*Author's Note*
99 chapters and every time Harry has gone all out it has been under some random restriction. I should probably do something about that huh?
Within the Astral Plane, Harry fought against a pack of what he called Chrono Wolves. It wasn't really a pack though. It was a single monster that existed in multiple timelines and could split itself with every decision it made. Harry had no way to choose what monster would form when he used Battle Meditation but he really liked the Chrono Wolves since each copy gave EXP when slain.
Due to this fantastic trait, when Harry did encounter Chrono Wolves while grinding after he reached level 300, he took his time, hours and hours to fight until the Wolves stopped splitting.
Not that splitting alone was a Chrono Wolf's only talent. Anything it bit froze in time allowing the pack to rip it to shreds once a single wolf sunk its teeth into the target. It could also go backwards in time up to half a second meaning if it jumped at a target and the target moved to counter, the wolf would basically teleport to where it was a half second prior, throwing off the counter timing and leaving the target completely open. And of course it could accelerate its own time making it move faster and faster as needed.
Until Harry reached level 300 he never stood a chance against them since they could move like teleporting forward and backward and he'd quickly get overwhelmed, bitten, and torn to shreds when he tried them out while using Battle Meditation and Time Energy.
Now things were different. After reaching level 300 in the Negative Zone and sinking enough Stat points into Wisdom, his Magic Defense was enough to resist the Time Stop effect of a Wolf Bite. Usually.
Still, the trick to fighting it was to control the Battle. A Chrono Wolf could only split when it made a decision. Right or Left. Dodge or Counter. Attack or Withdraw. Harry had to use his wits to fight and completely control the fight in order to prevent the Wolf from doing anything but what Harry needed it to do, thus preventing the decision split. If he didn't, one unattended wolf could quickly turn into twenty and he would be swarmed.
It was only possible for Harry to do so using Astral Tech. He could only use it in the Astral Plane and while using Battle Meditation but turrets, cannons, net launchers, and drones were used together with Link's help to command the battle and ensure the number of wolves remained at a level Harry could deal with.
Although Harry liked the Chrono Wolves, he still didn't mind too much when anything else appeared. Harry was creating a game of course and he and Link had every intention of filling that game with all the monsters he encountered in Battle Meditation. Why pay others to create unique monsters and determine their attack patterns when Link could just record everything Harry fought against and copy it to the letter.
When his girls mentioned that sicking abominations beyond the realm of comprehensible thought on people who'd never been in a fight their entire lives was an act of pure sadism, Harry simply countered that there was nothing wrong with staying true to the source material. That fact that Harry fully intended to watch as new players were torn to shreds by rabbits and wolves while eating popcorn was left unsaid.
Besides, a lot of it was more for Link than Harry himself. Link enjoyed making other AIs as a hobby. He had created tens of thousands of AIs to act as NPCs to be used when the game was launched to run the virtual world. Each one had quirks and flaws and human-like problems that would give players no end of troubles and Quests. Watching how these AIs learned and grew while interacting with Players would teach Link more and allow him to grow.
Once Harry determined the last wolf was unable to split further, his weapon cut it down and Harry heard a welcomed sound.
*Ping*
[You have leveled up.]
Harry pulled up his stats and smiled. Level 300 was just enough for him to fight against creatures made of Time Energy. In order to use Time Magic, he still needed to fight a lot of Time Creatures and level up using their energy. Once he had enough, he could synchronize the accumulated Time Energy to his Heart using the Heart Palace technique, and use that energy to control external Time Energy and cast proper Time Magic Spells.
[Harry Potter
Level 310 Age 18
STR 375 AGI 375
INT 625 WIS 650
LUK 50
Warrior Path Rank 40
Scholar Path Rank 47
Magic Path Rank 53
Tech Path Rank 48
Business Path Rank 43
Crafting Path Rank 45
Dragon Path Rank 41
Psionic Path Rank 40
Sex Path Rank 59]
Once Harry exited Battle Meditation, he immediately started synching his life energy with the Time Energy stored within him. Years of practice and the fact that he'd been looking forward to this for years led him to succeed in one go. Sorcery was about connecting to external energies and manipulating them. The Heart Palace Technique made this much, much easier by using an existing reserve of energy stored within as a base to control the external form of the same energies.
Normal Sorcery was basically someone shouting incoherently at the energy of the Universe hoping their intent would be understood. The Heart Palace technique was basically learning the language of the energy which made communicating with it quite a bit easier. Unfortunately for Kamar-Taj, not everyone was capable of learning this technique and had to use magic the hard way.
