Chapter 371

"Is this the Mother portrait?"

In the dawn light, a man wearing a golden crown asked.

In front of him was a blind old man, groping with his hands, painting on a canvas.

"Yes." The old man replied.

"This is the god of the alien race." The king said, "Have you forgotten our own god?"

"Now the god of the alien race will be bought by more people."

"I should hang you to death so that you can return to the Mother's embrace."

"You can do that, my lord. My family all died in the war between gods and gods. My eyes were dug out by the alien race. Our god, or their god, there is no difference. They won't care about the life or death of an old blind man."

"Only kings and nobles can reach Avalon after death, only brave warriors can go to Valhalla, only believers who have donated money to the church are worthy of heaven. I am just an old blind man who cannot get enough to eat, cannot go to those good places, and will always go to hell. Since it is hell, it makes no difference whether I sink into the Celtic hell, the Viking underworld, or the Saxon purgatory."

"You are a non-believer. But why do they all buy your paintings?"

"Teacher, why is the god in the paintings of a man full of resentment toward gods so compassionate?"

A poet holding a harp looked at the teacher in front of him.

"Because the person who painted this painting knows the suffering of this world better than the real gods, better than the messengers of those gods."

"He knows that those sufferings are not tests from gods, not ladders to heaven, not guarantees of happiness in the afterlife; they are just suffering."

"Suffering does not bring happiness, does not bring growth, does not bring any good results; it just presses hard on people, making them have to endure, have to tolerate. He did not beautify that suffering, so he is more compassionate to those in suffering."

"It doesn't matter who is painted in this painting, whether it is the Mother or Brigid, it doesn't matter. He painted the god in his heart, his own god. This is what we are looking for."

"A god who is not a god."

"Portrait Activation!"

"As a constraint for wizards, the oath needs a power stronger than wizards to ensure its execution. It is the Mother, who can survive with the help of the faith of outsiders, and even possess some power close to that of a god."

In the forest, several wizards gathered in a group.

An old man leaning on a wooden staff spoke.

"At the same time, a portrait is simpler than a person, which can ensure that after we die, it will still supervise the operation of the oath according to our requirements."

"But, teacher..."

"What if it develops its own consciousness, what if it really thinks of itself as a god? Future wizards no longer have the power to fight against gods. Will it become a new god?"

"The emotions of compassion and love injected by the painter will serve as its most fundamental emotions toward humanity. It will treat humans as its own children, making it impossible for it to enslave humans like a real god."

The old man said, this is the reason why he chose this portrait instead of other carriers with more power.

"Of course, it may also alienate, but there is no foolproof plan. We have made the best arrangements. Future matters can only be left to the future."

"Its power will also be limited by the oath and will not be much stronger than wizards. If it becomes an enemy of wizards in the future, then let us look forward to the moment when future wizards defeat it."

"Perhaps, that is the opportunity to solve the problems we cannot solve."

The moment he was pulled into the black ship, the Mother found that he had returned to the riverside where he first possessed consciousness.

In front of the picture frame, in the faint dawn light, an old man sat opposite him holding a wooden staff.

"I failed." The Mother said.

"No, you have completed your mission."

"The long trial is over, they defeated the gatekeeper."

"Next, is the real adventure."

After losing the support of the ritual magic, the spirit world passage finally closed, and the black ship and the lake water disappeared from Murphy's sight.

At the same time, the hall also began to collapse.

This real Chamber of Secrets originally connected two worlds, but the previous violent pulling had made its connection with the real world unstable. Huge stones began to fall from the walls, and those snake-shaped containers holding the students kept breaking.

Dumbledore used a Slowing Charm to stop the falling debris, and together with Murphy and Grindelwald, opened those containers and protected them in a protective shield.

Then they took everyone, along with the broken Chamber of Secrets, and appeared in the real world.

The broken ritual hall crashed onto the ground, almost filling the original Chamber of Secrets, and even the Basilisk was crushed underneath—this guy did not participate in the magic array because Voldemort was in a hurry to complete the ritual, so it escaped the fate of being dragged away by the black ship, but it was buried alive. It is hard to say whether it was lucky or unlucky.

It probably didn't die, but there was no time to deal with it now.

Voldemort's ritual extracted too much magic from the students; they were all still in a coma, and many of them were even in critical condition.

Dumbledore once tried to sacrifice himself, borrowing the connection he had established with the students to reverse-transfer his own magic into the students' bodies.

But Murphy stopped him, "I discovered long ago that you seem to have been trying to self-destruct since leaving Hogwarts. You just want to die in a place that is worth it, right?"

After leaving Hogwarts, especially after deciding to go to war with Murphy, Dumbledore's actions were almost suicidal. Many times he was fighting Murphy with a posture of perishing together.

"Why, is there nothing left in this world for you to be attached to?"

Murphy said, finding Snape who was almost crushed underneath, and handed him a Magic Stone, telling him to start refining potions to replenish the students' magic.

The students were just exhausted of magic. With a prop like the Magic Stone that had almost infinite magic to a certain extent, couldn't they save people?

"I am just an old man who clings to the past," Dumbledore said, "I belong to the old era, and I can no longer integrate into the future you describe."

"If I stand here, I will become your resistance."

Murphy frowned, "I think you are just too pessimistic. Perhaps it is because you are too empty after retirement, having lost direction and a sense of meaning. This thing is very common in Muggle society, retirement syndrome. Many people treat work as a lifelong career. Once they retire, they feel that everything they fought for has disappeared, and they will feel lost, anxious, depressed, and so on."

"This is just a normal phenomenon after a huge change in life. You may just need to rest and find your own path again..."

(End of chapter)