On the morning of the last day of June 2013, Kang stood in New York, prepared to receive all the lords who owed him fealty and the armies they had dispatched.
Kang intended to display his overwhelming power here, annihilating all of Kamar-Taj before using that momentum to goad his grand army into conquering the Age of Ultron.
Almost everyone was late. By the time Kang had appointed, the waters off the coast of New York remained empty.
No, that wasn't quite right. The first person to respond to Kang had appeared; Mister Sinister was slowly approaching New York aboard a Helicarrier. His modified body was more than capable of walking across the deck of a carrier cruising at an altitude of over six thousand meters without any strain.
His army was ready and waiting. Behind him, several more Helicarriers emerged from the clouds over the Indian subcontinent, each one packed to the brim with soldiers.
They were all Mister Sinisters—each bearing a smile and a diamond-shaped implant. However, unlike the standard clones, these versions possessed South Asian facial features.
"I must thank you for fulfilling my wish, Great Kang."
Born in the Victorian era, Mister Sinister maintained his old-gentleman persona, happily performing tasks for Kang. The latter merely offered a slight nod, showing no irritation toward those who had stood him up.
Kang calmly raised the Cosmic Cube. Suddenly, a vision appeared before Sinister: Kamar-Taj was in sight, its sky covered in a dense, web-like lattice of cracks, teetering on the brink of collapse.
The space between New York and Kamar-Taj had been warped by the Cosmic Cube; while their actual physical distance remained unchanged, they were now within arm's reach. Sinister looked eager to act, but Kang simply commanded the Cosmic Cube to release an even more blinding radiance.
In the next instant, the barriers of Kamar-Taj shattered. The entire sanctuary was baptized by the power of the Cosmic Cube, its architecture twisting and mutating in a flash.
Adorned in protective talismans, Stephen Strange rose from the chaos while chanting an incantation. Gripping a giant axe, he launched into a leaping strike toward Kang. At this critical juncture, Kang seemed to unleash boundless power—
"And then, you could take the opportunity to use your ability to seize the Cosmic Cube while I am engaged with the Sorcerer Supreme."
Sinister's hand froze atop the Cosmic Cube. He listened to Kang's words in disbelief—and what terrified him more was that the voice did not come from the Kang standing beside him.
Had everything around them come to a standstill?
"I have merely accelerated your thought speed. Just yours and mine," Kang's voice continued. "You might be wondering what happened and why you failed. In truth, it is quite simple. Everything we see is essentially the reflection of light. In other words, everything we witness is the 'past.' There is no difference between what happens before a man's eyes and a beam of starlight from tens of thousands of light-years away."
"But I am Kang the Conqueror. I am the Master of Time. My vision is different from yours; I do not see the past, I see the 'now.' What I see is always simultaneous with the action itself. In that infinitesimal moment before you could even confirm your success, I already knew what you intended to do."
Hearing this, Sinister struggled to turn his head, desperate to make all the other Sinisters strike at once. But at this moment, only his individual mind had been accelerated—and only within this specific body.
"Furthermore, did you truly think I was unaware that you lords harbored treacherous designs? The power of the Cosmic Cube is beyond question. No man of ambition, even if his past were completely rewritten by me, could possibly refuse its power. I simply required enough time to thoroughly master it."
Master it? How else could one master the Cosmic Cube?
In the next instant, Sinister's consciousness returned to normal as his "Time Swirl" ability finally kicked in. He still couldn't fathom how the "Forget-Me-Not" ability had been seen through, but the empowered Strange had already cleaved that version of Kang apart with his axe. Yet Strange did not stop; instead, he turned with a solemn expression toward Sinister's direction.
Sinister turned as well.
"I have been searching for a way to make the Cosmic Cube transcend the current timeline and transmit to all universes. Finally, I have found it—"
He beheld a brand-new Kang the Conqueror. A suit of high-tech green armor with purple trim, reminiscent of the Iron Man suits, already encased Kang's body. But more importantly, his chest had been hollowed out to house a specialized container. Inside the container sat a cube emitting a soft blue light, its outward-facing side forming a perfect diamond-shaped mark.
"The Cosmic Cube does not rely on the rift itself to rewrite reality, but on that specific energy. In other words, as long as there is a sufficiently powerful cross-temporal repeater, the power of the Cosmic Cube can be transmitted across all of time. I shall master not only the present; I shall master the past, and I shall master the future."
"Inside the light cone, all is destiny. And I am the light cone."
In Egypt around 3000 B.C., Apocalypse ascended the long stone steps of the temple with aggressive intent. Clad in the robes of a Pharaoh, Rama-Tut felt the implant in his chest receive energy from the future. He stood up, and all of Ancient Egypt began to boil. Countless high-tech scarabs were assembled from matter converted by that energy.
In 6th-century Britain, mysterious runes appeared on the chest of the dark wizard Immortus. Gate after gate swung open, and warships from the 31st century emerged, training their sights on Camelot.
In the Third Reich during World War II, a man named Mr. Griffin replaced the Führer. His eyes glowed with an intense blue light. The Allied forces, yet to commence the Normandy landings, had no idea their opponent had been swapped. Giant robotic sentries and rocket-powered craft capable of smashing propeller planes at hypersonic speeds now armed the Third Reich.
In the year 2099, in the 31st century, in the distant Cretaceous and Triassic periods of the past, and in even more remote reaches of spacetime—
Countless versions of Kang the Conqueror appeared. They held different identities and different forms, but at this exact moment, they all reached out. From the very first moment of Earth's existence, they began to reshape every reality within history, projecting their pre-designed blueprints onto every instant of time, creating a Kang Dynasty that would endure from the dawn of the world to the end of civilization.
Oh, and there was also the matter of punishing the rebel before him.
He snapped his fingers.
Aboard the Helicarriers, the countless versions of Sinister were instantly ground into pure light particles by a surge of immense energy. Sinister's very existence was erased. Subsequently, the entire Indian subcontinent was reduced to dust, ensuring that no version of Sinister could ever reincarnate through that method again.
Then, Kang looked toward Strange.
"Who is next?"