Milk_Is_My_Drug
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Chapter 118: The Final Life
🕑 Added 2025-05-20 07:01:26 +0000 UTCThe smoke above the stage shifted once more. A new scene unfolded before the captive audience—a man kneeling before a poisoned king. The king’s blood stained the surrounding, the screaming and worry of people fading into the background.
The man pressed his hands to the king’s wounds, murmuring incantations. The magic flared, saving the king like. The audience watched as the king, still trembling from the brush with death, grasped the man’s hand in gratitude.
“You have saved my life,” the king said. “I owe you a debt.”
Instead of asking for gold or titles, the man said he paid a debt. The vision shifted, showing the king granting him land, insisting it was his —a vast, untouched expanse of wilderness.
It was there that the man made his next choice. He selected a child, one with no name or title, and raised them to be his heir. He taught them everything—magic, leadership, knowledge that stretched beyond what any noble knew.
“This was the start of the Malfoy family” Dante spoke calmly.
Then, the audience saw the man take a familiar action. Once again, he pulled light from his chest, the ethereal glow flickering before he sealed it into an object. Another Horcrux. Another anchor to the world.
He placed it into the hands of his chosen heir. And then he left.
The smoke swirled again, reshaping the vision. The man walked alone through the world, moving as a specter through history, unseen and forgotten.
Then, the vision changed.
Four children huddled together in the dark, their faces pale with fear. Muggle men loomed over them, torches casting flickering shadows across their trembling forms.
“Those four are founders of Hogwarts, they were caught when they were young by the church” Dante explained.
The audience felt a shudder run through them as the men raised weapons, screaming for the children's death.
But then bolts of lighting hit the executioners and audience. The children were saved as the man stood before them.
They watched as he led the children away, teaching them, protecting them. They grew before their eyes—no longer frightened or weak, but powerful. Confident.
For decades, he remained by their side. Guiding them. Preparing them.
Then, the scene changed again. The man, now older, led the four to a vast, untouched land. The very same land from his first life.
“When they decided on building a school, it was their teacher who would pick the location. So he picked the one that held the greatest meaning in his long life” Dante said.
The man guided his students to the site of his ancient tomb. The realization struck the audience like a thunderclap. Hogwarts had not been built randomly. It was chosen.
This place had always held significance. It had been waiting—waiting for the right moment, for the right hands to shape it into something greater.
And so, the four students began their work. They laid the foundations, carved the walls, infused the castle with magic so powerful it would endure for eternity.
The man did not remain to see their legacy flourish. He left, disappearing into history, his name forgotten, while the names of Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hufflepuff lived on.
The audience was stunned. Without him, Hogwarts would never have existed. And yet, no one remembered him.
The world of smoke twisted once more. Now, they saw a young face, standing in a town handing a notebook to an elderly man.
“The violence and infighting due to muggles were rising over the centuries, so Hogwarts devised enchantments and runes to hide the magical world from muggles. This was during the formation of an International Confederation of Wizards, he proposed it to Aristotle Twelvetrees and later became the cornerstone of the Statute Of Secrecy”
This was as much as a shock as the ones before it, the Statute of Secrecy was also his suggestion and work?
The smoke shifted again, the young face now became older, standing at the edge of existence itself. A veil loomed before him, an ominous, whispering darkness. The place felt wrong, as though it did not belong in the world of the living.
Yet the young man did not fear it. Slowly, carefully, he reached out.
The audience gasped as he grasped at something beyond the veil, pulling it forth. Shadows twisted, a terrible screech echoed through the vision. And then—creatures formed. Cloaked in blackness, faceless, with a presence so cold the audience felt their own bodies shiver.
Dementors.
They watched as the man studied them, spoke to them, tried to understand their nature. He did not fear them. He sought knowledge.
He recorded his findings. Page after page, ink scrawled across parchment. Not as monsters. But as something that could be understood. Controlled.
The vision grew darker. The man stood among dozens of Dementors now, his form gaunt, his breath shallow.
“Help the wizards during my absence and store the souls of vile ones for my eventual return. I left them the way to communicate with you, you can help each other” Dante spoke as the man in the smoke moved his lips.
And then he made his final sacrifice. He gave his life to keep them bound to the world. His body fell, lifeless, but his work remained. The dementors all bowed to the body of their dead creator.
The audience were shocked beyond any measure. The knowledge of how to work with these creatures, how to bend them to a greater purpose, was left behind. But it was destroyed by Nicolas Flamel.
The vision faded. Silence filled the stadium. No one could speak. No one dared to.
The journey of Hogwarts, of Odin, of Herpo, of Tertius, of Sun Simiao—the journey of a man who had lived countless lives—was unlike anything they had ever heard.
Dante stood at the center of it all. Waiting. Watching. As they finally understood.
The swirling smoke dissipated, leaving Dante standing alone at the center of the stage. The audience remained utterly silent. Not a whisper, not a breath.
