Ever since the Time-Space Traveler incident a few days ago, his world had been plunged into chaos after his son, Alternate Adrien, along with several other classmates, mysteriously disappeared.
But later, to his surprise, he found that his perception could penetrate the barriers of time and space, sensing negative emotions from another world.
He was overjoyed, thinking he had found a new way to find his son.
He released Akumatized Butterflies, traveling through time and space to Akumatization people in that world, ordering them to find Alternate Adrien.
However, his first attempt was thwarted by Cat Noir and Ladybug.
He hadn't found his son, nor had he obtained the miraculous; it was a complete loss.
It wasn't until that evening that Kim, one of the missing students, suddenly returned.
Through Kim's shared information, he finally understood the whole story.
Fortunately, Alternate Adrien seemed to be doing well over there.
Unfortunately, their world's Ladybug and Cat Noir had also gone to the other world, so he could only focus his attention there.
In these past few days, he had relentlessly continued to send Akumatized Butterflies to the other world, hoping to seize that world's miraculous, but all attempts ended in failure.
Moreover, he discovered that no matter how hard he tried to communicate mentally with his counterpart in that world, the response was always a dead silence, as if the other party didn't exist at all, or was deliberately ignoring him.
He returned to the lounge, wearily complaining about all this to his loyal assistant, Nathalie.
"I really don't understand, Nathalie,"
He leaned back in his chair, his voice filled with confusion and frustration, "What is the other me thinking? We both have someone we deeply love, we both should be fighting to wake Emilie!"
Why doesn't he respond to me?
Why won't he cooperate with me? Has he given up? This is simply a betrayal!
A betrayal to me, to Emilie!"
He became more agitated as he spoke, accusing his other self of inaction.
"Hawk Moth, please calm down."
Nathalie handed him a glass of water and asked, "Think carefully, when you and your counterpart in that world first made mental contact, was there any... information you might have missed?"
"Missed information?"
Hawk Moth frowned, beginning to recall carefully.
He remembered the first, and only, brief mental link established with his "self" in that world through an Akuma Butterfly.
"I remember..."
He murmured, "He seemed to say... about the 'truth of the wish'..."
"Truth of the wish?" Nathalie was puzzled.
"Yes, and a few other stranger words... 'gai shen me'... 'mu shen me'... I don't understand what they mean."
Hawk Moth told these words to Nathalie, who also looked bewildered.
"Regarding the 'wish', perhaps we can ask Nooroo," Nathalie suggested.
Hawk Moth summoned his butterfly Kwami.
When asked about "the truth of granting a wish," Nooroo, in her tiny voice, revealed a secret that sent shivers down both their spines.
"Every time... when the Ladybug and Cat Noir miraculous combine and a wish is made, this world, and everything in it, is completely destroyed.
Then, a new world, where the wish of the wisher has already been fulfilled, is recreated."
After listening to Nooroo's explanation, Hawk Moth and Nathalie fell silent.
Destroy the world, then reshape it?
In their understanding, although this price was enormous, it was not unacceptable.
As long as Emilie could return, what did it matter if the whole world was destroyed?
In the new world, she would open her eyes again, and their family of three could live happily together.
That was enough.
However, they didn't know, nor had they ever considered a deeper question—would the Hawk Moth in that "new world" still be the current "him"?
The truly cruel meaning behind the phrase "destroy and reshape the world."
It was not a simple copy and paste.
When the world is destroyed, everything—mountains, rivers, buildings, memories—will turn into nothingness.
Then, a brand new world will be created.
But in this new world, all people, though having the same appearance, the same names, the same memories, their souls would no longer be the original ones.
They would continue their previous lives, but the original "him" would have disappeared forever with the destruction of the old world.
It's equivalent to killing everyone in the world, including yourself, just to save one person.
Moreover, Nooroo's explanation was actually incomplete; she missed a crucial detail: what is reshaped is not just the matter and laws of the entire universe, but also every soul within it, which will be replaced by a new, similar but fundamentally different soul.
This means that the current Hawk Moth, after all his painstaking efforts, would only achieve a result where someone else in another world, a person who looks exactly like him, gets everything he desperately desires.
As for himself, along with all his memories, emotions, and obsessions, they would be completely annihilated with the destruction of the old world, leaving no trace.
Gabriel Agreste had already learned this cruel truth from the true form of the Destruction Kwami.
It was precisely for this reason that he abandoned this path of "mutual destruction" and placed all his hopes on the one who possessed the true "Rewrite qualification"—Jaden.
Jaden's ability to "modify" and "overwrite" the existing reality from its root was his only hope to personally witness Emilie's awakening as "himself."
But of all this, Hawk Moth, in another time and space, knew nothing.
He remained trapped in his tragic fantasy of "destroying everything for love," unable to comprehend the hope hidden behind his other self's seemingly "betraying" actions.