Regarding the Past

During his lunch break, He Shenyan finished the sandwich he had made himself. He wiped his mouth and casually picked up the newspaper the house-elf had prepared for him to read.

The headline featured an animated magical photograph of Ollivander, who was holding the Dragon-headed Cane with a beaming smile. The title, written in bold black calligraphy, read: "Master Ollivander's New Creation! A Revolution in Wand-making!"

He read the report carefully, and as he expected, the author showered Ollivander with endless praise, going so far as to compare him to Dumbledore. The cane itself was described as a treasure akin to those found in myths and legends.

He Shenyan shook his head with a smile. He wanted to thoroughly reform this decaying magical world, which was controlled by pure-blood families—and he didn't want to shed too much blood, so handing over a portion of his own achievements to others was a necessary step.

He could, of course, wave his hand and turn these families into ashes in the wind, or turn them into his puppets. But that would be meaningless. He did not want to be a magical tyrant or a false god.

Thinking of this, He Shenyan fell into a rare moment of reminiscence.

Strange was reading a book with great interest; unlike other sorcerers, he didn't like to let books float and turn their own pages.

He was a rather traditional person in this regard, and holding a book in his hands to read it held an irreplaceable significance to him. Call it a quirk if you will, but sorcerers all have their own quirks to some degree.

Speaking of sorcerers, he stroked his beard and thought of his senior brother.

In his eyes, He Shenyan was the strongest sorcerer in the world, bar none.

He might even surpass the Ancient One. Before He Shenyan appeared, all sorcerers in the world had to pay a price to the Dimensional Gods when casting spells.

Because this magical power was not innate, but a debt—or so they claimed.

It wasn't until He Shenyan discovered that magic power actually existed within everyone's body, rather than being a debt as the Dimensional Gods claimed, that the truth came to light. This meant that mortals had been deceived for thousands of years.

This discovery directly shattered the existing spellcasting system. Knowledge remained knowledge, and magic remained magic, but there was no longer a need to pay a price, because the magic power belonged to you; if you used what was your own, there was no such thing as a loan.

But the Dimensional Gods did not see it that way.

When gods are angry, it is always the mortals who bear the cost.

They united and launched a war against the mortal world. Countless people died directly or indirectly, and the Ancient One was even left severely wounded.

They had no choice. The Ancient One took out the Time Stone from the Eye of Agamotto and, at the cost of her own soul, drove it with all her might to forcibly reverse time. Collapsing buildings were restored, cracked earth closed up again, and the dead were resurrected.

Only the Ancient One bore the full price, and she died on the spot. Her soul was annihilated, her body shattered. The Time Stone also vanished, leaving only the Eye of Agamotto, the symbol of the Sorcerer Supreme, to be passed on to Strange.

This once-great treasure could allow the Sorcerer Supreme to traverse time, and reversing time was a mere trifle, but now, it was reduced to the sole function of viewing the various possibilities of the future timeline.

Their losses were heavy. Although the Dimensional Gods no longer interfered with this world and withdrew all their influence, the sudden death of the Sorcerer Supreme caused countless invaders in the universe to set their sights on this planet.

Most of those unknown wars took place in the hidden corners of the universe or Earth. Fortunately, they ultimately achieved victory, and the names of He Shenyan and Strange spread throughout the universe following the Ancient One.

However, He Shenyan was mostly known for his infamy.

He was fearfully referred to by aliens as the "Butcher's Blade of the Sorcerer Supreme," "The Unspeakable Black," and the "Skrull Butcher." Among these, the title of Skrull Butcher was the most representative.

The matter stemmed from the Skrull Empire's invasion of Earth.

By chance, He Shenyan discovered that they were conducting an all-encompassing infiltration of Earth through shapeshifting.

At the same time, they were kidnapping and dissecting humans to study their physiological structure.

Enraged, the sorcerer raided a Skrull facility in Nevada and saw over a hundred corpses of all ages and genders.

Most of them had been torn apart beyond recognition.

And so, he went after the Skrull Empire all by himself.

Wherever the Skrulls held control, he would conduct equally all-encompassing assassinations.

After killing the local high-ranking officials and paralyzing their communication networks, he would carry out an extremely brutal slaughter. First the armies and warships, then the civilians. Regardless of age or gender, if you were a Skrull, you would certainly die.

Hiding, fleeing, or resisting were all useless. He spent three years in the universe, single-handedly driving the Skrulls to total extinction. After that, no one dared to even entertain the thought of invading Earth again.

After all, the Ancient One would only beat you until you submitted, and Strange would "negotiate terms." But He Shenyan was different; he wanted the lives of your entire family, he wanted your nation destroyed and your race wiped out, and he would even grind the stone tablets inscribed with your race's history into dust.

More than one alien had claimed to have seen a black-robed sorcerer above a planet, unleashing a search spell that covered the entire world, followed by countless red beams of light descending from the sky.

Strange didn't think he had gone too far—when some ignorant aliens condemned him for shielding such a butcher, he would only smile faintly and retort: "He didn't do that to you, did he? Please shut your mouths; his temper is not as good as mine."

In truth, the Skrulls were just unlucky to have crossed his path. At the time, due to the death of the Ancient One, He Shenyan was in a rather foul mood, and because of her death, almost every race in the universe wanted to come and take a piece of Earth.

If he didn't strike hard and make an example of them, such things would never stop. After communicating with Strange, he simply went all the way.

"Besides, the Skrulls weren't exactly good people anyway," Strange thought, lifting his teacup for a sip and beginning to enjoy his hard-won rest once more.

Then, a phone call came through.

His long face twitched, and he reluctantly took out his phone to answer. A young voice said urgently: "You have to help me! Dr. Strange!"

Good heavens, can't I even rest for a moment? he thought in despair.

"It really is easy to get lost in memories."

He Shenyan stood up, intending to head to class.

By now, his preparations were basically complete; he only needed to wait for the wizards on this planet to develop on their own, and perhaps they would give him some surprises.

Researching alone sometimes leads to dead ends. Spells are mostly similar, and once the path of magic reaches his level, new ideas are always more precious than new spells. If he wanted to go home, he had to possess a complete and reliable method for breaking the World Barrier—though he already had that.

He even knew that the World Barrier had self-awareness; that was truly shocking. Why didn't the World Barrier of their world stop their actions? He Shenyan couldn't figure it out and could only look forward to returning one day to see for himself.

By tearing apart half of his own soul and merging it with the World Barrier, he made the Outer Gods stop watching him. It was a risky move, but he eventually proved it was feasible.

And the next step was to search for his original world in the vast sea of stars.

He Shenyan could foresee that this would be an extremely long journey. But fortunately, he still had some ways to pass the time so that he wouldn't lose his humanity.

Besides, the process was actually quite interesting. He smiled.