Doctor Strange really wanted to refute Peter's explanation, but whether he considered it logically or calculated it magically, what Peter said was indeed not wrong. There might be tiny deviations, but overall, it was close enough.
As Sorcerer Supreme, although he had learned about the existence of the multiverse, his understanding was limited. He had only ever looked at things from his own perspective and had never considered these problems from the level of the multiverse as a whole.
Moreover, his knowledge of the multiverse was extremely shallow.
He had only learned from a black magic book known as the Darkhold that there was a forbidden spell capable of projecting one's consciousness into another version of oneself in the multiverse. But that magic would damage the other world, so he had not studied it deeply.
Things he did not fully understand had to be treated with caution. Solving problems through the safest method was what he should do.
That was why his first thought had been to use magic to send everyone back to their own universes, then use a reversal spell to repair this world.
In order to protect the safety of the living beings in his own universe, what did it have to do with him whether people from other universes lived or died after returning?
His mission and purpose, from beginning to end, had only been to ensure the independent safety of this universe.
But what if he followed Peter's theory?
The multiverse was a single whole.
Their appearance here was not a coincidence.
Even if they had not appeared in this world today for this reason, they might have appeared here tomorrow for another reason.
After all, in his understanding, he had at least heard of the Time Variance Authority. If existence itself was reasonable, then that meant this was the result of the multiverse as a whole functioning normally. It could also be called the push of fate.
Fate was an especially mysterious word. It pushed the experiences of every person in every world at every moment. As long as the safety of the multiverse was not threatened, fate would turn a blind eye to those who defied their original destiny.
Just like Peter. He had not become the Lizard. That meant the will of the universe and fate had tacitly permitted it. Because of that, Peter's timeline had branched out. And since it had branched out, how could it not count as part of the multiverse?
Doctor Strange had to admit that Peter's theory had indeed convinced him. However, he still stared straight at Peter. Apart from a trace of confusion, there was also a trace of burning curiosity in his eyes.
"Let's set that aside for now. I'm a little curious about the dark magic on you. This dark magic is different from the black magic of our universe. How did you obtain it?"
Peter truly could not answer that question. But this dark magic power was indeed very strong. Even though he had obtained perfect mastery over black magic, with the current state of his body, he still could not fully use it.
It was like a power bank that had been fully charged, but of its three ports, only one could transmit electricity. It made him feel powerless.
Moreover, his dark magic seemed more like a combination of technology and magic. Judging from the knowledge he had obtained, he could now freely travel between universes.
However, he needed an object as a medium, just like Doctor Strange needed the containment relic for the reversal spell. For example, he could refine rare ore into a space-time traversal sphere, engrave patterns onto it, then activate it with black magic. Using that space-time traversal sphere to break the rules of the medium between universe and space-time would achieve the effect of crossing the multiverse or parallel universes.
However, the drawback of this black magic was also significant. If a space-time black hole formed during the process, it would be very easy to get sucked in and be trapped forever in the cracks between worlds.
That kind of state would allow one's consciousness to be projected everywhere, letting them observe the actions of all living beings in the universe, but they would be unable to do anything. They could only quietly watch others, while no one else could sense their existence.
If someone really became like that, anyone would go insane.
There was not only that in the book. There was also another kind of black magic capable of absorbing abilities from others, including superpowers, magic, and even the power of rules. Of course, one first needed a matching level of ability to control the power of rules.
"It's not that I obtained it. It chose me. But I still can't fully control this power."
Peter shook his head and spoke.
"Magic? What you used just now was black sorcery?"
Doctor Octopus Otto asked in surprise.
He had not expected Peter to also know this kind of wizard-like spellcraft.
Otto Parker, who was beside him, was also shocked. Then he felt very glad that he had chosen the correct path. Otherwise, he would definitely have been tortured badly by Peter. He might even have been killed.
"But black magic has the ability to corrupt people's minds. You'd better use it as little as possible. Otherwise, it will be easy for you to lose yourself."
Doctor Strange's eyes dimmed slightly as he spoke.
"You sound like you have a story."
Peter looked at him curiously.
After all, when he had read comics in his previous life, there had indeed been one or two versions of Doctor Strange who had obtained black magic and then fallen into darkness, becoming dark sorcerers who lost themselves. Of course, there were also versions who used black magic reasonably to save the world. It was the multiverse. Who could say for sure?