Once Harry had properly synched himself to the Time Energy, he checked his messages to see if anything had come up during the time he'd been meditating. Link had in fact sent a message with some unusual details about Reed.
Reed Richards and Susan had finally gotten married a month and a half ago. Reed had been taking her on weekly dates and had finally gotten into the habit of showing that he cared more for her than his work. Once that was clearly conveyed, he proposed and she said yes. Ben Grimm was his best man and Harry was invited.
Harry also found that Dr. Doom was coming, so he preemptively sent his former student a Text Message stating that if he was coming, to make sure to say Hi since Harry was at the wedding as well. Harry was told moments later that Doom turned around and returned to Latveria.
Dr. Doom had pretty much been the Nemesis of the Fantastic Four and they'd gotten into all sorts of shenanigans. Doom had properly completed the Homework Harry had given him and even mastered the Extra Credit, gaining an Ethereal Beast as a minion that Doom could strengthen with practice. When Doom first gained control over it, he attacked Reed and the others with it while they were at an overseas convention. It was very awkward when he discovered the beast's great power was useless on them.
The Ethereal Beast was created from Life Energy and Power Cosmic and synched to Doom's magic. All the attacks it used were generated by Power Cosmic and had no effect on beings who were also empowered by Power Cosmic. So the thing was useless on the Fantastic Four and would be useless on the Silver Surfer if he ever showed up again.
Though Doom rarely missed a chance to mess with Reed, he always avoided New York. He was probably the least surprised person on the planet when he saw the news of Harry's Secret Statue Army defending the city from Aliens. He'd predicted the Professor likely had something like that up his sleeve as Doom had done something similar with a mass production of Doom Bots.
The Doom certainly wanted to trash Reed's wedding, but the fact that Harry texted him on a number no one should know he had that Harry was at the wedding was about as clear a warning as one could get. No, Doom was not worried Harry would kill him. He was worried Harry would publicly prank him, or worse, give him more Homework!
Harry had very specific criteria when it came to retribution. If Doom ignored an obvious warning and came anyways, Harry would absolutely make a move.
So Doom stayed away from the wedding which went off without any issues.
A month later, as in two weeks ago, Susan announced she was pregnant.
Harry was called to use every bit of juju he had to make sure it would be a healthy baby. This bit of paranoia turned out to be well deserved as Harry determined that the baby was causing Susan to generate a strange form of energy which would harm her and the child. It was barely anything at that point but would become lethal before the baby was due and kill them both.
Once they had the readout on the bizarre energy isolated, Reed suggested acquiring some Element X, an element he discovered in the Negative Zone that he calculated could neutralize the foreign energy within Susan. Harry bonked him on the head for that. Sure, the calculations showed it would save Susan and not harm her or the child, but Harry showed Reed how that would likely cause the child to awaken his X-Gene before he was even born. Reed was many things, but he was not a Genetics Expert on the same level as Harry, so he'd missed that one.
Harry confirmed that the baby's X-Gene already looked supercharged while completely dormant. Harry didn't really care if the baby woke his X-Gene early or not, but he did state it would be much harder to find a babysitter if the toddler had super powers and Harry was too busy to volunteer for that.
Instead, the pair opted for a method to partially disable Susan's powers. The energy was a byproduct of her powers and her pregnancy, but not her entire power. It only took a few hours for the geniuses to figure out how much of Susan's powers could be safely restrained for the energy to no longer be produced. Harry then just made a dozen anti-magic bracelets created to the specifications they calculated. She'd have to switch them out every few days and her powers would be significantly weaker, but it was a very small price to pay.
So for the next nine months Reed and Susan would be avoiding anything dangerous, especially anything that created any form of strange energies. Harry knew this, Link knew this. So when Link noticed all the signs that Reed seemed to basically be creating a portal device in secret, he notified Harry.
Harry, having received the message, teleported to the Baxter Building and spent about five seconds determining the location Reed had been building a portal device in secret. In fact, he found Reed working on it.
Harry asked with exasperation, "What are you doing Richards?"
Reed turned around and had enough sense to be embarrassed. Harry certainly did not look eighteen when he glared with disappointment.
After a few moments of silence, Reed eventually told Harry what was going on.
"At first, when I saw a projection of what appeared to be an older version of myself, I thought it was one of your pranks. The projection claimed to be a Reed Richards from a parallel dimension and he said he wanted to teach me how to be the best father and family man I could for my wife and child. He said he'd teach me how to avoid the mistakes he made."
Reed explained that he'd basically been contacted by another dimension and was invited over. Reed has isolated the location of that dimension and was going to build a portal device to it. The Reed on that side had already built a portal device and one could be used to travel to the other once this Reed finished his.
