Harry Potter and Dreams Lost

After a flight class that I think went remarkably well, we were sent back into the castle for din-din. The food appears, and everyone has gone into ignorance of my normal eating habits. Honestly, I think it’s more akin to wishing they could forget but ignoring me is the next best thing.

 

My focus wanders as one of my probes finds a dimension. Well, dimensions. It’s not exactly a Psychic realm, but it’s still chock full of energies. And! They’re a dime-a-dozen worlds. I mean, they don’t have much plot variance except the smut here and there. Here and there meaning a buttload in infinity.

 

And I believe Thomas regards these universes as a mistake—a black mark on his history of keeping the worlds from colliding. I, also, agree and regret giving these worlds their abilities.

 

He’d probably say good riddance if I eat some of these…

 

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[ POV CHANGE ]

 

It’s time. After 500 years of searching, I have found the Heavenly Mountain of Celestial Yin and Yang. Now I can cultivate and break through to the next realm. Of course, I have to survive my heavenly tribulation, but that will be no issue to the likes of me.

 

I leave my beautiful 12 wives at the base and begin my climb. The rocky slopes are steep, and the stone debris makes some paths slippery. However, my desire—my need and burning revenge push me further. I will avenge you, father, and I will kill uncle.

 

Then, our legendary sect will take me back, and I will be regarded as a hero.

 

My hand catches a shelf. Pulling myself up, I see a heavenly treasure: the Jade Petalbloom. It’s fabled that master alchemists can turn it into a pill that can force a man through eight realms!

 

Digging my fingers into the fertile soil, I remove the legendary flower from the ground, gently putting the plant into the knapsack at my side. I pause for a second as I reorient myself, then continue my climb.

 

Several hours of relentless climb later, I reach the plateau, the grass flowing with enormous amounts of energy. I can almost feel myself being revitalized from the Qi in the air.

 

Assuming the lotus position, I slow my breathing, beginning my cultivation. The technique I had found all those years ago when I was about to die has carried me all this way. I’m sure that it will carry me further, to the point where I can defy the heavens themselves!

 

*Rumble* An earthquake? Has my tribulation already begun? No… I believe I should be in pain myself. Perhaps someone else is undergoing their own? Who could have the audacity to ruin my moment?

 

I blink my eyes open. Wait… What? That…doesn’t look like a tribulation I’ve seen before… Am I perhaps dreaming?

 

A pillar of darkness, a tarnishing mark on the azure-blue sky that seems to defy the concept of color and light itself. The shape appears to undulate, not remaining in one place in space…or time?

 

It touches down upon the Battlefield of Remembrance where Lord Li had engaged Lord Jiang, resulting in 13,000,000 deaths.  The ground gives way, like a pebble in a still pond, upending the fields of grass and overturning the soil underneath with ease.

 

*RUMBLE* Another one?

 

I turn, horrified by the sight before me. Another, no, not another. Tens, hundreds, thousands of more pillars; each one plunging into the terrain and molding the landscape like clay.

 

*BOOM* One of the spots the pillar sat upon erupts in dust and lava, but it continues on without pause.

 

“Halt!” A booming voice shouts, a familiar one. Uncle… Ugh, is this his doing? His power is nothing to laugh at; even from this distance, I can hear him. “You have been found trespassing upon these sacred lands. Your punishment shall be death!”

 

I focus Qi into my eyes, allowing me to see uncle reading his Dragon’s Eternal Defiance of Sun and Moon technique, the most powerful martial art in the world. His body grows into a mash of man and beast, much larger than what one could even call a man. His skin cracks with power, shaking reality with each pump of his heart.

 

He moves, faster than I can perceive, forcing his palm and all of the collected Qi into the pillar.

 

…Nothing happens.

 

Or, rather, everything happens.

 

Faster than even uncle could perceive, tendrils erupt from every direction, from every spot. The ends of each fading into the air before branching into another.

 

“AAAAHHHh—” Uncles unearthly scream fades as he disappears into thin air. I can’t believe it. Uncle’s legendary strongest move, fabled to move entire continents, meant nothing to this…this heavenly tribulation.

 

No. If this were to be any tribulation, it would be the tribulation those in the heavens feel for their hubris, and everyone below is simple collateral damage. It puts everything into perspective. I understand now.

 

My problem was not with uncle, but it was with the gods themselves. It was them who I should’ve focused on.

 

A new burning desire builds within me, one to make the one responsible for all of this pay for their actions. Then, to make the being that had been cause ire to face my own judgement.

 

Is it getting hot?

 

Glimpsing downward, the fire within my spirit is doused by a much larger flame. The pillars have broken through several layers of earth and now the terrain is but a sight of the sun. Only fire and lava remain. The trek I had made earlier has disappeared, along with my wives, as the lava slowly approaches, crawling along each step.

 

Eh, I can get new wives. Maybe a goddess?

 

Closing my eyes, I focus and wrap myself in all the Qi within my soul. Despite not having gone through my tribulation, I know I will survive this.

 

I open my eyes to see a rapidly descending pillar.

 

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Bleh. Cultivation universes always taste sour. So much posturing and peacocking. Oh yeah! Did you sit in a cave for a hundred years? Well, I did it for two hundred, so hah!

 

Ugh. I barely got even a speck of energy from that one. I think there was a gnat that tried to bite me. Eh, just removing the bonds between their atoms worked. Probably. Not breaking them, of course. That would release several gigajoules of energy.

 

I might just push that matter into my storage stomach, might reinforce my bladder or something later. Annnnnd…toss the energy into an organic battery. Welp. Onto the next one!