Hogwarts Raven

Chapter 360, Page 359: The Evil Sun God
The night was as dark as ink, slowly spreading from the east bank of the Nile, swallowing the last rays of the setting sun.

The last rays of the setting sun, like blood, or fading nutrients, were applied to the top of the towering obelisk in Memphis, before gradually losing their color. The streets of Memphis fell silent in the twilight.

The bustling market of the day had long since closed up shop, vendors hurried home, and even the most unruly children dared not linger at the alley entrance. Everyone seemed to have moved away, locking themselves tightly in their homes.

Everyone has a talisman hanging outside their house. It looks very ordinary, but it has a bit of mystical magic. Ian studied it for a while but couldn't figure it out.

An invisible gloom seemed to hang over the entire city; even the wind seemed hesitant, whispering only under the eaves. Ian stood in the middle of the deserted street, the black-robed woman's warning still echoing in his ears. The night wind swirled fine sand across the cobblestones, hissing like snakes.

"Why at night? Everything is normal during the day?" Ra, the chief god of ancient Egypt, is the sun god. Even if there were any problems, they should have occurred during the day. But His temple underwent a very subtle change at night, which is truly puzzling.

Ian stared at the temple's silhouette gradually swallowed by shadow, his fingers unconsciously tracing the patterns on his wand. The woman could so easily overturn the high priest's decision; her status was clearly extraordinary, yet her attitude was contradictory—both a warning and a plea for help. He recalled the twitching corner of the scepter priest's mouth when he mentioned "the Lord's messenger."

That didn't sound like reverence; it sounded more like some kind of dissatisfaction.

Could it be that the other party holds a prestigious position in the temple, yet still finds themselves in a situation beyond their control?
He was thinking.

Why was that woman in black robes—a young woman with runes carved on her face, who called herself "a servant of Ra"—guiding him? And why did she specifically say "go to the temple at night"?
She holds a position in the temple, yet cannot openly acknowledge it?

She can influence the priest's decisions, but she can't show herself?
Is she a warning or a guide? And that woman is perhaps caught in the middle—she possesses power, yet is bound by certain rules; she can save lives, but cannot directly intervene.

Gradually, I figured out what was going on.

A chilling intuition crept up my spine.

“She’s waiting for me,” Ian muttered to himself. “She wants me to see something with my own eyes.”

He looked up at the sky.

The last ray of sunlight had completely disappeared, and the stars quietly emerged. The Milky Way stretched across the night sky, reflected on the surface of the Nile River, like a path of light leading to the underworld.

He knew that the real secret would only emerge in the darkness of night.

After all, Ian had suddenly realized that he might be standing on the edge of some ancient secret. In ancient Egyptian mythology, nighttime was the time when the sun god Ra traversed the underworld.

Perhaps this was also the period when divine power was at its weakest. It's possible that the priests wanted to use this to deceive the sun god about something, or perhaps they were even plotting a rebellion?

Both are possible. Of course, the specifics of what happened still need to be investigated. The moment the light completely dimmed, Ian's form began to twist and shrink.

A faint light flashed, and his figure rapidly shrank, his skin transforming into jet-black feathers, and his limbs into claws and wings—this was one of the most magical spells at Hogwarts.

Animagus.

Black feathers replaced the linen robe, arms transformed into wings, and in an instant, a raven took flight, its sharp eyes gleaming eerily in the night.

He flew over the city, looking down at this once glorious capital.

Memphis during the day is prosperous, bustling, and full of life.

But Memphis at night resembles a ghost town. From above, the entire city appears sickly and lifeless. The streets are deserted; even the patrolling guards have long since withdrawn to their barracks. Every household keeps its doors and windows tightly shut, with only faint lights peeking through the cracks, as if praying for the night to pass quickly.

Occasionally, a few dogs barked, but they stopped abruptly within a few breaths, as if even the animals sensed something ominous. Ian flew over the market; the stalls had been cleared out, leaving only a few strips of cloth fluttering gently in the wind, like banners summoning spirits. Everyone's doors and windows were tightly shut, and not a sound could be heard even from the livestock sheds.

Even the night patrol guards no longer performed their duties; they merely went through the motions hurriedly before sunset.

immediately.

Ian's super-legendary vision allowed him to see that the guards were also being pulled back to the barracks at lightning speed. The clanging of their bronze armor as they jostled each other was particularly jarring in the silence.

A young soldier accidentally dropped his torch, and the flickering flame illuminated his pale face—he was trembling, constantly looking back, as if something more terrifying than military law lurked in the darkness.

It is worth mentioning that these military camps also have amulets hanging outside, and there are many more of them than in ordinary households. They are truly the group that should least be superstitious, yet they are the most superstitious.

