Chapter 825

"This is beautiful..."

Darkness descended.

A vast tide of black particles poured into reality, swallowing everything it touched. Whatever could be assimilated was absorbed into the darkness. Whatever resisted was simply annihilated.

The taller buildings, being closest to the source, vanished almost instantly. Stone, steel, glass—all of it disintegrated the moment the Dark Dimension fully intruded upon reality.

Kaecilius stood alone in the middle of the street, staring upward.

To him, the end of the world was the most magnificent sight imaginable.

The gang members who had gathered nearby had no such appreciation for the scenery.

They had already fled.

The only people remaining were the sorcerers who had escaped the Hong Kong Sanctum before its destruction. Led by Wong, they surrounded Kaecilius.

"Wong."

Kaecilius looked around at them with open contempt.

"You chose the wrong side."

His smile widened.

"Then witness the power of the Great Lord."

The moment he finished speaking, his wounds began to close.

The arm Lily had drained until it resembled a dead branch slowly regained its flesh and strength.

Kaecilius was a servant of Dormammu.

And Dormammu’s power was everywhere now.

Previously, the three Sanctums had kept the Dark Dimension at bay. Kaecilius had been forced to rely on rituals to siphon tiny amounts of its power into himself.

Now the Dark Dimension was practically on Earth’s doorstep.

Dark energy flooded through him.

His body began repairing itself almost faster than the damage could accumulate.

Wong and the other sorcerers looked devastated.

Their highest duty had always been to protect the Sanctum.

Now the Sanctum was gone.

Their centuries-old vigil had ended in failure.

And the world itself was moments away from destruction.

There was nothing left to protect.

Nothing left to lose.

Only one thing remained.

Revenge.

Wong tightened his grip around his weapon.

"Enough."

His voice carried across the ruined street.

"This abomination has brought ruin upon humanity itself. For this crime, he must be destroyed!"

The other sorcerers raised their weapons.

They knew they might die.

They didn’t care.

If they had to drag Kaecilius into the grave with them, so be it.

A portal suddenly opened behind them.

Strange and Mordo leaped through.

They stopped dead.

The sight before them was enough to leave both men speechless.

The Hong Kong Sanctum had collapsed.

Darkness was swallowing the city.

Mordo’s face went pale.

"The Sanctum..."

He stared upward.

"The Dark Dimension."

His voice dropped to a whisper.

"Dormammu is coming."

Then they saw Kaecilius.

Mordo’s shoulders sagged.

"It’s too late."

He shook his head.

"No one can stop him. His plan has already succeeded."

"Not necessarily."

Strange didn’t share his despair.

If anything, he sounded confident.

Of course, some of that confidence came from necessity.

This was the end of the world.

If he didn’t fight with everything he had now, he wouldn’t have anything left to fight with later.

But there was another reason.

The Ancient One might be dead, but she’d left him one hell of a parting gift.

The Eye of Agamotto.

The Time Stone.

Kamar-Taj’s greatest artifact.

As long as time was on their side, it wasn’t too late.

Perhaps the Ancient One had planned for this from the beginning.

During his training, Strange had already learned how to use the Time Stone.

Under normal circumstances, someone of his experience and rank would never have been permitted to wield such power.

But these were hardly normal circumstances.

Strange raised both hands.

Green light began to gather around the Eye of Agamotto.

He was going to reverse time.

Take them back to before the Hong Kong Sanctum fell.

Before Dormammu’s arrival.

Before everything went wrong.

Kaecilius noticed.

His eyes narrowed.

He had spent enough time at Kamar-Taj to know exactly what the Eye of Agamotto was.

He didn’t fully understand its power.

But anything called the greatest mystical artifact of Kamar-Taj deserved respect.

And right now, the last thing he needed was that artifact interfering with his victory.

Kaecilius moved.

He tore free from the surrounding sorcerers, leaped into the air, and drove his fist toward Strange’s head.

Then—

BOOM!

The wall beside Strange exploded.

A dirt-covered figure burst through the rubble.

Lily.

Kaecilius’s eyes widened.

She had been trapped inside the wall earlier, buried beneath bricks and concrete.

Apparently, that hadn’t been enough.

Her fel-infused internal energy had erupted through her body, blasting apart the stone coffin imprisoning her.

Lily emerged, wiped the dirt from her face—

and immediately understood what was happening.

Her eyes snapped toward Kaecilius.

She planted both feet.

