The future Sagres's lips curled into a humourless smile as he continued in a teasing tone.
"Eventually, it developed sentience and concluded that the entire wizarding civilisation of the time was a cancer threatening world peace. So it began to 'reweave' reality."
"It randomly altered the laws of physics, reversing gravity in some places. It merged time and space, causing medieval castles to suddenly appear in the middle of London. Entire regions were transformed into pure elements, becoming things like eternally burning seas of fire or flowing forests of deadly crystal..."
He even added with a touch of dark humour, "Hogwarts Castle itself eventually 'stood up' and ran away, becoming a wandering giant castle. But even that couldn't escape being rewoven in the end."
"Ultimately, reality itself was completely reshaped. The world became a bizarre and deadly spectacle incomprehensible to existing life, and every familiar form of order disappeared."
"It was almost like a reckoning from the Creator. No one could resist it."
The standing Sagres took a deep breath.
"Then what was the Law of Silence?"
"That was the result of pushing the Mechanical Mind to its absolute extreme."
For the first time, the seated Sagres's voice carried something close to awe.
"The domain of Silence devoured the world. Within that domain, all magic was silenced. No spell could function."
"But it wasn't physical destruction. It was an effect imposed directly at the level of the world's laws."
His voice grew deeper.
"Wherever it spread, colours faded, sound disappeared, emotions became unnaturally indifferent, and eventually everything returned to absolute order."
"It didn't directly kill living beings. Instead, it stripped the world of miracles, chaos, and emotion, turning everything into an absolutely rational, absolutely silent, magicless, soulless... blank canvas."
He concluded calmly, "It was the ultimate horror of a world stripped of creativity, imagination, and emotion, where every living thing became nothing more than a purely functional existence."
After listing all these disasters, the future Sagres leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes wearily.
A moment later, he opened them again and looked at his deeply frowning past self.
"Now do you understand why I'm tired?"
"I've travelled from one apocalypse to another, all of them caused by your own hands, constantly repairing, saving, patching things together again and again."
"Sometimes I think that perhaps ending everything at the very beginning would have been the true mercy."
The standing Sagres silently digested everything he had heard.
He could hardly imagine that his future self would personally ignite one world-ending catastrophe after another.
Then he suddenly remembered another matter that had been weighing on his mind.
"That goblin leader who's been manipulating things from the shadows, and may even be responsible for this entire time-travel incident... do you know who he really is?"
At the question, the tired expression on the seated Sagres's face immediately changed into something strange.
He remained silent for a few seconds before giving a vague smile.
"You know him."
"When the time comes, you'll naturally understand."
Another deliberately ambiguous answer.
The standing Sagres could not help shaking his head.
"It's difficult to imagine my future self becoming this cryptic. Haven't we always hated people who only say half of what they mean?"
He looked at the other version of himself with a trace of helplessness.
"Why can't you just tell me the answer directly?"
The smugness on the future Sagres's face became even more obvious.
He seemed to thoroughly enjoy the advantage that came with knowing more than his past self.
"Why?"
He spread his hands theatrically.
"Because this question bothered me for a very long time as well, and I spent a great deal of effort finding the answer. Why should I simply hand over a truth I worked so hard to uncover?"
He deliberately drew out his next words.
"Go find the answer yourself. The process... is part of growing up too."
The standing Sagres stared at the mischievous expression on the other's face, clearly enjoying the opportunity to tease him, and fell speechless for a moment.
He felt strangely powerless.
He did not like this cynical version of himself.
He sincerely hoped he would never become like this in the future.
"However," the future Sagres continued, seemingly in a better mood, "for our own sake, I can tell you a few other things."
"For example, in my timeline, although we managed to make a terrible mess of the world, like an old rag covered in patches, it has at least survived. There are no major problems at present."
"Of course, during that process, you did quite a few things that were... well, not exactly glorious."
"To be honest, some of your methods were even more ruthless and greedy than the most avaricious billionaires in the Muggle world."
"For example?" the standing Sagres asked, raising an eyebrow.
"For example, you mass-produced house-elves, bound them with more precise magical contracts, and turned them into a kind of public magical infrastructure spread across the entire world."
"Wait." The standing Sagres frowned and interrupted him. "What exactly do you mean by public magical infrastructure?"
"You can think of them like the roads beneath your feet or streetlights. In short, they're everywhere." The future Sagres gestured casually. "They serve the entire system, possess no sense of self, and exist purely as functional components."
He even pulled a twisted expression.
"Honestly, I never realised you could be so efficiently ruthless deep down. You're practically a full-blown racist. Tsk."
"I need to correct you," the standing Sagres interrupted, his tone calm but firm. "Everything you just described, the Flesh Catastrophe, the Root Reversal, and this house-elf production line, those are your actions. They were carried out and experienced by you in the future."
"As for me, the version standing here right now, my hands are still clean. Don't be so quick to dump the guilt of the future onto my present self."
The future Sagres was momentarily stumped by the precise distinction, then laughed with an expression that seemed to say, You're still too naive.
"All right. You're right."
"But don't become timid or throw the baby out with the bathwater just because of these futures I've shown you. The path that needs to be walked still has to be walked."
He paused.
"And most importantly, stay alive. After all, if you accidentally die now, the future me may end up in quite a lot of trouble."
He suddenly seemed to remember something and added, "If you ever run into a problem you genuinely can't solve, you can try Ghost Possession."
"Ghost Possession?" the standing Sagres repeated in confusion.
"That's right." A hint of cunning and smugness entered the future Sagres's voice. "Although I can no longer travel directly back through time to reach you, I can project a portion of my consciousness into your body and temporarily take control, or assist you."
"I gave the magic an easy-to-understand name: Ghost Possession."
"Of course, the cost isn't small, and... well, the sensation is a little strange. It's like controlling an extremely realistic puppet, except the puppet is yourself."
"All right, enough small talk. It's time for me to go back."
He stood up and casually brushed away some nonexistent dust.
"Remember, unless it's absolutely necessary, try not to disturb time and space. Don't create such a terrible mess that I have to consider coming back to clean it up."
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