Wanda unleashed a final, focused blast of chaotic energy that slammed into Kaecilius, sending him crashing to the ground. His face was a bruised and swollen mess, a testament to Pietro's relentless assault.
"Stephen?" she called out, turning to see Strange flying purposefully into the dark maw in the sky. She was puzzled by his actions.
Kaecilius, though severely injured, managed a wheezing laugh. "Hahaha! Even your great sorcerer has abandoned you! He surrenders to the power of Dormammu!"
Wanda rolled her eyes and, with a flick of her wrist, sent another bolt of energy at him, silencing him with a pained grunt.
He coughed, spitting blood. "Ahem… It's useless! I won't die! Even if this body fails, my soul will live forever in His world!" he rasped, his eyes burning with fanaticism. "And you are all destined to perish! Join us! Let this world become another beautiful part of Dormammu's eternal perfection! We will all embrace eternal life!"
Pietro touched the back of his neck, completely baffled. "You're sick. Seriously, have you seen a doctor?"
"This world is what's sick!" Kaecilius shrieked. "Humanity longs for eternal life! To break the shackles of time! Time is an insult! Death is an insult! Dormammu is the master of all things, the source of all life!"
Wanda shook her head sadly. "You're truly insane. You've lost yourself completely."
"Stop wasting words on him," Pietro said, his voice cold. He picked up a twisted piece of rebar from the rubble. "Strange needs us to buy him time." He pointed the jagged metal end at Kaecilius's chest. "This," he said, his voice dropping to a low growl, "is for stabbing my sister."
He thrust the steel bar into the zealot's heart.
"Ahhh!" Kaecilius screamed, a final, agonized cry as his eyes went dim.
"Let's go," Wanda said, her resolve hardening. "Get me to higher ground. I'll hold back the Dark Dimension. Whatever Stephen is planning, he'll need every second we can give him."
"Right." Pietro was back at her side in an instant, scooping her up and vanishing in a blur of motion, reappearing on the rooftop of a nearby skyscraper. Wanda stretched out her hands, and a surging tide of red energy rose to meet the encroaching darkness.
Meanwhile, Doctor Strange flew into the Dark Dimension. The reality within was even more bizarre and terrifying than he had imagined. Gravity was a suggestion, not a law. Twisted spires of impossible architecture jutted out at mad angles while fragments of dead worlds drifted through a silent, starless void. The very fabric of the dimension seemed to pulse with a malevolent energy, and distant, ethereal screams echoed from its depths.
But Strange held fast to his purpose, his mind a fortress against the insanity around him. He landed on a spherical platform that seemed to be made of crystallized darkness and immediately cast his spell. A shimmering green mandala appeared on his wrist as he activated the Time Stone, creating a temporal loop centered on himself.
Just as he finished, a movement behind him blotted out the dim light. An impossibly huge eyeball, the size of a building and filled with swirling galaxies, appeared in the void. Strange turned to face it, momentarily stunned by the sheer scale of the being before him.
Dormammu pulled back, allowing his full form to be seen. He was a colossal, deep-purple silhouette, a being seemingly condensed from the pure energy of the dimension itself. His shape shifted constantly, from a massive humanoid figure to a writhing mass of cosmic horror. Tendrils of dark power reached from his being, each capable of destroying entire civilizations. His eyes, burning with blue-purple light, held the knowledge of eons and the malice of a cosmic predator who had consumed countless worlds.
Strange swallowed hard, took a steadying breath, and flew directly in front of the entity. He raised his hand, displaying the glowing green loop on his wrist. "Dormammu!" he called out, his voice ringing with a strange calm. "I've come to bargain!"
Dormammu's voice boomed, shaking the very fabric of the dimension. "You have come to die. Your world is now mine, just like all the others!"
As he spoke, a barrage of obsidian spikes materialized around Strange, each forged from pure dark energy. They shot towards him, and Strange quickly conjured a magic shield. As the number of spikes increased, he expanded the shield into a protective sphere. Dormammu, unimpressed, simply gestured, and a wave of dark energy—the same power he used to consume star systems—crashed into Strange. The shield shattered instantly, and Strange himself was obliterated, his very atoms scattered into the void.
But the next second, time snapped backward. Strange reappeared, whole and unharmed, hovering in the exact same spot. He flew back before Dormammu and repeated himself. "Dormammu! I've come to bargain!"
"You have come to die. Your world is now mine… What is this? An illusion?!" Dormammu paused mid-sentence, his cosmic consciousness detecting the temporal anomaly.
"No," Strange said calmly. "This is reality."
Before he could say more, several spikes pierced through his body, killing him instantly.
And just as quickly, a new Strange appeared in the same spot. "Dormammu! I've come to bargain!"
"You… What is happening?!" Dormammu's voice echoed with frustration.
Strange explained, "Just as you gave Kaecilius power from your dimension, I brought a little power from mine." He held up his left hand, showing the glowing green loop. "This is time. An infinite loop."
"You dare?!" The enraged Dormammu raised a colossal arm and smashed it down.
Strange just had time to think, He hasn't been tortured enough yet. "No—" he started to say, before being swatted into paste.
And he reappeared. No matter how Dormammu killed him—incinerated, crushed, torn apart—he always came back, repeating the same words.
"You cannot do this forever!" Dormammu roared after the hundredth iteration.
Strange spread his hands. "Actually, I can. This is how things are now. You and I, trapped in this moment, endlessly."
"Then you will die with this world, over and over!"
"Yes," Strange agreed. "But everyone on Earth will live."
"But you will suffer!"
Strange whispered, a faint smile on his lips. "Pain is an old friend."
For Strange, it would always be the first time. The loop would reset his memory along with his body. He wouldn't remember the deaths, only his purpose. But for a being like Dormammu, who existed beyond time, it was truly eternal torture. He was trapped, forced to relive the same moment of defiance, the same frustrating conversation, over and over again, with a mortal who refused to stay dead.
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