Then launched herself into the air.

She intercepted his attack head-on.

Damn it!

Kaecilius cursed internally.

Why hadn’t he killed her when he had the chance?

He had assumed she was finished.

Now he had to fight her again.

Still, things were different this time.

The Dark Dimension was empowering him.

His strength was increasing by the second.

He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

Unfortunately, their rematch never happened.

Just as the two were about to collide, Strange’s spell took effect.

Both figures froze in midair.

Then reality began moving backward.

Like footage being played in reverse.

Kaecilius slid backward across the battlefield in an absurd imitation of a moonwalk.

Lily had a much worse time.

She suddenly found herself flying backward toward the wall.

The dirt she’d just wiped from her face reappeared.

Then she was about to crawl backward into the hole she’d escaped from, only for the bricks to seal her inside all over again.

Strange quickly pointed at her.

The temporal effect released Lily.

She landed.

"Good thing you stopped that."

Lily immediately wiped the dirt off her face again.

"If I’d ended up trapped in there a second time, I’d have beaten you senseless."

The time reversal continued.

Broken windows repaired themselves as shards of glass flew backward into their frames.

Debris returned to ruined buildings.

Damaged streets restored themselves.

And then something even stranger happened.

The female sorcerer who had been killed by the gang was resurrected.

Her wounds disappeared.

Her body returned to its previous condition.

That wasn’t healing.

The wounds simply ceased to have ever existed.

Her burned hair returned.

Her ruined face was restored.

In moments, she was completely unharmed.

Strange stared.

Absolutely not.

He pointed toward her.

He hadn’t intended to resurrect that woman.

He tried to sever the Time Stone’s effect on her.

Before he could—

Lily appeared beside the woman.

She smiled.

A very unpleasant smile.

Her hand clamped down on the woman’s head.

Oh, no.

The resurrected sorcerer didn’t even have time to understand what was happening.

Her body convulsed.

Her flesh withered.

Her skin tightened against bone.

Within seconds, she collapsed into a shriveled corpse.

Strange stared.

Was this some legendary Eastern mystical technique?

He’d seen stories about bizarre supernatural powers in old movies. He’d always assumed they were fiction.

Apparently not.

Mordo was even more disturbed.

When had Lily learned something like that?

Had she deliberately hidden her magical abilities all this time?

Had she spent years pretending to specialize in martial arts and weapons while secretly mastering something far darker?

Mordo’s expression became increasingly horrified.

What exactly was Kamar-Taj hiding?

The answer seemed to be:

far too much.

And then Kaecilius moved.

He had been drifting backward through the temporal reversal.

Suddenly, his body began twisting violently.

He spun.

Dropped to the ground.

Then launched into a series of bizarre, acrobatic movements that looked almost like breakdancing.

The darkness surrounding him surged.

The power of the Dark Dimension tore through the temporal effect.

Kaecilius had forced himself out of the reversal.

He had essentially recalibrated his own timeline.

His eyes immediately found Strange.

Three targets.

Strange.

Mordo.

And Lily.

Lily was farther away.

Fine.

Kaecilius raised his hand.

Then slammed it into the ground.

The street rippled like an ocean.

A massive wave of stone and earth surged upward.

Strange and Mordo were thrown through the air.

Strange’s concentration broke.

But the Time Stone continued working.

The reversal stopped.

Time itself simply froze.

The Hong Kong Sanctum, however, remained only partially restored.

"Strange!"

"Keep going!"

"Get up!"

Mordo forced himself to his feet.

"Finish it!"

The casting had been interrupted.

So what?

Start again.

Everything depended on Strange now.

Strange remained sprawled on the ground.

He glared at Mordo.

You think channeling the Time Stone is like flipping a light switch?

Being forcibly interrupted by a dimensional shockwave wasn’t exactly pleasant.

The backlash was brutal.

Kaecilius slowly approached.

"So you’ve stopped."

He looked around at the frozen battlefield.

"Dormammu has arrived."

His voice was filled with certainty.

"You can’t stop him."

"You can’t defeat what is destined to happen."

He sounded confident.

He wasn’t.

Not entirely.

He still knew that the Eye of Agamotto was dangerous.

So he walked behind Strange and raised his fist.

Kill the man who could use the Eye.

Then everything would become irreversible.

His fist began descending.

"Twilight Judgment!"

A voice thundered across the battlefield.

Something enormous came crashing from above.

