The sunlight was heavy while the wind howled.
Above the ruins, Ian stood before the stone steps, wrapped in his flying cloak. He turned back to look at the group of black-robed wizards. Everyone shrank back except Zeus, who stood at the very front with a stern expression on his face, refusing to retreat.
He was holding himself together.
His body had a subconscious reaction, but he suppressed it. As a leader, he had to appear fearless before his people.
"I should go." Ian spoke in a calm voice. "The journey ahead is not suitable for you."
His tone carried a sigh.
"We never said we wanted to follow you. We'd be happier if you left and never came back." Zeus spoke honestly while lightly tapping the crystal orb atop his staff with his finger.
Perhaps it was a gesture he used to ease his emotions.
"..."
Ian didn't like people who were this honest. He preferred the treatment he received at Hogwarts. Even the students who disliked him pretended to show reluctance at his departure.
The Slytherin students might have been bad, but they knew how to flatter Ian.
"For you, there are still many roads ahead. The first thing you should learn is how the world works." Ian offered earnest advice to these ancient humans who had not yet become gods.
"After you leave, we will hide. We hope you never come back to look for us. Even if the Raven completely corrupts your heart, we hope you remember the help we gave you."
Zeus remained as honest as ever, sincerely voicing the collective wish of the entire tribe. Once again, Ian was rendered speechless by a single sentence.
"You won't say something nice to comfort me, yet you still want to manipulate me emotionally?"
Ian was utterly speechless. After a moment of silence, he finally snapped in frustration.
"We really hope you never come back," Zeus continued in a low, prayerful voice. "If you truly come from the future, that would be ideal."
As soon as he said that, a beautiful woman added on from beside him: "Yes, because then you would take the Raven back to your own era and bring disaster to the living beings of your time, which would be good for us."
She was the future queen of the gods and she was just as honest as her husband.
"Have you never considered that even if I leave, this era still has its own Raven?" Ian's understanding of temporal matters wasn't deep but he had watched quite a few related films to time travel.
"The Raven is a being beyond time. It exists only in one timeline. If it perishes in your era, then it will remain there forever."
It seemed Zeus had not revealed everything earlier. His explanation made Ian frown slightly. He was a bit startled internally, though he maintained a façade of worry on the surface.
"If I manage to find a way to resolve the Raven crisis, that would also benefit you, wouldn't it?" Ian was hoping Zeus would reveal more information.
However...
"Perhaps."
Zeus clearly did not believe Ian could solve the Raven problem as he sounded perfunctory.
"Good luck." Zeus spoke in a low voice.
His tone was like that of someone sending off a bomb that could destroy the world at any moment. He obviously wanted Ian, this walking disaster, to leave as soon as possible so he and his people could rebuild their home.
"Sigh~"
Ian could only turn away, using his flying cloak. Before leaving, he cast one last glance at the infant form of the future Goddess, and then his figure vanished into the sky.
The air returned to silence while the wind passed between the stone pillars.
It was as though it were whispering something.
"Do you think he'll succeed?" The future queen of the gods asked her husband softly.
Zeus slowly put away his staff as he replied: "That has nothing to do with us."
His response was light and casual, yet even now, his shortsightedness, inherited from the Titans, was already evident. Perhaps this was the seed of the future Twilight of the Gods.
Of course...
This group of people was still far from that era. They had witnessed the divine authority Ian wielded, and now they had merely found a direction in which to move.
A dazzling direction.
But it was destined to be wrong.
...
Ian flew for a long time using the flying cloak. In his hand, the shell given to him by Zeus continued to guide his direction.
"No display of remaining distance— such a terrible design."
Ian wasn't used to this ancient era's navigation system. He had no idea how long he would have to fly. The cloak's slightly primitive craftsmanship meant it wasn't very fast. If the cloak was pointing him toward the other side of the Earth, he had no idea how long he'd be flying.
"I guess I'll have to rely on my Animagus form."
He stood at the edge of a cliff with a bottomless abyss beneath his feet and an endless stretch of primordial forest in the distance.
Since he couldn't picture the destination, he couldn't use Apparition or the Raven's teleportation to go directly to the Titans' ancient homeland.
"Looks like I'll have to fly there myself."
He closed his eyes.
He felt the power of the Raven flowing within him.
