Dumbledore fell silent for a moment and said, "This really gives me another line of thought."
"From what has been revealed so far, it is indeed possible that they are developing Death Eater forces in other countries at the same time."
"No! It's even possible that they have simply placed their main target of conquest in other countries."
"And the main soul of Voldemort in Britain is only a target used to attract attention!"
Dumbledore frowned and continued with some distress,"But if that's the case, then we are in a rather passive position."
"Even though the Order of the Phoenix fought Death Eaters all across Europe not long ago, we never thought in the direction you mentioned, so we never carried out any investigations. Right now, we don't even know which country they are in."
Link looked at Dumbledore expressionlessly and said, "Maybe it's in France."
Hearing this, Dumbledore froze for a moment and said, "How did you know that?"
"That place has been a bit off lately. To be precise, it already started getting chaotic after Nicolas Flamel died."
"The most obvious sign is that Beauxbatons Academy of Magic has been buying up other magic schools all over the world."
After Link finished explaining, a very obvious trace of surprise flashed across Dumbledore's face as he said, "Oh, Link! I know this is a question I shouldn't ask, just like earlier you didn't ask how I knew about that hidden Horcrux."
"After all, we all have our own information channels, and such channels need to be protected."
"But the breadth and depth of your information sources truly surprise me."
"So... please allow me to ask bluntly, how exactly did you learn all these things?"
Link glanced at Dumbledore expressionlessly and threw out the excuse he had prepared long ago, "You know that I absorbed the Beckman family."
"And the Beckman family is a multinational business group engaged in comprehensive production."
"Generally speaking, during wartime, merchants are often the first to notice something unusual."
Dumbledore sighed.
Naturally, he did not believe Link's explanation.
Merchants did indeed possess extremely strong intelligence-gathering abilities at certain times, just as Link said.
But that was a long time ago.
Nowadays, with the increasing professionalism of various Ministries of Magic, it was almost impossible for merchants to obtain intelligence like that.
But even knowing that Link was lying, what could Dumbledore do?
From a somewhat impolite point of view, the fact that Link was willing to brush him off with an excuse was already showing him respect.
After all, their relationship was no longer that of teacher and student, nor fake partners in cooperation, but true allies.
Purely in terms of status, they were actually equals.
Nodding, Dumbledore said, "In that case, I think it may be necessary for us to send people to France to investigate."
"And if all this is true, then we must issue a warning to the French Ministry of Magic. In the name of your British Ministry of Magic."
Hearing this, the corners of Link's mouth lifted slightly as he said, "You don't really think the French Ministry of Magic is reliable, do you?"
"Those people are famous throughout Europe for being useless. If I remember correctly, during the Goblin Rebellion in the 18th century, France was the only Ministry of Magic that was occupied by goblins, right?"
"They surrendered so quickly that even the International Confederation of Wizards didn't react in time."
The muscles on Dumbledore's face twitched a few times.
England and France had been enemies for a thousand years.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that mocking France was a national pastime among native Britons.
To mock France, they even invented many special terms and jokes.
For example, X disease was called the French disease, syphilis was called French marbles, condoms were called French letters...
Wizards and Muggles actually influenced each other.
After all, the Statute of Secrecy had not been strictly enforced for very long, and even to this day many people did not take it seriously.
So this Muggle culture of mocking France naturally spread among wizards as well.
But this actually couldn't be blamed on British wizards.
Because the French Ministry of Magic really was just as strange as the French Muggle government.
No, to be precise, the French Ministry of Magic was even stranger than the French Muggle government.
After all, at least in the 18th century the French Muggle government had not completely fallen apart. It was only in the 20th century that they followed the example of the Ministry of Magic and became a laughingstock of the world.
In such an environment, Dumbledore himself did not think very highly of the French Ministry of Magic.
After Link said all this, he was even more at a loss for words.
But in the end he still shook his head and said, "Even if they are useless, the proper procedures still need to be followed."
"Once the procedures are completed, the moral high ground will be on our side."
