Dracula lazily stood up from the armchair, walked to the door of the office, and stretched.
Then he opened the door and walked out.
No one knew when the office door had become a bridge between the real world and the realm of death. When Dracula went out, he came directly to the Death Hall of the Department of Mysteries, with the old stone arch behind him.
The dark grey curtain was still swaying gently, but for Dracula, the world behind it had lost its original mystery and became a force that he could control at will...
The previous God of Death was a dark creature born in the world of death. He was no different in essence from the skeleton creatures trapped in the blood river and bone mountain. He could not enter the world directly, so he could only cause trouble in roundabout ways for a long time.
The birth of magical creatures such as ghosts and dementors is related to this.
It is for this reason that the previous Grim Reaper developed a strong hostility towards Dracula when he first saw him... Why could a purely dark creature be born in this world and have the ability to operate in two worlds at the same time
Of course, now he no longer has the chance to complain about such an incident.
Dracula was too lazy to think about such boring things. He now had to fill in a small hole that had existed for several years in his future and past timelines...
The Death Hall remained the same as before.
The light was dim, and the room was square. The center where the stone arch was located was sunken, looking like a huge stone pit, about twenty feet deep. Stone steps surrounded the entire room, like stone benches, gradually descending one step at a time, and each step was very steep.
There were several doors high up, leading to various other rooms in the Department of Mysteries.
Dracula took a step forward and appeared in front of one of the doors, pushed it open, and walked into a long, narrow rectangular room.
The room is filled with dancing lights, and the whole room shines like a gem. All kinds of time-related equipment completely fill the room. Various pendulum clocks, quartz clocks, pocket watches, wristwatches and other clocks are placed everywhere.
There were several silent people working indoors, but they didn't notice Dracula at all, and didn't even notice anything unusual. They were still devoted to their work in the Time Hall.
Dracula walked right past one of the Silent Men and arrived at the center of the Hall of Time.
There is a huge crystal jar shaped like a clock here, and bright light comes from it from time to time.
The jar was shaped like a large bell, and its interior was constantly producing a dancing bright light - in the crystal water inside, floating a small, jewel-like egg.
When the egg was lifted up by the bright water flow in the bell jar, it suddenly shattered, and then a tiny hummingbird emerged from it; as soon as the hummingbird appeared, it was lifted to the top of the jar by the water flow so that it could spread its wings and fly at a high place without being covered by liquid.
But every time it tried to land on the water to drink, its feathers were wet by the current, and then it was magically brought back to the bottom of the jar and sealed in its egg again...
This process is repeated over and over again.
The hummingbird in the jar is also constantly getting younger and younger, until it enters a pre-birth state, then is reborn from the egg and grows up again, and the cycle continues endlessly...
"So this is the container for the time energy, right?"
Dracula looked at the bird trapped in the time loop inside the bell jar with interest, while holding up the time-turner in his hand.
I stole this Time-Turner from the Hall of Time during my third year as a professor at Hogwarts... After all, it wasn't very authentic to always steal Hermione Granger's Time-Turner, and I didn't have enough time energy.
"Come on, borrow some time energy." He casually hooked his fingers, and part of the liquid in the bell-shaped jar was poured into the hourglass of the time converter.
Once it entered the hourglass, the liquid condensed into sand and gradually filled the entire hourglass.
Then, Dracula turned the hourglass, causing it to spin rapidly.
Each time converter has been cast with an hour reversal spell by the Silent Man of the Time Hall. Every time the hourglass turns, time will go back one hour.
With the help of Dracula's fluctuations and sufficient time energy, the hourglass rotated more than 20,000 times in the blink of an eye.
Dracula flew backwards rapidly in the reversal of time. Various strange clouds and shapes passed by his eyes, and something was knocking in his ears.
He was a little impatient with the long process of time travel, so he took a step forward, directly breaking through the flow of time, and instantly arrived at the time point he wanted to go.
It was a quiet morning in the summer of 1994.
Dracula's figure was still in the glittering time hall of the Department of Mysteries, but the silent people around him had been replaced and they had all fainted on the ground.
Looking at the slightly messy environment around, one can roughly see that a battle has just taken place here, but the battle seems to be one-sided, and the Silent Man has no ability to fight back at all.
You can see that a door on the side of the Time Hall is still open.
Behind that door, compared to the bright light of the Time Hall, it seemed particularly dark, and bursts of deathly breath came out from the crack of the door.
Dracula was very familiar with this breath of death, but compared to the situation three years later, the current death energy was not completely under his control.
Dracula shrugged and was about to walk towards the side door leading to the Hall of Death. However, halfway through, he suddenly remembered something:
"Oh, I almost forgot, I need to hide my identity!"
He excitedly tapped his black and red robes with the Elder Wand, and they turned into a gorgeous red cloak.
Dracula put on the long hood on the back of his cloak and a pair of gloves of the same color on his hands, leaving no skin exposed. He then walked into the door of the Hall of Death with satisfaction in this outfit.
…
The Hall of Death was not empty at this time.
There was a vampire with flowing silver hair, dressed in a black and red robe, and extremely handsome. He was standing in the very center of the sunken area of the Hall of Death, and was about to step into the stone archway leading to the realm of death.
"You don't want to go in there at this time," Dracula said with interest.
Suddenly hearing Dracula's voice, Dracula three years ago stopped and turned back in surprise.
His expression was surprised at first, then he became speechless.
"It's hard for me to imagine that I will be so bored one day." Dracula three years ago said with a strange expression, "Do you have to dress like this? Anyway, I know who you are."
Dracula looked at him with amusement, finding the scene quite amusing.
He knew clearly that his past self knew who he was, but he still pretended not to know and played the identity guessing game with him... Even Dracula knew exactly where things would go from here, but he still had to go through it all over again.
