The Ancient One of this universe looked at Harry, and for a moment her expression turned distant. Then she sighed and said, "I'm sorry, Harry. As much as I'd like to be your teacher, I'm not the version of me you knew.
She has already returned to Eternity, while I still have another five years of miserable overtime ahead of me."
"Uh…" Harry was completely choked up by that opening line. He honestly had no idea how to answer.
He couldn't exactly say that his own teacher's happiness had been built on his suffering, or that this version only had five years left before she was gone too.
After a brief pause, Harry complained, "My teacher left far too suddenly. She hadn't wrapped up a lot of things, and I had to put in a tremendous amount of work before I could stabilize the protective wards again."
"But you did very well, didn't you?" the Ancient One in front of him said with a faint smile.
For an instant, Harry really felt as if the kind old woman before him was his own teacher.
He shook his head and suddenly smiled.
"That's true. I did do well. Before my teacher left, I had already begun putting plans in motion without her even knowing. Now the task of clearing out dimensional creatures invading Earth has been handed over to the Lenders, which means I can actually slack off on schedule."
To his surprise, the Ancient One responded with a mysterious smile.
"Maybe she knew."
Harry: "…"
"All right, maybe she really did. Just like my other teacher, you really do understand yourself well. So, are you planning to hand the Time Stone over to Banner?"
The moment the terrifying mysterious man named Harry brought him up, Banner immediately nodded hard and pleaded again, "Please, I'm begging you, let me borrow the Time Stone. The lives of half the universe are at stake!
Oh, right, Doctor Strange sent me. He kept saying he was the smartest one among you, so I figured that would be enough to make you trust me."
But then Banner suddenly noticed the two terrifying figures in front of him exchange a look and start smiling.
A very bad feeling instantly rose in his chest.
Sure enough, the next thing he heard was the Ancient One saying calmly, "I'm sorry, Banner. The most exceptional one among us is not Strange, it's Harry. So I think perhaps Harry should decide whether or not to lend the Time Stone to you."
"Huh?" Banner looked dazed. He had never expected Strange, who looked so upright and dependable, to secretly talk himself up behind the scenes and insist that dropping his name would absolutely work.
Well, that blew up in his face.
Still, Banner was a brilliant scientist with a high IQ, and he quickly steadied himself. Turning to Harry with complete sincerity, he said, "Master Harry, please lend me the Time Stone for a while. I'll return it afterward."
Harry thought it over for a moment and did not refuse.
"All right. But you probably won't be able to borrow the Ancient One's Time Stone."
Before the disappointment on Banner's face could fully settle in, Harry smiled and continued, "That said, I may be able to lend you mine.
Of course, I'm not comfortable just handing it over. I'll need to go back to your universe with you."
"This…" Banner hesitated. But when he thought of how powerful Harry was, he realized that having Master Harry's help might greatly increase their chances of bringing everyone else back.
So he gave a small nod and agreed.
"Thank you, Master Harry. Please put my soul back into my body, and then we can leave.
I'm guessing Tony and the others have already gotten the Mind Scepter and the Tesseract by now. They've got a few years' head start, so it shouldn't have been difficult for them."
Once again, Banner was caught completely off guard when Harry gave him a strange look and said, "Sorry, Mr. Banner, but I have to tell you, your teammates were exposed a long time ago."
Banner: "???"
After chatting a little longer with the Sorcerer Supreme of this universe, Harry nodded, said goodbye, and left the New York Sanctum.
When he reunited with Tony and Steve, the two of them already had the Mind Scepter, but there was no sign whatsoever of the Tesseract.
Thick anxiety filled Banner's eyes as he asked, "Tony, where's the Tesseract? Without it, even if we gather the other five Infinity Stones, we still won't be able to snap everyone back."
Tony pressed both hands to his face and rubbed hard, his voice heavy.
"Sorry, Banner. At the critical moment, Loki stole the Tesseract and teleported away to some unknown place with it. We may not be able to find him now."
Banner froze in place. Only after a long moment did he say anxiously, "Then what do we do? Is our plan going to fail?"
At that point, Steve suddenly lit up and предложed, "Maybe we still have another option. I know of a point in time where there are both Pym Particles and the Tesseract in the same place.
That way, we can get the Tesseract without worrying about getting stranded in that timeline because we've run out of Pym Particles."
Then all of them suddenly paused and turned to look at Harry.
According to the plan, Harry was supposed to go back to their timeline with them. He was a major powerhouse, after all, and his role could be critical.
