The dark creatures that drew their power from the Dark Dimension had no loyalty in their eyes, nor any emotional bond with Dormammu.
As the power they relied on was stripped away layer by layer, their only option was to flee.
Kaecilius stood amid the ruins on the surface of a long-dead Planet, the closest one to Dormammu's core. He had not yet reached The Ancient One.
That was undoubtedly fortunate, but it was also terribly unfortunate.
In the darkness being compressed by three forces at once, his figure looked small and alone, like a dead branch left inside a collapsing building as pieces of ceiling kept falling past it.
His human eyes, now replaced by dark green flames, reflected the entire process of Dormammu's Planet-sized body being stripped apart, layer by layer.
To his senses, it was like watching an enormous machine dismantled. Every part that came loose brought a dull thud, like a bone being pulled from its joint.
Beneath the cracked skin of his face, already corroded by dark energy, his muscles twitched beyond his control.
The twitching began at the corners of his mouth, spread along his jaw to his ears, then ran down his neck.
At his sides, his fingers opened and closed without his noticing. His nails dug shallow marks into his palms, and blood slowly seeped from them.
Kaecilius's pupils contracted sharply. He had once been Kamar-Taj's finest disciple, with an understanding of dimensional structures, energy hierarchies, and the underlying logic of rules far beyond that of ordinary people.
He knew better than anyone what it meant for a dimension's core authority to be stripped away at the level of its rules.
It meant Dormammu would no longer control the Dark Dimension. He would fall from "the embodiment of the dimension's will" to