Harry massaged his head and wondered how could a being composed of magic particles get a headache. Oh right, because Reed Richards was his student.
An hour later, Reed Richards appeared in the portal room of another dimension's Baxter Building. Rather than looking bright and clean, it looked dark and foreboding. Reed asked aloud, "Hello? Is someone here?"
The door opened a moment later and four figures walked in under the dim lighting. One of them stretched over and wrapped an arm around Reed before his face was revealed in the light. It was the older Reed, but his mouth had decayed off. He sneered and said, "Ever get the feeling you've been had?"
The decayed Reed's jaw opened until it was a foot in length and he chomped down on the bound younger Reed's shoulder as the other three figures ran over and grabbed Reed's limbs and started biting down.
Sparks flew when the decayed Ben's teeth bit through the arm, revealing metal and wires. The holographic image over the robot faded to reveal the broken Life Model Decoy that the Four had bitten into.
Zombie Reed shouted, "We've been tricked!" He went to a control panel and flipped a few switches and a hum of energy started to whir before dying down. "No no no! He couldn't have turned off the machine on his side so soon! Dammit I'm Hungry!"
Harry and Reed sat in the Baxter Building of their Dimension watching the scene through the one-way viewing Portal that Harry cast. With Harry's research of the Space Stone, making a portal into a parallel dimension using magic and sending a Life Model Decoy through wasn't too difficult as long as he knew the coordinates.
Harry looked over at Reed who was both shocked and terrified. Harry asked, "What have we learned?"
Reed sighed and answered, "That I am an idiot and a danger to myself and everyone around me."
Harry shrugged and replied, "Well, I was going to say that all dimensions have limited resources so the chances of peaceful exchange between two dimensions are remote. But yeah, that too. There are many types of scientists Reed. You are an explorer. You seek the unknown, you are drawn to the distant, and you dream of the secrets held where you cannot reach. I can't say this is a bad thing, but you tend to forget or ignore the fact that exploration is, by a wide margin, the most dangerous form of science."
The main problem was that people who explored for a living and knew the risks had a certain skill set. Reed's exploration was nothing like a professional explorer and Reed lacked all the training and experience of those who knew better.
Reed asked after a bit, "Any suggestions? I don't think I can change so easily."
Harry nodded, "You can't. It's a part of who you are. What you can do is get some experience. I'll have Link put together a list of books of fictional explorers you can read with Susan while she's pregnant. Figure out what they did well and what they did wrong. Read enough of them and you'll pick up on their good habits and discover your own bad ones."
Reed nodded, "Like opening a portal without supervision or planning a trip somewhere and assuming I know anything about the place?"
Harry smiled and nodded, much to Reed's relief. Reed looked alright but an astute observer would clearly notice he was shaking. It didn't take a genius to figure out Reed had almost been tricked into unleashing a Zombie Apocalypse. Sure, the trap perfectly targeted Reed's weakness, but that was not an acceptable excuse for nearly endangering the lives of Susan, his child, his friends, and everyone on Earth. Reed promised himself never again. Leaping into the unknown may be what his heart desires, but he'd rather rip his heart out than let it harm his wife and child.
Once Harry was certain the lesson had gotten through, he left while hiding a big smile. He'd gotten a very interesting pop up during his visit.
[New Quest: Zombie Extermination.
The Denizens of Earth-2149 have fallen victim to a Zombie Apocalypse which has infected the Heroes and Villains of that world alike. After running out of food, they seek a new supply and new worlds. As a being not truly comprised of flesh, you are uniquely suited to fight without risk of infection.
Eliminate all the Zombies within one week.]
Harry figured the time limit was because they would find a way to access new worlds in a week. Not that it mattered, he had no intention of allowing a threat which had targeted his world to exist.
Harry made a few calls to inform his girls where he would be going. He couldn't invite them since he was the only one he knew that could not be infected. That and he promised to be safe. That of course meant no holding back. In a world where a Zombie Apocalypse occurred, there was no need to hide his strength.
After doing a bit more preparation, Harry made a portal to the Moon of that world. He got a pop up as he approached it.
[Hell Mode Instance Dungeon: Earth-2149
Restrictions
-Infinity Stones have 70% Power, the further you are from your home universe, the weaker their effect.
-Cannot Respawn outside of Instance Dungeon while Inside.
-EXP will not be processed until all Zombies have been killed, the Death Energy will be converted into standard energy.
-Five Times EXP on kills]
Harry really smiled at that last one. The first one wasn't too surprising. The Infinity Stones were the Admin Access Passwords of the system that was the Universe. All Universes likely had a password, but there was no guarantee that all passwords were identical.
