Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead.
This place existed within a pocket dimension hidden beneath the surface world.
At dawn, dozens of well-equipped, fully armed soldiers had entered this strange realm and were now encamped not far from the ancient pyramid complex. Crimson banners fluttered across the camp as the soldiers made their final checks and preparations for the mission ahead.
The emblem on the banners was blood-red—a skull wreathed in several octopus-like tentacles. The mere sight of it exuded a chilling, sinister aura.
"For Hydra! For Lord Schmidt!"
The disciplined soldiers shouted their oath before the flags.
They were members of Hydra, the ambitious organization that had embedded itself within the Nazi regime during World War II. Every one of them had undergone rigorous brainwashing by Hydra's upper echelons, making them absolutely loyal to the cause.
The "Lord Schmidt" they hailed was Hydra's supreme leader—the Red Skull—who had become a super-soldier even before Captain America. The Super Soldier Serum was known to amplify a person's nature: the good became better, while the wicked became far worse. Thus, the already power-hungry Schmidt, after his transformation, developed an even greater ambition—to rule the world. Yet, even the power of the Nazi regime was not enough for him.
To fulfill his "ambition," the Red Skull sought supernatural might. He scoured ancient tomes and combed the globe for relics imbued with otherworldly power. And clearly, the ancient land of Egypt had not escaped his notice.
The Hydra squad he dispatched had succeeded in the perilous deserts, discovering the hidden necropolis said to contain unimaginable energy—the City of the Dead.
"This place must hold the power Lord Schmidt seeks!" declared a scar-faced commander, his eyes gleaming with fanatic fervor as he stared at the pyramids.
Even upon entry, he had sensed something extraordinary. What had been an endless desert moments ago had transformed under the first light of dawn, revealing a gateway into this mysterious dimension.
The pyramids surely held the arcane power Hydra sought. The commander was certain of it—he could almost picture the Red Skull personally commending him for this discovery.
For Hydra during the war, Red Skull was practically divine, worshipped by his followers with blind devotion. Many members held unwavering faith in him. After all, anyone who could stand alongside Hitler surely knew how to manipulate others into serving his will.
"If we find what Lord Schmidt desires, all of us will be honored—and rewarded by him!"
The scar-faced commander rallied his men with conviction.
His speech was little more than empty promises—the kind of hollow pep talk that would've been dismissed as cheap corporate drivel in later generations.
Yet, in this era, such words carried weight. The soldiers erupted with zeal, shouting praises to Hydra and Lord Schmidt, their spirits burning with fanatic loyalty.
"Move out! Do not disappoint Lord Schmidt!"
Once morale had peaked, the commander gave his order. The highly trained troops began to advance cautiously toward the towering pyramids.
Unlike most pyramids that rose starkly from the golden sands, these stood amid an unnervingly lush oasis. The vegetation here was dense—more abundant than even a primeval jungle—an impossible sight for a place buried in the heart of the desert.
"Rat-a-tat-tat~"
When faced with seemingly harmless animals, the soldiers showed no hesitation. The fully armed squad raised their advanced rifles and opened fire, erasing every potential threat without mercy.
Hydra, in its relentless pursuit of extraordinary power, had faced countless supernatural dangers across the world. Through failure after failure, it had refined strict operational protocols—and this time, the soldiers' ruthless caution proved they had learned those lessons well.
"Squawk! Squawk!"
Even the ugly, seemingly harmless little monkeys hidden in the dense jungle had mouths full of sharp teeth and wielded crude, pointed weapons to launch ambushes. But their matted fur and primitive spears were clearly no match for modern firearms.
Soon, whether it was goats, camels, monkeys, or hares—every living creature they encountered along the way was completely wiped out by the HYDRA troops.
Soldiers wearing gas masks stepped forward to inspect the animal corpses. Without exception, when they opened them up, they found rows of sharp fangs or jagged beaks within.
"These animals look as if they've been dead for ages. On the outside, they seem no different from normal creatures, but inside they're completely decayed... With insides like this, they shouldn't even be alive."
The specialists made their uncertain, shaken report.
