At the thought of a treasure of merit, a heated gleam rose in Theodore's eyes.
In the primordial world, treasures of destiny and treasures of merit were the two most extraordinary classes of treasure.
The former existed to stabilize destiny. Whoever held one enjoyed fortune like a rainbow—everything going smoothly, every path opening before them. They were unmatched aids for cultivation.
The latter were forged from merit itself and represented the recognition of heavenly order. Their might could only be described as immeasurable.
And if one spoke purely of power in battle, treasures of merit stood even above treasures of destiny.
Theodore already possessed one treasure of destiny—the Purple-Gold Crown of Auspicious Clouds. That treasure was currently his strongest defensive method. Once spiritual radiance descended and auspicious cloud-light fell, no horror could draw near him.
The crown was already that powerful.
If Theodore could refine a treasure of merit on top of it, then his strength would unquestionably leap to another level.
For the moment, however, this was not the time to begin refining such a treasure. Theodore suppressed the urge and turned his gaze toward Dumbledore, whose face was still full of bitterness.
Compared with a few moments ago, Dumbledore had given up the desire to die.
But Ariana's matter had very clearly dealt him a tremendous shock. He looked as though his thoughts could barely remain in one place.
Theodore let out a quiet sigh inwardly.
Just as Dumbledore had told him before, a wizard's power came from will and conviction.
Dark wizards drew strength for their dark magic from the distortion of their souls. The more twisted they became, the stronger that dark magic grew.
As for other wizards, the firmer their will, the better their magic responded.
Which meant that, the higher a wizard climbed, the more important it became for their inner world to be complete and whole. If one wished to push magic further, then flaws of the heart were best avoided.
And yet Dumbledore—greatest wizard of the century—carried within himself a heart-devil he had been unable to cross for nearly a hundred years.
That he could still achieve the magical heights he had, despite such a terrible deficiency, only proved how monstrous his talent truly was.
If he had not carried that flaw—if his heart had been made whole, if his will and conviction had undergone another transformation—then Theodore honestly suspected Dumbledore might have broken through the upper limits of wizardkind and reached the level once held by the Four Founders.
At that thought, a strange light flashed deep in Theodore's eyes.
"That argument back then. Ariana's death. The giant flaw it left in Dumbledore's heart. The way Grindelwald was also deeply affected, and the two of them split from that day onward…"
"Was that really just coincidence?"
If not for what had happened with Ariana this time, Theodore might never have doubted it.
But now, after death, Ariana's soul had clearly drawn the attention of some dreadful horror.
Out of all the countless wandering souls, why had it singled Ariana out?
The more Theodore thought about it, the more it seemed linked to Dumbledore.
And then another thought came.
In the original story, the moment Dumbledore came closest to repairing the flaw in his heart had been when he encountered the Resurrection Stone ring.
If that ring had not been cursed—if it had truly allowed him to call Ariana's soul back—then perhaps, even if only by the slightest margin, Dumbledore might have healed the wound in his spirit and broken through to a higher magical realm.
And yet Voldemort's Horcruxes had not all been made alike.
The diary had not been designed to kill on contact.
The locket of Slytherin, significant as it was, had been surrounded only by elaborate defenses—not direct fatal magic placed upon the locket itself.
And yet the Resurrection Stone ring alone carried a venomous curse of such savagery.
More absurd still, Voldemort had only been sixteen when he turned the ring into a Horcrux.
No matter how prodigious he had been, the dark magic of the sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle could never have compared to the Voldemort of later years.
And yet the curse laid down then had grown so monstrous that Dumbledore and even Snape, one of the greatest potions masters alive, could do no more than suppress it temporarily while admitting they could not alter its fatal outcome.
That was too exaggerated.
Theodore thought it over and over, and the feeling only deepened.
There seemed to be an invisible will behind all this, interfering.
Just as Lady Ravenclaw, in the ancient past, had relied upon the diadem alone, only for a chain of strangely theatrical events to unfold—events that led to the diadem's loss and ensured it never returned to her hands.
Now the same sort of hidden will seemed to be at work again.
A will that did not want Dumbledore—or Grindelwald—to have any chance of rising toward the level of the Founders.
"Return of the ancient ones…"
Theodore turned the phrase over in his mind.
"So the goal is to eliminate every existence that might obstruct them before they fully return?"
And when he thought of how the horrors lurking in the shadows of the magical world had, so far, all seemed constrained by something, and had almost never acted directly face to face—
the suspicion in Theodore's heart became certainty.
If those horrors did not want Dumbledore to have any chance of repairing the flaw in his heart, then naturally the thing Theodore needed to do was the opposite.
Give old, empty-nest Dumbledore a home.
Let the strongest wizard of the century mend the hole in his heart and strike toward the level of the Four Founders.
With that, Theodore turned to Dumbledore and said,
"Headmaster, you're always teaching us about courage. You're a Gryffindor yourself, so tell me—what do you think true courage is?"
Without waiting for an answer, Theodore continued on his own.
"We all make mistakes."
"Sometimes courage means facing danger."
"But sometimes, I think the greatest courage of all is the courage to face the mistakes you yourself once made."
"Headmaster, you lost your sister. And you broke with your brother."
"But have you ever stopped to think that your brother also lost his sister… and also lost the only brother he had?"
"For all these years, perhaps he too has been waiting. Waiting for a chance to reconcile."
"Perhaps you were simply the one who never offered him the step he needed."
"So what exactly have you been thinking all these years? What have you been running from?"
Dumbledore's expression changed again and again.
There was bewilderment in his eyes at first.
Then pain.
"So what have I been thinking…"
"Aberforth… he took so much of the burden from me. He was the one who cared for Ariana most. What fault of his deserved all of this?"
