Wreathed in a crimson glow, Alex looked with a frown at two floating cubes in front of him. One had a prominent vermilion hue that both melded together with the surrounding crimson yet maintained its contrast, easily distinguishable, while the other had a faint blue emanating from its core as the crimson glow bathed its surface, further suppressing the already weak blue light within.
"What do you think? Will it be sufficient with this?" Alex asked.
"I can't be sure because the limits aren't completely defined," Wanda said, shaking her head as her breath tickled his ear. She was currently stuck to his back like a koala with her arms and legs wrapped around his torso. "In the first place, the second cube barely has any of its original essence remaining. The raw material is useful, but that's all. The combined energy within the Pandemonium Cube and this half-broken Cosmic Cube won't be enough."
"Yeah…" Alex nodded, frowning. "Fucking schemers. Everything was going so smoothly before. If only I'd gotten my hands on the fully working cube…"
"Why do you even want to make it into a collar?" She asked. "When you activated all six stones back then, I sensed that it was quite inefficient. We should go with a gauntlet or something to enhance the synergy when using the stones."
Unlike the rest, Wanda's connection with Alex was two-way. Just as she was his host, he had a connection to her through the Source of Chaos. When Kobik's ambush had wiped him off the face of this reality, Wanda still felt a faint hint of his presence, just as he did for her. That was the only reason that Alex's version of Witches' Road was still standing alongside the multiple planets around it. After all, unlike the last time something similar happened, Wanda was currently strong enough to affect things on a cosmic scale with a casual activation of her powers, let alone what she might do if she truly went berserk.
"I was thinking," she said. "If we use these cubes to make a sort of gauntlet to amplify the stones and make them complement your powers, it would be far better. It might even help you enhance the time dilation factor for Gaia even further. After all, time is the one thing that you are most limited on."
"I need something that makes a qualitative difference," Alex said. "More time would certainly help, but with Gaia itself compromised, my efforts might even give my enemies more time to prepare. For them to remain hidden even after I've significantly heightened Gaia's monitoring means that they have special means to bypass it."
"So will you give up on Gaia?" She asked with a frown. "You've worked so hard to bring all those planets together."
"Of course I'm not giving up on them," Alex said as his expression grew cold. "Since I can't locate them, I'll simply force them out into the open with a planetary purge."
"I expected as much," Wanda whispered, not affected by Alex's declaration in the slightest. "You're going to use Earth-Z as a means to kill most of the population, aren't you?"
"My original plan was to use the new Abominations as a source of external pressure to unite every country under a single banner, but now… Yes, it will have to be a planetary purge."
"So who is going to make that qualitative difference for you? You probably have someone quite strong in mind if you are giving up on a tool for the Infinity Stones," Wanda said as a hint of annoyance crept into her tone. "After all, I'm sure you're planning to use that collar on a woman."
"Feeling possessive, are we?" Alex smiled, squeezing her thigh.
"A little…" she seemed to be sulking.
"I'm still torn between a few options," he said. "But the collar needs to be foolproof if it's going to work for any single one of them. Since you aren't confident with just two cubes, I'll get you something else that also works on a similar scale, preferably another Cosmic Cube, but locating anything close to it is going to be quite troublesome. Can't we use the Infinity Stones?"
"Are you willing to destroy them?" She asked. "It will have to be decomposed completely. We should use the power of the stones to forge the collar instead of using them as actual raw materials."
"That sounds like the right move," Alex nodded. "On the other hand, how is the progress of the Source of Chaos? We have spread it quite widely across the planet, so your Faith feedback should have become somewhat substantial by now, no?"
"It's not bad," she said. "But I don't have a way to accurately quantify its progress yet. Hell, I don't even know how it works. I know what to do and how to do it, but its inner mechanisms, I have no clue about. It's not easy learning something even Chthon was ignorant about."
"I've been thinking of that, actually," Alex said. "We can quantify it based on limits. Right now, how many practitioners of Chaos Magic can your source support?"
"It's not that simple; some people use more magic, some use less, some have greater talent and need less energy to do larger things…the list goes on. It's hard to put a number on it."
"I have a plan to support that as well," Alex said. "I am going to create an incremental progression-based power system for those that pull Chaos energy from your Source. That will both promote greater faith and help us quantify things."
"I don't follow," she said. "Is it complex? If it is, you can just go ahead with it…"
"Don't be a lazy ass. You will be the one implementing this system in the first place," Alex said. "And it's not that complex. At its base, the Source of Chaos requires people to have faith in its existence. The more emotional and devout that faith, the better the feedback that strengthens it. I will subtly pivot the Witches' Road to a Theocratic system that works in tandem with the current system of missions and merit. Based on a person's faith in the Source of Chaos, their Chaos Authority can be upgraded to allow them to have access to a larger energy pool."
"That might just work very well," Wanda nodded. "So how do we quantify it?"
"Right now, every new member gets a certain base authority for free, right? That can simply be the base level. The second level is when a person is self-sustaining, such that their feedback is equivalent to their consumption."
"But they are two different things," Wanda said. "Their feedback strengthens the Source of Chaos. Oversimplified, the greater the feedback, the higher the maximum possible energy output gets. And that's a permanent increment. If she loses faith, it won't affect the core, simply slow down its further growth. This person's energy requirements, on the other hand, are fluctuating. How do we equate the two things?"
"It doesn't need to be equivalent. We just need a threshold. We can designate any point as that threshold. Say, their faith has provided the core with enough enhancement that you can now support another newcomer running their full output."
"I guess that could work," Wanda nodded.
"That's just an example; we can refine the system further. But this way, we have a tangible way to quantify how many people your Source can support at any given time. So let's try to quantify things again. Consider newcomers that only get the minimum possible access to Chaos energy from the core—say enough to cast a single simple item conjuring spell. How many newcomers can the current Source of Chaos support if every single one of them casts a spell at the same time?"
Wanda went silent at his words, seeming deep in her thoughts as she closed her eyes with a focused expression. In reality, she was examining the Source of Chaos to analyze its capacities.
It was only minutes later that she opened her eyes again, letting out a slightly tired breath.
"Roughly a hundred million people," she said. "That's the most we can handle. Leaving some margin for my use as well, I'd say ten million is a safe bet so that we can handle any overhead without any problems."
"That's all?" Alex frowned. "The Chaos Dimension supported trillions of life forms, all sustained by the Source of Chaos. You got almost a third of it…"
"Yeah, but most of them were self-sustaining—truly self-sustaining," Wanda said. "Humans need to pull energy generated by the Source of Chaos. Native life forms of the Chaos Dimension could produce their own as long as they were connected to it. Plus, a lot of the Source was consumed in transferring its authority over to me."
"How interesting," Alex said. "We can designate this self-sustaining system as the third stage. Where we introduce a special organ into the witch or wizard's body that can generate Chaos energy by burning calories."
"That could be done," Wanda nodded.
"A hundred million, though. That's quite a lot considering we barely have a few hundred thousand under our wing. I think we can push to bring another planet under our wing. What do you say?"
"Whatever you want, Alex," Wanda said. "Not like I have to do anything here anyway. How about we watch a movie after this?"
"Anything particular in mind?" Alex asked.
"Anything works," she said, shrugging. "Long as you're beside me."
"It's usually my job to say such cheesy things."
…
Apex City Square.
Alex and Wanda were currently walking through the bustling square. Small one- or two-story buildings lined either side of the street, each a different storefront that had ample foot traffic moving in and out. Discounting the ominous starless sky with a faint red tint, the street could be classified as a lively shopping district.
"To think you pushed this place to become so lively in barely a month…" Wanda said, curiously looking around. "I really should pay more attention to what you do."
"Is that so?" Alex asked, amused.
"Probably not," she said. "You're doing such a good job. I don't want to steal your thunder."
"Aren't you getting bored of staying in all day? All you do is sleep, fuck, and watch movies all day."
"What else should I do?" Wanda shrugged. "If I wanted to, I could clump all these planets together with some effort and speed up most of your plans significantly. But you won't let me."
"And what do you plan to do once your actions alert someone you can't handle? Or worse, trigger the awakening of the Dimensional Lords? Your actions would be the equivalent of a universal beacon that would attract every single cosmic entity toward this cluster."
"To be fair, the destruction of the Chaos Dimension was more of a universal beacon than this could ever be," she said.
"Yes, but that didn't attract anyone toward Earth because I could mask you through my soul. I can't exactly do that for forty planets. Just leave these things to me; I'll ask you for help when I get stuck somewhere."
"Then don't tease me about not doing anything. You are the reason that I laze around all day."
"My thoughts were more along the lines of going out, talking to people, making a friend or two."
"Sounds exhausting," she said. "How about you bring Nat here? I haven't seen her in a while."
