great-warnovel Chapter 510 The Fate of the Moth
Chapter 510 The Fate of the Moth
Chapter 510 The Fate of the Moth
"People cheer for victory, but what is the meaning of victory?"
"They won't eat the Golden Snitch, and the scoreboard will be reset to zero before the next game begins."
A humming sound echoed through the corridor.
It is these brains that are communicating with each other.
"It's happiness! We're happy! Isn't that enough?" a brain responded.
"But where does happiness come from? What makes us happy? Is it because we defeated our compatriots whom we assumed to be enemies? Or is it because we caught the golden thief, whom we ourselves have given meaning to?"
Then, these brains began philosophical discussions about questions such as victory, happiness, and meaning.
They seem to have some intelligence, but not much. They have a wealth of knowledge, but they don't understand humans and have little logic. Fortunately, they don't care about the two outsiders below.
"It seems like we don't need to worry about it? Can we continue downwards?" Adam asked, tilting his head back.
Hermione nodded.
These brain-like beings may have also been corrupted by dark magic, but as long as they don't show any aggression, there's no need to waste effort eliminating them.
Continuing downhill, we finally reached the eighth floor, which is the reception hall of the Ministry of Magic, a dangerous area shrouded in white mist.
This place is much larger than any of the floors above it, with a vast, towering, cavernous cavity where you can see directly through the windows of every floor above, though they are currently shrouded in mist.
By the time I got here, the hands in my arms were burning hot and trembling.
Hermione became more alert. If the seventh floor was already so strange, there might be even greater challenges waiting for her further down.
But when they stepped out of the stairwell and into the spacious hall, there was no danger as they had imagined.
The white mist floated silently three or four meters above the head, neither rising nor falling, while on the gleaming, dark wooden floor lay the skeletons of wizards and clumps of charred ashes.
The walls on both sides of the main hall are inlaid with many gilded fireplaces: the one on the left is for arrival, and the one on the right is for departure.
But at this moment, these fireplaces all show signs of burning, and they look more like the entrances and exits of an incinerator than a traffic hub.
The Magic Brothers Fountain has long since dried up, standing silently and dry.
"It seems that the last surviving wizards all died here," Adam analyzed.
Driven by hunger and panic, they frantically tried to rekindle the fireplace, but the Floo Powder had long since become ineffective due to the road network's failure. The flames that ignited were pure and scalding, but the wizards no longer cared. They frantically shouted the name of a certain place and then threw themselves into the fire, imagining that they had already left the Ministry of Magic.
Like moths drawn to a flame, they may have already reached their long-desired, warm home in their burning fantasies.
And those obsessions, madness, and fantasies, along with the scorching flames, the burning of the body, and the surge of magic, floated in the air above the reception hall, forming a layer of pure white and dangerous mist.
"This seems to be one of the sources of dark magic in the Ministry of Magic?"
Hermione analyzed it with the perception of a great wizard.
The transformation of the entire underground building begins from the bottom up, becoming less pronounced as you go higher. The power permeating this white mist is emanating upwards along the more than twenty elevator shafts.
"So, if we solve this problem, we can eliminate—or at least weaken—the effects of the alienation?" the boy asked.
Hermione shook her head: "I have a feeling that the white mist is dangerous. It's in a dormant, stable state right now, slowly radiating power outwards, but if we stimulate it rashly, it might trigger more changes."
The wizards who died in the flames were driven increasingly mad by the scorching heat, making the mist less stable than it appeared.
Adam shook his head regretfully: "Their deaths were meaningless. According to my calculations, even in a nuclear explosion, so many magic users should have had a chance to escape."
Hermione remained silent; these wizards from fifty years ago had indeed died ignominiously.
It's utterly absurd that someone could drive themselves mad and starve to death while in a safe underground shelter and with readily available witchcraft at their disposal.
"I think wizards should be taught logic courses, which would at least enable them to do the right thing in critical moments," Adam suggested.
"Anxiety, hunger, mania, fear—these meaningless emotions too easily dominate their thoughts. If they had just calmed down, patiently waited for the effects of the nuclear explosion to subside, and then gradually restored the Floo Network, everyone could have been saved."
"But their minds were consumed by panic, and they would repeat an action they didn't know was right or wrong, just like wild beasts. This caused a chain reaction of spatial turmoil, trapping everyone underground."
Adam was right. There must have been a lot of wizards trapped here when the nuclear explosion happened, but only a few managed to escape. Hermione only found a few dozen wands at the Auror headquarters above, which means that many wizards had already died by the time they started confiscating everyone's wands.
The brain jellyfish on the 7th floor floated out of the window. They seemed to have finished their discussion and were now leisurely swimming in the white mist, absorbing its magic and spirit.
"I think this is where these brains acquire knowledge, in the chaotic fog of the wizarding spirit."
These creatures originating from the Brain Hall are very strange. Hermione doesn't know what they are, but it's clear that the Brain Jellyfish gained knowledge from the minds of these wizards who died in madness, but not rationality.
"Up to now, I haven't seen anything commendable about human nature," Adam concluded bluntly.
"Although I will still carry out my father's orders, my rationality and calculations will make me question the command."
The robot seemed to be disillusioned with humanity. No, or rather, it found it difficult to see the bright spots of humanity in this world; it only saw the bitter consequences of humanity's ultimate fate.
Hermione shook her head: "You only saw their fear and sorrow, because that's how it turned out."
"But life, especially the life of a wizard, cannot be judged solely by its outcome."
At this moment, she suddenly understood the differences between wizards and Muggles. From civilization to mindset, the two were heading in two completely opposite directions.
Magic is the outward manifestation of the mind, and spells are cast with determination.
Science, on the other hand, requires a rational and calm mind, and absolute objectivity that eliminates emotional interference.
Artificial intelligence cannot understand the wizards' madness, but Hermione can. These wizards, who usually cast spells based on their own thoughts of "I think," "It should be," and "It will definitely work," are used to using their minds to overcome reality. Their deaths here are not because they are not rational enough, but because their mental strength is not strong enough.
If one of them is a great wizard, or a powerful individual who can forcefully calm spatial fluctuations through mental manipulation, then everything will be easily resolved.
"But the mind has two sides; there is joy, there is sorrow; there is peace, there is fear." She looked at Adam.
"Without pain, animals would not avoid harm; without fear, they would not fear death—and it is precisely because of the existence of these negative emotions that positive and beautiful feelings are so precious."
She looked at the little robot with compassion: "Robots don't need pain because you can mass-produce them, and the cost of repairing them is far higher than making a new one."
1
"And your father wanted you to become a human being, I think—he wanted you to be unique enough to experience joy and happiness beyond pain and fear, right?"