likes of the Three Pillar Gods, beings like the Kthanid or the Sourceless Ubbo-Sathla, Shoggoth could indeed match them.

After all, the dimensions Shoggoth now controls are a fusion of the Dark Superspace and the Dark Dimension.

The Dark Dimension is well known as the domain of Dormammu, and with the fusion of these two dimensions, Shoggoth's power naturally surpasses Dormammu by a great margin.

At least, it amounts to quasi-star-level combat power.

"Ji Ji! Ji Ji Ji!"

No sooner had Fang Mo finished speaking than the masses of Shoggoth below cried out again.

"Do you say you want to go out?"

Upon hearing Shoggoth's suggestion, Fang Mo laughed, "Sure, since all of these below are probably you, just pick one and come out to play with me."

"Ji!"

Hearing this, Shoggoth chirped happily again.

Immediately thereafter, the huge tentacle in mid-air suddenly wriggled, and quickly, a palm-sized black sticky mass fell from the tip of the tentacle.

Fang Mo casually caught it in his hand.

The little sticky mass twisted its body and instantly transformed into a cute, top-hatted little black cat, then narrowed its eyes and rubbed against Fang Mo's hand, meowing, "Ji!"

"Let's go, we're heading out now."

Fang Mo smiled, stroking the cat's head a couple of times, and then, with a thought, he instantly left the space.

After leaving the dark dimension,

Fang Mo returned directly to the Pure White Superspace.

As it turned out, girls do indeed tend to be swayed by appearances; his partner, who initially claimed to be indifferent to Cthulhoid creatures, immediately brightened up at the sight of the obedient little black cat and quickly snatched it into her arms.

When she discovered that Shoggoth, even transformed into a small sticky mass, did not have the loathsome appearance typical of Cthulhoid creatures, she seemed even more enamored.

As for Fang Mo, he also secretly observed Shoggoth's condition.

Like the small Ender Dragon, it also seemed to detect the player's aura on the girl, and far from rejecting her, it played happily with her.

Judging from the behavior of these two MC creatures,

Fang Mo breathed a sigh of relief, and he could guess Ah Xue's attitude towards the girl.

However, for now, it was not yet the best time for the two to meet. Thus, using the excuse of showing her his world, Fang Mo took the girl to explore Night City and introduced her to some other characters from different instances, such as Quanxi, Hayakawa Aki, and Ulquiorra, among others.

His partner, being new to this, was truly fascinated by these originally fictional characters who now appeared vividly before her, and she quickly became engrossed.

And with this delay, time quickly moved to a few days later.

Counting the days, Fang Mo suddenly realized that tomorrow would be the seventh day after the death of the Ancient One.

The seventh day following the death of the Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One, is a major event, even by universal standards, and he had been waiting for this day for a long time.

Thus, he immediately began preparing grandly.

First, he notified the Avengers, the Team Rocket, and even made a call to Nyarlathotep; besides that, he arranged for chefs, stage builders, and contacted the Kamar-Taj.

Moreover, he even had Stark custom-make a sound system.

Of course, he did not forget the most important matter.

You see, the seventh day after death is a very important funeral tradition in the East, and naturally, Fang Mo also had to notify the person concerned about this tradition—Ancient One herself.

However, upon hearing this news, Ancient One seemed not to be particularly pleased, which was rather strange. After all, who could celebrate their own seventh day after death? But instead, she behaved as if she was being coy, which led to Fang Mo sternly reprimanding her.

After a whole day of preparations, everything was ready.

Soon, the day of the Ancient One's seventh arrived.

For this rare occasion, Fang Mo donned a suit, eagerly took the girl with him, and was accompanied by a grim-looking Nick Fury to Kamar-Taj.

"Hey, what's with that resentful look on your face?"

Holding a bucket of KFC fried chicken in his hands, Fang Mo couldn't help but tease Nick Fury, "Today is a joyous day for the Ancient One, why must you spoil the mood? Can't you be a bit happier?"

"Seeing that bucket of fried chicken in your hands just kills my mood."

Nick Fury frowned and said, "And why does my suit look so odd? What's with this red sash?"

Indeed, Nick Fury was also wearing a suit at the moment, but compared to Fang Mo, his suit looked somewhat strange.

In fact, the suit itself was fine, but for some reason, Fang Mo had added a black bowler hat, a pair of brown-red sunglasses, and a bizarrely shaped cane to his outfit.

Most notably, on his shoulder, there was a red velvet sash trimmed with gold, slanting across him with the gold-embossed Chinese characters for "Ancient One Rest in Peace, Seventh Day Celebration" on it, which just felt utterly improper.

