Hogwarts Raven

Chapter 373, Section 372: Ian and the Cellar
Ian's consciousness sank into the shadows, his body vanished silently, transforming into a jet-black raven that quietly perched on the dome beam high in the temple's main hall.

His eyes, as deep as black jade, pierced through the dust and shadows, locking onto the desperate struggle below.

Because he was grabbed and lifted up by the ghost bride, the priest's legs kicked wildly in mid-air, the blood vessels around his neck tightening, leaving spiderweb-like purple marks on his aged skin. His white robe with gold trim was soaked with cold sweat, and his scepter had long since fallen to the side of the altar, the sun disc at the top of the scepter broken in two.

"Spare me!" the priest pleaded through gritted teeth, his bloodshot eyes reflecting the ghost bride's expressionless face. "I...I can continue to serve."

The priest with the scepter was suspended high in the air by blood-red threads, his feet off the ground, his neck tightly wrapped, his face turning purple, and his eyes bulging out.

He struggled violently, making gurgling sounds as he gasped for breath. His wand had long since slipped from his grasp, and the Star Staff had rolled to the ground, its light dimmed. He looked utterly disheveled.

"Haha~"

The ghost bride's red eyes flickered slightly, and the bloodshot threads binding her loosened a little. A glimmer of hope flashed in the priest's eyes, only to be replaced by a deeper terror—a strand of the bloodshot thread broke off and, like a venomous snake, burrowed into his ear canal!

"Aaaaaah—!" The priest let out a scream that was not human, his limbs convulsing. He could feel that strand of blood moving through his brain, searching for a specific memory.

Ian, in his raven form, landed silently on the window frame, his sharp gaze piercing through the illusion spell. He saw a writhing lump on the priest's temple, the trail of blood vessels tracing the brain. Even more chilling was the exquisite control the Ghost Bride was displaying—something no mere killing machine could achieve; the embryo was directly reading its prey's memories through her.

This might be a form of learning.

of course.

It is also a form of information acquisition.

"Found it." The ghost bride suddenly spoke, her voice still that eerie duet, but her tone had become noticeably more human. A blood vessel was drawn from the priest's ear, bringing with it a wisp of blue-glowing substance—a materialized fragment of memory.

The priest's face instantly turned ashen. He knew all too well what memory had been taken—the incantation to open the secret door to the cellar, the temple's most crucial secret!
“No, no,” he murmured hoarsely, tears streaming down his wrinkled face. “You can’t, that’s blasphemy.”

The ghost bride ignored his pleas. She released the blood vessels, letting the priest collapse to the ground like a rag doll, then turned to face the wall behind the altar, covered in hieroglyphs. The extracted memory orb floated in her palm, slowly rotating to reveal its contents.

The raven's feathers rose slightly. Ian recognized the wall—a seemingly ordinary stone wall concealing seven spatial locks, each requiring a different key. And now, the Ghost Bride was cracking them one by one.

The priest suddenly stopped sobbing. A glint of malice flashed in his eyes, and his trembling fingers stealthily reached for his waist—where a black obsidian dagger was hidden, its blade coated with a deadly poison that could paralyze even gods.

"For the glory of God," he silently moved his lips, then suddenly launched an attack!

The dagger pierced the ghost bride's back with pinpoint accuracy, and the dark purple venom instantly spread along the vein-like lines. The ghost bride froze, the light in her red eyes flickering. Taking advantage of the moment, the priest scrambled out of the hall, pulling a bone whistle from his robes as he ran.

A piercing whistle rang out, activating the entire temple's defenses. The ground began to tremble, the reliefs on the walls came to life, and stone scarabs and jackal-headed guards surged in from all directions.

"Stop her!" the priest screamed hysterically, "at all costs!"

In his raven form, Ian had to fly away from the window frame to avoid a giant scarab beetle's attack. He circled in the air and saw the Ghost Bride still standing there, venom covering most of her body. But strangely, she didn't seem to be in pain; rather, she seemed to be adapting?

The priest had already reached the temple entrance. He bit his finger and used his blood to draw an inverted triangle on the doorframe—the highest level of spatial sealing. Once he stepped through that door, he could activate the temple's self-destruct mechanism, burying the entire inner sanctum along with the monster!
"You think that's enough?"

The ghost bride's voice suddenly came from behind. The priest turned around in horror and saw that she, who should have been paralyzed by the poison, had raised her hand. The dark purple venom was being assimilated by the golden sand in her body, turning into a strange blue-black mixture!

"Impossible!" the priest screamed. "Even Anubis could do that!"