Unexpectedly interesting!
"We have to go through the motions," Dracula said happily.
“… As long as you’re happy.” Dracula from three years ago crossed his arms and curled his lips. “Then tell me why I don’t want to go in there at this time. In fact, you should know that I really want to walk into that archway.”
"It's not time yet." Dracula said vaguely, imitating Dumbledore's Riddler-like speaking style.
"But why can't you explain yourself clearly?" The corners of Dracula's mouth twitched three years ago. "I can't imagine that I would one day become a Riddler like you."
"There are many things you can't imagine!" Looking at his past self's frustrated look, Dracula laughed with interest.
What happened next was the same as three years ago, the two of them kept talking to each other.
While chatting with his past self, Dracula quietly used a bit of the power of the god of death to leave a mark on the eerie wooden wand.
This mark can not only help Dracula in the past to slightly control the power of the previous god of death, but also serve as a coordinate to help Dracula find the location of his past self in the realm of death.
In fact, the latter function is the most important, because Dracula is fully aware that his past self will not be able to resist his curiosity and suddenly step behind the curtain of the stone archway.
Therefore, he must pull his past self back from that side in time to prevent the previous Grim Reaper from doing anything harmful.
"So... what's in here?" Dracula three years ago asked softly, looking at the curtains swaying gently on the stone archway.
"The curtain is fluttering even without wind, because lives are dying every moment in the world." Dracula explained casually, but he knew in his heart that the critical moment was approaching.
"And in this space, the gradually descending stone steps surrounding it represent the gradual aging of life... Haven't you figured it out yet? What kind of place is the world behind the arch?"
Dracula from three years ago turned around, with a flash of realization in his eyes.
"I didn't expect that this archway is so important that I would find a way to travel back in time to stop myself from entering." Past Dracula laughed, "But have you ever thought that the more people try to dissuade me, the more I want to go in and take a look!"
Before he could finish his words, he suddenly turned around and stepped decisively into the dark grey curtain inside the archway.
Dracula watched this scene with amusement and had no intention of stopping it.
It's also good to let my past self meet the God of Death. At least the next time when I take over the position of the God of Death, I will have some understanding of the other world and won't be completely in the dark.
It’s just that the Dracula of three years ago actually thought that the Dracula of the future didn’t react, so he let him in. This is quite interesting.
Dracula sighed, and sat down on a stone staircase in boredom, waiting for the moment when his past self would try to use teleportation magic to return...
After a few minutes, Dracula snapped his fingers.
The authority of the God of Death from the future invaded the curtain on the stone archway, forcibly took away a part of the power of the current God of Death, and connected the present world with the Dark Moon in the realm of death—
The next moment, a dark moon appeared in the Death Chamber of the Department of Mysteries.
Through the light of the dark moon, Dracula vaguely saw a tall skull face sitting majestically on a throne of bones, with an extremely shocked expression.
"Enjoy your time as the God of Death. In a few years, you will disappear from this position."
He smiled softly and waved to the Death behind the Dark Moon, welcoming his return from another world three years ago...
…
After dealing with the minor timeline issues, Dracula returned to the fall of 1996.
Although he went back to the past and stayed there for a while, compared to three years later, not even a minute had passed, as Dumbledore and Grindelwald had just finished fighting.
Dracula thought for a moment, took a step forward, and instantly appeared in the secret realm on the top of Mount Olympus.
The black air here had disappeared, but many ancient Greek buildings were charred black, and there were many dilapidated ruins. It seemed that the fierce fire just now was burning very fiercely.
"Andros, has Herpo been dealt with?" Dracula shouted to the silver giant.
"It's solved, hahahaha... It's completely solved!" Andros, wearing a robe and half of his shoulder exposed, walked out from the giant's chest and laughed, "The feud that has lasted for thousands of years can finally be over!"
Andros looked extremely happy. Although the legendary invincible Andros had always been happy since Dracula had known him, he had never been as happy as today.
The silver light of the giant guardian was brighter than ever before, as if it had infinite power.
However, Andros's soul became extremely illusory, and it seemed that it might disappear from this world at any time...
"I can finally pay back all the faith and magical potential I owe to the Greek magic community." Andros smiled with satisfaction, "The future of this place will finally not be as lacking in talent as it is now."
The surrounding ancient buildings gradually turned into light spots, and the space in the secret realm gradually fluctuated and could collapse at any time.
Andros smiled, his figure becoming increasingly transparent.
"Andros, you have stayed in this world for too long." Dracula said softly, "If you lose your power like this, you will become a weak remnant soul, unable to transcend..."
"I can find two options for you - if you choose to stay, you will become a soul that is more stable than a ghost and can walk freely in the world."
"I was right about you. I knew you could succeed." Andros smiled and looked into Dracula's eyes. "So... what's the other option?"
"Another choice..." Dracula's eyes dimmed a little, and he said slowly, "If you choose to go on, I will send you through the Lost Realm and leave this world."
Andros' figure became more transparent, but his smile became more content.
"You know what I would choose, don't you?" he said with a smile. "You should know best that death is just another brave journey... I have kept smiling for thousands of years, and I am already very tired."
"I should take a break, too."
"Yeah, you should take a break." Dracula sighed deeply.
He stared at Andros's face and snapped his fingers lightly.
"Then I respect your choice." Dracula said.
Andros's figure, which had been extremely transparent, suddenly turned into a beam of light and slowly rose into the air.
As the secret space collapsed, the sky outside appeared in front of everyone present, a blue and exceptionally bright sky.
The light Andros transformed into flew higher and higher, getting smaller and smaller, and finally disappeared in the distant sky, leaving only a whisper with a smile -
"Thank you, my old friend, Dracula."
…
…