Harry Potter and the Great Old Ones

Chapter 825

On this quiet and enchanting night, the desert near the George Ring is enveloped in a mysterious and peaceful atmosphere.

Around the campfire, several folding chairs were casually placed, some lying on the ground, a testament to the expedition team's busy and tiring day. The team members lay either in their sleeping bags or on makeshift cots, each lost in sweet dreams after their exhaustion.

The surrounding desert appeared even more mysterious and unpredictable in the night. The soft sand tumbled gently in the breeze, seemingly telling secrets unknown for tens of thousands of years. Occasionally, the call of a nocturnal animal would break the silence in the distance, only to return to the boundless stillness once more.

The sandstorms that had raged during the day seemed to have subsided considerably, revealing a clear, starry sky above the camp, dotted with countless stars, with the Milky Way stretching across the heavens like a shimmering river.

A bright full moon hung high in the sky, casting its silvery-white light and draping the desert in a mysterious veil.

The undulating sand dunes under the moonlight create a beautiful interplay of light and shadow, giving this ancient land an extraordinary beauty.

In such a tranquil environment, with only the faint crackling of the campfire and the rustling of the night wind against the tent fabric, one feels an indescribable peace and serenity away from the hustle and bustle of the world.

However, beneath this seemingly tranquil surface, subtle changes are quietly taking place.

Around the campfire, the expedition team members were immersed in their dreams, breathing in the cool night breeze peacefully under the starry sky.

But at the edge of the camp, in a place only illuminated by the afterglow of the campfire, slight, almost imperceptible tremors appeared in the gravel, so subtle that even the most sensitive seismic instruments could not detect them.

These vibrations gradually spread, and slowly, tiny cracks began to appear in the sand.

These cracks are not normal cracks in the earth, but rather seem to be something moving slowly and consciously deep underground, pushing and shoving the sand.

These activities might have been noticed during the day, but under the cover of night, this strange phenomenon went completely unnoticed.

Meanwhile, behind a hidden sand dune not far from the camp, a pair of eyes gleaming with an unusual light were watching everything from the darkness.

Those pupils emitted an eerie green light, faintly reflecting starlight. Those eyes belonged to nocturnal creatures of the desert, but their size and the shimmering light within them exuded an aura of something extraordinary—

It's not something that ordinary desert creatures would possess.

More profoundly, the ordinary desert sounds seemed slightly unusual at this moment.

The gentle breeze rustled the fine sand, interspersed with almost imperceptible low calls, so subtle that perhaps only the desert itself could hear them.

These voices seemed to come from the depths of the earth, carrying an ancient and indescribable tone, as if life that had been imprisoned here since ancient times was calling out to its companions.

Although these unusual phenomena occurred silently, they went unnoticed by human senses, and the research team members continued their deep sleep.

Even the patrol personnel left behind by the expedition team to keep watch at night failed to notice anything unusual about the desert surrounding the camp.

As night deepened, the subtle tremors gradually subsided, and the cracks seemed to quietly disappear as the desert repaired itself.

But those mysterious green eyes did not leave; they continued to observe from the shadows.

"Heh," Tiera, who had been feigning sleep, suddenly opened her eyes, chuckled softly, then turned over and went back to sleep. Time, the most mysterious and wondrous thing in the universe—

Its strangeness lies not only in its intangibility and universality, but also in its potential plasticity.

When Muggle science fiction talks about time travel, it usually imagines grand scenes of traversing the past, attempting to alter certain events in history to create a different present, but—

Time is not a simple one-way street; it is more like a complex network with self-adjusting capabilities.

When time travelers travel through time, especially to the past to intervene in some form, they are actually introducing a distortion into the fabric of time.

At first glance, this distortion might seem to cause significant historical changes, such as preventing a far-reaching event.

However, time itself seems to possess a unique elasticity, a self-correcting mechanism, which is often referred to as "time convergence" in magical time theory.

This convergence property means that even if a time traveler makes changes at some point in history, the timeline will automatically take steps to “patchise” those changes.

Time will repair, correct, or postpone the changes caused by time travelers in an unexpected "butterfly effect."

This will cause changes made in the past to be postponed to the present moment in some form.

This convergence property means that the altering effects of time travel either remain at the point in time that was interfered with.

This point is like the surface of water being shaken; although the ripples will spread outward, they will eventually return to calm.

Either it keeps delaying until the point before the change occurs, at which point its impact becomes apparent.

Therefore, while the direct changes caused by time travelers may seem significant, the timeline will ultimately incorporate these changes into its own continuous unity in a subtle and complex way.

Within this framework, the impact at the current point in time is a direct result of the historical self-adjustment process.

This results in a relatively stable sense of reality, although the details that constitute it may differ due to the intervention of time travel.

This extended treatment of influences ensures a certain form of integrity and continuity in cosmic history, although we may never fully understand its complexity and complete picture.

Therefore, the concept of time involves countless possibilities and variables.

Within this theoretical framework, we can see that time is not merely a sequence of events, but rather as a vibrant entity with its own defense mechanisms and repair capabilities.

This uniqueness of time attempts to maintain its structure and order in the face of distortion and disturbance, and this self-repairing process is often full of unpredictability and creativity.

In this understanding of time, time travel is not merely a physical leap, but a profound encounter with the texture of the universe. Every crossing of spacetime, every subtle adjustment of history, leaves a unique imprint on this vast cosmic network.

While these marks may be smoothed over by the self-correcting mechanisms of time, the attempts and changes they represent remain both challenges to and contributions to the cosmic order.

Therefore, Tiera's action 1.5 million years ago to deflect that meteorite from its orbit did not have an impact on the timeline from 1.5 million years ago to the present. Instead, due to the inherent convergence of time, this impact has been delayed until today.