Nepal, Kamar-Taj.
"The power of Eternity..."
"It moved? No... not the Eternity of our universe..."
Gentle sunlight filtered through the gaps of ancient yet unmarred windows, scattering fragmented rays across a sharply defined, androgynous face with a high, elegant nose bridge.
"The present, the past, the future... The span of time observable through the Eye of Agamotto has branched anew. It cannot be observed, cannot be foretold. Everything is in chaos."
A low voice murmured.
Gazing up at the starry sky, the pale face was furrowed in quiet sorrow. Though completely bald, it did not appear abrupt in the slightest—no glare, no unnatural shine. From any angle, it was perfectly balanced.
It was the kind of 'beauty secret' a certain caped bald hero would desperately want to learn.
"Master Ancient One."
At that moment, the door was pushed open. A stout mage in a dark red right-shouldered robe stepped in and bowed respectfully.
"Oh, Wong. What is it?"
"Master, Kaecilius has destroyed the New York Sanctum," the stout mage called Wong said urgently.
"He has completely lost himself to the temptation of the Dark Dimension's power. His next target will surely be the London Sanctum. The Hong Kong Sanctum, closest to Kamar-Taj, will be his final objective. Once he succeeds, the Dark God's tendrils will reach Earth. Master, we must do something..."
"Ah, that matter. It's no longer an issue. Wong, there's no need to concern yourself with it."
"Understood, I'll immediately arrange personnel to intercept Kaecilius at the London Sanctum—wait... what?!"
Speaking rapidly and nodding to himself, the stout mage turned briskly, only to freeze mid-step. A moment later, realization dawned. He stared at the faint smile on the Sorcerer Supreme's face in disbelief.
"Master... I didn't mishear, did I?"
The Ancient One merely shook her head lightly.
"Dormammu is a cautious and intelligent being. He will not come to Earth at a time like this."
"At least, not for now. Because the apostle of a being he cannot afford to provoke is about to arrive on Earth," the Sorcerer Supreme stated with certainty.
"Wong, how is Strange progressing?"
After speaking, the Ancient One turned around. On that hairless, immaculate face, the most striking feature was her piercing yet profoundly deep eyes. The faint emerald hue of her pupils immediately evoked words like wisdom and serenity. With her characteristic warmth and composure, she regarded the stout mage at leisure.
"Still immature," Wong replied instinctively, swallowing hard, his throat dry. He had yet to recover from the shock of her earlier words.
"He still requires tempering... A variable. Is this your admonition to me? That I should not abandon my responsibility and entrust it to a child who is not yet ready..."
The Ancient One murmured softly to herself, then sighed.
"Wong. Let us go."
"Go? Where?" the stout mage asked blankly.
"The London Sanctum. It is time for me to clean house."
Her tone carried no obvious emotion at first listen, yet Wong shuddered abruptly. The hairs on his body stood on end.
Killing intent. Not intense—but utterly pure.
As a seasoned mage of considerable attainment, and one of the disciples who had accompanied the Ancient One the longest in this era, Wong vaguely understood the temperament of the Sorcerer Supreme.
Ignoring Wong's startled and unsettled expression, the Ancient One raised her hand and made a motion. Instantly, clusters of golden-red sparks burst forth before them.
Unnoticed by anyone else, in that fleeting flash of brilliance, a fierce crimson glint flickered across her brows.
Kaecilius. Since there is no longer any need to keep you as a whetstone for Strange, nor to use your hand as my release, then as the Sorcerer Supreme—as your teacher—I should personally eliminate this fallen disciple.
Just as Wong had sensed, this time, the Ancient One truly harbored the intent to kill.
In the timeline she had originally observed, she would die from a surprise attack by her former disciple Kaecilius.
She had not intended to change that, nor to heal herself.
She was tired.
How long had she borne the burden of safeguarding Earth upon her shoulders? Only she knew.
Too long. Too exhausting.
She was still, in essence, a mortal body—merely one whose lifespan had been prolonged by drawing upon Dormammu's dark power.
The Ancient One had decided to pass her mantle to Strange, to let him become Doctor Strange, to become the Sorcerer Supreme. To guide the timeline she had foreseen—one that, though fraught with twists and turns, would ultimately move in the broadly correct direction.
She would play her role and die.
But not now.
The timeline had reached a new fork.
