Luke walked into the house, and the Ancient One followed him inside.
"Breaking into a stranger's house so casually isn't something a sorcerer should do. Even a sorcerer ought to understand basic courtesy."
Luke glanced at the Ancient One.
She nodded and said seriously, "You're right. According to this country's laws, I've violated the Castle Doctrine. By the rules, you're fully entitled to attack me now in defense of your rights."
"You really want me to fight you?"
Luke was speechless. In this day and age, someone was actually seeking death of their own accord?
"Can you tell me why?"
The Ancient One fell silent. After a long pause, she spoke with a complicated expression. "Our world… has no future."
"Hm?"
Luke was surprised. But recalling what he had experienced when his memories first awakened, as well as the abnormal behavior of the residents of Crystal Lake Town, he slowly nodded.
In such a cursed, chaotic universe, wasn't it only natural that there was no future?
But the real question remained...
If the Ancient One wasn't afraid of death, then what was she afraid of?
"That's still not a reason for you to choose escape," Luke said calmly. "Even in the worst possible situation, shouldn't you face it head-on?"
The Ancient One shook her head and smiled bitterly. "You're right, but the situation may be far more serious than you imagine."
She waved her hand, sketching a bizarre map in the air, densely dotted with red crosses.
"What are these?" Luke could only vaguely make out the outline of a world map.
But those strange symbols were unsettling.
"This is a distribution map of evil spirits. For certain special reasons, countless evil spirits are active across this land."
Looking at the map—so crowded with crosses that there was barely any empty space—even Luke, despite being mentally prepared, couldn't help but sigh.
"It's truly a miracle that this world has survived until now."
The Ancient One nodded in agreement. "In fact, this world should have been destroyed many years ago. Back then, many powerful sorcerers and walking gods appeared, working together to restrain the rampant evil spirits and magical beasts."
"At that time, humans and gods devised many solutions. For example, Zeus, the king of the gods, made an agreement with the ancient Titan gods of the deep abyss, using their divine power to create cages to imprison those evil spirits and magical beasts. In return, humans were required to offer sacrifices every year and appease the ancient gods. Otherwise, once those slumbering gods awakened, countless evil spirits would break free."
Luke couldn't shake the feeling that this setup was eerily familiar.
Damn it—this couldn't be The Cabin in the Woods, could it?
Using Titan gods to bind evil spirits… huh, I suppose that counts as recycling waste, right?
"There was also a powerful mage named Merlin. He was the Sorcerer Supreme of that era, who actively promoted reforms in magic, trained generation after generation of outstanding sorcerers, and worked together with extraterrestrial visitors to protect Earth's peace, sealing countless evil spirits."
"But after Merlin's death, the sorcerers were corrupted by darkness, and the world nearly faced destruction once again."
The Sorcerer's Apprentice plus Transformers?
This time, Luke wasn't surprised at all—the key protagonists of those two stories had been his classmates, after all.
"After that, Kamar-Taj—led by the great mage Agamotto and transcendent beings like the Vishanti—finally secured a foothold in a world that was rapidly falling apart and fought against darkness for thousands of years."
"But today, the peace of this world is about to be shattered once more."
"I have foreseen the coming storm: the evil spirits sealed for millennia, the ancient gods slumbering deep within Earth's core, ambitious forces from beyond the planet, and countless Demon Gods, as numerous as the stars, all growing impatient as they prepare to carve this world apart."
"But more importantly, the Guardians who maintain the stability of this world… have encountered some trouble."
Luke clearly sensed a peculiar emotion in the Ancient One's voice when she spoke of the world's Guardians.
"Such as?"
"The great Galactus, the embodiment of universal balance and a being of supreme divine power—he is dead."
"His headless corpse was discovered at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy."
"His head is missing."
"This means the balance of our world has been completely shattered, and darkness is imminent. Galactus's death is only the beginning."
Hearing this, Luke couldn't help but draw in a sharp breath.
Seriously—Galactus again? Why is he dead this time?
