Hogwarts Raven

Chapter 372, Section 371: The Out-of-Control Temple
at this time.

The crimson pillar of light from the distant temple suddenly twisted.

It emitted a shrill cry like a baby's wail.

The clouds in the sky began to rotate in a way that defied the laws of physics, forming a huge vortex eye, as if foreshadowing something that was about to happen.

The night rain had stopped, but the air remained damp and chilly.

It was as if the entire mountain was shrouded in an invisible sorrow. In the distance, the majestic temple stood in the city, its spire piercing the leaden sky like a giant tombstone. The night wind was biting, blowing Ian's black robes. He stood atop a solitary peak outside the city, looking down at the city that had sunk into darkness.

Moonlight occasionally pierced through the clouds, illuminating scattered bloodstains and the remains of overturned coffins on the street.

"It's time to finish."

Ian spoke in a low voice, calm yet sharp as a blade. His eyes were fixed on the silhouette of the building in the distance, and there was no longer any hesitation, only decisiveness.

"This chaos, woven by arrogant priests and ancient evils, cannot continue." Ian remembered that he had only come to this era to find the materials that the female Titan Lyle wanted him to find. Heaven knows why he didn't find the Eye of Ra, and now he was caught up in the "crisis" of the locals.

Ian lacked the courage to watch an entire city perish before his eyes; he could sense that what the temple was brewing might be more than just the destruction of an entire city.

It could also be the entirety of ancient Egypt.

Ian didn't know if this was true history, but he didn't consider himself a heartless person, so he still intended to find a way to deal with the problems facing the city.

“Are you going to the temple? I…I want to go with you.” Cam stood a few steps behind him, pale-faced, his hands gripping his wand tightly, his voice trembling.

Ian slowly turned around, his gaze falling on him.

His gaze was as deep as an abyss, seemingly piercing through Kam's fear and unease, looking straight into the depths of his soul. He didn't answer immediately, but simply watched this young man who had once been cowardly and wavering, but now resolutely moved forward.

After a moment, Ian nodded slightly: "You are no longer that fugitive hiding in the alley corner."

He raised his hand and waved his wand lightly: "Hold on tight to me."

Without hesitation, Cam reached out and grabbed Ian's arm.

"Apparate!"

Space suddenly distorted, light and shadow tore apart, and the two figures vanished from the mountaintop in an instant. The next moment, they appeared on a desolate stone plaza—the edge of the forbidden area on the south side of the temple. This place had once been the purification plaza before the sacrifice, but now it was filled with cracks and charred rune arrays, and the air was filled with heavy magical remnants.

Ian steadied himself and looked around. He tried to Apparate again, tapping his wand lightly on the air and whispering an incantation. However, only a faint ripple appeared in the space.

It crumbled as if it had hit an invisible barrier.

“As expected,” he said coldly. “The core area of ​​the temple is sealed off by a ‘spatial anchoring barrier,’ which no teleportation magic can penetrate. We must enter on foot.”

This wasn't actually the apparition location Ian had planned, since he had already entered the temple's interior and should have been able to apparite directly there.

however.

He remained in that position. Clearly, there was some kind of magic in the temple preventing the wizard's phantom from moving in, and it was a kind of magic that could block the legendary wizard from casting spells.

As an ancient temple, it certainly possesses considerable historical and cultural significance. A gust of wind rose, stirring up dust and sand. The two stood side by side, taking their first step towards the temple.

The biting wind, sharp as a knife, sliced ​​through the air, emitting a piercing whistle. Above the night sky, the aurora borealis danced like ribbons, its eerie vortexes swirling and reflecting across the boundless expanse.

It emitted a deep, eerie glow.

Ian and Cam's figures appeared small and lonely in the night.

Are you really planning to venture into the temple alone?

Cam's gaze never left Ian. He looked at this unexpected companion with eyes that were no longer simply filled with awe, but rather with near-reverence.

"of course."

Ian nodded in response.

They had crossed a street and arrived at the street where the temple was located.

"Here we are."

Ian said in a low voice, his gaze sharp as he swept across the room.

Kam was pale and his body was trembling slightly.

He wasn't afraid, but heartbroken—because he had seen dozens of corpses lying haphazardly in the square in front of the temple gate.

Some wore the grey robes of the Twilight Hermits, while others wore the platinum robes of temple priests. A putrid wind, carrying the stench of blood, swept over them, and Ian's boots made a sticky sound as they stepped on the temple steps. The dark red liquid had solidified into a gelatinous substance, and each step felt like walking on the tongue of some gigantic creature.

"That's...that's one of ours!"