The scar-faced commander, however, showed no sign of surprise. His expression was deep and resolute. "Perfectly normal. Anything that defies scientific explanation is exactly the kind of power Lord Schmidt seeks. This time, we'll surpass the team that discovered the Tesseract."
As he spoke, his gaze burned toward the towering pyramids in the distance. The eerie creatures they had encountered along the way only reinforced his conviction that this place contained an extraordinary, supernatural power.
"The City of the Dead from Egypt's ancient history... perhaps it truly holds the power to defy death itself. Can you imagine how powerful we'll become if we find it?"
"Think about it—if our soldiers could never die in battle, the entire world would be ours for the taking!"
The scar-faced commander was lost in his grand vision of the future when, all of a sudden—
"Something's wrong!"
A soldier was the first to notice it.
They had just emerged from the thick jungle and were closing in on the massive pyramids ahead when, without warning, a vast sandstorm erupted from the direction of the largest central pyramid, blotting out the sky.
"Damn it! Everyone, take cover—now!"
The scar-faced commander spotted the oncoming storm and his face paled. He shouted the order with all his strength.
The sandstorm had come too suddenly. Clouds of yellow sand rose like a tidal wave, swallowing the light of the sun and roaring toward them with unstoppable fury. It was like the end of the world descending upon them.
And yet, its direction—its focus—was too deliberate. It was as if something ancient, long asleep within the tomb, had awakened, enraged by HYDRA's intrusion into its domain.
"There's no time! Get inside any pyramid you can find!"
Realizing their running speed was nothing compared to the oncoming storm, the commander immediately changed his orders.
They had no other options.
The jungle might have been thick with vegetation, but it offered no shelter. Hiding there would only delay their deaths. The commander quickly reassessed the situation— their only chance of survival lay in the smaller pyramids scattered nearby.
The City of the Dead held countless pyramids of varying sizes. Along the jungle's outer edge, near the colossal pyramids at the center, stood a cluster of smaller ones rising unevenly from the ground.
Some might belong to nobles deemed worthy to serve the Pharaohs in death, others could be tombs of royal concubines buried alongside their lords. Perhaps even the Pharaohs' most loyal and powerful warriors rested there—still bound in death to guard their masters' eternal slumber.
Based on the limited information HYDRA had gathered, they could only make rough guesses. Even to the ancients, the necropolis of Hamunaptra had been a place of mystery, known more through myth than through history.
...
No matter the era, every ancient record spoke of Hamunaptra as a place of boundless mystery and supernatural power.
Now, for the scar-faced commander and his HYDRA troops, that power was no longer legend—they had witnessed it firsthand. But it was a revelation that might cost them their lives. The small pyramids, whose purposes were long forgotten, had become their only hope of survival.
Every man ran with everything he had, desperate to reach one of the small pyramids before the storm consumed them, fleeing from an unimaginable and terrifying force.
HYDRA might have had countless protocols for dealing with supernatural events, but no rulebook could teach soldiers how to face a calamity like this.
Before such overwhelming power, humanity was nothing—small, fragile, and powerless.
"What the hell is happening?!"
"Oh God!"
"Why is this happening?!"
...
Every soldier reacted instantly, burning through every last ounce of strength as they sprinted toward the nearest pyramid—the fastest they had ever moved in their lives. Each one knew that without cover, the raging storm would tear them apart in an instant.
Even the camels left behind at the encampment outside the jungle had collapsed onto the sand. Their desert instincts told them that lying flat was the only way to survive a sandstorm.
Of course, such instincts had been forged through generations of adaptation, allowing camels to withstand the harsh desert by pressing close to the ground.
However, the storm now sweeping across the necropolis of Hamunaptra was far beyond anything natural. Even the toughest camel would be ripped to pieces within moments.
This was not a storm born of nature.
Fortunately, its fury was not aimed at HYDRA's temporary camp outside the jungle. The tempest sought only to punish those intruders who had dared trespass into the ancient forbidden ground.
Yes—its target was clear, almost deliberate, as though guided by a will of its own...