“What exactly do those amulets mean…” Ian flew over the temple district, where the braziers of other temples—Horus, Thoth, Isis, and others—had long since been extinguished.

Only the temple of the sun god Ra remained brightly lit.

Ian landed silently on the temple's roof. The magnificent structure was built of massive limestone blocks, its roof covered with gilded copper sheets that gleamed eerily in the moonlight. At the four corners of the eaves were carved eagle-headed statues, their eyes inlaid with obsidian, as if watching over everyone who approached from the darkness.

Ian folded his wings, crouched in the shadows, and scanned the area below with the gaze of an eagle.

In the temple courtyard, dozens of priests were moving back and forth.

They wore pure white robes, but the hems were embroidered with dark red runes. These runes were not the sacred script commonly found in ancient Egypt, but rather some kind of distorted, almost sinister symbols, as if written in blood.

They carried various objects—a hawk-headed statue carved from obsidian, with eyes inlaid with dancing flame crystals; several sealed pottery jars, their mouths sealed with runes, from which faint low groans could be heard; and even the corpse of a young man, carried deep into the temple, his body covered with linen inscribed with spells.

A massive bronze cauldron, filled with a dark red liquid, emitted a strong smell of rust—it was blood. The scene in the temple area was extremely eerie, with twelve bronze braziers burning around the main hall, but the flames were an eerie bluish-white, casting the priests' shadows long and twisted like demons.

They worked silently, moving all sorts of unsettling items: a golden chalice inlaid with human teeth, a transparent stone jar filled with mercury, and a jackal skull bound by seven chains—these were not offerings to the orthodox sun god, but rather seemed to be meant to appease some evil god, sending chills down one's spine.

"This is not an ordinary sacrificial ceremony."

“These offerings… don’t seem to be for the sun god Ra.” Even though Ian wasn’t a learned Hogwarts student, he could still figure that out without thinking.

Ra is the god of light and the symbol of order; his sacrifices should be bright, pure, and full of hymns.

But everything before them was filled with darkness, oppression, and taboo.

The priests looked unusually solemn. No one spoke or prayed; they simply carried out their tasks mechanically, as if they themselves were afraid to utter an extra word.

They placed the offerings one by one on the altar in front of the main hall, where a huge statue of the god Ra stood in the center.

But that statue... something's not right.

Its facial features were too stiff, its eyes were empty, but its lips had a strange smile.

"The priests used statues of Ra, so what evil god was hiding inside them? That doesn't make sense. Statues of Ra have divinity, so they wouldn't be so easily possessed by evil gods."

Ian felt that things were becoming increasingly confusing.

Ian did not act rashly.

He knew that barging in now would only alert the enemy.

He chose to wait, like a true raven, blending into the night and becoming part of the shadows. He observed every detail; the raven landed in the shadow of the side hall's eaves, its sharp gaze piercing through the smoke. In the center of the inner courtyard, nine high priests were carving intricate patterns on the ground with obsidian knives.

With each completed engraving, a dark red liquid automatically filled the groove, like living veins spreading across the stone slab. Ian's bird heart pounded violently. The liquid shimmered with a mother-of-pearl luster under the moonlight.

Ian will not admit his mistake.

That was diluted divine blood. Moreover, the priests drew a massive magic circle around the altar, its runes composed of a mixture of gold powder and bone ash, shimmering with an eerie green light. They laid the corpse flat at the center of the circle, chanting a spell Ian had never heard before, its syllables distorted, like some ancient magical language.

As these people performed the ritual, the blood in the bronze cauldron was slowly poured into the formation. The blood floated in the air, forming a spiral stream of light that went straight to the eyes of the statue.

The obsidian eagle statue was placed at the center of the array, and the flame crystal began to pulse, as if it were "breathing." Because many offerings were needed, the priests became increasingly busy.

All the priests had very detailed divisions of labor and cooperated.

"Speed ​​up!"

A hoarse voice came from the inner sanctuary.

"Preparations must be completed before the Pleiades reach their zenith."

The scepter priest we'd met before strode out, blood seeping from the Eye of Horus tattoo on his forehead. He carried a crystal box in his hands.

Inside, some kind of luminous creature was curled up, and each wriggle caused frost to form on the surface of the crystal.

"What the hell?"

What shocked Ian most were the priests' expressions. There was no piety in their eyes, only mechanical numbness and suppressed fear. When the young priest accidentally knocked over a bronze incense burner, everyone around froze instantly, only continuing to move after confirming that nothing was amiss—as if they were avoiding the surveillance of some unseen entity.