Interference from a higher-dimensional, higher-order power had shattered and disrupted her plans for Earth.
She had once traversed the cosmos and the multiverse, receiving the Eye of Agamotto from the great cosmic entity Eternity. In a sense, she too could be considered an apostle of a creator god.
The Ancient One understood all too well the might of those cosmic creator beings.
In the instant she used the Eye of Agamotto to observe the multiverse, she still remembered that fleeting yet vivid sensation.
Time.
Endless strands of time enveloped her, converging, coiling, and embracing all things—every object, every sensation, every moment—before dispersing into countless gleaming streams. Independent yet resonant with one another, they stretched toward their respective ends, only to merge once more into a vast torrent.
Every life, every impulse, every choice, every word...
The turning points of history, the rise of an insignificant nobody, the epics of kings and generals—everything in the world was nothing more than a single droplet within the boundless sea of time.
Constantly converging and dividing, dividing and converging.
We are all mortals, born into this world.
And floating above these individuals, lives, thoughts, and consciousnesses were towering, terrifyingly majestic forms.
Profound. Pitch-black. Indescribable. Obliterating all. Bringing variables. Bringing new timelines. The instigator.
Darker than a black hole. More resplendent than the Big Bang.
Shattering everything yet embracing all things. Nurturing all beings. Creating the cosmos—the abstract supreme incarnations of the universe.
Eternity—the foremost of the Five Great Cosmic Creator Gods.
Yet the aura of this foreign Eternity made the Ancient One's heart tremble even more.
She had assumed it would be similar to the Eternity she knew. But now, it appeared there was a fundamental difference between the two.
If the great being she knew was the ultimate abstract manifestation of universal law, then the being that had appeared in that instant was the entirety of the universe itself.
As though there were no Five Great Creator Gods.
As though It alone was the only one.
To mortals, there would be no distinction—both were existences beyond description.
But the Ancient One belonged to the exceedingly rare few capable of barely discerning the difference.
They might appear similar—but the gap between them was so vast that even with the Eye of Agamotto, she could not glimpse its full extent.
What unsettled her most was this—
It seemed to have noticed her observation.
Under such circumstances, with an apostle bearing the aura of Eternity's power about to arrive on Earth, if she were to 'die'—even if she could still provide some guidance—could the fledgling Strange truly shoulder the responsibilities of the Sorcerer Supreme? Could he withstand it?
The Ancient One realized that her plans would have to be overturned and redrawn from the beginning.
First step—eliminate Kaecilius and his cabal of fallen sorcerers, lest they ruin everything.
As for Strange, double the training. Double the reading. Continue tempering him.
"Perhaps, Wong, I should take the initiative to contact—or at least warn—the heroes who safeguard reality."
Whoosh.
The spiraling sparks vanished, and the Ancient One departed Kamar-Taj with the stout mage.
...
Meanwhile, within the dimensional domain of black magic.
Like a mobile dark planet, a colossal being whose body was covered in pitch-black, variegated energy lines—emitting overwhelmingly powerful beams of dark energy in every direction with each passing second—was at this moment withdrawing from Earth. It retracted the excessive dark tendrils it had extended to engulf the planet.
There was a trace of urgency in that motion.
...
London.
Within the shattered Sanctum, amid collapsing ruins that sent up clouds of dust, the uneven ground was riddled with countless slash marks from bladed weapons. The corpses of the Sanctum's guardian mages had not yet grown cold. Scattered in pieces among the rubble, their flesh still steamed faintly.
Yet at this moment, the man clad in a filthy brown mage's robe—his eyes dark and sunken like a panda's, cracked and desiccated, faint crimson light seeping through the fissures, unmistakably the visage of one who had succumbed to demonic deviation—showed not the slightest joy at having destroyed a second Sanctum.
"No! No—no! My god, how could You abandon us?!"
Kneeling amid the ruins, the man began with low sobs. His voice grew louder, turning into a furious roar of accusation. Receiving no response whatsoever, he finally wailed outright, fists clenched as he pounded the ground violently.
Bang!Bang bang!
Blessed by dark power, his body was formidable. Shattered stones burst apart, some reduced to powder as dust billowed upward.
"The world must bathe in darkness! Only Your Dark Dimension is the ladder upon which humanity can evolve! Why—why?!"
In the end, he broke into hysterical laughter.