Harry wouldn't even risk bringing the stones if it weren't for the highly convenient Infinity Perk. Harry's Inventory had a rule. Anything he didn't make that was considered a unique item would probably be ejected from his Inventory on death. He got that message when he put Loki's broken Scepter into his inventory. After getting the Infinity Perk, that was no longer the case. The Infinity Stones would stay in his inventory forever as he had no intention of ever taking them out. It was safest that way.
As for the EXP delay issue, that kind of made sense. When Harry killed something and absorbed its energy, that energy became a part of him and he could use it to assist in casting spells. There were some energies he would not take such as Death Energy. He had nothing against Death, but Death Energy was for the dead and he was alive. The only ones among the living who would use it were Necromancers and Harry would never disturb the dead, so he did not want to absorb Death Energy.
So all the Death Energy apparently held by the Zombies he killed would be held off and converted before he assimilated it, which he was perfectly fine with.
Harry entered the portal and made a save point on the Lunar Surface. He was planning for the worst which meant having a backup. If he was killed, he'd just reappear on the Moon and have time to make another plan.
After the Save Point was made, Harry cast a few spells on himself and equipped himself for battle. He had a thin set of full adamantium plate armor. It was thinner than cloth and could be worn under his enchanted Basilisk Hide robe. He even wore a full helmet with a built in radar sensor and heads up display. This was useful when dealing with low powered mobs. Harry's energy sense could not detect attacks without energy like a gun being fired or an arrow being shot and detecting normal humans at a distance was impossible for his senses. The armor would take care of those and protect against the biters. Even his hands were covered in Adamantium chain mail, though he could not wear Basilisk hide gloves beneath the chain mail as that would make casting difficult.
Once prepped for war, Harry formed and concentrated a high powered sphere of cutting curses before creating a portal to the Baxter building and tossing it through. The Zombie Fantastic Four were quick to react but not quick enough as the expanding cutting sphere exploded in a wave of slices. Susan made a shield and Johnny hid behind Ben but Reed was out in the open and took on the hit directly. What impressed Harry was that the blue jumpsuit Reed wore resisted the slices, however Reed's jumpsuit did not cover his head which was diced to bits.
Harry borrowed a page from Loki and turned himself invisible while casting an illusion of himself stepping through the portal. Johnny stormed forward and once close to the illusion, Susan cast a forcefield around the illusion and Johnny burst into intense flames.
Harry was moderately impressed with the tactic. It would burn up the oxygen in the air which, to a zombie meant nothing, but would render the target unconscious easily enough.
Invisible Harry cut off Susan's head with a sword and cast a portal on the ground while making it invisible. Ben noticed Harry had appeared behind Susan and charged forward, stepping into the portal and falling for a moment before Harry dispelled the portal, cutting off both of Ben's legs.
Johnny shouted in rage and flew at Harry but ended up being sliced lengthwise in half by the invisible blade Harry placed between them. Johnny's vision was badly affected when he immolated himself which made it easy for him to fall for traps like that.
Ben was shouting and swearing along with Susan who for some inexplicable reason was able to speak while she was a severed head.
Harry lifted Ben with Telekinesis and made another portal to put him partially through before he closed it, severing Ben's head as well. Harry confirmed that Ben's body and limbs stopped moving after his decapitation, but his head, like Susan's, was still able to talk.
Ignoring their ramblings on donating a finger for them to nibble on as compensation, Harry took a few moments to read their minds. It was truly disconcerting. This was not a plague, but magic of the darkest nature that remained in their brains. That meant there wasn't a cure. The magic killed the person and animated their corpse. Even if the spell was removed, they were still a corpse. There was no saving or curing them.
Harry had read some nasty spell books but this spell was truly a piece of work. First of all, it was sentient, to a degree. It specifically targeted abnormal humans. All weaker non-powered humans were food. Not that they could not be infected, but there would not be enough left for one to rise after each inch of flesh made its way into the stomachs of the infected.
This world was completely normal two weeks ago. Every super powered individual had been infected within a week and another week later, there were no uninfected humans left. The survivors were able to kill most of the zombie hordes using various weapons, but the remaining zombies were the ones with super powers and they killed all of the remainder of the surviving humans. At least ones that could easily be located. That's when this Zombie Reed came up with the idea of finding a new world of flesh.
The fact that the Zombies had full access to their intellect was the main reason the foul magic spread so quickly. These were not mindless brutes. They could reason, they could plan.
