Devouring Another Great Demon

The sky shattered.

It was not a metaphor, not an exaggeration. It had "shattered" in the literal sense.

The blue sky over New York looked like glass struck by a heavy hammer, countless pitch-black cracks spreading outward from the center. Every crack was widening, tearing, devouring the sunlight.

Behind the cracks lay endless void.

In that void, something was waking.

Strange stood at the entrance of the Sanctum, head tilted back, his legs going weak.

He had lived for so many years and seen countless Dimension Demon Gods—Dormammu, Chthon, Cyttorak, the Eye Demon—but none of them had ever given him this feeling. That feeling was not fear, but something deeper—

It was "existence" itself trembling. It was the soul's instinctive reaction to an existence far beyond comprehension.

"What is that?" His voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible.

The Ancient One stood beside him, and the smile on his face finally vanished.

"Shuma-Gorath." When he spoke that name, there was a tremor in his voice that even he himself did not notice. "Lord of the Void, Source of Chaos, one of the oldest demon gods in the multiverse."

Strange swallowed. "Compared to the ones you brought in before—"

"Not on the same level." The Ancient One cut him off. "Those were small fry. This—this is a whale. A blue whale. Something even bigger than a blue whale."

The cracks in the sky continued to spread.

An eye appeared behind the fissure.

How large was that eye? Strange could not describe it. It was larger than all of New York, higher than the clouds, vaster than the sky itself. It was pure darkness, and within that darkness countless points of light flickered—not stars, but the remnants of worlds it had devoured.

The eye stared at Earth, stared at the Sanctum,