"Hahaha... cowards! Liars! All of you are liars! Ancient One was—and so are You! Cowards..."
"Kaecilius."
At the sound of that familiar call, Kaecilius slowly lifted his head.
The Ancient One, clad in her simple yellow and red sorcerer's robes, approached unhurriedly. A dazzling, intricate fan-shaped array of arcane gears shimmered within her palm. His accomplices—the fallen sorcerers—had already been decapitated, their souls burned to nothing.
"You? It was you! You destroyed my hope!"
"No, pitiful child. It was the true god who repelled your darkness."
Zheng!
...
New York, Stark Tower.
Ever since the Sokovia Accords had been enacted and the Avengers fractured—Iron Man Tony Stark and Captain America Steve Rogers parting ways completely—the building that had once been renamed Avengers Tower and served for a time as the Avengers' base had reverted to Tony Stark's private property.
In the spacious room, a mass of documents—concerning Stark Industries, the Arc Reactor's new energy projects, the completion of the Avengers' upstate New York facility, and more—filled the semi-transparent holographic projection desk. Tony Stark reclined sideways on the sofa, dozing lightly.
Suddenly, the muscles on his face twitched. Sweat slid down from his forehead. His lips pressed tightly together as though he were enduring a terrifying struggle.
"Whoa—"
He jolted awake, eyes wide, fear written across his face. Sitting upright, he pressed a hand to his forehead, only to realize the hair at his temples was damp with sweat.
"Again... That's a deeply unsettling dream. Reminds me of that self-righteous face."
Raising an eyebrow, he grabbed a mint from the table and popped it into his mouth. Pulling open the refrigerated drawer, he gulped down a glass of ice water, instantly feeling more alert.
"Friday..." Just as Tony Stark prepared to summon his AI butler—
"Sir, I believe there is new information you should be aware of," came the emotionless synthesized voice. After JARVIS had gone offline, the AI Friday projected a video feed onto the holographic screen.
"Space?"
Seeing the image of a dark, star-speckled expanse, Tony paused briefly before stepping forward to enlarge the display. The footage was a real-time transmission from a Stark Industries military satellite monitoring the space beyond Earth and the Moon.
Within the boundless blackness, amid ripples of distorted space-time, following a streak of faint red light, enormous warships—far larger than the Chitauri vessels from the Battle of New York—emerged one after another. Countless massive, ferocious cannon muzzles crowned their hulls as they tore through the silence of the real universe.
And shattered Earth's peace.
"We're in trouble, aren't we?" Tony asked.
"Visibly so," Friday replied.
"Too bad Banner's gone. And Cap—"
"Wouldn't make a difference whether they were here or not," he interrupted himself. "What, you expect Cap and his one-armed buddy to come running back and fling that magic shield of his at a starship's engine?"
A dry laugh. A complaint. A thread of unresolved hostility.
Tony Stark turned toward his contact list.
Almost instantly, the communication alerts flooded in.
Former Army General and current Secretary of State: Thaddeus E. Ross.
War Machine: Colonel James Rhodes.
The kid in pajamas: Peter Parker.
And most importantly—my Pepper: Potts.
...
Outer orbit of the Earth–Moon system.
"The Avengers... Captain America... Iron Man... Interesting."
The frost-imbued general, manifested as a Heroic Spirit, stood by the bridge viewport where mottled starlight met darkness. In one hand, she held Avengers promotional posters acquired from Earth; with the other, she lifted her gaze toward the ever-nearing blue planet.
"Can General Esdeath no longer restrain herself?"
Leaning against a crimson thorned spear, the Queen from the Mirror Realm opened her crimson eyes.
"Aren't you excited as well?" Esdeath countered. "The so-called God of Thunder—Thor."
"We are all civilized people... let's not fight," said the handsome white-haired Flower Magus.
"Shut up." ×2
"As you wish."
"Tch. That guy really knows how to order people around—dragging this king down from the Throne of Heroes by force," the golden king scoffed.
"The Divine Empress' will is to sow death and let the verdant fields wither," intoned the assassin clad in pitch-black heavy armor, blue flames burning faintly around him.
...
At the command seat, taking everything in, Master Chief John—117 slowly extended his right hand.
On the back of his hand, a shield-shaped crimson Command Seal began to glow faintly—visible even through the armor.
—
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