From what Harry could tell, the magic even had a failsafe. If the Zombies went longer than a month without eating, they would no longer feel hunger. This was a trap and a clever one at that. It meant if any non zombies survived, they'd be tricked into coming out of hiding once the Zombies were no longer hunger driven monsters. This would remove the need to kill all the zombies, meaning the risk of another outbreak was always there.
Harry had no intention of sparing them. First, because the curse was almost guaranteed to return if even one remained, and second, because he wouldn't get any EXP until they were ALL killed.
Before Harry left the Baxter Building, he connected a Thumb Drive into their computer systems and started downloading everything. This Reed's suit was made of a material called Unstable Molecular Fiber and Harry was interested in it. Besides, what kind of Video Game Character doesn't loot the treasure after killing the monster?
Harry jumped outside and after a few dozen stories landed on the ground. The city was scarred with evidence of one intense battle after another.
It only took a minute for Harry's first two customers to show up. Zombie Hulk and Zombie Wolverine.
Hulk noticed Wolverine and shouted at the immortal, "My Flesh!" to which Logan growled.
The pair rushed to see who could reach Harry the fastest. Harry's energy sense and radar picked up another person closing in from a nearby building. What was interesting was that he sensed Dragon Chi within him, though much weaker than the chi Harry got from the Black Dragon.
Harry ran at Hulk and slammed a palm into Hulk's body. Even through his decayed lips Harry could see the giant's sneer. That sneer vanished when Hulk's Astral form was ejected outside of his body causing Hulk to fall to the ground.
The Dragon Chi user leapt from a nearby building as Zombie Logan reached Harry. A telekinetic push sent Wolverine flying and Harry charged himself with Immortal Dragon Chi and smashed his fist into the challenger's. The green tights wearing Chi user's fist and arm blasted apart from the force of the impact. Harry's blade removed his head a moment later as the sound of thunder echoed in the distance.
Thor jumped from what Harry figured was the other side of the city and landed in front of Harry. He noticed the fallen Hulk and the crushed Chi User and elected to throw his hammer at the new flesh.
Harry used the Time Magic, Acceleration, to grant himself what was basically Pietro Maximoff's mutant power. Harry watched as the Hammer approached and grabbed it by the handle and stopped it in midair. Yeah. He was worthy.
Rather than use an untested weapon though, Harry put it into his inventory and cast a Slow spell on Thor who had started charging him.
Sensing no one too close at the moment, Harry set up the creation of a massive vortex of light and darkness. This was a variation on the Spell Dimension Edge. It was basically a hundred Dimension Edges packed together like Harry's cutter sphere. Unfortunately it could not be moved from where it was cast and could not be cast quickly. Harry called it Dimension Grinder.
Harry used Telekinesis to move the unconscious body of the Hulk while Bruce Banner's astral form watched in silence as the body was lifted over and dropped into the shredder. A moment later and Hulk was no more. The Astral form of Banner seemed to sigh with relief and faded away.
The slowed Thor was still getting closer and once close enough, the spell was resisted using Thor's mighty strength granting him full speed once more.
Harry let the spell cancel on purpose as it allowed Thor an opening on a predictable attack. Harry just caught Thor's attack and judo threw him into the grinder. Without his Hammer, Thor had no way to fly, so he fell face first into the grinder which shredded him to pieces and broke apart. The spell wasn't very stable and it wasn't safe to cast repeatedly without damaging the dimension you were in.
Up next were a few faces Harry recognized and a few he'd only heard about. Zombie Beast, Angel, and Nightcrawler had shown up along with someone Harry recognized as Hercules, son of Zeus.
Nightcrawler vanished and Harry moved his hands behind his shoulder. Nightcrawler appeared there and Harry caught his head and squeezed it until it popped using Cytorrak's Red Energy and Immortal Dragon Chi to boost his strength.
Hercules charged forward with impressive speed and Harry noticed another African American hero charging him from the other side. Harry got out a sword and used his accelerated speed to strike them both, but surprisingly, his blade was unable to cut through either's skin. Hercules simply didn't take the damage and the African guy Harry didn't recognize seemed to have skin harder than metal.
Harry cast another pair of cutter spheres at Beast and Angel which shredded the pair but the spells did nothing to Hercules and the other guy.
Someone in a red costume approached and a moment later he turned into a massive four story tall giant.
Harry cast Stop on Hercules and the other invulnerable guy before teleporting to get some distance from the giant and casting Eternal Fire. He then transfigured it into a dragon and fired it at the giant. The huge man tried to block but the flaming dragon passed through his arms and torso like it wasn't even there, causing a massive hole to appear in his chest. He fell down dead a moment later.
