The Traitor Returns! Bloodbath at the London Sanctum!

The Middle East.

An unnamed country.

It was a desert that appeared utterly peaceful.

But anyone who had been here knew that it was a forbidden land that had swallowed countless lives.

Even though Stark Industries had stopped manufacturing weapons, the shadow of war had not lifted from this land.

On the contrary, with large numbers of mercenaries and arms dealers pouring in, the situation had grown even more tense.

Terrorists, rebels, government forces, and all kinds of factions clashed here.

Aside from Sokovia, which had been reduced almost entirely to ruins, this was the darkest corner on Earth.

When humanity lost all hope, people placed their spiritual faith in all sorts of ethereal things.

At that moment, in a basement beneath the ruins of a city, a group of people surrounded the center and prayed frantically.

The damp basement floor was covered in strange red Runes that gave off an eerie glow.

Murmurs of unknown meaning continuously escaped the believers' mouths, filling the entire basement with a bone-chilling atmosphere.

Gradually, the candlelight seemed to be forcibly swallowed by something and began to dim.

Black shadows spread wildly through the basement, as though taking on physical form.

In just a few seconds, the basement was completely devoured by thick darkness and fell into dead silence.

Time passed little by little.

The darkness began to recede slowly, revealing the red Runes on the floor once more.

However, the Runes had become incomparably dim, as though they had exhausted all their energy.

The believers who had gathered on the floor to pray had vanished without a trace. Not even a corpse remained.

Only a blurry figure stood where they had been.

The figure was wrapped in pure black energy.

It took half a day before half of the black mist slowly dispersed,