HIATUS

"Damn it", Zero said with anger and annoyance oozing from his voice. He looks in the distance and he could see the blue dome he had made to trap Zhang Wei being filled with multiple fiery explosions. The moment he had foreseen that the Phantoms were going to self-destruct, he had immediately teleported everyone out of the dome. The energy boost that Zhang Wei had given to the Phantoms had somehow made their destruction abilities even deadlier. In fact, Zero believes that only he with his cosmic sage mode would have been powerful enough to tank all those explosions and he would have been extremely wounded by doing so.

"What now?", Ward asked as he looks at the annoyed Zero. "Will we enter the dome once the explosions are over?".

"No, as of right now I pretty sure that Zhang Wei is already out of that dome. With the infinite knowledge coming from the Darkhold, he could have easily found a way to escape", Zero replied.

"All this because he has a god complex", Ava stated.

"Everyone wants power and if you say that you are not like those individuals then you are lying to yourself. This Zhang Wei had totally succumbed to it and there is no doubt in my mind that he has not had enough", Hela stated.

Kaecilious became even angrier at Zhang Wei that he tightened his fist and made a promise to himself that even if he dies, he will make sure he will take Zhang Wei with him.

From behind the group, a blue sphere appeared and disappeared leaving behind Natasha and Bucky.

"What happened?", Bucky said as he looks at the blue dome in the distance with surprise all over his face.

"It was a trap. He waited for us there. He wanted my Phantoms for himself", Zero replied.

"What will we do now?", Natasha asked.

"We need to regroup", Zero replied as he began to think of his next course of action. For Zhang Wei to achieve his goal of becoming a god, he needs his authority to be uncontested. With me and the Avengers around he will undoubtedly find that goal hard to achieve. Even with the powers that he has now, he knows that he can't win alone. That was the reason why he took control of my Phantoms. This perhaps also explained the reason why he opened a portal to the fear dimension. He needed troops and powerful ones at that. With the mind stone in his hand or forehead to be exact, he had already taken control of those incorporeal beings.

"We brainstorm and try to figure out what his next move is", Zero stated. He then looks at Bucky and said, "Fetch the Avengers and bring them back to the Bus".

"Sure but promise me this time you won't teleport them out", Bucky teased. Zero just remained quiet and did not acknowledge Bucky's comment.

"I will return back to Kamar Taj. I need to check if the barriers are still fully functioning. I will meet you back on the Bus", Kaecilious said as he opened a portal using his sling ring and walk through it.

Zero looks at Kaecilious and just nods. Even if Kaecilious checks the 3 barriers, he was sure that they were still operational and working properly. The only reason that Zhang Wei was even able to bypass the 3 barriers without the masters knowing of it was no doubt because of the Darkhold. But he said nothing as Kaecilious left. Even if he tells Kaecilious again that it wasn't his fault that all these things were happening, the man still feels guilty. Right now, he could feel that everything was out of his control and if him checking the state of the barrier would help his state of mind, then Zero would allow him to leave.

After the explosions ended in the dome, Zero with his cosmic sage form removed it. The exact moment he did it, he could immediately feel insane amounts of heat spreading in the area. He checks to see if the Phantoms were still there, but just like he predicted, they were gone. In fact, even the Temple of the Forgotten was already destroyed that you won't even recognize if there was a building standing there previously.

After looking at the entire area for a while. Zero had to use a powerful water-style jutsu to kill the fire and the residual heat to prevent a forest fire from occuring.

MEANWHILE IN WAKANDA:

"What is so important that I needed to return home immediately", King T'Chaka said as he enters his daughter's laboratory. Inside the laboratory, he could see Shuri, Prince T'Challa, and General Okoye. The King of Wakanda immediately realized that something was wrong the moment he entered the room. All of them had a troubled look on their faces. It seems whatever the reason he was called by his daughter is extremely important.

"Father, T'Challa brought something from the town of Mega and we believed that you should personally see what it was", Shuri stated. The town of Mega is a town belonging to their neighbor country, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.

After the appearance of Erik, the royal family of Wakanda was sort of in a bad headspace, both mentally and emotionally. All the things that they had to learn during that time were quite hard to digest. Knowledge about the infinity stones, aliens, and the great responsibility of being a king wasn't something someone should learn in less than 10 hours.

But life goes on. After learning of the things in the thumb drive, King  T'Chaka had made moves to strengthen the country. He had tasked the central intelligence service of Wakanda, the War Dogs to increase their numbers and spread out more agents around the globe. He even tasked Shuri to gather information by hacking other country's government agencies and develop more powerful weapons. He wanted to be the first one to know if the world was in danger and he wanted Wakanda to be fully ready when the need arises.

He didn't just increase his military might, King T'Chaka had made small moves that signal his desire to open the country. He met with more political leaders in the last year than he did in the first decade of his rule. His first plan was to export selected Wakanda products outside the country preferably to the neighboring nations. He wanted the world to assume that Wakanda is a country that is slowly growing.

He didn't like that idea of Wakanda totally broadcasting to every nation in the world their true might though. Doing so would make them the number 1 target. If they did such an act then it wouldn't take a single day for other nations to send spies and request. It would lead to more problems for them to handle.

The 4 people in the lab soon went towards a containment pod where King T'Chaka saw a man sleeping inside of it.

"What is wrong with him?", King T'Chaka asked.

"Something is inside of him", Shuri stated as she presses a button in her kimoyo beads. A hologram soon appeared and it showed him what was happening inside the body of the man in real-time.

Upon laying eyes on the hologram image, the King of Wakanda became shocked, "What is that?".

Inside the man's chest cavity was a leaving creature. Based on the image he could see, the King thought of it as a bat due to it having a similar shape but he found this unlikely. Whatever the creature was it was still alive and had fully enmeshed itself in the body of the man.

"I don't know father", Shuri replied as he looks at the unconscious man. "As far as I could tell, the thing inside of him is acting similar to how a parasite would act when it is inside a host's body".

"In fact father, the only reason why we have this man is because of one of our War Dogs. Apparently, he was just walking to his assignment when he eyes caught sight of a bat-like creature entering the body of the man through his mouth. Upon seeing something like that happen, he immediately caught the man and contacted me. After that we called for you", Prince T'Challa stated.

"This might not be good", King T'Chaka said with worry in his voice. He fears that something bad would happen.