Hercules broke the Time Spell and shouted with rage but the other guy remained Stopped. The son of Zeus grabbed a car and threw it at Harry's position so fast Harry had to teleport out of the way to dodge. Harry cast Stop on him again and cast a portal under Hercules. Harry was pleased that the portal did not shatter when he fell through as most gods and demi-gods could not be taken through a portal against their will. Harry dispelled the portal once he fell through up to the neck and decapitated the son of Zeus.
Harry glanced at the still Stopped other guy and decided on a repeat performance, decapitating him the same way.
A being the size of an insect flew over to Harry and changed in size to that of a woman before biting down on Harry's shoulder. Harry grabbed her head and popped it too while casting a cleaning spell on him to remove all the body parts and blood. Her teeth were unable to pierce Harry's armor.
Wolverine used this moment to jump out from where he was hiding, but the radar system in Harry's heads up display was tracking him, so Harry just grabbed him with telekinesis once he was close.
Harry looked at Logan and wondered about the best way to kill him. None of the Zombies had regeneration and Logan seemed to have lost his as well, but Harry didn't want to let that stop him from doing it right.
After taking a bit to go through the Black Family Grimoires, Harry settled on a Dehydration spell and cast it on Logan at max power.
Logan slowly shriveled up as all the moisture in his body evaporated, leaving a dried husk. Even the husk started to break down leaving a shiny skeleton. Harry tried to put it into his Inventory but could not. Apparently that meant that Logan was still considered alive. So Harry baked his skeleton in Eternal fire. The bone marrow and brain matter that survived within his bones and skull were heated to levels hotter than the sun and were broken down to base components and gases. After another check, Harry confirmed the skeleton could be put into his inventory, confirming Logan was dead dead.
Harry removed the belt and helmet from the Bee woman and from the Giant man. He recognized Pym Particles when he saw them. They were the science closest to Magic Harry knew of but Hank Pym had no intention of sharing and Harry was too polite to ask. But since there were some samples here just lying around, Harry would help himself. Loot for the win.
It didn't take long for the next round to show up. These ones he recognized. Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Storm.
Actually, there was one more who he didn't recognize, someone who could fly and was wearing a black and gold suit and wearing a gold and red helmet. What was more interesting was that he radiated what was clearly Nova Force. That was interesting.
Zombie Stark fired a repulsor and Harry dodged and used some Technopathy to take control over his suit. Harry was a bit surprised to find the suit fighting it so Harry just froze it in place and cast a powerful stunning hex. Stunning spells didn't work on Zombies, but the wizard magic did corrupt the operating system causing the suit to fall from the sky.
Hawkeye fired several arrows at Harry's back and legs but they all bounced off the armor hidden under the Basilisk hide cloak. Steve rushed forward and Storm started gathering thunder clouds above them.
Harry used telekinesis to toss Stark into the air above him right as the lightning struck, causing it to char Stark and surprise Storm and Steve. Harry cast a tripping jinx on Rogers once he was close and with a quick movement of his blade he cut off Steve's head as he tripped and fell next to Harry.
The guy using the Nova Force flew at Harry with his mouth open clearly aiming for Harry's neck. Harry cast an Anti-Magic circle the dude ignorantly flew through which temporarily cut his connection to the Nova Force. Harry used the Accelerate spell again to get close and cut off his head in the moment before he reconnected to his power.
Storm tried to hit Harry with lightning again so Harry made himself invisible once more and had an illusion of himself fly up towards Storm who defended herself by conjuring intense winds and hail.
Harry cast another cutter sphere and made another portal above Storm and tossed it through. She was too distracted by the illusion to notice the attack from behind and was shredded to pieces. Harry also cut off Stark's head for good measure after using technopathy to open the suit.
On the edge of Harry's radar was Spider-Man who had yet to get any closer. Harry felt that meant that Peter's spider sense still worked and went off every time he tried to approach Harry.
Too bad that was really easy to get around. Harry started walking in the other direction and once Peter no longer sensed danger, he swung over and pounced on Harry.
Harry of course just cast Stop on him before continuing to walk away. Peter didn't really have any decent magical defense and you needed a high level to resist Time Magic. His Spider sense didn't kick in because Harry would just kill him in an hour. That meant Peter wasn't in danger for now which is why he didn't sense any problems. The Spider sense couldn't sense danger a long time out which was an easy way to get around it.
Harry removed the helmet containing the Nova Force from the dude's severed head which was swearing and complaining non stop. Harry put the helmet into his inventory since he would definitely find some fun uses for it. Now that he had access to Time Magic, he could accelerate the growth of Nova crystals and mass produce them.