"In our magical world, there are two divine books. One is the Book of the Vishanti, which represents righteous white magic. The other is the Darkhold, which represents black magic."
"If we only talk about controlling spells, then these two divine books have always been treasures that every sorcerer in the magical world dreams of obtaining. Coincidentally, I accidentally obtained one of them."
As Doctor Strange spoke, a magical halo surged around his hand. Then a terrifying black book bound in beast hide appeared in his palm. It contained horrifying dark energy, and Peter could clearly feel it.
"This is the Darkhold?"
"That's right. But it's only a copied version. The true Darkhold is not a book, but something recorded inside a cave protected by dark magic."
"You should know about things like vampires, right? Their appearance was caused by monsters created by black sorcerers who mastered the Darkhold."
"Legend says that before Atlantis sank into the sea, the Atlantean archmage Varnae possessed the Darkhold. After studying the Darkhold, Varnae directly used it to transform himself into the first vampire."
Peter took the magic book and listened to Strange's explanation while flipping through it and nodding.
The method of casting magic recorded inside was completely different from the dark magic he had mastered.
One relied on activating the magical power inside the body, while the other controlled dark chi and condensed it into magical abilities. They could be considered two different systems that both belonged to darkness.
In fact, Peter also knew the origin of the Darkhold.
It had been explained in the comics. Its creator was one of the Elder Gods, the God of Black Magic, Chthon.
However, the comics explained very little about him, and his appearances were even fewer. Most of the time, he appeared before the public by using the possession ability within black magic to forcibly seize someone else's consciousness.
To a large extent, the reason Chthon was called the "God of Black Magic" was because he created black magic and recorded all of the black magic spells he created in a book. That book later became the Darkhold.
Of course, because this book was positioned as the complete opposite of the Book of the Vishanti created by the "Trinity of Gods" known as the Vishanti, if a page was missing from the Book of the Vishanti, the corresponding page in the Darkhold would automatically vanish and hide itself as well.
It was a very interesting setting. Their existence and disappearance both served to maintain the balance of the spell world.
"It really isn't the same system as the dark magic I control. But there is one similarity. If this thing is used too much, it will also make someone lose themselves."
Although Peter was curious, he still returned the book to Doctor Strange.
He could indeed take it for himself, but since Strange had openly brought it out, that meant he had a backup method to retrieve it. Peter was not stupid enough to think he was invincible.
"I can see traces of dark magic on you too. Don't tell me you've used the forbidden spells in there?"
Peter raised an eyebrow and looked at Doctor Strange. The moment he had fully mastered black magic, he had already discovered that something was off about Strange. Although the dark magic power was not very dense, it was indeed lingering around him.
"Yes. This book originally didn't belong to this universe. It came from another universe. It belonged to Baron Mordo, the other universe's version of my senior fellow disciple."
"I don't know how he came to my universe through some strange ability, because this book has no record of it at all. But his appearance did indeed bring disaster to our universe. He used dark magic to cover all of Manhattan. Later, he used dark magic to occupy my body and cast one of the forbidden spells from the Darkhold. Then I occupied his body in return. In the end, after a great deal of effort, I finally killed him completely. But because of that, traces of dark magic remained on me."
"Precisely because he came from another universe and brought crisis to this world, I cannot allow this kind of thing to exist unchecked."
Doctor Strange put away the Darkhold and sighed.
The erosion of dark magic sometimes made him suffer greatly, and his personality had also been affected. Fortunately, he was the Sorcerer Supreme, and he had already suppressed that influence to its lowest level.
"Hey, from the sound of it, you've had it pretty rough too."
Ultimate Gwen commented while scrolling through her phone.
"Yes. That's why I studied the dark magic recorded in it, trying to completely remove this power. But all I can do is suppress it. I'm wondering whether I can only return to normal if I destroy the original Darkhold."
"Have you never thought about fusing the two kinds of magic into a new kind of magical energy? If you do that, maybe you'll be able to solve the hidden problem inside you."
Peter suggested.
After all, the combination of white magic and black magic should not be equal to one plus one equals two. It should be greater than two.
So maybe it would produce an unexpected effect.
(End of Chapter)
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