Tools Deserve the Right to Choose?!

Resonance? Choice? A bond between souls? In Uchiha Madara's eyes, such words were weak and laughable!

Power was the only truth! It conquered, it dominated, it forced all things to submit beneath absolute will!

A tool was a tool. No matter how mysterious a veneer a wand was given, its essence remained that of an instrument serving greater power!

He said nothing more, merely tilted his head slightly, signaling for the clearly stunned Harry and the others to finish their transaction first.

He wanted to see just what tricks this so-called "wand chooses the wizard" farce could produce.

He watched Ollivander complete the procedures for Ron and Hermione. He watched the slightly clumsy yet steady magical fluctuations when Ron's willow wand sprayed silver bubbles in his hand. He watched the tranquil glow representing wisdom and thirst for knowledge flow from Hermione's vinewood wand as she waved it.

Every seemingly successful "match" appeared to confirm the authority of Ollivander's belief that "the wand chooses the wizard."

Time was like a middle-aged man getting on in years—it was over before it had even begun...

While Harry and the others browsed through wand after wand, night had completely fallen outside.

At last, Hagrid paid the bill, his muttering much quieter than before. He clutched the three children's shopping bags tightly, his wary eyes frequently darting toward Madara and the Shadow Guards standing silently nearby. He clearly wanted to leave this suddenly suffocating space as soon as possible.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had also received their respective wand boxes, but their initial excitement had long been replaced by unease. They pressed close to Hagrid like three startled chicks.

The magical streetlamps of Diagon Alley lit up one after another, casting mottled, shifting shadows across the shop through the dusty display windows.

"Then, mysterious young wizard, let us find you that fated companion." Ollivander turned toward Madara, and his silvery eyes once again blazed with the excitement of facing a "challenge."

"Now, please extend the arm you use most often. We need some basic measurements..."

He rubbed his gaunt fingers together, holding the measuring tape from earlier like a surgeon about to perform an operation of the highest difficulty.

Madara, however, ignored him.

His gaze passed over Ollivander and settled on the wall of wand boxes piled like mountains, nearly reaching the ceiling.

A faint, unreadable expression appeared on his face—three parts undisguised mockery of everything before him, three parts bored indifference, and the rest a cold eagerness to try.

Then, in the instant before anyone—including the experienced Ollivander and Hagrid, who had seen his share of dangerous magical creatures—could fully react, the change occurred.

At first, it was only an exceedingly subtle sense that something was wrong.

Harry felt the air around him grow viscous, as though breathing required a little more effort. Hermione noticed the dust on the shelves beginning to drift upward in defiance of gravity. Ron felt a faint buzzing in his ears.

Then came the sound. It did not come from Madara, but from the shop itself.

Thousands upon thousands of wand boxes, from the heavy oak cases on the lowest shelves to the old paper boxes covered in cobwebs at the very top, all began to emit an incredibly faint yet dense trembling sound that made one's scalp crawl!

It was not a uniform vibration, but a chaotic, frantic one, as if the "spirits" imprisoned inside had collectively descended into panicked struggle upon sensing some incomprehensible, overwhelming terror!

Rustle... clatter... buzz... Countless wands slammed madly against the inner walls of their narrow boxes, knocking into one another and even trying to force open their lids! The sounds merged into a bizarre tide, drowning out the creak of the brass scales and overwhelming Ollivander's abruptly halted breath.

Ollivander drew a sharp breath, his face pale. "Th-this is... the wands are afraid?!"

He had been in the trade for over half a century, yet he had never seen—or even imagined—such a sight!

Wands could have preferences, rejection, excitement, but "fear"... that was beyond the scope of his understanding!

Hagrid abruptly spread his thick arms, almost shoving all three children behind him through sheer force.

Hagrid's face was filled with barely contained shock. "Back! Kids, get back! Stay against the wall and don't move!" His roar seemed feeble amid the collective wailing of the wands.

Madara seemed utterly oblivious to all of it. He neither chanted nor moved his arm, and there was not even an obvious precursor to a magical outburst.