Next up on his radar was a very large group. This group seemed composed entirely of villains and instead of coming in small groups or one at a time, this group seemed to want to come at Harry together.
Harry recognized Rhino, Dr. Doom, Juggernaut, and someone he guessed was the Red Skull. Some he didn't recognize was a dude wearing a green goblin mask and rode upon a flying glider. Next there was a very large, muscular skrull and behind him was a figure as muscular as Hercules but covered in a black suit with a white Spider on it. His mouth was large and he had an unusual tongue.
Since they wanted to have a group fight, Harry figured he'd oblige. They had him surrounded so Harry teleported outside of their encirclement and started conjuring Fiendfyre Warfiends. Standard Fiendfyre just created feral animals of cursed flames but this modification created warriors. What was useful was that they did not look like they were composed of flames, but appeared to be constructs made of shadow.
The Warfiends charged the villains and Harry saturated himself with Strength Energy, Dimensional Energy, Dragon Chi, and Time Energy.
The villains met the Warfiends head-on and quickly learned of their true nature. The black spider guy, Rhino, the Skrull, and the Red Skull were all set on fire and unable to put it out. Juggernaut's connection to the Crimson Cosmos granted him immunity to magic attacks and Dr. Doom's armor was highly magic resistant so both were unaffected.
Harry used his speed to dodge Juggernaut and slam his fist into Doom's torso. Doom's armor was no less durable than adamantium but that meant little as Harry's pure strength caused it to dent all the way to the back of the armor, squeezing all of the juices within Doom out of his mouth as all of his organs were liquified.
The goblin threw a couple of what Harry figured were bombs and Harry threw them back using telekinesis. Their explosion threw the man off his glider where he was attacked by the Warfiends.
Juggernaut tried again to crush Harry but his speed made that impossible. Harry instead pulled out a metal cylinder and a gallon sized bottle of water from his inventory. He uncapped the cylinder and used telekinesis to lift and move the liquid nitrogen inside and directed it into Cain Marko's nose and mouth. His massive hands were unable to stop the liquid as it entered his nose and made its way into his lungs. Not that iced lungs would really do anything to a Zombie. Marko couldn't feel the temperature or pain since he was a zombie and didn't even need to breath.
Harry then moved the water over Juggernaut's head and into his mouth and nose where the remnants of the liquid nitrogen froze it into ice. Juggernaut may have been immune to magic, but he was not immune to chemistry.
The frozen water completely blocked up the passageway of air into the lungs and the boiling liquid nitrogen quickly turned to gas in the sealed space.
A moment later, Cain Marko's head shot up from his body as his chest exploded. Due to the armor he wore, the only direction the explosion could go was up.
Juggernaut's power granted him immunity to magic and physical force attacks, but his actual flesh was not impervious. That was why he wore armor in the first place. His flesh being his weakness when he was a zombie wasn't really a weakness, but it was still the easiest route to use to kill him.
Harry walked over to Doom whose crushed torso prevented him from moving. He asked, "Who are you?"
Harry considered the question and answered, "Harry Potter."
Doom replied, "Never heard of you."
Harry shrugged. That probably meant no magicals which made this easier. He took a few moments to conjure a dimensional edge and severed Doom's head as well.
The remaining villains had been rendered to cinders by the Warfiends.
Harry's quest pointer directed him to areas with zombies and when they were close by they pointed him directly to the nearest zombie so it was possible that he could personally hunt them all, but that was too much of a pain in the butt. Instead, Harry got out a crystal rabbit.
This was the first version but he still did some upgrades to it. Harry set the parameters for dead people and collected the heads of the zombies before releasing the rabbit on their bodies. The zombie corpses he'd just killed were not the only corpses in the city. In an hour there would be thousands of them. Harry would make a few portals and toss a dozen through to every city on Earth. Every corpse would be turned into a Rabbit.
While he was setting up the parameters, a figure in red armor came floating down. Harry recognized Magneto as he was not wearing his helmet. It was also clear that Magneto did not have the decay that the zombies did, implying that the man remained healthy and Harry's quest pointer did not indicate him.
Magneto approached and asked, "Who are you? I know every super powered being of this world."
"I guess you could say I'm an interdimensional Mercenary. I was paid by some higher powers to kill every zombie on this planet. I'll be finished in a few days, a week tops."
Magneto had checked the corpses of those around and asked, "Truly? I hope so. I am the last super powered individual of this world that is not infected."
Harry asked, "What about the other mutants? I haven't seen too many around."
Magneto hummed in thought and stated, "There was an event some time ago that caused most mutants to lose their powers. I was one of the few unaffected."