But now they had abruptly realized that the remaining Pym Particles were no longer enough to send Harry back with them.
What were they supposed to do about that?
After they explained the problem to Harry, he hesitated slightly and asked, "Can I take a look at the Pym Particles? I might be able to duplicate them."
Tony hesitated for a moment, then handed them over.
Harry immediately formed observation runes in his eyes and began trying to analyze the Pym Particles.
Very quickly, he realized in astonishment that Pym Particles were less a technological creation and more a material manifestation of some kind of higher-dimensional energy.
That energy was somewhat similar to chaos magic, and possessed a certain reality-bending, mind-over-matter quality.
It could shrink your body several times over without changing your strength at all.
Of course, it could also enlarge your body several times over, while your strength would increase along with it.
After observing them for a while, Harry determined that he could duplicate Pym Particles, but not directly. Even he would have a hard time bearing that kind of cost.
However, he might be able to duplicate the raw materials for the Pym Particles first, then process them himself through each step afterward. That would greatly reduce the magical drain.
Just as Harry was about to tell Tony and the others this good news, his expression suddenly changed, and he looked off into the far distance.
His chaos magic was screaming warnings at him. Somewhere out there, a force powerful enough to destroy an entire universe was about to erupt.
If he ignored it, then this timeline in front of him would be completely pruned away.
So, without time to explain, Harry said to Tony and the others, "I have something urgent to deal with. Banner, head back to the New York Sanctum and ask the Sorcerer Supreme for the Time Stone. Tell her this is my decision, and she'll agree."
Then Harry opened a portal and vanished from the stunned Tony, Steve, and Banner.
Damn it. He had already been thrown into another universe, and he still had to save the world.
…
In the Mongolian Gobi Desert, on a stretch of sand, Harry stepped out of the portal and immediately saw an activated temporal bomb, identical to the temporal dislocation bomb he had once used against Nightmare.
There was no question about it. If that device fully detonated and triggered a chain reaction with this timeline, it could absolutely blow the entire universe to dust.
Forget half of all life dying. At that point, nothing at all would remain, only endless void.
Once the temporal dislocation bomb, also known as a Reset Charge, fully activated, even Harry would have a hard time stopping its spread.
But right now, the Reset Charge was still in the activation phase.
So there was still time.
Without hesitation, Harry immediately pushed his chaos magic far past its limit.
In an instant, a bitter, killing cold engulfed the Reset Charge completely. Absolute zero froze it solid, and even time itself was forcibly brought to a halt.
The chain reaction inside the Reset Charge stopped at once and fell utterly still.
The countless living beings of this universe were saved by Harry right then and there.
Harry landed on the sand, breathing hard, while crimson magic roiled across the surface of his body, teetering on the edge of losing control.
Just now, he had risked completely going out of control and accelerated his own personal time flow dozens of times over. That was the only reason he had been able to arrive before the Reset Charge detonated and freeze it in time.
Otherwise, he probably would have survived.
But every other living being in this universe would have been wiped out.
At that moment, the departing TVA agents also noticed Harry.
They held batons in their hands and stared at him warily.
Under the circumstances, they had no choice but to take him seriously. Over the countless years they had served the TVA, they had faced enemies without number, including some powerful enough to threaten a single universe by themselves.
Even so, not a single one of those people had ever been able to stop a Reset Charge from detonating.
That was a weapon capable of destroying an entire universe, an essential tool for pruning timelines. How could it possibly be affected so easily?
So the mysterious man before them, who looked like some sort of sorcerer, was absolutely a major threat.
What surprised them even more was that their database contained absolutely no information on him at all.
The TVA monitored the Sacred Timeline. Nothing was supposed to escape their supervision. So how could a complete unknown suddenly appear out of nowhere?
Had something gone wrong with the TVA's monitoring system?
Hunter B-15 was the highest-ranking Hunter present, so the stern-faced Black woman stepped forward and demanded in a severe tone, "Who are you, and why are you here?
Actually, no, it doesn't matter who you are. In the name of the Time Variance Authority, I am placing you under arrest for violating the Sacred Timeline!
Now raise your hands and come with us!"
Faced with the threats of the TVA agents, Harry looked utterly disdainful.
Beneath his calm exterior, his fury was already boiling over.
In order to keep from destroying the universe himself, he did his best to keep his emotions under control, then ground out through clenched teeth, "Damn the TVA. I'd heard a long time ago that you people were insane, and now I can see it for myself!
Do you have any idea what you're doing? You're trying to kill countless billions upon billions upon billions of lives in this universe!"
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