He merely raised his chin slightly. Deep within those eyes that had remained pitch-black, a faint flash of red seemed to pass. Then, the black pupils were swallowed by scarlet, and a black tomoe slowly emerged and began to turn as though alive!

The Sharingan opened!

Then pressure—tangible, absolute pressure powerful enough to crush the mind—descended with a thunderous crash!

Boom—!!!

It was not the roar of sound, but the impact of a pure magical eruption, like an invisible sledgehammer smashing viciously into the minds of everyone in the shop!

With Uchiha Madara's position as its absolute center, an invisible yet unimaginably terrifying pressure, a thousand times more dreadful than the wildest hurricane, suddenly expanded outward in a perfect sphere like a supernova erupting!

It was not wind, yet it made the air emit a low, piercing hum as though being torn apart under unbearable strain!

A deep, teeth-grating hum filled the air. The shelves groaned as if shaken by giants, trembling violently as though on the verge of collapse!

The thick layers of dust and lint accumulated on the ceiling over a century, the cobwebs, and even splinters from loose wooden boards were violently churned and torn apart by invisible force, turning into a raging gray blizzard that cascaded down!

Some of the lighter miscellaneous objects near Madara—

Bundles of blank labels, tin boxes holding small accessories, and several leather ledgers used to record formulas strangely floated into the air. Then, beneath that omnipresent, horrifying pressure, they trembled, twisted, warped, and finally let out shrill wails before breaking apart into fragments!

Buzzz—!!!!

It was as though an invisible giant bell had been violently struck inside everyone's mind! It was not a real sound, but a mental impact caused by magic violently disturbing space itself!

Harry's vision suddenly went dark. Intense dizziness and nausea swept over him, and his legs nearly buckled beneath him!

He felt as though he had been thrown into a trench ten thousand meters deep. An unimaginable pressure crushed in from every direction, squeezing through every pore. It did not merely assault his body—even his thoughts were nearly frozen and ground to pieces!

Ron's face turned white as paper. He gripped an oak display rack bolted to the floor beside him, his knuckles whitening and his teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Hermione covered her ears, but the terrifying hum acted directly upon her mind. Her brown eyes were stretched wide with horror, her thoughts completely blank. Every piece of magical theory she had learned seemed so pale and ridiculous in that moment!

Hagrid's massive body swayed violently backward as though struck head-on by a battering ram, crashing heavily into the counter behind him with a dull thud! The counter shook fiercely, and the glassware atop it clinked wildly.

Then he let out a muffled groan, his expression turning extraordinarily grim—far more solemn than it had been at the ice cream shop. This pressure felt at such close range was more than ten times stronger than the fleeting glimpse outside Knockturn Alley!

Ollivander staggered back again and again until his spine struck the cold stone wall, barely managing to steady himself. He held his forehead, the shock in his eyes turning into bewilderment and terror as his understanding was overturned. His lips trembled as he muttered, "Merlin's bath mitt... this magic... this pure oppression... this isn't... this..."

Crash! Clatter!

Several exquisite wand display cases near Madara were the first to suffer, seemingly unable to withstand pressure beyond the limits of their magical protections!

The sturdy enchanted glass, reinforced with layers of protective spells, let out teeth-grating cracks. Then it fractured inch by inch before exploding apart beneath an invisible force!

The ancient wands lying upon velvet cushions inside were violently torn free! Ledgers, ink bottles, quills, measuring tools... everything not firmly secured to the structure of the building broke free from gravity and surged wildly upward!

They spun and collided madly within the invisible magical vortex, then were crushed into twisting, warping, shattered wreckage beneath the ever-increasing pressure!

Dust, fragments, wood chips, scraps of paper, shards of glass... they merged into a destructive gray-black tornado that spun rapidly around Madara! Yet he stood within it without so much as the hem of his robes stirring, as though this destructive force was merely an insignificant ripple naturally spilling out with every breath he took.

His scarlet Sharingan calmly watched it all, like a god gazing down upon the natural disaster he had unleashed.

And this was merely the "environmental reaction" caused by him releasing the slightest trace of his presence.

The true "display"—or rather, "conquest"—had only just begun.