Harry nodded, "That's good to hear. Stay out of trouble."
Magneto nodded and flew off, still in thought. The only uninfected humans he knew of were on Asteroid M and if the newcomer could deliver, they'd be able to rebuild. All was not lost.
Harry let the rabbits do their thing and went to the New York Sanctum. Mounds and mounds of zombie corpses littered the area which were swarmed by the white rabbits.
Harry entered the Sanctum. Most of the displays were destroyed but the artifacts remained. Unfortunately, they all ignored Harry, just like artifacts of his world. Harry decided to leave them here, but he did notice a number of books he wasn't familiar with, so he'd snatch those himself.
Eventually he found the lone occupant of the Sanctum. The man Harry had never met but had heard of from the Ancient One. Dr. Strange. The man was badly injured and seemed to already be a zombie, but he was also chained to the wall.
Zombie Strange looked up at the stranger and sighed with relief when he saw Harry didn't appear to be infected.
Strange said, "You have to kill me. I can't hold myself back much longer."
Harry replied, "Sure, but what happened here?"
"Another me. He was already a zombie. He made a portal to this world from his own. I fought him but a few other zombies got through. While fighting myself, I couldn't stop them. It's all my fault."
Harry shrugged. "There are survivors. I'll take care of all the zombies."
The man nodded, "The other Strange. He had a book. I think it caused this. Destroy it. Now, please end me before I lose myself."
Harry nodded. He cut off the man's head and destroyed it with magic.
Harry searched a bit and found the destroyed body of another Dr. Strange. Harry found the book on him and rolled his eyes at the flesh binding, of course it was the Necronomicon. Seems someone really wanted to bring someone back from the dead and it got a little out of hand. Harry wondered if he could find that other Zombie world, but ignored it for now. He looted everything that he could, including the necklace of both Dr. Stranges. It was the Eye of Agamotto, but completely different from the ones his Ancient One used. Rather than a tool to use the Time Stone, it had far more power. Harry would have fun studying it. Since he had two, maybe he'd gift one to his world's Dr. Strange when they met.
Harry wouldn't put the curse book of the dead into his inventory but didn't mind memorizing the content for reference. He even found the spell that would return the dead but the book didn't contain any warnings about the massive zombie outbreak that would occur afterwards so it was obvious nothing could be trusted. Harry burnt the book with Phoenix fire and got to work spreading the rabbits and finding the hidden Zombies.
Since it was in a Zombie's nature to hunt for flesh, none of them were hiding in a bunker unless that bunker was filled with human flesh. But in such a case, they would likely all turn to zombies and run out and leave the bunker on their own.
Every couple of hours Harry would portal to the Moon and then make a portal from there home so he could keep the girls up to date.
In addition to looting the toys he found, he was also looting knowledge. The reason he decapitated many of the zombies was so that he could spend time rifling through their brains. Like the brain of the Dragon Chi user, the guy who apparently called himself Iron Fist. Harry took the knowledge of how the fighters of Kun-Lun trained in the use of Chi and though much of it Harry had already guessed, there were a few gems of useful information Harry found incredibly helpful. He didn't do that to Strange though since he wanted to die before he failed resisting the Zombie curse.
Once Harry was done looting from a severed head, he'd destroy it and move onto the next one.
Harry also raided Stark's home. Doing so set off the security which sent hundreds of Iron Man armors on auto-pilot at him. Harry had fun with that one before he downloaded all of Iron Man's schematics and technical innovations. He did the same thing to Doom's palace in Latveria and a few other notable locations.
It took only three days to finish.
*Ping*
[You have leveled up.]
[Quest Complete: Zombie Extermination
Reward: Dimensional Quest Board.]
Harry smiled at the prize. He leveled up ten times and put all those stats into INT. He'd need it considering the Research binge he was about to start.
Harry found a rabbit and dispelled the effect, causing all the rabbits to slowly turn to Ash. Harry then summoned back the original crystal rabbit. There was more to loot, but Harry would leave it for the survivors. Wakanda actually survived and Harry found their King bound in a room with his arm and leg chopped off. The King told Harry that Hank Pym was eating him slowly. Harry fed him a potion he created which was basically a Full Restore. It combined the Elixir of Life with Bone Grower, Nerve Restorer, and Flesh knitting potion to restore lost limbs and fully recover. T'Challa could not stop swearing for ten minutes from how terrible it tasted. Harry dropped him off at Wakanda and they offered Harry some schematics they had. They were not the most advanced things he'd seen, but it was another direction and useful for reference.
After he was done, Harry sanitized himself and returned home. He had a lot to do, but he had all the time in the world.