"At that point, if we take some extreme measures, they won't be called extreme measures, but necessary actions taken to maintain regional peace."
As soon as these words came out, Link almost couldn't hold back.
What Dumbledore had just said, along with the way he spoke, looked exactly like a certain superpower from Link's memories in his previous life.
Equally shameless and despicable.
But when this kind of shamelessness worked in Link's favor, he liked it very much.
"Alright, then we'll do it this way. We'll first conduct a preliminary investigation on France, then issue a warning letter, and finally implement tough measures to intervene."
Link snapped his fingers and said, "Now then, since this matter has been decided, let's move on to the next topic."
Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. He had not expected Link to have another topic. In his view, everything concerning the shadow figures and the actions that needed to be taken had already been discussed.
The next moment, however, Dumbledore saw Link's expression suddenly turn serious as he said word by word, "Why did the arm cut off from that shadow figure turn into blood mist and merge into my body?"
"Also, more than ten years ago, what exactly did that father of mine do to modify me? If I'm not mistaken, these two things should actually count as the same question, right?"
Dumbledore fell silent.
He quietly stared at Link, and only after a long time did he sigh and say, "Link, actually you don't need to..."
"Stop brushing me off!" Link suddenly interrupted. "I think it's time for me to know the truth!"
Link's words caused Dumbledore's sigh to stop halfway.
He took several deep breaths before steadying himself and speaking again, "Alright. If you really want to know, then perhaps I can reveal some of it to you."
Dumbledore's expression became deep and solemn.
"You should still remember what I told you at the very beginning, right? Your father was a great man."
"He was not a Death Eater, but a hero who tried to overthrow Voldemort, just like Regulus."
"But at the same time, he was also a madman!"
"On that night more than ten years ago, he carried out a bloodline modification ritual on you."
"That ritual turned you into a complete monster."
"I'm sorry for using such an impolite word. But the truth is exactly that."
"Because that night, you used extremely cruel methods to kill almost everyone present... no, everyone in that area."
"Only after we arrived were you finally subdued."
Link's expression turned ugly.
Although he had already learned most of this from Sirius, when Dumbledore spoke just now, Mike, who was imprisoned within the depths of his mind, began to stir up trouble again.
If it were not for the Mind Occlumency skill having been upgraded to LV7, which strengthened the walls of Link's mind, Link might have transformed on the spot.
Dumbledore seemed to notice Link's difficulty and deliberately paused for quite a while. Only after Link recovered did he continue, "Your father carried out the bloodline modification ritual on you in order to create the strongest wizard capable of opposing Voldemort."
"Back then we all tried to persuade him not to do it, because such behavior was both absurd and unethical."
"But he insisted on doing it."
"To achieve the best results, he not only used the Flamel family's connections to obtain blood from members of various pure-blood wizarding families, but also used his dual identity as a member of the Order of the Phoenix and a Death Eater to obtain blood from both me and Voldemort."
"He fused all of these into your body through the ritual."
"That seems," Link said with a frown, "not very reasonable, does it?"
"No, it was actually very reasonable, at least in your father's view. Because almost all of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families are actually descendants of the Peverell family."
"They share the same origin, so naturally they could possibly be fused again. And in theory, such fusion would give the subject of the ritual astonishing talent."
"For example, your Parseltongue ability, and your affinity with phoenixes."
Listening to Dumbledore's explanation, Link nodded.
He had to admit that some of what Dumbledore said was indeed correct.
Especially the first half about the Sacred Twenty-Eight being descendants of the Peverell family.
This situation existed not only in the wizarding world, but even more commonly in the Muggle world.
The saying that wealth does not last more than three generations is not just talk.
Reproductive rights are essentially a very luxurious resource.
Because the instinct of living beings is to occupy more reproductive resources and spread their own DNA as widely as possible.
So real peasants often cannot even find wives or have children.
Great nobles, on the other hand, keep many wives and concubines.
It is almost normal for a great noble to have more than a dozen children, and in some cases even dozens or hundreds are possible.