His words trailed off. The ghost bride's figure suddenly blurred, then appeared directly in front of him in the next second, so fast that it left no afterimage. Even more terrifying, her wedding dress was changing—the originally bright red fabric gradually faded, turning into a bluish-black like venom, with countless tiny golden eye patterns appearing on it.

The ghost bride hovered in mid-air, her red eyes coldly fixed on him. The bloody gash at the corner of her mouth curled up slightly, as if she were laughing, or perhaps it was just a twitch of muscles. She didn't respond, but slowly raised her hand, another thread of blood extending from her fingertip, gently touching the priest's brow.

An invisible force began to pull—it was the pull of the soul.

The priest's pupils contracted sharply as she finally understood: she didn't want to kill him, but rather to keep him alive as a "living sacrifice" to the embryo underground.

"No—!" he roared suddenly, a resolute glint in his eyes, "I'd rather die than be a sacrifice!"

Before he could finish speaking, he bit his tongue, spitting out a mouthful of blood essence. His hands moved rapidly in the air, forming an ancient and forbidden hand seal. His body trembled violently, and his soul began to slowly detach from the top of his head—a soul astral projection technique, a secret skill that only high-ranking priests could master, allowing consciousness to leave the body and escape in a spiritual form.

"I offer my soul as a sacrifice, temporarily borrowing the power of the River Styx!"

The priest completely broke down. He threw down his whistle and formed a complex hand seal. He made a decision: even if he couldn't guarantee his own life, he still wanted to protect his soul.

Compared to other priests who decisively committed suicide, he was clearly indecisive in this respect. However, as a person in a superior position, it is understandable that he would value his own life more.

After all, he had been a powerful and influential person for so many years.

It is indeed more difficult to give up this kind of life.

Just as the priest of the scepter was casting his spell, the entire hall suddenly went dark, as if all the light had been sucked away. The priest's body collapsed to the ground, and a translucent spirit began to emerge from the top of his head—this was the Egyptian secret technique of "astral projection," which was usually only mastered by high priests.

I saw.

A pale golden mist rose from the top of his head, condensing into a miniature, semi-transparent phantom of a priest. The moment the phantom detached from his body, it transformed into a streak of light, shooting straight towards the dome of the temple, attempting to pierce the stone walls and escape. It frantically fled towards the Nile River; reaching the sacred river would offer him another chance to survive.

"Success..." The spirit priest was overjoyed and had already begun planning his future. "As long as I escape the temple, I can possess someone else and regain my physical body!"

For wizards.

Death is indeed not always the end of life. Admittedly, possessing another's body is shameful, but clearly the scepter priest doesn't care about becoming a dark wizard.

He wanted to live.

Even if it means losing the qualification to be a wizard because one can only parasitize mortals.

He felt he had done nothing wrong.

However, just as he was about to touch the dome—unbeknownst to him—the ghost bride's red eyes were fixed on his spiritual trajectory through the wall.

The ghost bride slowly raised her head.

The golden spirit was clearly reflected in her red eyes.

Even more terrifying, she raised her hand, spread her five fingers, and a blood-red spiritual thread shot out from her fingertips, directly piercing through the barrier between reality and the spirit world and accurately locking onto that soul!
"What?! You...you can see souls?!" The spirit priest was utterly horrified.

"Impossible! Astral projection transcends matter! You are merely a physical being, how could you possibly touch the spirit world?!"

The ghost bride didn't answer, but acted. She slowly raised her hand, and the blood threads wrapped around the priest's body suddenly turned translucent, like ghostly tentacles piercing through material barriers and chasing after the fleeing soul!

Raven Ian immediately flapped his wings and followed. From a psychic perspective, the chase was eerily terrifying—ahead were the priestess spirits fleeing in panic, behind were dozens of writhing soul blood vessels, and further away, the ghost bride's true form was still standing in the hall, pursuing her in the same manner he had encountered before.

The ghost bride can exist in two states at the same time!
The blood vessels moved much faster than the spirits. They quickly wrapped around the priest's ankles, then his waist, and finally enveloped him like a spider web, forming a glowing cocoon.

The crimson spiritual threads suddenly tightened, and the golden spirit body let out a shrill scream, as if it were being scorched by flames. Its form began to twist and disintegrate, and the golden light flickered violently, like a projection with a poor signal.

"Ahhhh!"

The priest let out a silent, spiritual shriek, struggling desperately but to no avail.

"Let me go! This is forbidden! You have violated the laws of life and death!" The spirit priest struggled frantically, releasing soul shockwaves in an attempt to shake off the blood vessels. Even more terrifying, those blood vessels were reverse-transmitting some kind of substance—with each struggle, his spirit body became more turbid.

The ghost bride's spiritual threads are like chains from a higher dimension, ignoring all countermeasures.