"Actually, that doesn't seem like that bad of an idea," Alex said. "It's almost time for Xialing to take over the Ten Rings anyway."
"Who and what, now?" Wanda asked.
"Mine and Nat's daughter," Alex said before stiffening up as he sensed a possessive emotion rising within Wanda. "Adoptive!" He quickly corrected himself, but the damage was done.
"Daughter?" Wanda looked at him with wide eyes. "You agreed to have a kid with her and not me?"
"Adoptive," Alex flicked Wanda's forehead. "She was almost ten when we picked her up. I have no intention of having any children until I am absolutely sure of our safety. The current situation in Gaia has only solidified my belief."
She looked at him with an aggrieved expression, rubbing her forehead. "What situation?" She asked poutily.
"Tsk," Alex's expression darkened. "The thing about the Infinity Stones being stolen. I told you before, didn't I?"
"Pity," Wanda said flatly. "If you dare to have a kid with anyone else before me, I will make sure you regret it."
The threatening aura Wanda was exuding made Alex sweat as he glanced at her menacing expression.
Moments later, however, that expression dissolved into one of surprise. "Eep…" A cute yelp escaped her lips as her eyes widened, prompting her to grab Alex's sleeve and press her legs together as she stopped walking. "A-Alex… stop…" She weakly moaned out, biting her lower lip as her expression turned into a pleading one.
"This look is much cuter on you than that possessive one," he smiled and approached her before pinching her chin to raise her head. He leaned forward and gave a brief kiss to her lips.
"Nh~" She moaned weakly, her arms moving higher to approach her breasts.
"Honey…" Alex's playful tone held a hint of warning. "You don't want me to start denying you, do you? Keep your hands down."
"It's too… intense…" She said weakly, looking up at him with pitiful eyes, obediently lowering her hands. "You know my breasts are sensitive."
"To think just moments ago you were talking about casually shifting around entire planets," he said as his hand trailed along her hips and cupped one of her breasts.
"Alex…" She gasped.
"As punishment for disrupting our date, these will stay on for the rest of the day," he said, tracing his thumb along the outline of her stiff nipple, visible through her outfit. A thick black band was wrapped tightly around the erect nub with an identical one on her other nipple. Both bands were vibrating intensely, sending jolts of pleasure through Wanda's entire body and were the source of her current state.
"No…" She gasped as Alex suddenly increased the intensity of the vibrations. "Ahn~" Unable to suppress her moan, she put her arms around Alex's neck, leaning against him as her upper body almost instinctively started swaying, rubbing her breasts against him. Moments later, the vibrations completely died down as the two bands went inert, acting as nothing but simple bands that forced Wanda's nipples to stay erect.
"Will you be good for the rest of our date? No more talk of other women or kids," Alex asked, holding her close as her short, warm breaths tickled his cheek.
"Fine," she said, looking sulky. "You're so mean…"
"I can be meaner," he said playfully.
"Let's continue our date," Wanda said, seeming to have recovered completely as she wrapped her arms around one of Alex's and squeezed it between her breasts. "Let's go." She led him forward.
Alex couldn't help but glance down at her, his eyes briefly pausing at the visible outline of her nipples through her top before he turned his head forward.
"Can't you hide them?" Wanda asked, a faint blush on her face. It had nothing to do with the punishment that she had just experienced and was mostly because of embarrassment.
"I can, but I won't," Alex said. "Isn't it more thrilling this way? It's not like anyone will recognize either of us."
"Ugh…" Wanda grumbled.
Smiling, Alex snapped his fingers. Immediately, the people around them seemed to gain the understanding that there were two more people on the street. Aside from a few looks of suspicion, no one seemed to bat an eye at their presence. As if they had always been there, but were merely being ignored by the populace.
That had been the exact case. The two had been strolling along the street under a Chaos-enhanced version of ‹Camouflage› that made people instinctively ignore their presence. Alex had now modified it so that while they were visible to people, their identities would be scrambled. Whoever saw them would see someone unique. And due to the special nature of Chaos magic, even if two people communicated about them, the unique identities would converge, paradoxically making sense despite both people seeing different visions.
After all, they were in the dead center of the main square of Apex City that had an insane amount of foot traffic despite the small number of people in this city. Not even considering their identities as the city's overlords, Alex was too possessive to actually make such an intimate display with any of his hosts in broad daylight where they would be visible to other people. The camouflaged state was also why Wanda was utterly indifferent to their placement.
Having turned visible, the two of them finally continued their date as Wanda soon grew conscious of her nipples that were poking through her top and jabbed her finger in Alex's side. Still, she quickly forgot about it as Alex brought her a bagel to share with her.
Within the month, Alex had actively promoted opportunistic people who had resources into establishing small-scale industries in Apex City to get the commerce rolling. That was his first step in making this a city as opposed to magical living quarters with a barren common area for everyone. With plenty of subsidies and near-instant construction of buildings, Alex had turned the originally empty city square into a commercial district with everything: entertainment venues, food joints, clothing stores, everything. Though the trade-off was that everything that had been built functioned in a non-magical fashion. In his fast-track development cycle, Alex could only start out with one-to-one copies of normal storefronts from the real world, with plans to slowly introduce magic into basic things and eventually expand its scale to make this a pure magical city.
The non-magical situation went so far that Apex City had started functioning on two currencies: Dollars and Apex credits. Dollars were self-explanatory and were used by most people to handle mundane transactions. There were even a few currency exchange outlets that would take currencies of other countries and convert them into dollars for a small fee.
Apex credits, on the other hand, were a currency that Alex introduced very soon after the establishment of the city. Their function and purchasing power were equivalent to Gaia credits. Alex considered both currencies to be the same but simply possessing different names, considering the different theme of Gaia Federation and Apex City. Similar to Gaia credits, Apex credits offered two exclusive items, namely the Anti-Age Serum that could halt aging for one year, costing a million Apex credits; and the Gaia Balm that could heal most surface-level physical effects, including but not limited to soreness, stiffness, and body pain, costing one credit for a single hundred-milliliter tube.
Alex was planning to introduce a third item that would be exclusive to Apex City—Chaos Authority. Unlike the others, this one would have a linearly increasing cost based on the amount of authority one wanted to purchase. After all, the more authority one had, the more their mana storage and regeneration capacity. Now that Alex had quantified the amount of authority that Wanda's Source of Chaos could distribute, selling Chaos Authority was going to become much more straightforward.
It's essentially going to be a special pay-to-win path for rich people… Capitalism, aren't thou just amazing…
Alex couldn't help but laugh at the thought. Though he decided that he would set up restrictions to keep the sale of Chaos Authority under a strict system of checks and balances.
…
Alex and Wanda spent an hour or so browsing through various shops, occasionally grabbing random snacks. Wanda bought outfits for herself and even a few things for Alex before the two of them decided to have lunch. With that done, their next destination was the Colosseum. Unlike before, however, Alex and Wanda shifted from their obscure state and revealed their true forms. Now adorned in far more regal matching attire than their previous casual one, the two of them took their seats inside the Roman-style pulvinar, where they had a full view of the events within.
"I hate all this posturing," Wanda said tiredly, though her outward expression remained an impassive one, possessing an attitude of looking down on everything. After all, while they were seated in a much more comfortable spot than the stands, they were visible to almost all of the spectators.
"Just think of us having sex in this room in the middle of a popular match," Alex said. "That should be enough to keep you distracted."
"What am I? A child?" She sounded offended as her face reddened. "You dangle a candy in front of my face and expect me to drop everything?"
"It usually works," Alex said, glancing at her. "Or would you like a more practical demonstration?"
"I wouldn't mind," Wanda said, glancing at him with a suggestive look as she licked her lips.
Alex clicked his tongue in annoyance. Unlike his other hosts, Wanda had a very intimate awareness of his use of Chaos energy. Just like earlier in the day, she couldn't be bothered with the presence of anyone else around her no matter her state. Solely because she was aware that no one could perceive her existence during those times.
"Thought so," she said. "Now how about you add some padding over my chest?"
Alex glanced at Wanda's intricate red gown with complex gold embroidery all over it that made her look like literal royalty, his eyes stopping at her chest, where the outlines of her nipples were faintly visible through the gown. If anything, the embroidery only seemed to further emphasize the outline.
"You're good," he said. "If I removed the bands now, you wouldn't be able to do anything for the rest of our date."
"I knew it, you are using Bioenergy on my nipples," she said. "It seems I'll have to stay topless for a few days after today. Woe is me…"
"Wouldn't that be a sight," Alex said with a smile as the image of Wanda walking around their house topless as she did mundane things flashed through his mind.
"Hm?" Wanda frowned, looking up at the sky. "I sense satellites all over the lower Earth orbit of this planet. They appeared through some kind of spatial warping. They don't seem hostile, but I don't want to risk it."
