Melting Chapter 88: Absorb! Key to the Dark Dimension... (Patreon)

Zero Matter carries extremely high importance because it is both deeply mysterious and extremely dangerous.

If Howard Stark hadn’t invented a gamma-ray cannon to close the Zero Matter gateway back then, the outcome would have been unthinkable.

A substance this dangerous should by rights have been sent to the “Slingshot” (the facility) and launched into the sun.

But apparently, Nick Fury isn’t as upright as he pretends.

After all, he’s the Director; with such a special 084 item, it’s not as if she (the subordinate) had the authority to make that decision on her own.

Finally, he’s paying attention to me, the Director!

Fury scanned the laptop screen, meeting Aaron’s unyielding gaze. After a long silence, he said, “This doesn’t look like a critical component for making any kind of super-soldier serum.”

He tried one last attempt to resist: “I’d suggest you read more of its follow-up data. It’s extremely dangerous. The moment anyone touches it, the person’s body might turn into some kind of quantum state— intangible, immaterial. And it can alter a person’s mind, driving them insane and messing up their behavior…”

“That’s not all: Zero Matter also drains people’s life force, absorbs light, assimilates them, even transports them to an unknown dark world…”

Aaron didn’t waste words on him. He just grabbed a brand-new phone he’d just bought—even though it didn’t even have a SIM card installed.

Oh no, he’s at it again!

Fury had no choice but to give in.

“All right, I’ll take you to it!”

Zero Matter wasn’t stored in this building but in a special glass container under S.H.I.E.L.D.
In our reality, it appears as a black liquid in midair, somewhat like a “black version” of the Aether.

Its volume isn’t large—about the size of a fist.

“This is the remaining portion of Zero Matter we later found. We don’t have a second gamma-ray cannon, so all we could do was keep it trapped here.”

Fury tried one last piece of sophistry. “How do you plan to remove it? I repeat—it’s really dangerous—”

He hadn’t finished speaking when Aaron had already walked right up to the glass container.
He suddenly turned hazy, as though he’d become a phantom, treating the glass as if it weren’t there, and walked inside.

Fury’s remaining words died in his throat.

That ability… Why does it seem so familiar?
Phasing through walls? Invisibility? Intangibility??
It feels like… Ghost!

Fury’s eyes flickered; he exchanged glances with Hill, both realizing the other was thinking the same thing.

“Ghost” was Ava, whose father was Dr. Elihas; during an attempt to build a quantum tunnel for quantum experiments, an accidental explosion occurred.

Elihas and his wife both died, leaving their young daughter Ava, whose body had been altered by quantum energies and gained the power to shift her own molecules—able to phase and become invisible, pass through walls freely.

But her cells were dangerously unstable, meaning at any moment she could vanish from this reality, fully “quantum-ize” and become an intangible Ghost.

In 1995, S.H.I.E.L.D. took her away from Professor Bill’s custody, trained her as a secret operative under the codename “Ghost.”

The ability Aaron just displayed looked exactly the same!

No mistake about it. Did that mean he, too, had gone through quantum experiments?

While Fury was puzzling over that, Aaron moved to reach for the Zero Matter. Fury’s mouth fell open; he was about to shout a warning.

At Aaron’s right-hand touch, Zero Matter initially seemed to move toward him of its own accord. But then in the next instant, that seemingly mindless substance violently struggled, trying to flee in the opposite direction—like it had spotted some terrifying monster and was instinctively trying to hide.

Aaron’s lips curled in a devilish grin. “You’ve come this far— might as well behave and get in here.”

Reaching with his right hand, he absorbed and fused all of the Zero Matter!

[Fear Mastery: You have gained dominion over fear, able to stir up the deepest terror in a being’s subconscious.]

[Dark Force Field: You can create a region of pure darkness that absorbs all light. Anyone trapped inside sees horrifying illusions, feels cold and fear, passes out, suffers mental collapse or even death.]

[Life - Force Drain: You can rapidly siphon someone else’s life force.]

[Possession: You can transform into an energy-form life and freely possess others.]

[Energy Absorption: (Similar ability detected; merged.) You can absorb light and heat more efficiently, and possibly create energy disruption around you.]

[Key to the Fear Dimension: You can freely open or close the gateway to the Fear Dimension (Dark Dimension / Darkforce Dimension).]

