Luke Yale, by his own admission, was a gaming idiot.
He didn't play for rankings or strategy or achievement points.
He played to unwind, to kill time, and sometimes, let's be honest, to look at pretty female characters for a little too long.
But today, something deeply un-game-like just happened.
Something that made even Luke, the world's most casual gamer, sit up straight and stare in disbelief.
A boss from his game had just come to life.
He blinked at his computer screen.
Above the monitor, glowing lines of small text began to materialize before his eyes:
Mutation Level: Fifth-Order
Mutation Direction: Emergency Summoning
Ability: In times of crisis, can summon one object from the screen.
Limitations: Summonable objects must not exceed the mutation level. Duration: 1 hour.]
"Wait... you mutated?" he asked his laptop, as if it might respond.
"Fifth-order? Seriously?! That's like... legendary drop-tier luck!"
This was only the second time he'd ever triggered a one-percent mutation chance.
The last time it had been Doggo… mutating into a three-headed hellhound in an emergency.
His PC had apparently decided that the best defense against alien invaders was to tear a hole in reality and summon a boss from his game.
In the game chat, he quickly typed a question: "Wait, which boss was it again?"
[ELFQUEEN]: Bro, HOW do you not even know the boss name? We've wiped on him 12 times.
[TANKBRUH]: Kick him, I swear to God…
[Firedudesixtynine]: It was Gul'dan. How could you not fucking know man?
Luke froze, his stomach dropped.
Even he knew that name.
Fel warlock. Orc traitor. Leader of the Shadow Council. Corrupted every friend he had for power. Betrayed his entire species whenever he felt like it.
Compared to him, Thanos looked like a good guy.
Summoned from a screen by a nervous gaming computer?
Luke swallowed hard and muttered, "Maybe the computer is a little too dramatic…"
Near the battlefield, barely ten kilometers from the city center, the ground began to quake.
Not tremble. Not vibrate.
Cracks split the pavement as buildings groaned. Chunks of asphalt buckled and rolled away as something underneath pressed upward.
And then, with an ear splitting rumble, a massive stone portal erupted from the earth.
It wasn't sleek or alien like the Tesseract rift.
It was ancient, brutal, primitive.
A towering gate of obsidian and jagged rock, flanked by twin statues carved into sword-wielding sentinels. Between them swirled a sickly green light, ominous, pulsing with a rhythm that felt like a heartbeat.
And then he stepped through.
His skin was a sickly green, scarred and cracked like dried poison. Bone piercings jutted from his skin, and spikes arched from his hunched back like a twisted crown.
A cloak of rotted fur dragged behind him. His skull necklace clattered with each step.
In his hand: a crooked staff, carved from some ancient ribcage, glowing with the green, pulsing light of Fel energy that distorted the air around it.
On the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, chaos broke out.
Nick Fury stared at the screen in disbelief.
Hill leaned forward, voice rising in horror.
Even across a digital feed, Gul'dan's presence made their skin crawl.
Nick narrowed his eye. "He's definitely not one of Ross's freaks. That's something else."
"Another alien?" Hill asked.
"No," Fury said slowly. "At least I don't think it's with the Chitauri."
Even the Chitauri, with all their technology and malice, didn't make the world feel this wrong.
But this? This was evil in its rawest form.
Ancient, intentional, hungry.
Fury's gut clenched. He'd seen monsters before, but this thing?
It made them seem cute.
On the roof of the New York Sanctum, the Ancient One stood perfectly still.
Her golden robes whipped around her in the rising wind, her eyes locked on the distant portal.
A deep line creased her brow.
"What... are you?" she whispered.
She had seen the Dark Dimension. She had stared into the void of Dormammu and returned with her soul intact.
Where Dormammu embodied endless darkness, this creature radiated pure, conscious evil. Like a black hole given intent and voice.
Behind her, Mordo appeared.
The Ancient One didn't turn.
"Summon reinforcements. Kamar-Taj, the other Sanctums, all of them."
"Especially Hong Kong."
She raised her hand, opened three golden portals, and sent disciples through to relay her orders.
"What's happening?" Mordo asked, voice tight.
"A creature has arrived that should not exist here," she said.
"Something from beyond even the multiverse. Something with no place here... and yet, here it stands."