"Please don't destroy them," Alex said. "Even with my resources, it took a month to manufacture and deploy hundreds of satellites to another Earth."
"And who was going to tell me that they were your satellites, huh?" She asked.
"I thought you could sense it from our connection," Alex said. "I just activated the Space Stone."
"Yeah, I did," she said. "But hearing it from you in words would be nice every once in a while. Just because we can sense most of what the other is doing doesn't mean we can stop talking."
"You are growing more and more troublesome by the day. Do you realize that?"
"Yeah?" She asked with a smug smirk. "So what? You gonna leave me?"
"No, I'm just going to discipline you tonight," Alex said. "And for that little comment, I'm going to make sure to drill a special dose of obedience into you."
"I guess I can only look forward to it…" Wanda said, a mix of anticipation and wariness on her face. "What are the satellites for though?"
"My Infinity Stone detector device," Alex said. "The satellites will cover the planet and find me every single Infinity Stone, no matter where it is."
"Weren't you making a radar?" Wanda asked. "Like from Dragon Ball…"
"There were complications," Alex said. "Packing all that machinery into a small device was going to be more of a hassle than it was worth. Plus, this way, I will immediately know the exact locations of all of the stones on this planet."
"I could've helped," she said, turning to look up at him. "I know a spell to make things smaller without affecting their properties."
"I know you could've helped," Alex said, putting his arm around her shoulder and patting her head, letting his fingers flow through her hair. "But it's unnecessary. I don't have any plans of going into planets with a radar as I search for Infinity Stones anymore. It would be risky now that I'm being targeted. I can only tank so many Cosmic Cubes—hm…"
Wanda was smiling blissfully, enjoying herself before pausing as she noticed Alex's reaction. "What is it?"
"This planet has three stones," he said. "That's quite a surprise."
"Is it? Whoever they are, with me here, they have to be wary," Wanda said. "I'm quite a dangerous person, you know?"
"That you are," Alex nodded. "My Wanda's certainly the most powerful and the most dangerous."
"Hmm," she almost purred as Alex continued patting her head.
At the same time, he called upon a certain someone mentally.
Within a second, a woman with almost glowing silver hair appeared in front of him. Dressed in a tight-fitting catsuit that showed off plenty of her cleavage, she lowered her head, further emphasizing the view.
"Apex," she greeted respectfully. "What do you need me to do?"
"How has your little group been, Felicia?" Alex asked. "Any new heists?"
"Nothing significant enough for me to concern you with, sir," she said, a sultry smile on her face. "They are still in training."
"There are three stones spread across this planet," Alex said. "Two are in highly secure government facilities, and the third is buried in the ruins of Atlantis. I need you to retrieve them for me. I'll put up the task on the mission board as well, along with the designated reward."
"I understand," she nodded. "Thank you for the heads up."
"If your performance is good enough, I will have an extra reward for you," Alex said.
"That kind of reward?" Her expression turned suggestive at his words as she brought her arms closer, pressing her breasts between them to emphasize them further.
"Fuck off," Wanda suddenly snorted and waved her hand as Felicia disappeared entirely.
"Hon," Alex blinked before sighing. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Wanda said casually. "Her attitude annoyed me."
"You do know the kind of relationship I have with her, right?"
"Knowing and seeing are different," Wanda said. "Keep your sex toys out of my sight, and we'll be good."
"Fine, you can just make it up to me tonight," Alex sighed.
"Gladly," Wanda suddenly smiled sweetly and kissed Alex's cheek. "I know my actions step on your authority and image, but you have to admit, she was being horribly disrespectful to me."
"Yeah… That's also on me. We don't really have any protocol on how to interact with our quote-unquote subjects in an official setting," Alex said. "It doesn't help that every time she sees you, you've been half-asleep while clinging to me."
"Since she's the only one for now, I'll leave it be," Wanda said. "But if there are going to be more, you have to handle things better. I will not have these sluts seducing you right in front of my face without so much as a greeting to me. Letting them live is already something I'm reluctantly doing."
"I'll keep that in mind," Alex smiled, bringing his focus back to the fight in front of them as Wanda did the same. Though she was quickly bored due to the sheer simplicity of the magic they were using. Alex continued patting her hair as she closed her eyes and put her head on his shoulder, humming comfortably.
How troublesome. If you keep acting like this during every public appearance, how am I supposed to build any prestige for you? Everyone considers you to be nothing more than a figurehead.
Alex didn't say anything to Wanda about it and remotely gave Felicia the locations of the stones along with a containment spell to handle them since directly coming into contact with one was bound to kill her. He then put the same information up on the mission board with generous rewards of Chaos authority and Apex credits.
That would give her enough pressure to get things done as soon as possible to stay in his good graces.
With that done, all he had to do was wait for results. As for someone stealing them from him, he had no such concerns. If a truly capable external force wanted to steal them, Alex wouldn't have found any signs of the stones on this planet in the first place. As for his own people, that was even less of a concern. Wanda had absolute control over their powers and could sever them from the Source of Chaos at any time.
As the battle concluded, Alex and Wanda vanished from their spot to continue their date.
***
Their date concluded with a romantic dinner that, for once, was cooked by Wanda. In her words, she'd been feeling a little guilty about her earlier outburst of teleporting Alex's subordinate away and wanted to make it up to him. Eating her food, Alex couldn't help but decide inwardly that he would make her cook more often from now on, even if he had to use sex as a bargaining chip. Wanda was quite unsettled after sensing that particular line of thought from him.
"I will not cook regularly. Not a fricking chance."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it," she pointed her fork at him.
"But it's so good."
"I'd rather be your pampered princess that doesn't have to lift a finger to do any of these things," she said. "You're the one to blame for this, really."
"How so?"
"You practically made me sit quietly and did everything for me. You induced this codependency into me."
"You've been blaming me for so many things today, Wanda," Alex said, a dark smile on his face. "I think it's time for me to discipline you."
"Does it involve sex?" She asked, her eyes brightening.
"Of course not. If anything, it involves me specifically not letting you feel anything down there. Go to our bedroom and undress. I'll be there after cleaning things here."
"Not even a little bit?" She asked pitifully.
"If I find out you've been touching yourself…" Alex didn't have to complete his words for a shiver to trail down Wanda's spine as she raised her hands in defeat.
"I'll be good, I promise," she said with a nervous smile.
With that, Wanda left as Alex cleaned the dining table and washed the dishes, taking his sweet time, leaving Wanda to writhe in anticipation.
Twenty minutes later, Alex was done and went to the bedroom.
Inside, Wanda was casually lying on the bed without a scrap of clothing to cover her, tilted to her left with one leg over the other as she used her hand to position her head toward the massive TV in front. It was playing a news segment about sudden attacks on two major European government facilities orchestrated by people with magical abilities. Meanwhile, her other hand was busy toying with her nipple that still had the black band wrapped around it, forcing it erect.
"When I told you to go to our room and undress, I expected a sexy submissive display of you kneeling at the door, waiting for me to come in."
"Is this view not sexy?" Wanda asked, turning to look at him with a playful smile.
"Of course it is, but I was expecting some submission to be sprinkled in there as well."
"Yeah? What will you do to me in that case, master Alex?" She asked. "Will you spank me until I can't sit? Or will you overstimulate me until I beg you to stop and still keep going?"
"All of the above," Alex said, approaching the bed. "Come here."
Wanda smiled sultrily and sat up before crawling toward him. "Here I am."
The first thing Alex did was to put a collar on Wanda's throat, a thick leather one that put pressure on her chin and forced her to keep looking straight. Then he turned her around and pulled her forearms together, putting them in a box-tie as she was left with her face pressed against the mattress and her ass up in the air. Muffled groans escaped her throat as Alex grabbed her legs and folded them before tying them separately, forcing her to keep them folded in a frog-tie. Finally, he sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms and laid her across his lap. All of it took no more than a minute as Wanda was left writhing in her bonds before she could even completely process their presence.
"Your bratty attitude needs to be corrected," Alex said as he rubbed her ass, squeezing her soft flesh. "Do you understand what's about to happen?"
"My husband is about to spank me like a naughty child…" Wanda said pitifully, though feeling the bulge pressing against her stomach twitch, her following words sounded much more aroused. "I understand… I'll be a good girl."
Alex's hand descended on Wanda's ass, producing a loud smacking sound as a surprised groan escaped her lips. He didn't pause for a moment and delivered another, sending a jolt of electrifying pleasure directly to Wanda's core. The next spank made Wanda arch her back as she shuddered, letting out an aroused yelp as Alex continued spanking her. She instinctively brought her legs closer together and started rubbing them, hoping to stimulate her pussy a little, but Alex suddenly stopped spanking her and brought his hand between her legs, cupping her entrance.