[Dark Force Mastery: You command darkforce energy, able to fly, shape-shift, open or close dimensional portals, drain life, instantly teleport (each “step” in the Darkforce Dimension, i.e., Fear Dimension, equals 1 mile / 1.6km in Earth’s normal space) …]

[Intangibility: You can turn a person intangible into a ghostlike state. Generally, once in that form, they cannot affect the physical universe but can roam freely within normal reality.]

Note: The Fear Dimension holds unknown hazards. A normal person who enters may face unpredictable harm.

Quite a haul indeed!

Aaron hadn’t known much about Zero Matter, just that it was presumably a special, mysterious substance. Turns out it wasn’t some holy object like Mjolnir—it was more like an evil artifact. Once he fused with it, he understood what Zero Matter really was.

Zero Matter is a specialty product of the Fear Dimension, itself a blend of the Dark Dimension, dark energy, and fear energy.

Basically, you could say it’s another version of the Dark Dimension: they coexist in separate fragments, with the Dark Dimension being the largest shard. Going by that logic, Dormammu, who rules the Dark Dimension, can also wield fear and darkness, and presumably Zero Matter exists there.

In the Marvel Universe, items like Cloak, Dark Vision, the Staff of Warrant, and the Monolith Stones all connect to the Fear Dimension.
Now Aaron had gained part of the Fear Dimension’s power.

If he wished, he could abandon his body to become an intangible, immortal energy-form deity—live on as pure consciousness—or else possess other bodies, controlling them like puppets.

In short, these powers could create a formidable dark god. And for him, it was quite a power boost. Yet he had no desire to be some Fear Dimension avatar; he was already a god in his own right. For other people, it might be a shortcut to godhood, but to Aaron it would be a dead end.

Having finished absorbing the Zero Matter, Aaron calmly stepped back out of the container.

“You all right?” Fury asked, recalling how Zero Matter had tried escaping from Aaron’s hand. He realized it was a moot question: apparently Zero Matter was more terrified of Aaron than anything else.

What is this guy? Zero Matter was freakish enough, but Aaron was even more freakish! Could he be the rumored Lord of Darkness?

As that thought flitted through Fury’s mind, his body reflexively stepped away to maintain a safe distance.

Aaron noticed. “Don’t worry— it was too dangerous, so I’ve erased it from this world.”

Fury’s eyelid twitched. Aren’t you the single most dangerous being on Earth? Yet you call that substance ‘dangerous’? It was just a poor creature wanting to survive…

Reading his mind, Aaron sneered, “You don’t believe me?”

“I believe you!” Fury nodded hastily; he dared not contradict.

“That Zero Matter would have opened an interdimensional gateway at any time— if the things on the other side came through, forget this base, the entire planet would be toast.”

Aaron said this while grabbing Hill’s laptop. “Let me see… I sense other items here with a similar vibe.”

Fury glanced at the now-empty container, then at Aaron’s calm expression. Maybe it’s true, maybe not. With Zero Matter vanished, nobody could argue. Better just let it be.

Aaron skimmed further data, selectively picking out a few possibly useful items, though he wasn’t sure what they were for. In fact, most of these were leftover from Hydra experiments. Many were linked to Tesseract energy. Not much was like Zero Matter’s special properties.

“Hmm, no Gravonium?” Aaron frowned slightly. From his memory, the first discoverer of “Gravitonium” wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. but a man named Ian Quinn.

Gravitonium was an extremely rare element that, once electrified, generated gravitational fields granting anti-gravity technology.

In Marvel lore, a character who absorbed Gravitonium gained gravity-manipulating powers and became Graviton. At full strength, he could even destroy Earth using gravity. Aaron had already gained gravitational powers in Asgard, but wondered if fusing Gravitonium might further boost them.

He gave up that idea and instead checked items capable of traveling between dimensions—like the Kree Monolith Stone or the Koen Stones.

The first, the Kree Stone, allowed crossing space. The Koen Stones, three in total, governed space, time, and creation. Since he was already here, he naturally wanted to claim any 084 objects that seemed useful. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t have the ability to handle them, anyway; leaving them in S.H.I.E.L.D. might spawn more trouble.

“Kree Monolith… This is probably it!” Aaron scanned around, spotting the Kree monolith but no Koen Stones. “Give me these two,” he said.

Hill checked the item codes, then turned to go. Fury opened his mouth, saw Aaron’s look, and shut it again. Fine, gotta get rid of this jinx first…

Before long, Hill returned, carrying a small case. “We only have the Obelisk here. As for the other monolith, it’s in the Triskelion. Apparently Mr. Pierce is very protective of it.”