Cam rushed forward and knelt beside the body of a young wizard. The man still clutched his wand, his eyes were wide open, black blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and a ritual dagger was embedded in his chest—it was suicide.

“I know him, he’s a good person.”

With trembling hands, Kam closed the eyelids of a corpse—a young man in a gray robe, with wisps of smoke rising from the edges of the bloody hole in his temple.

“These people are all good people. They would rather cast spells on themselves,” Kam’s choked voice was broken by the wind, “than become…that kind of thing.”

“Even if the wand is destroyed, my comrades would rather slit their own throats than betray those damned traitors!” The young Hermit’s voice was hoarse, his fingers still glistening with his comrade’s blood. “By Ra, what have you seen that would drive even the bravest warrior to his death?”

Kam and Ian knew the answer to this question perfectly well. Clearly, some members of the Twilight Hermits would rather commit suicide than be captured and used as sacrifices to feed the embryo of the evil god.

"They knew what being arrested meant."

Ian whispered, “It’s not death, it’s living sacrifice. The soul is stripped away, the body is modified, and it becomes ‘nourishment’ for the embryo. They choose to end their own lives to preserve their last shred of dignity.”

Kam trembled as he closed his companion's eyes and whispered a requiem. His voice was choked with emotion, yet resolute. Ian stood up and looked toward the temple gate. There, several priests' corpses lay sprawled on the ground, their postures contorted, also suicides. One had pierced his own throat with a ceremonial sword.

The other person used magic backlash to shatter their own skull.

“Merlin’s beard. Not just your companions, but these priests, who would rather commit suicide with death curses.” Ian crouched down, his fingertips brushing against the black sun marks that had appeared on the corpses’ necks. The marks writhed like living things, then cracked the moment they touched his fingertips, oozing a putrid purple liquid.

“Strange.” Ian frowned. “These priests… are the ‘creators’ and ‘guardians’ of the embryo. Why are they running away? Why are they dying?”

Some analysis.

Ian also got the answer.

“Clearly, things are out of control, and these people know just how terrible the things they’re feeding are.” Ian’s wand suddenly popped out of his sleeve, drawing a warning red line in the air.

In the shadow of the obelisk thirty paces away, three white-robed priests were slitting each other's throats with jewel-encrusted ceremonial daggers. The eldest, seeing Ian, suddenly drew incomplete runes on the ground with his bloodied finger—"Do not be seen." Clearly, this elder priest was also expressing what might have been the last vestiges of his goodness.

“You stay here.” Ian tore off his cloak to cover the exposed chest of a woman’s corpse. “Bury them all in the western dunes, at least… don’t let the vultures desecrate the warriors’ remains.”

Ian unleashed three freezing spells to seal the priests' corpses that might be lying on one side.

"The concentration of dark magic in this place could drive Dementors mad."

Ian's caution was not without reason.

Just as Ian was preparing to leave.

Cam suddenly grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t you find it strange? It seems the priests are being hunted down as well.” He pointed to the shadows of the temple pillars, where several corpses dressed in white robes were piled up like discarded dolls.

“They are the ones who created the embryos of evil gods, how could they…” The young wizard only now noticed this, noticing that the priests’ deaths were completely different—ritual daggers stuck in their throats, their broken fingernails digging deep into the cracks in the stone, as if they were desperately trying to escape the temple in their last moments. One of the corpses even drew half a sun symbol on the stone slab with its blood, the trail of blood indicating that he had crawled and bled to his death.

"Of course it's out of control, that's how it's always portrayed in TV dramas. Okay, I forgot you don't know what a TV drama is." Ian shrugged helplessly when he saw the bewildered Cam.

"Just listen to me and everything will be fine. Stay here and don't move, or just take your companion's body and leave. I'll go scout ahead, and if we're lucky, I'll bring you a couple of oranges." Ian's voice was more incomprehensible than the Nile. Under Cam's increasingly bewildered gaze, he stepped over the threshold and into the temple.

As soon as you enter the outer gate.

He then smelled a rotten, sweet, and fishy odor, like aged honey mixed with the smell of entrails. Ian went to the corpses of the old priest and the others who had warned him earlier.

The man wore a high-ranking priest's robe adorned with gold patterns, and a temple scepter hung around his neck. Ian examined his hands and noticed burn marks on his fingertips—a consequence of forcibly casting a high-level sealing spell.

“He was trying to seal something… but he failed,” Ian murmured. “He knew very well that the only thing he could do was commit suicide, just like those outside who wanted to escape but couldn’t.”

Ian glanced at the corpse one last time before turning and walking toward the temple gate. The heavy bronze door was ajar, and a pungent, rotten smell seeped from the crack, like decaying roses mixed with rust.