"You aren't allowed to pleasure yourself, Wanda. Did you forget my orders?" Alex said, leaving a black cover over her pussy that completely blocked all stimulation, even as she tried to rub her legs together.
"Alex…" She released a needy moan as he continued spanking her.
Relentlessly, he continued spanking her until Wanda's pussy was completely drenched and her face was a mess of tears and drool from the constant jolts of pain and pleasure. When he finally stopped, resting his hand on her reddened butt, she was left limp in her bonds and breathing heavily.
Neither of them exchanged any words as Alex started applying a Bioenergy-rich lotion all over her ass as a cool sensation spread through Wanda's body, making her heavy breathing calm down a little, though the arousal that had built up within her was only increasing with each passing moment.
"Eeh!" She panicked the moment she felt Alex's lubed finger enter her ass. "Alex…"
He didn't say anything and pulled it out before continuing to rub her ass for a few seconds before pushing a finger inside once again. This time, it went in noticeably easier. He repeated his actions without saying anything, silently enjoying Wanda's unique responses as he massaged her butt and teased her anal cavity. By the time he was done, he was able to freely shove two fingers inside her ass without the slightest resistance.
Gently, he put Wanda down on the bed beside him, facing the ceiling as he stood up. Her eyes were instantly fixed on him, looking at him inquisitively as she felt his hand trace the gel-like cover over her pussy.
"Fuck me~" She gasped seductively, swaying her torso to wave her tits from side to side. "Won't you fuck me, master?"
"Not yet," Alex said as he once again shoved two fingers into Wanda's ass, eliciting a cute yelp from her as she turned her head away.
"You know I'm embarrassed when it comes to anal stuff…"
"That's why I only occasionally tease you with it, because I love how you respond to it," Alex said. "Plus, this is technically a disciplinary session. Your comfort is secondary."
Before Wanda could respond, she felt Alex roughly squeeze one of her breasts and grunted in response, biting her lower lip as he immediately followed up with a slap that made the soft flesh jiggle. She gasped from the sudden jolt that went through her chest and called out to him, "Alex~"
"From the day we met, your breasts have been especially sensitive," Alex commented, mauling her other breast and slapping it as well, as she gasped. "It's time to free your poor nipples, don't you think? I've been torturing them since the morning."
Alex continued finger-fucking Wanda's ass as he grasped one of her nipples between his thumb and index finger and pulled away the band that was wrapped around it. Without pause, he pinched her nipple roughly as pain coursed through Wanda's body. She gasped from the sudden pain as her back arched. Unable to release a single sound, she felt Alex further twist the hypersensitive nipple as he continued fingering her ass. A violent tremor shook her body as she came, squirting through the cover blocking her pussy as Alex let it all flow out. Still, he didn't give Wanda any reprieve and continued toying with her nipple and lowered his head to her other breast, taking her other nipple between his lips.
As the band from the other one was removed as well, Alex started gently nibbling Wanda's hypersensitive nipple. Her orgasm had barely finished as her body started convulsing once again, releasing her juices all over the bed and Alex.
For the next hour, Wanda didn't have a single moment of reprieve as Alex continued overstimulating her nipples until they turned from their usual pink to almost a bright red, taking full advantage of their hypersensitive state while also intensely fingering her ass. Since she was generally reluctant about ass stuff, he felt that this was a golden opportunity for him to get her more comfortable with it so that he could take it further in the future.
By the end, she was out of the ropes and lazily lying in Alex's arms, with her hands covering both her nipples to ensure not even air could brush past them.
"Let go," Alex hooked a finger under Wanda's wrist and tugged it.
Immediately, Wanda hissed at him, showing him her teeth, threatening to bite him.
"I'm not teasing you," he said, once again tugging at Wanda's wrist as she looked at him suspiciously and loosened her grip over her nipples.
Before her palms were even removed, Alex covered her swollen nipples in the equivalent of a black pasty. She momentarily hissed at the new touch, but calmed down immediately after as a gentle coolness spread through her nipples and breasts through the pasties.
"You can sleep comfortably now," Alex said, pulling her into his arms and having her straddle him as she lay her head on his chest, a peaceful expression on her face as she shifted her hips to let his cock rest between her thighs.
***
As Alex and Wanda continued their usual routine of essentially the life of newlyweds on a honeymoon, while at the same time, Alex managed Apex City's development, two days passed since he'd posted the mission of collecting the Infinity Stones for him, and finally, two parties had brought him the good news.
One was Felicia's side. She and her subordinates had gathered two Infinity Stones for him, and a man named Simon who had single-handedly collected the third stone from the ruins of Atlantis. At the moment, both parties were in a large hall in the Tower of Chaos, where Alex sat on the throne with Wanda sitting on the armrest on his side, having put her arm around his neck as if staking her claim over him, yet looking like a Queen in the process.
With a wave of his hand, Alex collected the three stones from their respective magical containments from Felicia and Simon, letting them float toward him.
Time, Space, and Power… Not bad. My authorities are going to be much more balanced now.
Without wasting any time, Alex absorbed the three stones into his soul, letting their authorities course through his being as the three stones merged into their respective main stones, simultaneously increasing the authorities that he had access to.
«Authorities»:: ‹Time (7.5%)› ‹Mind (10%)› ‹Soul (7.5%)› ‹Reality (7.5%)› ‹Power (5%)› ‹Space (5%)›
"Good work, you two," Alex said. "I'm impressed with your efficiency. Tell me, what do you desire? You can claim the Chaos Authority and Apex credit rewards from the mission board. I will fulfill another request if you so desire."
Simon didn't hesitate for a moment before answering. "Lord Apex, Lady Scarlet," he respectfully addressed both Alex and Wanda. "I wish to establish my own group," he said. "A guild similar to Miss Hardy's with a group of my subordinates."
"That so?" Alex said. "Fine, when you claim the reward from the board, I will add a slight modification to the authority and let you receive that of an Avatar of Chaos like Felicia. You may leave now."
The man raised a brow at the sudden dismissal but nodded nonetheless and resolutely disappeared from his spot, likely eager to collect his rewards.
"What about you, Felicia?" Alex asked. "Do you have any specific desires?"
Unlike two days ago, the woman was significantly more reserved in front of Alex. Having been teleported away once before, she was wary of Wanda's reaction. Not only that, Alex had officially introduced Wanda to the city as his wife, giving her the address of Lady Scarlet.
Well aware of Felicia's caution and inhibitions, Alex didn't bother reassuring her. After all, Wanda wasn't exactly wrong in being offended by Felicia's sheer disrespect in ignoring her to her face the last time.
"Lord Apex, Lady Scarlet," she repeated the respectful address that was followed by Simon. "I have a Vice, Liz. She's quite capable and helpful and has been serving me well for the past month. I want to give her the Avatar Authority as well so that she can help me expand our network and further spread access to Chaos Magic to more people."
"Interesting," Alex smiled. "I'll give it to her, but she can't establish a force of her own. She must continue to act as a part of your Thieves' Guild. If, in the future, she performs meritoriously, I will let her form her own guild as well."
"Understood," she nodded before showing a hesitant expression.
"Spit it out. I'm not particularly patient."
"…He just brought a single stone," she said, lowering her gaze a little as her posture turned meek, invoking a sense of pity in Alex.
"Our unlucky Black Cat is a little greedy, I see," Alex smiled, immediately seeing through Felicia's facade. The woman was just as ambitious as his pet cat and knew how to take full advantage of her assets.
"…" She stayed silent, deciding to stay cautious in front of Wanda. Otherwise, she would've already started trying to seduce Alex.
"What do you think, honey?" Alex asked Wanda beside him.
"She did put in more effort. While you've already invested some resources into her, an extra reward doesn't seem far-fetched," she said.
"You heard her," Alex said to Felicia. "I will double the Chaos Authority that you would have received otherwise and add on ten infusion opportunities for the Anti-Age Serum, whether to be used by you or traded away. How's that?"
She seemed to have expected the increased Chaos Authority reward, but the second reward made Felicia whip her head up at Alex in astonishment, consequently making her breasts sway once, visibly straining her bodysuit.
"Satisfied?" Alex asked. "I have another thing in mind aside from these. What do you think, Lady Scarlet? Are you satisfied with her attitude this time?"
Wanda glanced at him momentarily, her eyes conveying her internal annoyance. "Yeah, you can offer it to her. I think she can serve as a fine vanguard."
"Hm," Alex nodded before turning back to Felicia. "Along with the reward, I also offer you an opportunity, Felicia."
"What kind of opportunity?" Felicia blinked, raising a brow while suppressing her smile. Though, she was clearly radiating glee after hearing about the extra benefits. The sheer cost of the Anti-Age serum meant that not a single person could afford it throughout the city. Even every single resident pooled all of their Apex Credits, they still wouldn't have enough to buy a single serum.