The sudden chanting emanating from the inner sanctuary made the raven's feathers stand on end. It was an incantation recited in the long-lost Heliopolitan dialect, meant to praise the rebirth of Ra, but now twisted into an eerie, descending tone. The raven's vision blurred for a moment; something beyond the senses of birds was awakening from the depths of the temple.

Ian quietly moved to a higher corner of the eaves. From this angle, he could see part of the inner sanctum: the golden altar on the seven tiers had been transformed into a terrifying sight; the disc that once symbolized the sun was now inlaid with countless eye-shaped gems, and in the central recess was placed—Ian's breath caught in his throat.

It was a familiar blue fragment.

It was larger than any of the Eyes of Ra he had ever seen.

The woman in black robes suddenly appeared before the altar, her attire drastically different from that of the daytime. Her elaborately embroidered robe trailed more than three meters at the hem, but upon closer inspection, the ornate patterns revealed countless distorted, miniature human figures. The runes on her face had all turned blood red, flickering with the rhythm of her chanting, as if flames were flowing beneath her skin.

"The time has come."

Her voice was no longer cold, but carried a kind of inhuman resonance.

"Prepare to welcome the birth of a new day."

The woman in the black robe spoke with a hint of barely perceptible helplessness.

No one noticed.

All the priests knelt simultaneously, their foreheads pressed to the ground. The priest with the scepter trembled as he presented the crystal box, while the woman in black robes slit her wrist with a bone knife. The instant the blood dripped, the braziers throughout the temple grounds erupted in a spectacular burst of light, the bluish-white flames leaping ten meters into the air, forming a gigantic, upside-down human figure against the night sky.

The night breeze suddenly shifted, carrying with it a strange incense wafting from the inner sanctum. The ravens' vision began to distort, their avian instincts triggering a frantic alarm. Ian decisively spread his wings and flew away, his last glimpse seeing the woman in black robes pushing the creature from the crystal box toward the altar. The moment the creature stretched its body in the moonlight.

Ian recognized its true form—an embryo forged from the illusory Doomsday Volcano. Having seen it before, Ian could clearly identify its aura.

The crimson patterns on the temple floor lit up completely.

The priests' chanting turned into agonizing howls, their shadows splitting on the wall as if a second being were breaking free from their bodies. And in the highest dome, an unusual alignment of stars appeared—seven stars forcibly formed the shape of a pupil, coldly watching this blasphemous ritual.

but.

However, no deity descended to earth to stop them.

The ceremony is still ongoing.

It was as if it wanted to nurture that embryo.

Suddenly, the Nile's surface, though calm, rippled, the sound of waves lapping against the shore like a muffled heartbeat. The entire city of Memphis trembled in its slumber, yet no one dared to awaken to investigate. Only the ravens, flapping their wings and soaring into the distance, knew that true darkness did not come from the night, but from something about to be born, cloaked in the sun's cloak.

Just now.

The embryo on the altar suddenly trembled violently.

The spiderweb-like golden patterns on the surface emitted a blinding light. The light flowed onto the ground like liquid gold, but solidified into a viscous black substance the moment it touched the stone slab.

These shadowy figures twisted and writh, gradually standing up and forming various illogical shapes—three-legged humanoids, spiky spheres, and misty monsters that constantly split and reformed.

The woman in the black robe spread her arms wide, and runes danced wildly beneath her skin.

"Go, retrieve the nutrients you need!"

In response, the shadowy figures emitted a high-pitched hiss, a sound like glass shattering inside a skull. They pounced on the living people bound by chains around the altar—a dozen or so ragged civilians, their mouths gagged with spells, only able to utter desperate whimpers through their noses. The shadowy figures at the front suddenly enveloped the head of a young man.

I saw.

His body instantly withered, his skin turning gray and cracking at a visible speed, finally transforming into a skeleton covered in thin skin. The shadowy figure, having finished absorbing the essence of human life, became noticeably more solid, its surface gleaming with a sickly pearly luster—the shadowy figure was drawing upon the very essence of human life, the very foundation of its existence.

Then it feeds back to the embryo.

"Not enough! Far from enough!"

The priest with the scepter frantically scratched at his bleeding forehead.

"The embryo needs more vital essence!"

The shadowy figures stirred. They jostled and tore at each other like a pack of starving hyenas. Since there weren't enough living people to go around, many of the shadowy figures also darted out of the temple.

They surged toward the temple's exits like a black torrent. The guardian statues carved on the pillars closed their eyes as they passed, as if unable to bear witnessing the impending tragedy.

Perhaps the residents of the city did not spread rumors.

Night falls.

There is indeed something that will come out and start hunting humans.

(End of this chapter)