From this perspective, everyone alive today could be said to have noble ancestors.
It's just that they may have declined by now.
But regarding Dumbledore's later claim about bloodline fusion, Link did not agree so much.
He frowned and refuted, "Even if the Sacred Twenty-Eight share the same origin, after so many generations their bloodlines have long become mixed and complicated."
"Even with the most advanced bloodline fusion rituals, rejection reactions would still occur!"
"Rejection? Is that how you describe bloodline backlash? Hmm, I must say, that's quite fitting. Yes, bloodline back... rejection reactions do exist."
"If your father had only done that much, then there would have been only two possible outcomes."
Dumbledore slowly raised his fingers.
"The first possibility would be exactly what you said. A rejection reaction would occur, and you would die directly on the ritual platform. This was the most likely outcome."
"And the second possibility would be that, with an extremely small probability, you successfully fused all the bloodlines!"
"So you mean my father used some method that led to the second possibility happening?"
"No, no, you still haven't understood what I said earlier. You are not in the second state of perfect fusion at all, because you do have rejection reactions."
"Otherwise you wouldn't need Occlumency and potions to maintain your sanity."
"And with the intensity of that bloodline fusion ritual, even the slightest rejection reaction should have killed you immediately. No potion could have saved you."
Dumbledore said with an unpleasant expression, "Right now, you are actually in a third state that could be called bizarre."
"That is, although rejection reactions exist, the individual form remains intact and life signs are maintained."
"The reason for this is that your father fused another extremely special bloodline into your body, or rather, a kind of power."
"The strength of this bloodline or power far surpasses that of the Peverell bloodline. Although it has side effects, its adaptability is extremely strong and it can merge into almost anyone's body."
"Its injection directly suppressed all the other bloodlines fused into your body, forcing them to merge together without rejection reactions."
"But at the same time, its own side effects also manifested in you."
"As for why the severed arm of the shadow figure was absorbed by you, that question becomes easy to explain once you understand all this."
"That bloodline or power must also exist in his body. The bloodline or power inside you absorbed the same-origin power from his severed arm!"
"He really is..." Link muttered to himself.
Originally, Link had thought that Dumbledore calling his original self's father a madman was already very fitting.
But only now did Link suddenly realize that the word madman was nowhere near enough to describe his father's madness.
To describe it accurately, one would have to add more than a dozen adjectives like "super" or "extreme" before madman, or else create an entirely new word with a stronger meaning.
A bloodline ritual of that scale was no longer something a human could carry out.
Most importantly, the target of the bloodline modification was his own biological son.
No matter how noble his ideals might have been, in Link's eyes such a person was worse than a beast.
Taking a deep breath, Link clenched his fists and asked the question he most wanted answered, "What exactly is that bloodline or power strong enough to suppress the Peverell bloodline?"
Hearing this, Dumbledore suddenly relaxed his body and said, "I think I've already told you enough."
"Tell me now!" Seeing Dumbledore like this, Link wanted nothing more than to fire a steam blast straight into his face. "This is very important to me!"
Facing the furious Link, Dumbledore showed no fear at all.
"Anything else can be discussed, but this one thing, I cannot tell you."
As soon as these words were spoken, the furious Link instead calmed down.
He loosened his clenched fists and, copying Dumbledore's posture, relaxed and leaned back on the sofa as he asked, "Why?"
"Because of your choice."
"My choice?"
"That's right. You have already chosen the new future line given by Trelawney, and I also think it's quite good."
"If I told you everything about that bloodline or power, then that future line would be ruined."
Hearing this, Link closed his eyes. While rubbing his brow, he recalled Trelawney's prophecy about him.
Only after a long while did he speak in a slightly hoarse voice, "So... the name of that bloodline or power is the blood of the Demon King?"
Dumbledore smiled mysteriously and said, "We do indeed call it the Blood of the King, but it is not the blood of a Demon King."
"To be more precise, whether it becomes the blood of a Demon King depends entirely on you."