"I will bring you to another place for a special training regime," he said. "By the end, I will ensure that you have absolute control over your probability manipulation prowess. Not only that, but both your raw physical and magical abilities will be significantly enhanced by a massive factor. Unlike now, you will objectively become someone only weaker than myself and Wanda among everyone that has joined Apex City. After that, I will deploy you to another planet. A month has already passed, and it's time we add residents from a second Earth to this City."
"So many perks…" Felicia's glee had completely transformed into severe skepticism. "What do I have to give up?"
"A year of your life that I will give back tenfold in the form of ten more doses of the anti-aging serum," Alex said. "What I expect of you is that you submit to some very kinky sexual experiences. Don't worry though, you will have another person for company right beside you."
"…" Felicia frowned, somewhat understanding what was in store for her if she accepted. "Is this person from this city?"
"No," Alex shook his head. "She is the reason that I even bothered to pick you out in the Colosseum that day. Her name is Felicia Hardy, and she's my Black Cat."
Felicia clearly didn't expect those words and was momentarily left speechless.
The silence stretched on until it got uncomfortable for Felicia, prompting her to speak again.
"What if it gets too much for me?" She asked, frowning. "I won't agree to be a lab rat that you do experiments on and torture just for the fun of it…"
"You will have an out," Alex said. "I give you my word. We will designate a safeword that will have me cease everything and send you back here immediately."
"Can I really trust you?"
"If I wanted to force you, do you think I would go this far to trick you? I don't answer to anyone," Alex said. "Time's running out, Felicia. Becoming my cute kitty cat can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on the mindset you go into it with. Choose now."
"If I'm gone a year, what's going to happen to my subordinates? They aren't loyal enough to keep the leader position free for me to return."
"Then ditch them," Alex said, shrugging. "They'll be a liability anyway."
"…" Felicia didn't seem particularly pleased by the answer.
"All right, you don't have to worry. The place I will send you to is operating on a different time factor. By the time a year passes over there, less than a day will pass on this planet," Alex said with a reassuring tone. "Keep in mind, you will be irrevocably changed after this year. My bracelet may occasionally support you during particularly lonely nights, but after this year, your dependency on this bracelet will increase significantly because your body will start craving pleasure on a far more regular basis."
She frowned, not that affected by Alex's words regarding her self-pleasure. She expected this to be the case the first time the bracelet came to life during one of her sessions.
"…It will fulfil my carnal needs, but not my emotional ones," she said. "Will you have any issues if I ever decide to find a partner?"
"That is still to be considered," Alex said. "It is entirely dependent on how much I enjoy our time together. But, in case you wish to separate from me, I will give you my blessing, after getting a sufficient return on my investment in you."
"I understand… Fine, I agree. I'm already completely tied to your boat… Any reluctance on my part is going to be pointless."
"I appreciate your decisiveness. Walk through that portal."
"W-wait, now?" She widened her eyes, looking at the black swirling vortex that had formed on her right, barely reflecting any light and seeming like a part of reality itself had been carved away into nothingness.
"Yes, now," Alex nodded. "You won't even be gone for a full day. I'll inform your subordinates in your stead and take care of anything urgent that might come up. You can claim your rewards when you return as well, though they won't mean much after what I give you."
"…" She fell into deep contemplation for a few moments before her expression turned resolute. "It's just submitting to you sexually, right? I accept. It's a small price to pay for the power you offer."
"That's what you think right now. Once you move on from the embarrassment, you will realize just how enjoyable I can make your life."
"I'll take your word…" Felicia said with some hesitation before resolutely stepping into the portal.
***
The day passed by without anything of further significance happening. Alex kept track of how quickly Simon officially established the Wonder Guild and gathered a solid number of people around him. Within the day, it rivaled the number of people in Felicia's Thieves' Guild. He could tell that the man had been preparing to set up his own force for a long time now and only needed a catalyst point to propel him forward. The Infinity Stone mission served as the perfect thing to push him forward.
The man had naked ambition and seemed intent on getting a hold of both power and authority in Apex City. Alex was still considering whether he wanted to curb the man's enthusiasm or leave it be when a portal opened up in his bedroom where Wanda was sleeping on his side.
A slender woman stepped out of the portal. Dressed in the very same suit that she had worn when going in yesterday, she looked almost exactly the same, yet her presence and aura had completely shifted to portray the sheer power that she currently held.
When her eyes fell on Alex and Wanda's naked forms right in front of her, her eyes immediately lowered to his bulge under the blanket as she licked her lips.
"Do you need me to service you, master?" She asked immediately.
"Unless you want to spend the next year in the Gaia Penitentiary, go for it," Alex said with a smile. "That would be the only way for my wife to let you live."
Felicia immediately shuddered as if recalling something horribly unpleasant and recoiled, taking a step back.
"I overstepped. I'm sorry," she got down on her knees and lowered her head. "Please punish me, Master."
"It's all good," Alex said. "Remember Simon?"
Felicia looked up with a confused expression, unable to recall the man. It was understandable. After all, she'd only heard the name once before, and a whole year had passed since then.
"The guy who collected the third Infinity Stone," Alex clarified. "It seems he's got quite a bit of ambition. I want you to curb him and bring him under control. We talked about setting up this guild system to allow people to form smaller groupes, right? You will serve as the overarching manager for all these guilds. Everything you've suggested to me about setting up guild-based perks, collective rewards, and more is going to be under your purview as the head of the Guild management committee. Can you handle it?"
"You can count on me, Master," Felicia smiled. "I'll take care of him before morning so that you can announce your plans tomorrow."
"Good girl," Alex nodded. "Go on."
Felicia let out a shuddering breath with hints of excitement after hearing Alex's praise and immediately teleported away. Within a year, she had transformed into someone he could actually rely on. Not only had she helped him pilot the progression system for Chaos magic, but she had even helped him set up a fourth level while solidifying the limits of each level. Everyone started at the stage of ‹Uninitiated›, where they were purely siphoning off the energy of the Source of Chaos. From there, there were two methods of progression. One was a natural progression that relied on giving the Source of Chaos their faith and it would slowly increase the limit of Chaos energy that a person could access. The second method was relying on Chaos Authority, which would directly propel their limits forward regardless of how much feedback they provided to the Source of Chaos.
The first level was called ‹Initiate›, at which level the person could be considered as self-sustaining. The hourly feedback that someone on this level gave to the Source of Chaos had to be enough to propel the Source's growth such that the increment in its production would offset them using their powers for one hour.
For a clearer example, if the Source of Chaos could be considered to generate a hundred units of Chaos energy every hour. If a person's energy capacity was one unit and their feedback increased the generation capability of the Source by one unit every hour, then this person would be considered an ‹Initiate›. In an ideal scenario where no one used any energy and only required the bare minimum sustenance, a single initiate could allow the Source of Chaos to sustain ten new uninitiated people every hour. For an Initiate to grow, their max energy capacity would increase parallelly to their feedback to the Source of Chaos.
The second stage required a person to truly be faithful toward the Source of Chaos, wherein they were given the title of ‹Chaos Priest›. Alex had fully gone into the Theology direction with this Chaos Magic system and was fully leaning into it. A priest provided a hundred times the faith feedback of an Initiate and possessed a hundred times the energy capacity, but that wasn't their defining trait. A priest could generate their own Chaos energy, albeit very minute traces of it. As they progressed forward, their energy generation would slowly improve such that their daily generation could match their full capacity.
The third stage was titled ‹Archon›, where the practitioner accepted a mutation to their heart so that it could serve as their energy generation medium. At this stage, their capacity and feedback was once again a hundred times that of a Priest and their rate energy generation could allow them to fill their reserves to full within an hour.
While both ‹Priests› and ‹Archons› could generate their own energy, they weren't cut off from the Source of Chaos. Under dire circumstances, they could freely pull upon the Source to support their energy generation, though that also had strict limits unlike Wanda or Alex, who could pull as much energy as they wanted. The main limitation of these two stages was that if their reserves were full, their energy generation would simply pause, with no way to share their excess energy with anyone else.
All this changed at the fourth stage of ‹Cardinal›. The capacity and feedback of a cardinal was naturally a hundred times greater than that of an Archon, and their energy generation significantly exceeded their own needs. At this stage, they could make someone their direct subordinate and allow that person to pull upon their excess energy whenever required. The best part was that this connection was still facilitated by the Source of Chaos and required both parties to have faith in it. This meant that the Source of Chaos would continue to reap the benefits from Cardinals even if they had their own forces.
