The Time Variance Authority is Out!

The End of Time.

Deep within the ruins.

Screams rose and fell, one after another, without end.

Meanwhile, on distant Earth, before the steps at the entrance of the Sanctum Sanctorum, purple light thrashed violently in Ian's palm, like a trapped beast struggling madly.

Strange stared at that hand, his expression turning extremely grim. As the Sorcerer Supreme, he had seen far too many bizarre phenomena—dimensional invasions, time loops, multiversal overlaps. But he had never seen anything like this. The aura revealed by that purple light was terrifyingly ancient, and purely evil.

As if it had come from an era even more remote than Dormammu.

"What is that?" His voice was very low, as if he was afraid of waking something.

Ian lowered his head and looked at his own palm, his brows furrowing slightly. His expression did not look like worry. It looked more like—displeasure at being interrupted.

"My backyard got robbed," he said.

"What?"

Ian did not answer that question. He merely raised his head, his gaze passing through Strange, through the doors and walls of the sanctum, through the sky above New York, and toward some extremely distant direction. That gaze was so calm it was almost indifferent, but Strange could sense that something was brewing beneath that calm.

"Some old thing woke up," Ian guessed, "and it triggered the alertness of the little monster I adopted. Most likely, it stole something like that little monster's essence."

When he was smart, he really was smart.

"What old thing? Dormammu? No, Dormammu was already..." Doctor Strange said, startled and uncertain.

Ian cut him off.

"Older than Dormammu." Ian shook his head, then added, "Yes, much, much older."

He did not explain further.

He simply raised that glowing right hand, glanced at it, and then—the purple light instantly dimmed.