Horn watched Bryan Watson intently, and his eagerness for answers was written pinly on his horse face. He yearned to know how this mysterious young wizard had come by such detailed and accurate knowledge of the centaurs' most closely guarded secrets.
However, under Horn's inquisitive gaze, Bryan remained silent. He simply walked up to the door leading to the third and final secret chamber before slowly turning around to look back at Horn,
"Mr. Watson—" Horn began, his voice catching in his throat. The old centaur knew what that look in Watson's eyes meant. He tried with all his might to resist the pressure hidden in Bryan's calm gaze. "This chamber...it is of the utmost importance to the centaurs,"
Horn said with great difficulty as each word felt heavy on his tongue. "If you are willing to let us keep the secret of what lies within, you will have our eternal gratitude. We will forever be in your debt—"
Bryan raised his eyebrows in surprise, taken aback by Horn's emotional plea. He had not expected the proud centaur elder to say such a thing, to practically beg him to leave the chamber be.
After pondering for a long, tense moment in front of the door, Bryan finally shook his head. Normally, he would not be so overbearing as to insist on opening the centaurs' most secret chamber against their wishes. However, the faint yet overwhelmingly, fatally attractive force emanating from behind the sealed door, made it impossible for him to turn and walk away.
"I must see what lies inside, Horn," Bryan said in a firm, unwavering tone that allowed absolutely no refusal. "But I give you my solemn word that I will not cause even the slightest damage in there."
Horn's haggard face trembled. He still wanted to try and persuade the resolute wizard, to beg him to turn back, but the fiery determination bzing in Watson's eyes made it clear his request was bound to be futile.
"I sincerely hope you will keep your word," Horn said with a heavy, mournful sigh, his shoulders slumping in defeat. The centaur elder stepped forward and, with great nervousness, opened the final door, just as he had done before.
The instant the ancient door swung open, a blinding, dazzling brilliance gushed forth, spilling out into the room outside. The sheer intensity of the blinding light was so great that it gave Bryan the staggering illusion of being caught in the middle of a raging torrent!
Bryan's eyes widened as his gaze abruptly focused, locking onto the breathtaking sight of the final chamber stretched out before him. For a long, long time he simply stared, awestruck and speechless.
Just like the chamber he had seen hidden deep beneath Azkaban, housing that hauntingly mysterious door, the chamber before his eyes was not a room in the traditional sense. No, this was a vast, limitless stretch, a boundless ocean of glittering stars stretching out endlessly, like an entire universe contained within four walls.
Dazzling points of light danced and swirled, drawing intriguing, mesmerizing trajectories through the void. They flowed together converging and merging to form a magnificent grand gaxy. This scene was indescribably stunning!
"Ah, the mysterious starry sky—"
No one could remain calm in the face of the unfathomable universe. Even Bryan couldn't help but sigh with feeling. He strolled into the chamber, his gaze wandering left and right. In this vast universe, a profound sense of self-insignificance arose spontaneously.
"The trajectories of the stars contain all the secrets of this world—" Horn said in fascination, even though this was not its first time entering the chamber. "The great Sage Merlin himself is said to have received revetions from fate amidst these very stars..."
Bryan pressed his lips together and said nothing. His gaze was fixed on the stone ptform in the backdrop of the gaxy, supported by a bottomless void.
The ptform itself was unremarkable. What truly attracted Bryan was the object enshrined upon it.
Bryan strode across the void to the ptform and gazed at the item—it was a cy tablet, about the size of an ordinary spell book. The brown tablet was covered with crisscrossing cracks, looking like it had been molded from cy and then sun-dried.
"What is this?" Bryan asked softly, strongly suppressing the palpitations in his heart as his eyes were deeply drawn to this inconspicuous tablet that emitted a strange fluctuation.
Horn seemed quite nervous about the tablet. He followed closely behind Bryan to the ptform, gazing at the tablet with a respectful look. Faced with Watson's question, Horn was silent for a moment.
"Our ancestors followed Merlin to this forest and Merlin left revetions, telling us to live here and not leave. Before departing, he left this cy tablet and instructed us to guard it. Its name has been passed down orally among the elders, called the 'Tablet of Destiny.' For over a thousand years, we have firmly remembered this mission. Even in the most difficult times, we have never lost it—"
Bryan stared at the ordinary lump of cy with new eyes.