Nick Fury had only entered Kamar-Taj a few minutes ago.

And he felt many sorcerers' eyes on him.

"Where does your suit look weird?" Fang Mo patted the dust off Nick Fury's shoulder with one hand: "I had a tailor make this specially for you yesterday. It really suits your persona, taking center stage."

"And what's with this fried chicken?"

Nick Fury asked, "I've never heard of bringing your own KFC to a funeral. You must be playing on Black stereotypes again, like making me drool in public or something…"

"Do you hear yourself?"

Fang Mo frowned, suddenly looking at Nick Fury with a serious and stern face: "This is the seventh day ceremony for my friend Ancient One. We Asians take this very seriously. Do you think I would make light of such an important occasion? Am I that vulgar in your eyes?"

"That fried chicken…"

"Has nothing to do with you, okay?"

Fang Mo waved his hand, cutting off Nick Fury's words: "This is the offering I brought myself. The seventh day is about the spirit returning home for a visit, and at this time, we prepare a meal for the soul of the deceased as an offering."

"I've never seen anyone use KFC as an offering."

Nick Fury retorted.

"You know nothing." Fang Mo sneered disdainfully: "I told you, Ancient One was my friend. She never had the chance to try a family bucket in her life, so today I had to let her taste this legendary 'Crazy Thursday.'"

"...I knew it."

Nick Fury rubbed his temples with a headache.

Meanwhile, while the two were talking, the rest of the Avengers and the members of the Guardians of the Galaxy had also mostly arrived.

Although not many of them knew Ancient One personally, they attended the funeral out of respect for Fang Mo, and because they knew she died protecting Earth. Naturally, everyone was appropriately solemn, with Captain America unusually not in his usual uniform but in a black suit instead.

As for the ceremonies at Kamar-Taj, the seventh day ceremony was presided over by Fang Mo.

Though the current Sorcerer Supreme was Doctor Strange, he had tacitly allowed this, so the sorcerers there were also very polite in receiving everyone.

Originally, according to local customs, Ancient One's body would have been buried days ago, but since Fang Mo was overseeing the event, the coffin was still placed in the middle of the courtyard, not far from an altar with incense burning and a perpetually lit lamp.

Fang Mo also briefly explained the next part of the ceremony to everyone.

It involved burning joss paper, placing offerings, hiring a troupe to play music, and finally carrying the coffin away grandly for burial.

As for the choice of gravesite, Fang Mo didn't make any special arrangements, because there was already a section of the cemetery at Kamar-Taj designated for the burial of sorcerers, located on a gentle slope on the southwest side of Kamar-Taj, which was also what Ancient One had wanted for herself after her death.

Including Doctor Strange, Nick Fury, and Tony Stark, many were on edge about Fang Mo possibly causing a disturbance at the ceremony, but to their surprise, Fang Mo didn't make a scene.

He simply placed the fried chicken on the altar and then began silently burning the joss paper.

The tiny girl next to him, resembling a small animal, also remained silent, just handing him the yellow papers one by one.

Under these circumstances, the atmosphere of the entire seventh day ceremony was actually quite solemn and dignified, although Nick Fury still looked skeptical, continually looking up at Fang Mo, seemingly unable to believe that things could proceed so normally.

And indeed, that was the case.

Just when the seventh day ceremony had reached its midpoint.

Suddenly, the gate not far away was knocked on, followed by a voice outside.

"Brother, open the door."

"!"

Hearing this voice, Fang Mo's expression instantly brightened, and all solemnity disappeared from his face, replaced by a cheerful look. Before anyone could react, he ran over and opened the gate.

And just as he opened the gate.

A chilling, eerie feeling suddenly enveloped the entire Kamar-Taj.

Clouds formed in the sky above, gradually obscuring the previously clear sky, making the atmosphere extremely oppressive.

"This…"

Nick Fury also subconsciously looked up as he saw the situation.

The figure at the door was not a stranger, but Nyarlathotep, who had previously interacted with the group.

Nyarlathotep was also dressed in an elegant suit, his tall stature making him look very imposing. However, he was not alone; behind him, there was a group of blurry figures holding flutes.

"Sorry for being a bit late, haha."

Nyarlathotep smiled broadly, then stepped aside and pointed to the people behind him: "It's a tight schedule, so let me introduce my friends first."

Before anyone else could speak, Nyarlathotep continued.

"These here are Tulzscha, Kaajh'Kaalbh, Shabbith-Ka, Suc'Naath; they are some of the finest dancers in the world. Oh, and this is Tru'nembra, a flute player, though his partner Ghroth got stuck in traffic and will probably be late…"

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