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"You are...?"
The warm yellow light quickly filled the little cabin, and as Fenris stared in surprise, a figure in a yellow robe came into view.
"Your eyes tell me that you know who I am, but at this moment, you do not truly know me."
The visitor slowly turned around, revealing a gentle face.
"Fenris, you may call me the Ancient One."
"Seeing you like this now truly makes me happy."
The Ancient One looked at Fenris in silence, as though she were greeting an old friend after a long separation. Yet hidden in the depths of her gaze was a faint trace of sorrow.
"What? Do we know each other?"
Of course Fenris knew who the Ancient One was. She was the Sorcerer Supreme, the guardian who had protected Earth from incursions by the Dark Dimension for untold years. Her power was unfathomable.
With the Time Stone, it was only natural that she would know about him. But why was she acting as though the two of them had known each other for years?
"Have we met before?"
Countless thoughts flooded Fenris's mind, one possibility after another rising up.
"You are thinking correctly. We did indeed meet in the past."
"You do not know me now, but you will."
The Ancient One gracefully extended a hand in invitation and said softly, "Sit."
Her visit was wholly unexpected, and yet somehow it also felt inevitable. In any case, it was abrupt. Knowing she meant no harm, Fenris let down his guard and sat.
He was not foolish enough to ask why she was unafraid of radiation. Instead, he went straight to the point.
"How exactly did we meet in the past?"
"Was the one you met back then the future version of me?"
"How did future me return to the past?"
"And why have you come to see me now?"
Listening as question after question burst out of Fenris like rapid fire, the Ancient One curved her lips and actually laughed.
"What are you laughing at?"
Fenris blinked. Was any of this really that funny?
"I cannot say. Yes. I do not know. You will understand soon enough."
Without the slightest impatience, the Ancient One smiled and answered his four questions one by one.
"So I really did go back to the past..."
Once he got a definite answer, Fenris's first thought was time travel through the Quantum Realm. But seeing that the Ancient One had no intention of explaining further, he could only drop the matter.
"I came to see you now mainly because of a promise."
The Ancient One rose slowly to her feet, somehow producing a folding fan from nowhere and idly waving it in her hand.
"A promise?"
Fenris frowned. Talking to her felt like being wrapped in fog. She was speaking, yet somehow saying almost nothing at all.
"You rely on absorbing this kind of energy to keep growing stronger, correct?"
The Ancient One deliberately sidestepped the earlier topic, then pushed open the cabin door and looked out toward the hollow interior of the mountain.
"Yes."
Fenris nodded and admitted it frankly.
If she had known him before, then there was no point hiding certain things. Besides, this was not exactly a secret.
"Whether it is Godzilla or Mothra, their normal size is well over a hundred meters, and their weight reaches tens of thousands of tons."
"Fenris, do you really think that with these low-grade nuclear wastes, or a little reaction chamber, you can rise to that level?"
While Fenris was still trying to figure out why the Ancient One had come, she suddenly said something astonishing.
The instant the names of those two Titans left her mouth with perfect accuracy, Fenris shot to his feet, his eyes wide.
"Sit. There is no need to be alarmed."
The Ancient One lightly rested the folding fan on Fenris's shoulder. Though the gesture seemed feather-light, it carried the weight of mountains, effortlessly pressing him back down.
"The potential of Titan beasts is endless. A hundred meters is not their limit. Compared to humanity, they are the true favored children of the cosmos."
"Fenris, if you continue down the path you are thinking of now, you will indeed grow very strong. Very, very strong..."
The Ancient One suddenly tilted her head slightly upward and closed her eyes, as though recalling something far away.
Then, in the next instant:
"But even so, it still will not be enough."
"What do you mean?"
Fenris did not understand.
Crack.
The Ancient One's eyes flew open. She raised her right hand and gently tapped Fenris on the head with the folding fan.
Sounds like crystal shattering echoed through his ears. Without warning, his vision blurred.
When he came back to himself, the familiar surroundings had vanished. In their place was a brilliant sea of stars.
Fenris stood upon empty space, suspended in the vast universe, as insignificant as a grain of sand.
"Where is this?"
"Do not ask. Look there."
The Ancient One's gentle voice sounded beside him, guiding his gaze.
Roar!
It was as though some colossal cry rang out from the depths of the starry void, only to be extinguished in the very next instant, swallowed by eternal silence.
Following the direction of his gaze, Fenris saw a gigantic shadow appear before him, so immense it occupied nearly half the starry sky. Countless planets revolved around it, the stars burning bright, yet still they failed to reveal the shadow's true form.
Fenris strained to look harder, afraid of missing even the smallest detail.
The shadow held its head high. Blue light, golden light, prismatic light, dazzling brilliance poured from its mouth, blasting toward the depths of the darkness with overwhelming force.
Suddenly, Fenris shuddered violently.
It felt as though several unseen, unheard, unknowable wills had descended upon this place. The magnificent stream of light then fell silent without a sound.
"Come back."
A soft summons reached his ear. In the final instant before his awareness returned, Fenris saw that the shadow had already quietly dispersed.
Behind it, a colossal tree, gray, withered, and faintly glowing with a dim green light, flickered in and out of sight.
Then everything he had just seen shattered like an illusion, and the familiar cabin reappeared before him.
"That shadow... was me?"
"Who was I fighting? And who destroyed me?"
A sudden, inexplicable ache surged through Fenris's chest, and his nose inexplicably stung.
The warm yellow glow of magic filled the cabin, making it feel especially gentle, the complete opposite of the cold and silent vision from before.
"What was that place just now?"
After taking a deep breath, Fenris finally asked, "Was that some region of space in the universe?"
"No..."
The Ancient One looked at Fenris deeply.
"Every star you saw was a separate universe. There was no time there, and no space. Even I could only bring you to witness a fragment of a fragment that I once glimpsed."
"..."
Fenris said nothing.
As time passed, the scene he had just witnessed was already beginning to fade from his mind. Only by closing his eyes and forcing himself to remember could he occasionally catch flashes of that radiant, flowing brilliance.
"That was your future."
The Ancient One spoke plainly.
"What you saw was a fragment, and not a beautiful one, from beyond the infinite multiverse."
"I should not have been able to gaze so easily into such a domain. Even with the Eye of Agamotto, I could only barely glimpse a corner of it. But you can."
"The future ought to contain endless possibilities. But that future was too terrible. Under that catastrophe, no one could escape."
"I came because of a promise, to guide you onto an entirely new path."