Ian pushed open the door and stepped into the temple hall.

There was dead silence in the hall.

The temple's interior was bathed in a sickly amber light, as if the air itself were decaying. Ian's footsteps echoed eerily through the corridors, and the sun god reliefs on the walls had somehow transformed into twisted, tumor-like protrusions. He touched one of the "reliefs," his fingertips feeling a nauseatingly elastic sensation.

That was clearly wriggling biological tissue.

"This is a place that makes your sanity drop like crazy." As soon as Ian's illumination spell lit up the dome inside the temple, he seemed to hear echoes like the cries of thousands of babies. The sun god reliefs on the walls were melting, and the pure gold chariot of Ra hung down like a wax figure, the dripping gold transforming into flying insects with compound eyes in mid-air.

"Fierce Fire!" Ian's wand erupted with a blue ring of fire, burning away the swarm of insects that rushed towards him. The flames illuminated the end of the corridor—seven priests dangling from crystal chandeliers, spider-like bony appendages extending from beneath their white robes. Clearly, they had begun their transformation before committing suicide, becoming sacrifices to nourish the embryo of some evil god.

“Ugh!”

A piercing scream came from ahead. Ian drew his wand and rushed towards the source of the sound. As he rounded the third bend, the sight before him made him stop abruptly—a blood-stained white scepter lay at his feet, the golden sun disk inlaid on its head shattered. Twenty paces away, an old priest, his face covered in blood, was being cornered by something.

He is a priest of scepters.

He was facing the minions of the evil god embryo they had created.

Another ghost bride.

This is not the same ghost bride who was given the paradox by Ian.

The creature, dressed in a blood-stained wedding gown, hovered three inches above the ground, its black hair swaying like a living thing in the still air. The moment it turned its face, Ian's stomach convulsed violently—there was no face beneath the veil, only a cloud of black mist constantly shifting its shape, the vague outline of facial features immediately disintegrating.

"No—! I am not a sacrifice! I am your servant!" the scepter priest roared, trying to beg for mercy, but to no avail, unable to communicate with the embryo controlling the ghost bride.

Seeing that he was about to be captured, the priest of the scepter certainly wouldn't sit idly by and wait for his death.

In the name of Ra!

The priest with the scepter suddenly raised his hands, revealing arms covered with black veins through the tattered cuffs.

"Burn!"

A pillar of blazing white fire descended from the sky, engulfing the ghost bride. He smelled the stench of burning flesh, but his blood froze the next second—the red wedding dress remained intact amidst the flames, the tongues of fire piercing through the spirit as if passing through a phantom. The ghost bride raised her "hand," her misty fingers gently brushing across the old priest's forehead.

"This is impossible!" the scepter priest cried out in horror. "I used the highest-level purification spell! How could you—"

The ghost bride didn't answer, but simply raised her hand, her five fingers spread wide. A blood-red thread shot from her fingertips, instantly piercing the priest's right leg. He screamed and collapsed to his knees.

"Cage of Light!" The priest slammed his scepter into the ground with all his might. A golden light barrier instantly formed, separating him from the ghost bride.

The ghost bride crashed into the light barrier, causing it to shake violently and crack, but it did not break.

"It works?!" Hope flashed in the priest's eyes.

However, the ghost bride simply raised her hand slowly and made a light stroke with her fingertips.

The light curtain was torn apart like paper.

“No…no…” the priest trembled as he backed away, “You are not Artos…you are not human…you are…a monster…”

The ghost bride drew near, her bloody mouth opening wide, black mist gushing from it, forming a twisted tentacle that aimed straight for the priest's throat.

The priest roared, "Thunder of the End!"

The scepter was raised high, and a bolt of purplish-black lightning struck down from the dome, hitting the ghost bride squarely. Her body was charred in the lightning, her head exploded, and her limbs disintegrated.

There was dead silence in the hall.

The priest collapsed to the ground, panting heavily: "It's over...it's over..."

at this time--

The charred corpse began to wriggle.

Black mist seeped from the cracks in the ground, piecing together the pieces of flesh. The head regenerated, the skin regenerated, and the red veil reappeared.

The Ghost Bride has returned in her entirety.

She slowly raised her head, her red eyes locking onto the priest, her lips splitting open to reveal a chilling, bloody mouth.

"You... what are you?!" the priest screamed in despair. "I used the temple's highest-level magic! Why can't you kill me?!"

The ghost bride did not answer, but simply raised her hand, and blood threads, like whips, wrapped around the priest's neck, slowly lifting him up, intending to take this former servant to feed the embryo.

It transformed into a raven.

Ian, hidden at the boundary between reality and illusion, followed closely behind.

(End of this chapter)