How could he not be?

Aaron knew that stone was tied to Hydra’s old founder. Once activated, it could teleport someone to the Death Star planet where Hydra’s worshiped Inhuman, Hive, had been exiled for a thousand years.

Its worshipers had always wanted to bring Hive back, gradually building Hydra. But in modern times, Hydra had split into multiple factions, such as Baron Strucker in Europe and Alexander Pierce in the U.S. As the strongest branch leader, Pierce had no interest in summoning Hive.

His territory even surpassed Red Skull’s old empire. Once Project Insight succeeded, he’d lead Hydra to rule the world. Why would a man like that want another master over his head? So Pierce monitored that Kree Stone carefully.

Fury’s face changed again. Before, he hadn’t suspected anything, but with Aaron’s remarks, anything connected to Pierce smelled fishy. “Then I’ll retrieve that stone personally. I’ll figure out its situation and get it to Osborn soon,” Fury said resolutely.

Aaron nodded, taking the case from Hill. He noticed a file clipped on top. After scanning it, his eyes flickered.

He turned to Fury. “You didn’t forget your promise yesterday, right?”

Fury stiffened. He wanted to deny it, but lacked the guts. “Y-you say it.”

“Osborn Group is short for two secretaries. I think her skill’s impressive,” Aaron said, gesturing at Hill.

Fury forced a bitter smile. “Hill is the Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., also assigned by the UN Security Council to assist me. That’s… not so great, right?”

Aaron heard that, tapped a few keys on his phone—though in truth, he was hacking the local signal.

Fury’s eyelids twitched violently. Again?!

Moments later, the phone rang. Fury answered slowly:

“Mhm, okay, got it! No problem. I’ll arrange it right away! Absolutely everything Mr. Aaron wants—I promise!”

Hanging up, he gazed at Aaron in defeat. A ‘God’ who uses Earth’s oppressive political influence so skillfully—where’d he learn this nonsense…?

“Is it settled now?” Aaron asked with a teasing smile.

Fury nodded. “I’ll have her resignation papers drawn up immediately.” In truth, he dreaded losing Hill. She was an outstanding deputy, handling a ton of headaches.

But what could he do? He felt helpless. Another call from the President just now—this time not only on behalf of America, but representing the other four permanent Security Council members. They had bypassed the UN Security Council’s Alexander Pierce, forcibly intervening in S.H.I.E.L.D. staffing.

Under normal circumstances, S.H.I.E.L.D. was under U.S. jurisdiction, but at its founding it was an Allied Force initiative. Later, to get global operational rights, it had to come under the UN’s watch. If it was purely American, they couldn’t just waltz in armed across sovereign borders.

Even the U.S. President alone can’t override everything; now the combined will of the UN overcame him. I guess I’m the real “Alexander,” always overshadowed. Life is tough. Fury sighed.

“Good.” Aaron seemed satisfied. True power is obtaining results without violence. “Hill, gather up everything I need; I’m sure Fury will handle the rest.” With that, Aaron dusted himself off and departed.

“My apologies, Fury, but I’m with Aaron now.” Hill shrugged and followed after him, even though she was feeling a bit surprised. She hadn’t decided on truly leaving S.H.I.E.L.D., but apparently Aaron was so influential, it all got settled with no input from her. Like it or not, she was done at S.H.I.E.L.D. The top brass had spoken. No reversing that.

“Damn it! A bunch of useless dregs!!” Fury cursed in exasperation. He truly believed that if not for incompetent superiors or colleagues, they wouldn’t be losing so many people. We have no fear of a formidable enemy, only piglike teammates. Damn them, defecting to the other side!

At that moment, Coulson and Natasha came from outside. “Is it true about Deputy Director Hill—?”

“She’s joined Aaron…” Fury said drily. “What?!”

They looked around the nearly ransacked warehouse, and then at the raging Fury who looked like a mad bull. The two wisely stepped back, exchanging glances. Each read the same conclusion in the other’s eyes:

Aaron is not someone to provoke.

Meanwhile, in a car outside, Aaron sat in the back seat. Hill quickly settled into her new role.
“Boss, where to?”

“Osborn.” Aaron decided he might as well do something serious so Hill could start working right away. The company was swamped. Felicia was away, Norman couldn’t manage everything alone; it was tough to keep it on course. Hill’s driving skills were evidently excellent for a high-ranking official. The car raced along swiftly yet smoothly. Very nice.

Partway through, Aaron opened the small case, revealing the Obelisk inside!