A black iron hammer slammed into Kaecilius and sent him flying.

"Finally!"

Lily turned toward the newcomers.

She brushed her bangs aside.

"You two took your time."

She gave them a crooked smile.

"I was starting to think you enjoyed watching the show from the restaurant so much that you’d forgotten there was an apocalypse happening."

"Do I look like the kind of person who can’t tell when something is—"

The newcomer suddenly stopped.

His expression changed.

"Wait. What exactly did you mean by ’enjoyed watching the show from the restaurant’?"

Lily raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

She smiled innocently.

"You really want me to explain that in front of everyone?"

"You..."

He visibly struggled for words.

"You—"

"Enough."

Clea stepped in.

"Can we deal with the apocalypse first?"

The newcomers were Evenson and Clea.

Evenson was wearing a knockoff version of the Dark Council’s armor.

In one hand, he carried the Scepter of Sargeras.

The artifact had saved both him and Clea from being caught in the temporal distortion.

Unfortunately, even Evenson couldn’t casually use an artifact of that caliber.

The moment they’d arrived, he’d put it away.

Clea, meanwhile, wore the armor of the Wild Hunt.

Her black holy spear, Rhongomyniad, rested in her hand.

Her lion-faced helmet was tucked beneath one arm, leaving her flushed face completely visible.

She was still embarrassed.

This was ridiculous.

She had never lost an argument with Lily before.

How had Lily managed to shut her down so completely this time?

Clea glanced sideways at Evenson.

It had to be his fault.

Obviously.

She could have won if he hadn’t been standing beside her.

The ridiculous exchange did at least relieve some of the tension.

Mordo, unfortunately, became even more tense.

His attention was fixed entirely on Clea.

Her pale skin.

The dark aura around her face.

The black energy curling through her features.

It was almost identical to the darkness that had once surrounded the Ancient One whenever she drew upon the Dark Dimension.

Then there was the armor.

And the spear.

All of them radiated unmistakable darkness.

Clea...

Mordo couldn’t believe it.

Clea had always seemed innocent.

Almost impossibly pure.

And now she was wielding the same dark power he’d seen corrupt others.

At this point, Kamar-Taj wasn’t hiding some dark secret.

It was a dark secret.

Was he really the only sorcerer left in the world who still believed in principles?

Kaecilius staggered back into view.

Black blood dripped from his forehead.

His eyes remained fixed on Clea.

"That power..."

He’d felt it when her spear struck him.

It was purer.

More concentrated.

More terrifying than his own connection to the Dark Dimension.

"How is that possible?"

"Reality can be surprising."

Evenson tilted his head.

"Did that attack wake you from your dream?"

"Bastard!"

Kaecilius’s expression twisted.

To him, Evenson had become something barely distinguishable from the devil himself.

Evenson had forced him to fight the woman he loved.

He had manipulated him into destroying Milaya’s soul with his own hands.

Dormammu was now Milaya’s only hope.

And yet Evenson had appeared here again.

"My dream is over."

Kaecilius pointed toward the sky.

"Because it has already come true!"

"Look!"

"Dormammu has arrived!"

"Milaya and I will receive his blessing."

"We will reach the promised land together!"

Evenson nodded thoughtfully.

"If things followed their natural course, perhaps."

Kaecilius’s expression tightened.

Evenson’s smile turned cold.

"That is exactly why I’m here."

"To tell you that a fantasy remains a fantasy."

"You and your wife will never be reunited."

"Eternal suffering is all that awaits you."

Kaecilius’s face twisted with rage.

Evenson turned toward Clea.

"Let’s do this the way we discussed."

Clea nodded.

"Right."

She glanced toward the sky.

Then hesitated.

"Are you sure this is going to work?"

"We still have Plan B."

Clea sighed.

"Fine."

She swung Rhongomyniad.

The air exploded around her.

A violent gust rose from nowhere, lifting her from the ground.

The wind carried her higher.

Higher.

Until she shot directly into the darkness above.

No wonder she called herself the Wild Hunt’s Queen, seated above the storm.

The gale hurled her straight into the Dark Dimension.

Straight toward its master.

Dormammu.

Clea landed before the colossal manifestation of the Dark Dimension’s ruler.

She planted Rhongomyniad against the ground.

She showed no fear.

No hesitation.

No submission.

"Dormammu."

Her voice carried through the darkness.

"I’ve come to negotiate."

...