Naturally, Felicia was currently a ‹Cardinal› and Alex expected that the leaders of every guild would reach the stage of a Cardinal since they would already have the authority of the Avatar of Chaos, allowing them to connect newcomers to the Source. When that stage became a little more common, he would push Felicia higher to the fifth stage of ‹Pope›. Though, Alex hadn't yet figured out what that stage would exactly entail.
As he thought about how he was going to introduce this progression system to the populace, a part of his attention went on Felicia. With newfound confidence after a year of training, she went in with a blatant provocation and challenged the man to a duel at the colosseum with the wager being the disbanding of the loser's guild. Her confidence mostly came from her training. While he'd spent plenty of time fulfilling his kinks of having two versions of Felicia Hardy serving him, Alex also spent a significant amount of time actually training her in the use of her abilities, which made her realize just how overpowered her probability manipulation could be with the right control and creativity.
Let's see how you handle Wonder Man, Fel… If he decides to reveal his full capabilities, you're in for quite a painful battle ahead of you.
"Hey, Wanda," Alex shook the naked woman beside him. "Do you want to see a fun fight?"
"No, they're always boring and dumb…" She mumbled, shifting her position and turning her back to him before pulling the blanket up to her neck and curling up.
"This one's going to be fun," Alex said. "Chaos energy will only augment their innate abilities. Come on."
Before Wanda could voice any protests, Alex pulled her up in his arms as clothes appeared on both their bodies and teleported to the Colosseum.
…
At the moment, the stands were filled with the most people since the day that Apex City was established. Naturally though, they still felt empty considering the sheer scale of the structure considering the stands could easily seat millions.
In the arena, the battle had already started as Felicia casually stood in her place with her arms crossed, directly causing every spell that Simon tried to cast fail.
"If this is all you have, it's useless," she said apathetically, almost seeming bored. "You will never beat me with just this much skill."
The man maintained his calm and continued attempting to form spells, only to continue failing entirely. No matter the method he went with, whether it be incantations or magic circles, it was useless. While his ability to cast magic through two different schools was astounding, it ultimately failed in front of Felicia's ability.
"It won't work, Simon. Any spell that is aimed at me will fail unless I actively allow it. You should just give up and join my guild."
Her declaration immediately aroused curious murmurs from the crowd as they saw Felicia effortlessly leave her opponent helpless. Since all of them had, at least, started to dabble in magic, they could naturally understand and process what was going on in the battle.
As for Simon, his face was a mask of grim determination after hearing her words as he ceased his fruitless attempts at casting magic. Inwardly though, he was in deep contemplation as he took a breath.
Felicia, confident in her victory, made no move, simply waiting for the man to declare his surrender. After all that she'd gone through and experienced over the past year, she believed that some arrogance was warranted. She even took a moment to shift her eyes to the side, noticing Alex and Wanda sitting on their respective thrones, looking as regal and authoritative as ever.
The moment she looked back at Simon, her eyes widened in a panic as she saw him appear right in front of her, his fist pulled back, poised to punch her.
***
With Simon right in front of her, Felicia was indeed surprised, but her response arrived soon enough as her eyes glinted with a red glow. Immediately, Simon's foot slipped right before his fist could make contact with Felicia's abdomen, shifting its trajectory to the side as it brushed past her waist. That mere brush was enough to make her flinch as she retreated a few steps, feeling a bruise forming.
Before she could express her disbelief at the sheer power behind the man's punch, he was once again upon her as she called upon even more Chaos energy to empower her ability, this time making sure that his aim was off, allowing her to dodge to the side in time.
As the process repeated, Felicia was constantly on the back foot, unable to even consider countering as the man's speed almost surpassed her reaction time. If this were before, she wouldn't even know what happened before he sent her sprawling to the ground.
At the side, seated in the pulvinar, Alex had an amused smile on his face as he viewed the battle.
"Way to humble her the moment she arrives here after hyping her up to make her feel invincible," Wanda commented from the side. "Though his strength is quite impressive."
"Yeah," Alex nodded. "Not quite Cosmic, but certainly well into low-cosmic. He can level most buildings with ease."
"Shouldn't low-cosmic mean he can act on planets? Like destroy them with punches?" Wanda asked.
"Low-cosmic is much better explained as pre-cosmic, I guess," Alex said. "You can indeed punch through the crust of the Earth with that kind of strength, but that's all. You hit cosmic when your physical strength is enough to destroy a planet—even if that involves acting in a focused manner to destabilize the core."
"Do you think the Hulk could handle him?" Wanda asked.
"The one you're familiar with? Not a chance," Alex shook his head. "The one from your Earth is actually quite weak."
"Are you going to let him beat her up?"
"She'll be fine," he said. "In her panic, she's forgotten that she has more tricks up her sleeve. Though, I think she's getting used to his speed."
"That's saying something," Wanda said. "She should only be a little stronger than Steve."
"Yeah, the thing is that she's just as adaptable," Alex said. "She's getting used to his pace."
Felicia was indeed getting somewhat used to the sudden change. As Simon continued attacking her, her ability continued activating at a faster and faster speed. Each time he struck, the miss came a millisecond earlier, slowly accumulating to give Felicia the time to think of a counterattack.
Simon was noticing the increasing ease with which Felicia was handling his attacks, possessing a seemingly endless amount of Chaos energy to burn through. With each failure, his frustration grew, visible on his face. He took a decisive action before letting Felicia gain even more leeway to act.
A faint but unmistakable purple glow appeared on his skin, giving Felicia goosebumps, but before she could react, a painful shockwave directly struck her abdomen, sending her flying back as she flipped over and skidded multiple feet back despite digging her heels into the ground.
He put me up against this guy on purpose…
Felicia felt aggrieved, feeling the metallic taste on her tongue. She was sure that her organs had been messed up by that punch. Simon didn't pause for a single moment and zipped forward before Felicia even stopped skidding, intent on releasing another shockwave.
At the same time, the green glow that appeared in Felicia's eyes was much stronger as it spread to the rest of her body, dyeing her black bodysuit in a red glow.
Just before the shockwave erupted from Simon, the man's breath got caught in his throat, forcing him to start coughing. The attack immediately failed as he also tripped, forcing him to rebalance himself mid-cough.
Felicia was neither one to let go of such an opportunity, nor was she one to shy away from a fight. She leaped forward, claws appearing at the ends of her gloved hands as an almost feral expression appeared on her face.
The man raised his arm to block it, but the red glow around Felicia only intensified as his muscles involuntarily spasmed, making him miss his mark as her claw directly scratched his chest, leaving his shirt with four bloody gashes. Felicia followed up with a roundhouse kick that he barely blocked with his arm, taking a step to the side.
As the two continued fighting, Alex and Wanda's discussion continued.
"I'm thinking of setting up a commentator," Alex said. "This fight has gotten pretty interesting, but without someone to provide commentary, the audience doesn't seem to be enjoying it much."
"That's a nice idea. A nice commentary goes a long way in such events," Wanda nodded, looking curiously at Felicia. "Her talent is quite intriguing… Did you teach her to maintain that passive activation?"
"Naturally," Alex nodded. "Before coming here, she just used to think that she brought bad luck to people around her. The way she's actively using her talent, augmenting it with your reality manipulation spells, and her passive activation, I'm the one who taught her both those things."
"No wonder she's being inefficient about it," Wanda said.
"It's not like you would have taught her," Alex said, not bothered by Wanda's implication. After all, everything Chaos-related, including his magical talent, came from Wanda. The source was naturally far superior in this case.
"She is using multiple spells to augment her talent's effects," Wanda said. "That might seem like the right move considering the versatility of her talent, which allows her to dictate the outcome somewhat."
"But…"
"But, you should know that's not the way to utilize a person's innate talent. She should use her talent to augment the spells instead. I remember a complex spell that has an identical effect to her talent. She should use that spell and let her talent augment it. That would be a far more efficient use of her energy, not to mention increasing the possibilities that she can manipulate. Manipulating probability to make someone choke for a moment is probably her limit for now without outright wasting Chaos energy as I used to in the past. With that spell, she should even be able to make him fail to activate his powers completely."
"You're right," Alex nodded. "I did have plans on having her focus on that spell initially, but it's too complex and would have taken more than a year to let her master it. I had a lot more things to do with her than teaching."
"Yes, parading her around in a bitchsuit was probably very important," Wanda nodded.
"I was conditioning her physique with Bioenergy," Alex said.
"Whatever you say," Wanda shrugged. "Oh hey, it's over."
Alex hummed in agreement, smiling as he looked at Felicia standing while Simon was on the ground, unconscious after Felicia forced him into a coughing fit for the third time and hit his neck, immediately making him faint.
With no one to announce the victor and no referee to oversee the battle, the end was quite a bit lackluster as Felicia silently walked away, leaving Simon unconscious in his place.
"Since they're done, let's go back to sleep. I'm not in the mood to hear you manipulate that guy."
