The Ancient One smiled faintly, seemingly seeing through Leon’s thoughts.
But she didn’t dwell on the matter.
Instead, she changed the subject and returned to the main topic.
“Since you know so much, I assume you’re also from another world?”
“Yeah.”
Leon nodded and admitted it.
He held his teacup near his lips, lowered his gaze, and asked jokingly,
“Are you guardians of Earth planning to eliminate an outsider like me?”
“If we wanted to do that, we would’ve done it on the very first day you arrived.”
Mordo replied somewhat irritably.
Leon’s habit of demanding payment for everything had left a bad taste in his mouth, so he was no longer as friendly as before.
However, his personal dislike didn’t affect his judgment.
“Kamar-Taj does indeed exist to defend against invasions from other dimensions.”
“But the multiverse is vast, and the worlds within it are infinitely mysterious.
Accidental travel between parallel universes happens all the time.”
“If we indiscriminately killed every outsider who appeared, then we wouldn’t be guardians at all.”
“Mordo…”
The Ancient One called her disciple’s name.
After hesitating for a moment, she continued,
“The moment you began thinking of yourself as a guardian, arrogance had already taken over your mind.”
“Don’t allow such emotions to influence you.
They will leave openings for others to exploit.”
“Yes, Master!”
Mordo immediately apologized with a solemn expression.
The Ancient One nodded slightly before turning back toward Leon.
“We aren’t guardians.”
“We simply hope that the place we all live in can continue to develop and prosper.”
“You don’t need to concern yourself with it.”
No.
You are guardians.
Leon really wanted to say that.
But seeing the Ancient One’s serious expression, he couldn’t help nodding and decided not to pursue the topic.
Returning to the main subject, he said,
“I can sense how powerful you two are.”
“Someone as powerful as you shouldn’t be so bored that you’d personally come deal with something as insignificant as the Ghosts.”
“So what exactly did you come here for?”
“Those Ghosts may not be as powerful as the extradimensional demons, but they’re certainly not insignificant.”
The Ancient One stared into Leon’s eyes.
“At first, I didn’t pay much attention to you.”
“But the later appearance of the Ghosts surprised me.”
“Because I couldn’t find any trace of them anywhere in the multiverse.”
“And the same was true of you.”
…
On the day Leon arrived in this world, the Ancient One had already sensed the disturbance in space-time and become aware of the existence of this transmigrator.
But at that time, Leon was merely an ordinary person.
The Ancient One hadn’t paid much attention to him.
It wasn’t until the Ghosts appeared that she began observing the timelines and the multiverse again.
Then she discovered something strange.
Apart from the future timelines where the Ghosts and Leon existed, she couldn’t find any trace of either them or Leon in the other universes of the multiverse.
And the Leon she had originally assumed to be an ordinary person would eventually become an extraordinarily powerful superhero with an influential position.
That was why she had deliberately taken the time to meet him.
What concerned her wasn’t the damage the Ghosts were causing to society.
As she had said, the Ghosts weren’t insignificant, but neither were they as powerful as the extradimensional demons.
And the extradimensional demons were the threshold that normally prompted her to act.
As long as there wasn’t a threat capable of destroying humanity or Earth, the Ancient One wouldn’t deliberately intervene.
Unless, of course, the threat came directly to her doorstep.
She hadn’t come to see Leon simply because he and the Ghosts were outsiders.
What concerned her was the possibility that some unknown change had occurred in a part of the multiverse she couldn’t observe.
If that were the case, more and more outsiders or creatures from other worlds might begin arriving.
Most transmigrators were simply ordinary people or objects accidentally crossing between worlds, with no impact whatsoever on the development of the world they entered.
But there were always exceptions.
Through her travels across the multiverse, she had witnessed a world where a creature called Godzilla arrived in New York, beat up the Avengers and various supervillains alike, and nearly destroyed several cities in the ensuing chaos.
She had also witnessed worlds where the Pure Titans appeared and began devouring humans on a massive scale.
She even remembered a world where characters who had originally existed only in comics appeared in reality, fought against numerous gods of the Marvel Universe, and nearly destroyed the entire universe in the process.
That was a crossover between Marvel and DC.
She also remembered a transmigrator who carried a terrifying virus that infected the entire world.
As the saying went, those who fail to plan ahead will eventually suffer from immediate troubles.
Leon and fifteen Ghosts had arrived in this world within a single year.
She had to do something.
At the very least, she needed to understand what was happening.
Otherwise, if it was Ghosts this time…
What would come next?
What?
Wouldn’t she simply look into the future for the answer?
But the future could change.
Especially when it came to transmigrators—people or creatures who didn’t originally belong to the native world.
The original future contained no record of them.
Only after they arrived would they begin appearing within the timeline.
That made searching the timeline for answers practically meaningless.
…
Faced with the Ancient One’s question, Leon didn’t answer directly.
Instead, he revealed something else.
“Although I know about the Ghosts, they don’t actually come from the same world as me.”
“What!?”
Mordo stared at him in shock.
The Ancient One, meanwhile, fell into deep thought.
Leon smiled and ignored their reactions.
“Just as you, Sorcerer Supreme, are able to learn about the multiverse, I can also learn about many other worlds for certain reasons.”
“…No wonder.”
The Ancient One slowly exhaled.
“The aura of your respective eras felt different.”
“So you really aren’t from the same world.”
Whenever she observed Muzan and the other Ghosts alongside Leon, she had always sensed something subtly wrong.
Now that Leon had explained it, she finally understood.
The strange feeling came from the habits and atmosphere created by their different eras.
“There are many changes occurring throughout the multiverse that I can’t stop…”
Leon continued.
“…and there will be more and more transmigrators arriving in the future.”
Mordo looked toward the Ancient One.
Her expression remained calm.
After thinking for a moment, she asked,
“Then do you know who will arrive?”
“I don’t know.”
Leon gently shook his head.
“But because of the nature of these changes, the stronger someone is, the more difficult it is for them to cross over.”
“So, Sorcerer Supreme, there’s no need to worry too much about the situation you’re concerned about.”
“Hmm.”
The Ancient One nodded slightly.
“No matter what, the world’s self-protection mechanism still exists.”
“If something too powerful attempts to invade, the world will respond.”
“Whether by suppressing the invader or finding someone destined to save the world, it won’t allow an invader to succeed so easily.”
The Marvel Universe possessed the Five Great Cosmic Entities:
Infinity, Oblivion, Death, Galactus, and Eternity.
Apart from Galactus, who represented a particular cosmic function, the other four were either concepts themselves or direct manifestations of the universe.
The universe was essentially their body.
When something went wrong with their body, they would naturally seek a way to heal it.
Leon had never actually read the Marvel comics.
But he had watched plenty of short videos in his previous life.
He frequently encountered stories about some kind of cosmic crisis where a superhero suddenly obtained a certain power or artifact and saved the universe from destruction.
That was simply another form of the universe saving itself.
Of course, that didn’t mean Leon was their enemy.
Because death was also one of the natural laws.
As long as the method was appropriate, one could even obtain the assistance of one of the Five Great Gods to destroy the world.