Black feathers emerged from beneath his skin. His arms stretched and reshaped into wide, powerful wings. His bones cracked lightly as his body twisted and shrank. Finally, a pitch-black raven beat its wings and rose into the air.
Shooting toward the heavens.
Night had already fallen.
Stars shimmered in the sky. The Milky Way stretched across the sky like a river of light. As a raven, Ian glided through the high-altitude winds with his wings beating lightly, slicing through the silence.
He flew over the vast, rolling mountain ranges. Moonlight spilled across the snowy peaks, reflecting a cold, sacred brilliance. Ancient rivers wound between the mountains like the earth's pulsing bloodline, shimmering under the starlight. Forests stretched endlessly, dark as ink. The wind sweeping through the treetops stirred a deep green tide.
Thanks to his night vision, which was identical to his daytime vision, Ian could see everything clearly.
From high above, everything was perfectly clear.
This untouched, untainted world was breathtakingly magnificent. Dense fern forests surged like a green ocean.
Towering ginkgoes and colossal redwoods pierced the sky. Between their canopies, ancient pterosaurs with wingspans exceeding ten meters glided, their membranous wings shimmering with a bronze sheen in the sunlight.
In the distance, a herd of triceratops migrated, their heavy footsteps causing the earth to tremble faintly. Their calves trailed behind, letting out soft, immature cries.
This was an age when dinosaurs still ruled the land and primeval forests stretched to the horizon like endless green seas. Ian saw a group of brachiosaurs lifting their long necks to munch on the towering ferns.
Their trunks were so massive that ten people holding hands would be needed to encircle them. In a swamp farther away, several giganotosaurs were fighting over the fresh corpse of a sauropod, with flesh and blood flying everywhere.
A thunderous roar shook the leaves into a frantic rustle.
"Do even dinosaurs have magical variants?" Ian saw more unusual sights as he crossed an open plain. A few thunder dragons stretched their long necks to eat foliage high up in the trees. Strange, magical patterns covered their skin, resembling ancient protective markings.
Not far from them, a massive Tyrannosaurus rex lurked in the shadows, its golden, vertical pupils fixed on its prey. Its throat emitted a deep, gurgling rumble.
Suddenly, a blazing pillar of fire erupted from the ground. The creature also carried a magical bloodline, likely inherited from ancient Western dragons who loved hybrids.
"Tsk, tsk."
Ian kept flying.
Along the way, he saw even more magical creatures.
A few griffin-like beasts had built nests on the cliffs. A herd of silver-maned unicorns drank at the lakeside, their horns were longer than those of their descendants, sparkling like starlight at the tips.
In the marshes, gigantic, three-headed salamanders glided slowly; each head could spew a different element: fire, frost, or poisonous mist.
Animals weren't the only ones who evolved and changed.
Magical creatures also adapted in harmony with their environment.
Life could never defeat nature.
Only adapt.
Ian spotted a group of tiny creatures that resembled bowtruckles but had transparent, butterfly-like wings growing from their backs. They fluttered through the flowers, scattering glowing scales as they flew.
"Elves?"
Ian approached, and the timid creatures scattered instantly.
"Boring."
Without stopping, Ian continued soaring. His speed far surpassed that of any aircraft in later generations. A few hours later, the land vanished and endless blue remained before him.
The sea wind mixed with salt and struck his face. Waves crashed against reefs, throwing up plumes of white foam. The vastness of the ocean felt suffocating, with waves rolling and crests white as snow. As Ian glided forward, he used magic to sense the movements below. He knew this was no ordinary sea.
After all... it was the ancient era.
Sure enough, not long after he descended to skim close above the water's surface, he saw the lords of the ocean. His shadow seemed to attract something. A massive shadow rose from the depths, and a thirty-meter-long mosasaur slowly surfaced, carrying half a plesiosaur in its jaw.
Its scarlet eyes brimmed with killing intent. Then, with a violent explosion, a leviathan-grade saber-toothed shark burst from the water, its back covered in glowing, vine-like tendrils.
The classic scene of "mantis stalks the cicada while the oriole waits behind" played out in the vast sea.
He spotted a nine-headed deep-sea hydra with dark red magical power coiled around its teeth; its bite was strong enough to tear steel apart. It could leap briefly above the water to devour low-flying pterosaurs.