"Is that all you take me for?"
"Don't be like that," Wanda tugged at his sleeve, and the two of them disappeared from their spots, once appearing in the bed. At the same time, Alex controlled another body to appear in the room he designated as the Great Hall, which held a matching set of thrones for him and Wanda. To be specific, it was the same room that he'd given Felicia and Simon their respective rewards on the previous day.
Today, the two of them once again appeared in front of Alex, with Felicia momentarily surprised at the sudden shift of her position, while Simon remained unconscious. Her eyes fell upon Alex as she looked at him pitifully, trying to express just how aggrieved she was.
"You did this to me on purpose, didn't you, Master?" she asked. "I'm covered in bruises now…"
"That so? Once he leaves, you should take off that suit of yours and let me thoroughly examine your wounds then," Alex said as Felicia blushed, averting her eyes from him.
"All right," she mumbled, pouting.
Alex snapped his fingers, and Simon immediately gasped heavily, immediately shooting up as he started heaving.
"Easy there," Alex said. "It's all good, you lost the match."
"I…lost…" The realization dawned on him as he paused, not bothering to stand up or to look up at Alex. "I understand."
"But you did manage to pique my interest, Mr. Wonder Man," Alex said with a smile as the man froze. "Tell me, why try to set up your own guild when all you needed to do was ask me for permission to open up a theatre in Apex City?"
"You investigated me?" The man's head whipped to look up at Alex.
"Investigated is a strong word, don't you think?" Alex asked. "I merely went through a few public records. Nothing intrusive. Yet."
"In a place like this… you're nothing without power," Simon said. "In regular society, having extraordinary powers means nothing. But in a society where everyone not only has powers, but there are vast chasms between those powers, everything changes. Like it or not, there will be unfairness, and the weaker ones will eventually be oppressed by those with greater power and authority. I have simply adopted that mindset early on. It's not like you alone can micromanage the entire city. Not considering the pace at which the population is increasing."
Felicia had a weird expression on her face at Simon's words as she recalled the Gaia bracelet that her counterpart had told her about. If Apex wanted, he could indeed micromanage every single resident of this city to the point where even free will became a luxury. But she didn't say anything after seeing her master's amused smile.
"Bad place to be in mentally," Alex said. "You lose someone close to you during the initiation?"
"Not the initiation," Simon said. "Before that. Before you came in and consolidated magical society as a whole, my brother was kidnapped by a witch… I won't bore you with the details. But I saw firsthand how not a single person could do anything to her simply because her coven held a hotspot."
"I understand," Alex nodded. "My question is… Do you want power and influence, or do you want the security that comes with it?"
"Why does it matter?" Simon asked, frowning.
"It matters a lot," Alex said. "Power and influence require constant persistence and growth. If you embark on that path, you will be forced to spend every single day embroiled in power struggles. As for security… You just need to agree to my conditions."
"What if I want power and influence?"
"I'm afraid there will be a limit," Alex said. "Felicia here will be serving as a de facto leader of every guild that emerges in Apex City in the future. Both her abilities and my favor toward her are enough to let her remain in that position for a very long time. You, on the other hand, can only serve as the leader of one of many guilds. No matter your power, you will still have to answer to Felicia. Also, do you really enjoy that kind of work? You're forcing yourself because you believe that this is the best path forward."
"I have my sister-in-law and my nephew to take care of," Simon said. "I will not let anything happen to them."
"Then agree to my offer," Alex said. "You will be someone who answers only to me. That will be the case anyway. No matter how much power you accumulate, I will remain the supreme authority in this city. Even if you turn every single person here against me, I need only snap my fingers, and they will all be left powerless like lambs to the slaughter. And I will slaughter them."
"I would rather not test you on that," Simon said with a flat expression, not betraying his thoughts. "What are your conditions?"
"You have to serve as an announcer, commentator, and referee for the battles that take place in the colosseum," Alex said.
"…" Simon looked like he was expecting more and stayed silent for a few seconds before opening his mouth. "Is that it?"
"I'm not interested in your powers, my guy," Alex chortled. "Entities made entirely of energy aren't new to me. And while you are doubtlessly strong, that's all you have going for you. It's good enough to have you serve as the referee for some particularly intense colosseum battles."
"Why?"
"Come on, Wonder Man, do you really have to ask?" Alex asked. "I think you're a chill guy who got dealt a bad hand in life. Goodwill, pity, whatever you want to call it. Plus, you are strong enough to actually serve as the referee for colosseum battles."
"Is that really it?"
"What else? I might occasionally tell you to favor one contestant over the other, subtly hyping them up, but that's all there is to it. For some fights, you can help dictate the narrative for me."
"Okay," Simon nodded. "But I want to bring my family into Apex City."
"Consider it done," Alex said. "Go home and bring them into Apex City. They won't be restricted anymore. Hell, I'll even let them access Chaos energy."
The man had an emotional expression on his face and took a deep breath to calm himself. "Thank you, sir, for your grace."
"All right, go on. I have other things to deal with," Alex dismissed his gratitude and waved his hand, immediately teleporting him away.
"Master," Felicia immediately fell on her knees the moment Simon disappeared, lowering her head and addressing Alex respectfully.
"Good work, Fel. You did everything perfectly. I truly didn't expect you to handle him with such ease."
His praise made all of her previous grievances disappear into thin air as she smiled widely. "Thank you, master."
"Come here," Alex said, beckoning her over as Felicia's smile turned seductive. She promptly started crawling over to him, swaying her leather-clad ass with each step forward as her breasts swayed from side to side.
"I'm glad you liked the show, Master…" Within seconds, Felicia was upon him, kneeling between Alex's legs as she pulled out his cock and started blowing him.
"You remember what I told you a year ago, right? The training was bound to significantly increase your libido. I will never deny you, but don't let it consume you, okay?"
"I understand," she nodded, greedily licking his shaft all over.
"Come with me after this. I will announce your promotion," Alex said. "We can also take the opportunity to release the new progression system to the public. You can step down from your position as your guild's leader after that."
"Mm," she nodded, thoroughly engrossed in the task at hand.
Half an hour later, she had a skippy smile on her face as Alex let her go over to her guild to give them a heads-up about the announcement. At the same time, he summoned every single one of Apex City's citizens to the Colosseum with a buffer for ten minutes. While they wouldn't instantly be teleported there, they only had ten minutes to wrap up whatever they were doing before being forcefully teleported anyway.
What followed was a similar event as the first time that Apex City was established, where Alex appeared in the form of a massive projection in the center of the Colosseum, accompanied by Felicia, where he announced her new position as the First Cardinal. Before explaining her responsibilities, Alex explained the new progression system for everyone, giving brief overviews about the different levels that he and Felicia had established.
Level 0 Uninitiated: Newcomers
Level 1 Initiate: Consistent feedback to Source
Level 2 Priest: Feedback sufficient to support a new recruit and start generating own Chaos energy.
Level 3 Archon: Induced heart mutation that allows full self-sustenance.
Level 4 Cardinal: Mutated heart's Chaos energy generation can sustain others.
A book with a more thorough explanation and the method for progression was provided to everyone's personal cabins.
Then, he announced the guild system where everyone who became a ‹Priest› could establish their own guilds.
However, that was only available for the first ten guilds. From the eleventh guild onward, the leader would have to first get promoted to become a level three ‹Archon›. That sent the people for a roll. After all, they had seen the small privileges that Felicia's Thieves' Guild had received in the form of a regular Chaos Authority stipend, a private space in the city square, and more. This felt far more impactful to people than Felicia's announcement. Though things again took a turn when Alex announced that every guild would be under her purview.
Finally, he announced the expansion of Apex City's population. He was planning on directly introducing two million more people into the city over the next two days. Following that, he planned to send Felicia to one of Scarlet Angel's planets to start plundering that woman's magically inclined population. After all, unlike this Earth, almost everyone on the planets Scarlet Angel ruled was magically inclined after she altered reality to make it that way.
As for having Wanda do it for this planet as well, Alex had no interest in pointlessly wasting resources. He'd already asked her about it, and she would consume half of the current Source of Chaos to achieve that. Hearing that absurd estimate, Alex grew further assured that someone had to have been manipulating or supporting Scarlet Angel from the shadows. As powerful as Wanda and her variants were, they all had natural limits based on the amount of energy that they could utilize. The Wanda that had temporarily wiped out every mutant from the multiverse had a direct connection to the original Source of Chaos through the Chaos Dimension, which was immeasurably vaster than the one Alex's Wanda possessed.
***
As two days passed, Apex City's population surged up to two and a half million people. At this point, Alex finally released a general access mission that involved the acquisition of people from another planet. With the benefits he provided, the people signed up in droves regardless of their strength level. With the ability to instantly teleport to Apex City regardless of any spatial locks, the mortality rate of their citizens was ridiculously low, so people who were worried about dying while on the job were a significant minority.
