“Are you sure you are up to the task?” Stephen doubtfully asked as he remembered Dio as a trust funded man who paid Kristin to teach him a quick lesson on medicine. There was no way a man like that would be able to fight against the demon on his own!
“Stop asking such a stupid question and get out of here!” Dio said annoyedly. He gripped the [Reaper’s Gaze] on his hands as he readied himself to attack Mephisto at any given moment.
Seeing Dio’s confident attitude, Stephen then focused his attention back to the Dark Dimension, where he had to deal with Dormammu somehow. But then Dio shouted, “Don’t include me and this demon with your spell in there!” obviously, Dio remembered that Stephen would use the Time Gem in there to mess up with Dormammu.
Stephen looked at Dio strangely as he never mentioned his plan, but it seemed Dio already knew what he was about to do. Stephen then activated the Time Gem to mark Dio and the old demon, so they wouldn’t be affected later before he flew towards the Dark Dimension to deal with Dormammu.
But Stephen became confident as he now realised that Dio had acknowledged that what he was about to do would work. Obviously, he would stop Stephen from doing something like this if it wouldn’t work, right?
Obviously, the Time Gem’s power wouldn’t affect Dio as he had [The World] with him. As for Mephisto, as long as his real body in hell wasn’t affected in the time stop, his clone in earth wouldn’t be affected either, as the clone here was just a manifestation of Mephisto’s will.
When Stephen already entered the Dark Dimension, Dio immediately rushed forward and dragged Mephisto’s clone inside the Mirror Dimension! That is Dio’s countermeasure to escape Stephen’s infinite loop power. It also provided him with a free space where he could unleash his full power without worrying about any living creatures or the media that might be watching.
The Ancient One’s memories that she passed on to Dio allowed Dio to use magic without having to learn the arduous steps like Stephen experienced in Kamar-Taj. But this cheat-like method wouldn’t work for normal people as it took a considerable mental power to balance out a huge amount of knowledge in such a small amount of time.
But then again, it wasn’t a complete memory of everything that the Ancient One had known about magic. It was just the knowledge about the Mirror Dimension without having the fundamental behind the magic itself! Dio knew how to enter the Mirror Dimension and manipulate it to his own desire, but he couldn’t teach others about how to do it!
It was like a math test where Dio already knew the answer but didn’t know how he came up with that answer!
Although it was quite unfortunate that Dio couldn’t teach others about this Mirror Dimension, it was probably for the best as he didn’t want to affect the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s stories more than what he has already done. Nevertheless, he wasn’t a greedy man who wanted every single power for his own.
“Mirror Dimension? Are you one of the masters of mystic arts too?” Mephisto asked curiously. But the look in his eyes told Dio that Mephisto wasn’t happy. Obviously, after being defeated by the Ancient One for so long, Mephisto hated all Master of Mystic Arts!
“I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not one of them! I know the Ancient One personally, and thus after she had gone, I feel like it’s my duty to take some of her responsibility until her successor is strong enough to do it on his own!” Dio said indifferently.
“Good, it wouldn’t be that hard to take over the earth now!” Mephisto smirked as he was now convinced that the Ancient One had really died. He came to check on her as Mephisto couldn’t sense her power anywhere on earth and became curious about what happened to the Ancient One.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it past me to let you roam the earth freely now, am I?” Dio indifferently said as he dragged his huge scythe towards Mephisto.
“We will see how far you fare against me. Are you better than the Ancient One? Now, what do you say?” Mephisto smirked as he raised his cane and blocked Dio’s scythe attack. As the cane touched the scythe, it turned into a black giant sword.
Although Dio was confident that the [Reaper’s Gaze] was the most powerful weapon in terms of hand to hand weapon, he just couldn’t seem to break the sword that Mephisto’s clone was using! But then again, Dio easily split anything that Mephisto threw at him using his hellfire magic.
“I didn’t expect a mortal to have such a grandiose weapon like this. It’s such a shame honestly, such a beautiful weapon couldn’t reach its maximum potential as the user is weak!” Mephisto said tauntingly.
Dio didn’t care about what Mephisto said. He maintained his composure and fixed his gaze on Mephisto as he launched attack after attack endlessly. Although he couldn’t destroy Mephisto’s black greatsword, Mephisto wouldn’t be able to block his attack forever.
Furthermore, Dio could counter all Mephisto’s attack as he already saw some of them when he observed the Ghost Rider’s battle in the past.
But one thing that surprised Dio was the fact that Mephisto had a good swordsmanship! Although the Great Sword looked awkward in a Mephisto’s human form, Mephisto had the strength to back it up!
But as he saw that he wasn’t in any rush whatsoever, Dio didn’t summon any of his Stand as he saw this battle as an opportunity to learn some swordsmanship himself! After all, there were not that many enemies that he could learn from!