"All these years… what have I been doing? I must have been mad."
A strange look crossed Theodore's face.
Just as he suspected.
Whenever the matter touched upon something that might have allowed Dumbledore to mend the flaw in his heart, there was an invisible influence at work.
In the original story, Dumbledore never truly reconciled with Aberforth, not even up to his death.
Christmas after Christmas—one in Hogwarts, one in Hogsmeade, separated by almost no distance at all—and yet they never once met.
And yet Aberforth, though he still carried resentment, had long since understood and in his own way forgiven Dumbledore when he looked upon the old man's loneliness.
The two brothers had always been only one step away from reconciliation.
And yet that single step had never been taken.
Not until death.
The moment Theodore understood this, fresh text surfaced across the System screen once more.
[You see on the Southern Pole Elder Immortal the signs of tribulation aura wrapping around him, heavenly secrets obscured, and heart-demons growing. Behind it all, there seems to be not merely one Saint, but several, laying out calculations and schemes.]
[When a Saint is angered, corpses may fill an entire realm. To offend even one Saint is to earn a hundred deaths without redemption, much less several.]
[The host is urged to be cautious. If you continue to ruin the Saints' arrangements, then once the great tribulation opens and the Ninth Heaven overturns, if the Saints act, you may well become only ash within the tribulation—your end ten thousand times more miserable than that of Shen Gongbao, whose body filled the eye of the sea.]
Theodore merely laughed lightly, his eyes full of contempt.
If they were truly Saints, then at a single thought from them, he would already be ash.
Since these were not true saintly workings, then what did he have to fear?
Whether it was for the sake of helping Dumbledore heal his regret, or simply to become a greater threat to the horrors in the dark, Theodore had already decided—
he would see this through.
[The host laughs aloud. A great man knows what he will do, and what he will not.]
[The Southern Pole Elder Immortal is my elder, my teacher's senior. If, out of fear for a Saint's designs, I turn a blind eye to my elders, then that is not my path. My heart of the path would not be clear.]
[The Saints may scheme for ten thousand ages. I ask only for this one life. Even if I myself become ash within the tribulation, I will have no regret.]
The next moment, Theodore took a deep breath and pushed upon the Purple-Gold Crown of Auspicious Clouds resting on his head.
Spiritual radiance descended.
Auspicious clouds fell.
Before Dumbledore's startled and uncomprehending eyes, rolling cloud-light washed through his entire body.
Theodore said calmly,
"This is a blessing spell."
"Headmaster—you will get what your heart wishes for."
Dumbledore took a long breath.
Suddenly it felt as though a dark cloud that had hung over him for years had completely dissolved beneath that strange blessing.
There was no longer the slightest hesitation in what he needed to do.
"Then I'll accept your blessing, Theodore."
"And no matter what happens… thank you."
The next moment, with a crack, Dumbledore vanished.
A heartbeat later, he opened his eyes to the sight of Hogsmeade.
Letting out a slow breath, he stepped forward and knocked on the door of the Hog's Head.
"No sweets today. Stop knocking, you little brats—"
Aberforth's impatient voice sounded from inside, and the door opened a crack.
Then his voice abruptly stopped.
He stared blankly at Dumbledore, who for the first time in all these years had come to his door of his own accord.
Dumbledore forced out a slight smile.
"Aberforth."
"Am I not welcome?"
Aberforth's expression became instantly complicated. After a pause, he asked hesitantly,
"You…"
"Are you dying?"
"Did St Mungo's diagnose something terminal? How long have you got left?"
Dumbledore's face froze.
…
At the same time, the moment Theodore had pushed the Purple-Gold Crown of Auspicious Clouds and washed Dumbledore in cloud-light and spiritual radiance, the System screen erupted as though it had exploded.
Countless lines of chaotic script poured across it.
[The host has interfered with Hongjun Daoren's arrangement and has now completely entered into mortal enmity with Hongjun Daoren.]
[The host has interfered with Empress Houtu's arrangement and has now completely entered into mortal enmity with Empress Houtu.]
[The host has interfered with Jieyin Daoren's arrangement and has now completely entered into mortal enmity with Jieyin Daoren.]
[…]
[The host has offended all Saints and has become the enemy of all the primordial sages. The primal world itself has taken note. Heaven and earth reject you!]
[Once the great tribulation opens and the wrath of the Saints pours forth, there will no longer be any place for the host in the nine heavens or ten earths!]
Theodore read the lines, and yet a smile appeared on his face instead.
"That much reaction?"
"So you're really panicking now?"
"If you're panicking, then that means I was right."
When he saw the title of "enemy of all saints," Theodore only shook his head and laughed.
"What a frightening title."
"If you truly were Saints, and I had become the enemy of the whole world, perhaps I would be frightened to death."
"But since you are not Saints, then when the tribulation truly opens, who will become ash, and who will find heaven and earth rejecting them—well, that remains to be seen."
Still, Theodore was not careless.
The horrors hidden in the dark clearly possessed some real means.
At his current level of strength, dealing with their true bodies was still beyond him.
"My strength still needs to rise."
"Refining a treasure of merit is the fastest way I can increase my combat power in the short term."
"As for what sort of treasure I should refine that merit into…"
He considered it for a while.
Then suddenly, a flash of insight lit his mind.
"A treasure of merit is strongest in killing."
"My strongest killing method right now is still that strand of slaughter sword-light—peerlessly sharp, able to cut through anything."
"If I refine the merit into that sword-light and turn it into a true flying sword…"
A fierce brightness rose in Theodore's eyes.
"This sword would have the potential to slaughter a Saint."
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