"If Newt saw this, he'd probably faint from excitement." Ian was deeply moved by the ancient world's biodiversity. He realized this after flying over the sea for more than an hour.
"Is the ancient Earth bigger than the future Earth?"
This question arose as Ian flew. His speed rivaled the swiftest intercontinental missiles, yet after an hour, he still hadn't reached the "other side of the ocean."
Was this scientific?
Not at all.
But perhaps... it was magical.
After all, no one had ever said that, in a world with magic, ancient Earth had to be the same as Earth in later ages.
"La la la la~"
At that moment, a strange sound drifted up from beneath the sea, something like chanting, though he knew it wasn't a human voice.
It was the call of some deep-sea race.
"Sea Nymph Singers..." he murmured. "Mentioned in the original Harry Potter, but here they seem older... more primitive."
Just as he was preparing to speed away, a thin stream of bubbles rose to the surface. A figure emerged from the water... half-fish, half-man, armored in scales, and holding a bone trident.
'Ancient ocean folk?'
"Traveler, you do not belong here." The siren spoke in ancient syllables.
Ian instantly understood the language. Only then did he fully grasp the meaning of the words.
"I'm just passing through," he replied in the same ancient language.
His voice was calm.
"I'm looking for the homeland of the Titans."
His Legilimency went unnoticed. In this era, magic was still primitive, and most races knew little about each other's magic.
"The Titans' homeland?" The siren fell silent for a moment, then pointed. "Toward the Isle of Storms. Go. But beware of what dwells inside the storm."
"They appear from nowhere, and they are powerful."
It sounded exactly like an NPC giving him a quest.
Ian nodded in thanks and took off again. Another hour of flying followed. By now, he was certain that this ancient Earth was much larger. Long-distance flight was starting to wear him down.
"Time for a break."
Ian found a small island and landed on a flat reef. He returned to human form, flicked his wand, and a silver streak shot into the sea.
A few seconds later, a massive fish, over five meters long, was pulled out of the water by magical chains. It resembled a sailfish but had a head encased in bone armor and fins sharp enough to slice flesh like blades.
"It's comparable to the Sea Kings in the anime I used to watch—nutritious, healthy, high-protein, and absolutely delicious." Ian conjured an orange-red flame. The temperature was intense, yet it wouldn't burn the meat. He conjured a metal rack out of thin air, skewered the fish, and set it over the fire.
The meat began to sizzle, the fat dripping and the aroma filling the air.
"Magic is truly a convenient thing."
Ian enjoyed a hearty meal. The fish was tender and juicy with the natural saltiness of the ocean. After eating, he reclined against the reef to rest when he suddenly sensed a gaze.
He turned his head and saw a creature standing on the nearby beach. It was shaped like a qilin but was completely snow-white. Lightning coiled around its antlers, and flames burned beneath its hooves. Its eyes were as green as emeralds.
"A qilin? No, more like the Bai Ze from the Classic of Mountains and Seas." Ian was surprised but not too shocked. After all, Newt had kept beasts from Eastern legends before.
That was the nature of this world.
"Grrr~"
The divine beast watched him warily, growling low. Ian stood and spun his wand between his fingers. "Relax. I'm just passing through."
The creature clearly didn't believe him. Suddenly, it stomped forward, lightning gathering between its horns.
"Tsk, such a bad temper."
Ian couldn't be bothered to argue. With a flick of his wand, invisible magical chains wrapped around the creature's limbs. It roared in fury, but it couldn't move.
"Just borrowing a little blood." Ian produced a crystal vial. With a tap of his wand, a few drops of shimmering blood seeped from the creature's foreleg and drifted neatly into the vial.
"If I can't bring you back, I'll just use you for spicy hot pot." Ian shook the vial and addressed the furious beast. "Just a few buckets. Surely you won't mind?"
The creature continued glaring, not understanding a word, yet Ian had already released it. It transformed into a raven and soared into the sky.
"Thanks!"
Taking off once more, Ian crossed the endless sea. Ahead, the sky grew darker, thick clouds rolling and lightning dancing between them. The shell pendant grew hotter and hotter.
Ian could feel it all through his little black raven feet.
"That's the place..."
At the center of the storm, a lone island could barely be seen behind curtains of lightning and raging winds. Ian took a deep breath and shot toward the storm like a bullet, diving straight in.
(End of chapter)
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