Chapter 170: The Ancient One: A New Storm Has Already Arrived
What the Ancient One had just said was interesting.
But it also implied something significant: the current chaotic state of the world hadn't been caused by Matthew's arrival.
Instead, the world's timeline had already been falling apart before he ever got here, and Matthew had been "forced" to arrive as a result.
Of course, whether "forced" was the right word was something neither Matthew nor the Ancient One could really say for certain.
As far as Matthew was concerned, the process of arriving in the Marvel universe had just been the most ordinary kind of coincidence imaginable.
"...So, going by what you're saying... am I actually here to fix the timeline?" Matthew asked again.
The Ancient One blinked at the question, then turned to look at him with an oddly pained expression.
"Before I answer that, I have a question of my own for you. Please answer it first."
"Go ahead."
"What I want to know is..."
"...how does someone who keeps disrupting the timeline manage to ask a question like that with a straight face?"
The Ancient One stared at Matthew, utterly speechless.
Her meaning couldn't have been any clearer.
The fact that you haven't gone and made the already-chaotic timeline worse is something I should be lighting incense in gratitude for.
And now you're sitting here thinking you're the one carrying the burden of fixing it?
Before asking a question like that, maybe take a moment to remember what you actually are!
You're a transmigrator. By definition, you're one of the things disrupting the timeline.
While the timeline hadn't become chaotic because of him, his presence here unquestionably made the chaos worse.
It was only because the timeline Matthew was on, chaotic as it was, kept developing in a generally positive direction that she, as Sorcerer Supreme, had never intervened in anything he'd done.
Looking at the Ancient One's faintly exasperated expression, Matthew fell silent too.
Right. He shouldn't have asked that.
He should've known better than to think he'd been handed some grand, world-saving mission.
"Fine, that was a dumb question."
Matthew shrugged, then changed the subject. "So, what's actually causing the world to be in such chaos right now?"
Hearing this, the Ancient One's expression turned serious again.
"At your current power tier, you don't yet have the standing to be told the truth."
"Then forget I asked—" Before Matthew could finish, the Ancient One spoke again. "However!"
"Given that you're an 'other-world traveler,' I'm willing to make an exception." As she spoke, she swept one hand sharply through the empty air.
Whoosh!
The scenery around them shifted instantly.
The mirror-space, which had been an overlapping, warped tangle of countless buildings and streets, dissolved into pure black in a single moment.
Then, as time passed, the lightless black expanse slowly began to fill with points of starlight.
Just as Matthew was looking around trying to figure out where the Ancient One had gone, a bald head suddenly emerged from the darkness right beside him.
Once the entire space had filled completely with countless points of light, the Ancient One spoke again. "What you're seeing, all these countless points of light, those are our parallel worlds."
"Every one of these parallel worlds is constantly being born and destroyed, moment to moment. That's a fate none of them can escape. Including ours."
"And this," she said, spreading both arms wide before slowly bringing them back together, "is the 'box' we exist inside."
As her palms closed together, every point of starlight in the space converged into her hands, drawn entirely into a box that radiated a faint golden glow.
"This box is the collective container holding all the parallel worlds. It keeps other worlds from approaching or intruding."
"And right now—" the Ancient One snapped her fingers lightly.
Snap!
At the crisp sound of her fingers, a number of other boxes, different colors, different shapes, appeared throughout the space.
These boxes, carried along by some invisible vibration, began colliding chaotically with one another.
Then.
Crack!
The boxes, originally separate and distinct, began slamming into one another!
Countless boxes shattered completely under the impact.
As the outer shells of the worlds broke apart, countless points of light, the "worlds" themselves, spilled out from within.
The "worlds" collided again under the force of this disturbance.
Some were shattered into scattered streaks of light, dispersing entirely. Others, like two or more lumps of differently colored dough, managed to survive, fused together in unexpectedly clever ways.
More often than not, a larger world simply swallowed a smaller one whole.
Even though their colors and shapes differed, they ended up wrapped around each other, the way dough wraps around a filling.
"This is the world as it stands now."
"As you can see, any world that failed to merge with another was wiped out completely in this incident. Not even ash was left behind."
"The worlds that survived ended up nested inside one another through pure chance, fused together in ways that just happened to work."
"The world we're standing in right now is exactly that kind of result."
Having finished the demonstration, the Ancient One drew the "diagram" back in.
The chaotic starscape vanished in a flash of white light, and the scene around them returned to the familiar street from before.
"Of course, the changes to the world don't stop there," the Ancient One explained.
"That 'Xavier incident' you asked about earlier was, in fact, caused by that same 'collision.' It created a point of intersection between two parallel worlds."
"At a certain moment, his soul was drawn toward a younger version of his own body in another world, and ended up settling inside it."
"If he's ever going to come back, it'll probably have to wait until the point of intersection between those two parallel worlds disappears on its own. Once that happens, his soul should naturally return to its original body."
Listening to the Ancient One's explanation, Matthew thought for a moment before asking, "Even someone like you, Sorcerer Supreme, has no other way to fix it?"
"No." The Ancient One shook her head.
"The world right now is an absolute mess. Just within the Dark Dimension alone, there are currently two Dormammus."
"If those two Dormammus weren't busy fighting each other instead of presenting a united front... well, let's just say I'd be having trouble even meeting with you, let alone sparing the attention to deal with him."
"And besides..." The Ancient One asked a question that cut straight to the soul. "Do you actually know whether Xavier even wants to come back?"
"After all, the version of him in that world is young, and his body is whole and healthy."
"If I forced him back here against his will, he might end up resenting me for it."
"Don't you think?" With that, she gave Matthew's shoulder a meaningful pat.
"Matthew Lawrence, what you need to deal with right now isn't how to wake Xavier up. It's something much bigger."
"Something bigger?"
"That's right." The Ancient One nodded.
"The current timeline has long since become more than just a tangled mess, but even within all that, I've still been able to pick out a few warning signs from the future."
"A future where I no longer exist."
"And given who you are, and how you've conducted yourself, I see no issue with sharing these warnings, glimpsed from that future, with you."
Her slender fingers, free of any calluses, pressed against Matthew's forehead.
The next instant!
Buzz—
A flood of fragmented, chaotic memories surged into Matthew's mind.
Within those fractured memories, he saw a number of things that should never have been possible in this world.
A quantum zombie virus invading this world from another dimension.
In another world, Thanos, having successfully wiped out half of all life, suddenly leading his army down upon Earth.
And...
The arrival of an Ultron wielding all six Infinity Stones!
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