Marvel: Incursio

A few hours later, Liam began dressing. He held the Mirrorheart Pendant in front of him, carefully looking at its incredibly detailed design.

After a moment of inspection, he slipped the pendant around his neck.

"Improved control over the Mirror Dimension and the ability to create mirror-like clones of myself," Liam recalled the Ancient One's words.

'If it weren't for large tears being limited, and the potential benefits they provide to my armor, I would've learned the Mirror Dimension first,' he thought. 'But for now, it can wait. Once I'm done in Greece, I'll focus on mastering it while setting up the foundation for my organization.'

With that, Liam created a portal before him. On the other side, the outskirts of a city appeared.

'According to the Globe, the tear is located in Crete,' Liam thought as he stepped through. 'Since it's a large tear, it's probably out in nature somewhere. If it were in the middle of a city, it would've made international headlines by now.'

The past few hours, he had taken a short nap and spent time researching recent cases of missing persons and unusual deaths.

"The island is around 3,000 square miles," he muttered. "There are numerous reports of missing people spread all over it."

Still, that didn't mean there weren't any strange situations.

"Several hikers near the mountains have disappeared since a few days ago, and local news stations are spreading ghost stories about a mass murderer or dangerous wild animals lurking there," Liam recalled. "Even a large search party sent into the mountains lost contact with most of its members."

He moved towards Rethymno, a city with a population of around 40,000. Other cities within a 20-mile radius ranged between 10,000 to 150,000 people.

"The local search group held ninety searchers spread out into the mountains," he noted. "A few made it back, reporting going back because of landslides, which was then assumed to be the cause of the disappearances—this was also part of the reason why it hasn't made national news yet."

He frowned. 'A coincidence? Maybe. But it could also be a creature creating those landslides. Or just something entirely different.'

As Liam walked through the streets of Rethymno, he noticed the tension in the air. People went about their business as usual, but there was a sense of unease. Sirens blared suddenly as police cars sped out of the city.

'Even the locals know that a landslide shouldn't be able to wipe out that many people without leaving any of them having the ability to call for help,' he thought. 'Time to head towards Mount Ida and find out what's really going on.'

This city wasn't actually the closest city to Mount Ida. Instead of it, a smaller town, Anogeia, was about 10 miles away from this city, with a population of around 2,000 people.

"I'll stop there on the way—just in case something's already happening," he decided, thinking about the police cars he had just seen.

After leaving the city, Liam picked up his pace and began running toward the nearby town. 

It didn't take long before something caught his attention.

A cloud of bird-like creatures screeched loudly as they circled in the distance, accompanied by a growing, loud, rumble coming from the mountains.

"What the hell are those?" Liam muttered, kicking up his speed by another notch.

As he got closer, he saw two police cars being lifted into the air by the strange creatures. Two officers leapt from one car as it was being lifted into the air, only to be snatched midair by more of the winged beasts.

Summoning Incursio around him, Liam rushed over while raising a hand and firing off a bolt of Balthakk towards the creatures.

The energy flew through the sky at incredibly high speeds, burning through one of the birds holding up a police car. Liam redirected the bolt, killing the other two creatures, their head or torso melting because of the energy from the Bolt of Balthakk.

The first police car dropped to the ground, with an officer still alive inside. Without pausing, Liam turned his attention to the second car and the creatures flying away with the officers.

The officers trapped in the creatures' claws struggled desperately in midair, trying to break free. One of them even managed to draw a gun and fire at the creature. The bullets tore into its skin, causing small amounts of blood to splatter.

Despite getting shot, the creature did not release the officer. Instead, it let out a loud screech, summoning the other creature holding an officer in its claws to come over. The approaching beast used its free claw to swipe at the hand holding the gun.

Its razor-sharp claws drove straight into the officer's hand, causing him to scream because of the agony and drop the gun.

As The creature flew away again, it didn't simply let go. Instead, it ripped the officer's hand apart, splitting it roughly down the middle while tearing away several fingers with other parts of its claws.

As Liam sprinted past the fallen police car, he raised his hand and fired another Bolt of Balthakk. This time, the energy bolt pierced all the creatures carrying the second police car.

As the car fell out of the sky, Liam used it as a springboard, launching himself into the air towards the remaining two bird-man creatures. Holding Neontote in front of him, he drove the blade into the chest of the nearest beast.

He kicked off the first creature, pulling Neontote free just as a white rift materialized behind him. Liam disappeared as he fell into it and the rift closed behind him.

The rift reappeared above the last creature, and Liam jumped out, bringing Neontote down in a horizontal arc that sliced straight through the beast's neck.

His eyes fell on the falling officers. Reacting swiftly, he jumped from the creature's back and opened another white rift below him.

Another rift appeared on the ground, and Liam stepped out of it in time to catch the officers before they hit the earth.

One of them was bleeding a lot from his mangled hand—if it could even be called a hand anymore. The creature's claws had not only shredded his flesh, but also pulled bone fragments from the surrounding area. Causing pieces of bones to stick out of his hand at random places, far from where they belonged.

The wounded officer screamed in agony, while his colleague remained frozen in shock. And who could blame him?

Liam ripped off a strip from the man's shirt and wrapped it tightly around his wrist to temporarily stop the bleeding.

'I don't have time for this. Up ahead is a town with over two thousand people,' Liam thought grimly. 'If it's already this happening here.... I can't imagine what it will be like over there.'

Meanwhile, the rumbling in the distance grew louder. He had no idea what it was, but he knew it couldn't be good news.

"Hey!" He grabbed the uninjured officer, shaking him out of his schock.

When the man's eyes cleared a little, Liam pointed at the fallen cars and his wounded companion.

"Get him back to the city. Call for paramedics. Now."

Without waiting for a reply, Liam turned and sprinted toward Anogeia.

'An incident with this many victims will require a major memory wipe,' Liam thought, already turning back towards the road. 'I want to minimize casualties as much as possible. The people ahead will likely be in worse shape.'

While running, he recalling the creatures appearances.

They had long, bird-like wings with razor-sharp talons on the end of them and at their feet, but their torsos and heads were disturbingly human—outside for the few patches of fur covering their bodies.

'They look like harpies from the legends,' he thought. Liam had studied Greek mythology quite a lot at college in his previous life, always interested by the stories back then.

He sprinted at full speed for another two miles before the town came within eyesight.

When he arrived, he saw a sight he had half-expected—but even so, the horror of it sent a chill down his spine.