No one knew whether it was because Agamotto trusted people too easily, had too soft a heart, or because Kang the Conqueror had shown him the horrific devastation caused by the Multiversal Wars.
In any case, Agamotto ultimately chose to sacrifice himself to help Kang establish the Sacred Timeline.
He also demanded that every future bearer of the Eye of Agamotto guarantee that no one would ever disrupt the timeline.
Because the Multiversal Wars had simply been too tragic.
Later generations of Sorcerers Supreme were not fools. Gradually, they discovered that Kang the Conqueror wasn't protecting peace at all—he was protecting his own rule.
Every branch within the Sacred Timeline existed solely to prevent the birth of another Kang the Conqueror.
In other words, every event occurring across all timelines was only allowed to develop in one predetermined direction.
Iron Man might be male in one timeline and female in another. Captain America might be tall in one universe and short in another.
But every single thing they did still had to follow the same script.
If anything deviated from that script, the result would be total erasure.
The individual responsible for the branch would be erased.
The branch timeline itself would also be erased.
Now everything finally made sense.
The reason the closed-loop timeline ended one thousand years later was because that was the point where Kang the Conqueror emerged.
As for the thousands of years before that, perhaps they were simply part of the fixed length required to maintain the Sacred Timeline's closed-loop structure.
Or perhaps resistance forces had appeared at some point and threatened Kang.
Whatever the reason, Kang had created a loop that forced these thousands of years to repeat endlessly.
The implications were horrifying.
Especially for Natasha and the Ancient One.
Had they already repeated this exact lifetime thousands of times?
Tens of thousands of times?
Living the same life over and over again without even realizing it?
"…No."
The Ancient One suddenly spoke.
"I don't know how many times this timeline has repeated itself, nor do I have any memories of previous cycles. But this time should be different."
"Because I saw that at some point in the future, the timeline will undergo an enormous change."
"And in the end, all of this will be brought to an end by the next Sorcerer Supreme… Stephen Strange."
"Stephen Strange?" Natasha asked curiously. "You mean the surgeon who operated on me? Isn't Qin supposed to become the next Sorcerer Supreme?"
"Yes. But everything I said earlier was based on the future before Qin Xiao appeared."
"After he appeared, everything changed."
"I was already curious before why the TVA never came after you."
"Since you've allowed your little girlfriend to stay here, I assume you no longer intend to hide anything."
"You do not belong to this timeline, Qin Xiao."
"And now… we need to have a proper conversation."
"I think we can start with that coffin."
After hearing this, Qin Xiao secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
His system and transmigration were his greatest secrets. He didn't want anyone to know about them.
After all, he couldn't exactly tell them they were characters from movies created in another world.
Even if the laws governing reality weren't that simple, and there were higher-level explanations involved, it would still be too troublesome to explain.
But now it seemed his original destination really had been the Marvel movie timeline.
He had simply ended up on the wrong side of the Sacred Timeline loop.
Fortunately, he had the system.
Otherwise, he might also have been trapped in the other half of the cycle, endlessly repeating countless loops without ever realizing it.
Even if you never became aware of it, the idea of being manipulated like that still felt deeply unpleasant.
"Ever since I was young," Qin Xiao began slowly, "I've always had a dream… that I lived in another world…"
He entered full bluffing mode.
Using dreams as an excuse, he narrated the first half of the original Qin Xiao's life and explained the origin of the coffin.
Naturally, he omitted everything related to the system and transmigration.
Instead, he rewrote the story into one of enduring humiliation, achieving success through perseverance, and finally taking revenge against the cheating couple.
"And what about your knowledge of this world?" the Ancient One asked next.
"You know things that haven't happened yet."
"I saw fragments of them in my dreams," Qin Xiao sighed regretfully. "But they were only scattered scenes. It's difficult to piece them together completely."
The Ancient One smiled faintly.
She knew Qin Xiao wasn't telling the entire truth, but in her opinion, what he had revealed was already enough.
"The soul is one of the most mysterious things in existence," she explained.
"Perhaps your soul passed through the loop."
"Or perhaps, in some form, you received information from another timeline."
"And during that process, you glimpsed fragments of the future—or the past."
"So that's how it is…" Qin Xiao nodded seriously.
Internally, however, he was giving the Ancient One a giant thumbs-up.
Perfect.
She had basically explained everything for him.
"What about the coffin then?" Qin Xiao continued.
"I can accept the explanation regarding souls, but why did the coffin appear in this timeline?"
"I don't know," the Ancient One admitted, shaking her head.
"I looked to the end of history."
"That coffin was dug out of the earth and regarded by ancient European civilizations as a divine gift from the heavens."
"It was passed down generation after generation before eventually falling into the hands of a declining noble family—the same castle owner who later sold it to the auction house."
"However, I suspect that during the process of timeline pruning, there are people—or perhaps something else—responsible for deleting things."
"Whether human or object, nothing can simply vanish without a trace."
"There must be some method used to completely destroy them."
"And this coffin… may simply be something that was overlooked."
Qin Xiao silently nodded.
The Ancient One's explanation of the timeline loop sounded reasonable enough.
But regarding the coffin itself, Qin Xiao decided he still needed to investigate it personally when he had the chance.
As for the TVA, Qin Xiao couldn't explain anything because he himself understood almost nothing about it.
According to the Ancient One's theory, either the TVA had already undergone some kind of change…
Or Qin Xiao himself possessed some unknown special factor that even he had yet to discover.
"I have one final question," Qin Xiao said seriously.
"You already saw the future. You had already chosen a successor."
"So why, after meeting me, did you decide to make me the next Sorcerer Supreme?"
This was the biggest question weighing on Qin Xiao's mind.
"Do you remember what I said earlier?"
"Only the next Sorcerer Supreme can bring all of this to an end."
"I saw that future a very long time ago."
"Stephen Strange was the greatest of all Sorcerers Supreme."
"When the Sacred Timeline finally changed, it was he who led the effort to end everything."
"Unfortunately… by that point, I was already dead."
"Ever since obtaining the Eye of Agamotto, I have observed my own future countless times."
"And every time, the result was the same."
"But after you appeared…"
"…everything changed."
"The future began branching into countless possibilities."
"And in most of those possibilities…"
"…I survive."
-----------------------
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