"The Tablet of Destiny," Bryan murmured. "Did Merlin tell your ancestors the purpose of guarding this tablet?"
Horn hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "The first time I entered here, I also asked Dean, the previous elder, this question. Elder Dean told me that the long years have caused us to lose some key information of our history. We no longer know, if indeed we ever did, the true purpose behind Merlin's command to protect this tablet."
Bryan fell silent. He gazed for a long time at this tablet that seemed to be made of the most ordinary yellow cy. Struggle and desire alternated in his purple eyes. Finally—
Bryan raised his hand and lightly touched the cy tablet with a finger.
Seeing this, Horn's face changed drastically. Although they no longer knew the purpose of guarding this tablet, it was nonetheless from Merlin and had been their reason for existing in the Forbidden Forest for over a thousand years. It absolutely could not be lost!
Shocked, Horn instinctively reached out to pull Bryan Watson away from the edge of the ptform. But when he was about to do so, he discovered that he was already pressed in pce by a tyrannical force, unable to move at all, or even make a sound. He could only gre with resentful, angry eyes at Bryan Watson, whose fingertip was approaching the tablet!
The instant his fingertip touched the tablet, the first thing Bryan felt was an icy coldness, as if this unremarkable cy tablet was the coldest object in the world. This bone-chilling cold rapidly spread from his fingertip to his entire body, as if even his soul would be frozen.
What changed was not the object the centaurs called the Tablet of Destiny, but Bryan himself!
As the coldness engulfed his body and Bryan was about to summon Fiendfyre to resist it, a silver-white silhouette uncontrolbly flew out from his body and circled above the ptform.
This silhouette was a bizarre snake with bck and white wings on its back, its entire body shrouded in a lustrous white light, looking both sacred and sinister!
Bryan realized his Patronus had appeared in the real world without being summoned. The circling winged serpent suddenly dove downward, plunging into the Tablet of Destiny before the shocked eyes of Bryan and Horn!
Buzz—
The Tablet of Destiny, silent for over a thousand years, started trembling, and its tremors caused the starry chamber housing it to shudder in synchronization. Every star in sight, moving along mysterious trajectories, was quaking, making the gaxy formed by the stars seem to be boiling!
The chaos of magic broke Bryan's suppression of Horn. The old centaur bnkly looked at the surroundings and blurted out, "What's happening?"
But there was no time to even begin to voice a response, as at that moment, the Tablet of Destiny did something extraordinary.
Enveloped by a haze of shimmering, ethereal light, it rose from its stone ptform as if lifted by an invisible hand. The tablet that had devoured the silver snake hovered in front of Bryan's head, as if confirming something. A few moments ter, without any warning, the tablet suddenly burst forth with dazzling starlight. It melted in the boundless radiance, then transformed into a meteor-like brilliance that disappeared into Bryan Watson's heart.
PAIN.
Agony beyond agony, torment beyond all estimation crashed over Bryan in a wave of anguish. He felt as though he was being burned alive, his mind and soul shredded by thousand knives. He had no basis for comparison, as he had never experienced the Cruciatus Curse... but in this traumatic, sanity-crushing moment, he was certain that not even that unforgivable curse could match the suffering he now endured.
The intense agony and fainting sensation caused Bryan to colpse to the ground. In a daze, a flowing gray mist appeared before Bryan's eyes—he hadn't seen this gray mist for many years!
After he realized he had entered the world of Harry Potter and his memory was improved, he had tried using magic to recover his forgotten plot memories. However, no matter what method he used, the pursuit of those memories always ended in failure. A gray mist would always block the path to the truth.
But now, in this moment of agony, as his very soul was being torn apart, the mist... split. Parted like a veil by an unseen bde. And Bryan SAW.
An image appeared in Bryan's mind without warning—he was floating in a boundless void, passing through a doorway. No words could describe the vastness and majesty silently emanating from this huge door made of the same material as the cy tablet, as if it represented the most mysterious secrets of the universe!
The person passing through the door, whose body appeared ethereal, was undoubtedly himself. He wouldn't fail to recognize his own appearance. However, he had no memory of this scene at all. Amidst the intense pain, Bryan fell into deep self-doubt.
The vision sted no more than a heartbeat. And then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone, swallowed once more into the impenetrable fog that enshrouded Bryan's mind. But in its fading trail, a strange, ancient voice suddenly rang out!
"In the starry sky lies your way home."
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