Their job was to do the exact same thing that they had been doing on their planet, but on one of Scarlet Angel's planets. They were to aggressively convert people to their brand of Chaos energy and effectively convert them into citizens of Apex City. Regardless of how cult-like the whole situation seemed, Alex was intent on disrupting Scarlet Angel's reign and taking control over her planets.
To that effect, he'd already sent Felicia over as the vanguard to work with Magik and Kitty—who were already the leaders of a massive resistance effort against Scarlet Angel. Within the span of a single day, Alex was already expecting Apex City's population to skyrocket to a hundred million citizens.
Unfortunately, though, at that point, the Source of Chaos would become fully saturated, leaving Alex with no more capacity to take in people. To handle that, he set up the equivalent of a waitlist that people could be put on, and when the Source had more capacity, they would automatically be brought over to Apex City and become a level 0 uninitiated.
Second would come the logistics of handling such an exorbitant number of people. That one was even easier to manage. Everyone already possessed independent and isolated living quarters that were anchored to the Tower of Chaos. Unlike Alex's initial plan of setting up physical spaces for everyone, Wanda had helped him implement what could be considered dimensional isolation for each cottage that served as a citizen's residence.
Therefore, while every cottage was anchored to the Tower of Chaos, physical space didn't matter in the slightest. What did matter, however, was the Chaos Authority that each of those independent spaces could access. After all, despite having established an entire progression system that made people self-sustainable, Alex was fully intent on maintaining absolute control over every citizen. He did that by providing Chaos authority to their territory instead of the person directly, which could then produce Chaos Energy for them to utilize by tapping into their territory.
That was something only Wanda was privy to, not even Felicia. And Alex had no intention of publicizing that information. To citizens, the territory was merely an extension of their power and supplemented the Chaos authority that they possessed. Of course, if someone looked deeply into it and studied the relevant information, they would find out about it, but as long as they didn't cause Alex needless trouble, he didn't plan to intervene.
This system was also how every user of Chaos energy was providing their feedback directly to Wanda. Even a level 4 ‹Cardinal› like Felicia, who could create direct subordinates, couldn't enjoy the faith feedback from them as that was still provided directly to Wanda. A ‹Cardinal› was no more than a glorified battery for those subordinates to pull energy from.
Getting back to handling the influx of population, all Alex needed to rework was the City Square. He wasn't interested in directly expanding the square to accommodate more people, or even dividing it into subareas. If he wanted an actual magical city, it couldn't have such a simple common area.
To that end, he decided to establish a similar dimensional layering for every individual storefront in the square. From then on, the so-called market would become nothing more than a list of shops in every residence, where every store could simply be teleported to with a single thought.
Public interaction spaces worked in a similar manner. People could set up private rooms that could serve as meeting areas for multiple people. They could contact each other through Gaia, whom Alex was also planning to introduce in the next day or two. Unlike the non-magical people, Alex didn't expect to see much resistance when introducing Gaia to the citizens of Apex City.
"So, what do you think?" Alex asked Wanda after unloading his idea on her. After all, she would be the one doing the bulk of the work in implementing all of these things. At best, he would provide her some moral support. He could neither help her with energy requirements since that was all handled by the Source of Chaos, nor could he support her in setting up the complex magic structures that were needed to implement such complex magic.
"I think you're treating me like a beast of burden," Wanda said darkly. "What do you think I am? That goddamn AI you merged with?!"
"You're my wife, Wanda," Alex said seriously. "Whenever you need something, it is my duty to provide; likewise, I expect the same from you."
"Do you think handling a hundred million people is a joke? I gave you that number because it was an absolute limit, not because I wanted you to bring that many people in," she said with frustration. "I trusted you; if I'd known you'd do this, I would've said ten million."
"Come on," Alex said gently, pulling her into his arms and sitting down on a couch with her straddling him. "Don't be like that. I promise I'll make it up to you."
"Two years," Wanda suddenly said.
"What?"
"Take me to Gaia for two years," she said. "I want to relax and enjoy a normal life with you like Nat."
"Two…Gaia years, right?" Alex asked hesitantly. "I can't have you be gone for two actual years."
"I know; even I'm not that extreme," Wanda said, rolling her eyes.
"So you are aware that you can be extreme at times…"
"Alex," Wanda emphasized. "You recently increased the dilation factor in Gaia, which means we won't even be gone a full day."
"Fine, I have just the planet for us."
"I'm not doing any more work for you," Wanda got wary.
"What, are you going to do nothing but have sex with me for two years?" He asked with a chuckle.
"Ideally."
"Come on, help me set up the dimensional layering. I would do it myself if I could, you know that," he said, coaxing her by burying his face in her neck, eliciting a gasp as she wrapped her arms around his head and placed her chin on his head.
"That's cheating," she mumbled, shivering a little as he sucked and licked her collerbone.
…
Earth-68403D.
A mystic arts portal with red sparks instead of gold appeared in a nondescript two-bedroom apartment as Felicia stepped out of it, clad in her usual black bodysuit that revealed an ample cleavage. She faced two similarly dressed women in matching sets of black combat suits that were much more functional as opposed to Felicia's aesthetic-first design.
"Evening ladies," Felicia greeted with a smile, her eyes pausing on the mask that covered half of the blonde woman's face. "You must be Illyana and Katherine. I'm Felicia."
"Apex let us know about your arrival in advance," Katherine said warmly and offered a handshake. "I hope you didn't run into any issues with the portal."
"With your beacon, it was manageable," she said. "However, we must work together if we want to bring the others here. For the time being, I'm the only one aside from Apex who can create a portal to this planet."
"Yeah, despite our best efforts, we haven't been able to do anything to the planetary shield," Katherine said, sighing. "Yana is the one who will do the primary heavy lifting here."
"Shall we get started?" Felicia asked, turning to the silent blonde woman.
"Right now?" Katherine interjected.
"When else? You have an army of highly powerful mages at your disposal, ladies, don't get complacent now."
[Isn't she just the best?] Alex spoke in Katherine's head. [The single-minded focus that she shows when she is motivated is a sight to behold.]
"Our side isn't ready to receive such a large influx of people, Felicia," Katherine said patiently. "Apex told us that we still have a day."
"Is that so…" Felicia looked ill at ease and frowned.
[Tell her you'll help her create the portal. I'm going to sustain it for a prolonged period after that anyway.]
"Apex just told me that we can make the portal right now," Katherine said after a pause.
"Oh…" Felicia momentarily perked up before immediately deflating into a frown, finally ending up with a clearly forced smile on her face as she nodded. "Let's get moving."
Let alone Alex, even Katherine clearly saw the clear shift in Felicia's mood before nodding and turning to the blonde beside her.
"Yana?"
Wordlessly, Illyana led the two of them into Limbo.
As their surroundings shifted to the lifeless wasteland of Limbo, Felicia seemed to recover from her previous state and looked at Illyana with a raised brow.
"How'd you do that?"
"It's her mutant ability," Katherine jumped in. "She can shift to a parallel dimension at will. This place is called Limbo."
Felicia looked at Katherine with confusion. "Does she have some kind of problem with me?"
"Mmm…" A muffled groan escaped Illyana's throat, her eyes widening a little as if she wanted to explain herself. She quickly brought her hands up to her face, seemingly intent on removing the mask. Before she could grab it, however, an invisible rope seemed to get wrapped around her wrists and pulled them back. Within seconds, her arms were strictly restrained behind her back, forcing her elbows to touch, consequently forcing her to push her chest out.
"She's… currently dealing with some special circumstances," Katherine blushed, glancing at Illyana's chest before turning back to Felicia. "Don't worry about her ability."
"So Apex has a dildo in her throat, huh?" Felicia asked with a knowing expression.
"Mmm!" Illyana seemed mortified and grunted angrily, struggling in her bonds.
[You don't want me to embarrass you further in front of her, do you? Be good, now.]
"Yeah," Katherine nodded. "I'm too mortified by the thought of a cock in my mouth, so he's training her."
Felicia looked at Illyana's mortified face with some sympathy. "No need to be too embarrassed, he's done far worse things with me," she said.
"Are you gloating about that?"
"What? No," Felicia immediately responded, almost seeming a little agitated. "I'm just trying to get her to calm down a little."
[She's jealous of the fact that you two have a deeper connection with me compared to her. Now that I've satisfied your curiosity, stop prying and get to work. Plus, she isn't into women, at all. So don't think about that angle either.]
"Pity…" Katherine pouted sulkily before sighing. "Let's go, Apex just told me to hurry things along."
Felicia nodded, suppressing the complex emotions that threatened to erupt on her face once again.
***