His eyes, glowing like embers in the darkness, swept over them, and none dared to meet his gaze.
Then, he spoke.
“I have lived longer than anyone else.”
His voice was calm. Steady. Yet it thundered across the silent stadium.
“I have done more than you can imagine. I have seen the best and the worst of the world. I have pushed the limits of magic beyond what any of you could ever dream.”
The silence deepened. No one moved. Dante took a step forward.
“Your history is shaped by my actions.”
The weight of those words settled over the crowd. History itself was his creation.
They had just witnessed it all. The origins of everything they thought they knew. And now, they saw him, the architect of it all, standing before them.
His voice did not waver.
“My final goal was to ascend beyond mortality. To be the one to decide who lives and who dies. To control the history of all living things.”
He paused, letting the words sink in.
“And I succeeded.”
At that moment, the world changed.
From behind him, a silver light erupted from the ground. It spread, racing like wildfire across the land.
The audience turned in horror as the lake began to glow, shimmering with silver radiance. The very air vibrated with magic, the ground beneath their feet trembling as the energy surged.
Hogwarts itself came alive. Then, the world exploded in light. A tree, not of wood, but of pure silver energy, emerged around Hogwarts.
It grew, spiraling higher and higher, stretching toward the sky, as if trying to connect the land and the sky itself. The sheer power of the sight left the audience paralyzed.
Dante stood before it, unshaken.
“In my success,” he continued, his voice haunting, “I destroyed the veil between life and death. All things ceased. Only I remained.”
The light dimmed and the sky darkened. A terrible pressure filled the air, pressing down on the audience like a suffocating weight. An oppressive feeling of inevitability.
“History ended in the shadow of my work. Only my voice remained at the end of time.”
He turned away from them, his gaze fixed on the towering Tree of Light. The tree hummed, as if alive, as if listening.
“So here we are again,” Dante said softly. “Same place. Different circumstances.”
The audience remained frozen, not daring to move.
“That tree…” he murmured, his voice carrying through the silence, “…is the harbinger of the end.”
He stood there for a moment, looking up at its shining branches.
“I did consider trying again.”
His tone was almost thoughtful.
“I wondered if I could find a different way this time.”
A pause.
“But then…” His expression darkened. “…I stopped myself.”
A heavy silence.
“I came to the conclusion that I am tired.”
His words echoed through the stadium, leaving a lingering chill.
“Why should I live more? Why should I continue to try?”
The weight of that question crushed the air from the audience’s lungs.
“When I started, I loved this world. I wanted to explore it. But now?”
His glowing eyes narrowed.
“I hate that I was born into it.”
No one breathed.
“All of humankind” Dante continued, his voice carrying a deep, ancient weariness, “was nothing but a disappointment.”
His words cut deep. His judgment fell like a final, irreversible sentence.
“Through all the eras, I watched. I worked nonstop and gave you all the knowledge I could. A chance at a better future.”
He gestured to the world around them.
“But what did you do?” His voice hardened.
“You ruined it. You vilified it. You let magic stagnate. You let idiots claim superiority over others based on bloodline. You took everything I gave you and wasted it. Just like many before you.”
His eyes burned.
“I am the progenitor of the dark arts, the worst single thing to ever happen to the world. Sometimes, I even wonder if we were in the wrong, that should have let the elves end us. Now I can’t see a future for you.” His words fell like a death sentence.
The audience felt it. A chill ran through them, deeper than anything they had ever known.
Then, Dante exhaled. “So… I have decided.”
His voice dropped, calm, quiet, deadly.
“This shall be my last life.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
“For the last two years,” Dante said, “I have been preparing a grand spell. A spell of runes, magic circuits and enchantments. A spell that encapsulates everything I have learned”
His next words sent a shockwave through the air.
“The moment I die, the spell will activate and all my work shall be undone.”
The ground shook beneath them.
“You take magic for granted,” Dante said coldly. “So I will end this.”
He raised a hand.
“The Elves will be free.”
“All my research, all my knowledge… gone.”
“The magic scrolls. The creatures I created. The magical abilities that arose from my research and you took pride in. Will be no more”
He turned, facing the audience again.
“Dementors will be free.”
“And Hogwarts…”
The crowd froze.
“…will end.”
Gasps of horror filled the stadium.
“And with Hogwarts,” Dante said, his voice emotionless, “the Statute of Secrecy shall collapse. Never to raise again”
His judgment was final. The world as they knew it would end.
“You have three years. After that, I will end myself”
The audience shook.
“These will be your last chance to prepare for what is coming.”
His final warning rang across the world.
“There is no stopping it now. The world will never be the same.”
He turned away from them, looking at the Tree of Light one last time.
“You will either rise up and survive. Or be destroyed when the world discovers you.”
Silence.
Then, his final words a whisper.
“Either way, I will not be around to watch you anymore.”
Comments
Kul
What a chapter, Wonder if he will go through with it.