As everyone knew, Galactus's death usually signified the imminent eruption of a catastrophic event.
Galactus represented balance. When the equilibrium between light and darkness was destroyed, Galactus had to die.
This was an iron rule of the Marvel universe.
"Who killed Galactus?"
Luke couldn't help but ask.
The Ancient One shook her head, hesitated for a moment, and then gave an answer that left Luke even more at a loss for words.
"I suspect that either Annihilation, Eternity, or the God of Fear murdered Galactus."
Good heavens—the abstract entities were starting to kill their own kind.
If she had said Death, that might have sounded believable.
But Annihilation? Eternity?
Fine—Annihilation was possible. But Eternity… surely not.
Although Eternity was largely hands-off, he wouldn't deliberately stir up chaos.
If anything, his offspring were far more likely suspects.
Yet the Son of Eternity and the Hunger Galactus were, at least in theory, evenly matched.
Moreover, Luke remembered that after the Ancient One's death, she had followed Eternity.
As for the God of Fear...
Luke didn't have much impression at all. Marvel didn't seem to have a particularly powerful God of Fear, did it?
The Serpent, the source of fear, certainly wasn't qualified.
And even the Seven Fear Lords were merely Demon Gods of the Temple of the Fear Dimension within the universe.
The Ancient One truly seemed to be going mad.
She herself clearly knew how outrageous her words sounded, so she proceeded to layer the house with multiple magic arrays.
The outermost layer was the renowned Seal of the Vishanti, divine magic taught personally by the Vishanti, specifically designed to resist the encroachment of dark forces.
It was also a crucial component of Kamar-Taj's defensive barrier.
Luke felt his scalp prickle. He realized that what the Ancient One was about to say next would likely involve some truly outrageous theories.
After completing the arrays, the Ancient One gripped the Time Stone and whispered, "I suspect that Eternity and Annihilation have both been corrupted by darkness—or perhaps they are the very source of it."
"I once gazed directly into the Eye of Eternity, and within Its gaze, what I saw was no longer Eternity, but… a dazzling light."
"That single glimpse—I will never forget it."
"In that instant, countless things seemed to pour into my mind. Knowledge—the kind of unknown knowledge that drives people mad."
The Ancient One raised her left hand, exposing her arm. Something appeared to writhe beneath the skin; the blue veins looked as if they had come alive, pulsing with vitality.
"Since leaving the Realm of Eternity, I've noticed that the rate at which darkness corrupts my body has accelerated."
"Originally, I could use certain methods to isolate the influence of the dark domain and suppress the mutation of my body."
"But now… I can already feel it. A special type of infinitely proliferating cell within my body has awakened."
"And…"
The Ancient One lifted her head, her gaze fixed on Luke's contemplative eyes.
"Time itself has changed. It has become unpredictable."
"Countless temporal branches writhe like tentacles, intertwining and growing ever more complex."
"And within those innumerable temporal fissures, I saw the only hope—a great deity who could annihilate countless evil demons with a mere flick of his hand."
"Just a single glance was enough to forcibly pull me out of the river of time and return me to reality."
Under the intensity of the Ancient One's gaze, Luke already knew what she was about to say.
However...
Luke still shook his head.
He wasn't foolish. With this world being so dangerous, he had no intention of shouldering such an immense responsibility.
What did it matter to him if the world was destroyed?
If he couldn't win, he would simply run.
Why bind himself to a single tree?
Should he really tie himself to Kamar-Taj just for the sake of the Time Stone?
There was no need.
His skill library already contained far too many powerhouses who had mastered the laws of time.
Moreover, in this cursed universe, if time were still truly useful, then why had Eternity—the embodiment of time itself—fallen into such profound corruption?
Perhaps the Time Stone had already become nothing more than useless scrap.
Or worse—a massive trap.
_______
Note:
The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
In the movie, there is a secret global organization working with ancient gods ("The Ancients") who live beneath the Earth.
These gods demand annual sacrifices in a very specific ritual format.
If humanity fails to provide the sacrifices, the ancient gods awaken and destroy the world.