"No, no!" The priest's spirit began to be dragged back to the main hall. "I surrender, I'll give up everything!"

"Do not--!!!"

A heart-wrenching scream echoed through the spirit world.

The blood vessels were suddenly yanked! The spirit was forcibly dragged back to the main hall.

"boom!"

His chest heaved violently, his soul forcibly forced back into his body, his consciousness remerging with his flesh, as if an invisible hand had stuffed him into a narrow container. The intense rejection caused the priest to foam at the mouth and convulse. He collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath, his face ashen, his eyes filled with despair and collapse.

The ghost bride walked slowly, her red eyes revealing a light of emotion for the first time—naked contempt.

"You...you are not an ordinary alchemical creature..." The scepter priest, now depleted of magic, murmured in terror, "You are the embodiment of that embryo's will...you are the Devourer...you can even capture souls..."

It is clear.

The scepter priest only now understood what Ian had understood long ago. This was roughly the difference between a legendary wizard and an ordinary wizard, even if that ordinary wizard was a scepter priest of the temple.

The perspective is there.

"hehe."

The ghost bride slowly descended, her bloodshot eyes lifting him back up. For the first time, a hint of "satisfaction" flickered in her red eyes—as if confirming the prey's completeness.

"What exactly are you?"

The priest asked in a barely audible voice.

The ghost bride did not answer. She picked up the limp priest, and this special life form did not stay in place, dragging the priest with the scepter, and walked deeper into the hall.

The raven that Ian had transformed into silently spread its wings, glided down from the dome, flew close to the shadows of the wall, and always kept a distance of thirty paces behind the ghost bride.

She walked through a dark corridor, its walls inscribed with ancient runes depicting the embryo's development in a pool of blood. Candles on either side lit automatically, their flames a ghostly green that cast distorted shadows on the walls. Ian's Raven Eyes could pierce through the veils of matter and magic, clearly seeing the Ghost Bride's every step.

The opponent dragged the scepter priest back to the rune-covered wall like a dead dog. Before them lay a seemingly ordinary stone wall, its surface riddled with cracks, and in the center carved a complex six-pointed star array. At the array's core was a dark red gem, like a drop of congealed blood. This was the defense they had failed to break through before.

The ghost bride stopped and hung the scepter priestess on the wall. The priestess was nearly broken, her lips trembling, but she dared not beg for mercy again. She gathered a drop of black blood at her fingertip and gently touched it to the gem. In an instant, the gem lit up, the six-pointed star array began to rotate, and the runes lit up one by one, emitting a low hum.

"Activate."

"The ghost bride commanded."

She clearly had already searched the priest's memories, and now she was threatening the priest with commands, obviously trying to demonstrate the power she possessed.

Joy, anger, sorrow and joy.

The seven deadly sins were already present, and in full force. The priest closed his eyes in despair, his lips trembling as he uttered a string of obscure incantations. The runes on the wall lit up one by one with golden light, finally forming a rotating sun pattern in the center. As the last syllable fell, the stone wall emitted a loud, cracking sound.

With a rumbling sound as the boulders rubbed together, the wall slowly cracked open, revealing a deep, spiraling staircase behind. A stench of decay wafted out, mingled with a cloyingly sweet aroma. From the depths of the staircase, the faint echo of dripping liquid and a rhythmic throbbing sound, like a heartbeat magnified a hundredfold, could be heard.

The ghost bride, dragging the scepter priest, stepped inside. Ian, in his raven form, silently landed on the windowsill at the end of the corridor, his feathers gleaming metallically in the eerie green candlelight. His raven eyes were fixed on the open wall, on the ghost bride's disappearing figure, and on the staircase leading to the underworld.

At the last moment.

Ian, now a raven, also entered the wall through the darkness.

He knew that it was no ordinary cellar.

That's the uterus of an embryo.

It is an altar conceived by an evil god.

It is the source of the entire city's nightmare.

Ian knew he needed to solve the problem, and that what he needed was likely in that cellar, so he followed the ghost bride without hesitation.

Because Ian, now in his raven form, can also hide within the illusory boundary.

The ghost bride was completely unaware.

The walls slammed shut behind her, completely isolating her from the outside world. The only light source in the passage came from the sparse, glowing moss on the walls, which gave the ghost bride's blue-black wedding dress a sickly sheen.

The spiral staircase seemed endless. She dragged the semi-conscious priest down the stairs, their footsteps swallowed by some kind of sound-absorbing material, leaving only the increasingly clear sound of dripping liquid.

Ian could already sense the aura of that evil god.

It's more than ten times stronger than last night.

(End of this chapter)