Hogwarts Raven

Chapter 385, Section 384: Inside the Temple

Osiris did not stop attacking the evil god, but instead spoke in the direction of the raven in a voice that only Ian could clearly perceive, like a whisper from a soul.

next moment.

The words of Osiris, the god of the underworld, exploded in Ian Prince's mind like a thunderclap. These words struck Ian's consciousness like a heavy hammer, shaking him to his core!
"The Prince family bloodline"—these simple words contained a shocking amount of information. Hades not only knew their surname, but also seemed to have some understanding of their family origins. Ian's thoughts raced: Could the Prince family's magical bloodline have some unknown connection to ancient Egypt?
How is this possible!

Although the Princes family is also one of the pure-blood families, and their ancestors may have some connection with ancient Egypt, Ian is, after all, from Hogwarts in later times.

Ancient wizards and later wizards may share similar bloodlines, but that shouldn't be enough to be certain! Since he hadn't looked at the family tree, Ian couldn't figure it out for the time being.

Just as Ian was reeling from the shock, Hades and Isis attacked simultaneously! Osiris hurled the condensed azure orb of destruction, while his flail and shepherd's staff crossed, triggering the laws of the underworld. Countless souls of various shapes and sizes transformed into a raging torrent, emitting a deafening requiem hymn, rushing straight towards the evil god!
"Something that should not have been born! You need to be purified!"

Isis raised her hands high, and the green-gold life light transformed into a huge healing net, not only continuously purifying the assimilated city, but also forming a tough barrier to interfere with the evil god's perception and attacks below.

"Insects! How dare you shake a tree?! You mere Old Gods should be buried!" The evil god roared, his massive mountain of flesh writhing violently. Countless thick, giant tentacles covered with sharp teeth and suckers rose from the ground like living mountains, tearing through space with a shrill scream, heading towards Osiris's torrent of dead souls and sphere of destruction!

At the same time, the giant, pus-filled, purplish-red eye on its chest, which had been transformed from the "Eye of Ra," unleashed a destructive beam of energy that slammed into Isis's Web of Life!
"boom--!!!"

An indescribable roar swept across the heavens and the earth!
Osiris's azure sphere of destruction collided with the tentacles of the evil god, unleashing a dark energy storm that devoured everything, instantly annihilating several tentacles. However, more tentacles surged forward, forcefully pushing the storm back. The hymns of the dead and the shrieks of the tentacles clashed violently in space, each sound causing the very fabric of reality to groan in agony.

Isis's Web of Life fluctuated violently and cracked under the continuous bombardment of the evil god's crimson beam, but the green-gold light around her shone even brighter, constantly repairing the damage and spreading the power of purification.

Space is wailing!
The distortion of heaven and earth reached its peak, the viscous, gelatinous air torn apart by countless spatial cracks, like a shattered mirror. The battle in the sky had entered a white-hot phase. Osiris and Isis stood side by side, the power of the underworld and life energy perfectly fused, forming a swirling energy vortex that rushed straight towards Set-Appepp.

"I am invincible!"

The evil god let out a deafening roar, and its sixteen wings of light simultaneously unleashed blasphemous radiance, forcefully withstanding the combined attack of the two gods.

The clash of these three forces had terrible consequences.

The space itself continuously emitted mournful cries of unbearable burden.

The structure of reality is showing spiderweb-like cracks.

Ian could clearly see dimensional rifts appearing in the air, refracting countless distorted fragments of reality like a shattered mirror. This was the phenomenon known in ancient magical texts as "Reality Lament"—when forces exceeding the limits of what the world can withstand collide, the boundary between reality and illusion becomes blurred.

Perhaps it was this cataclysmic battle between gods and demons that generated massive energy fluctuations and spatial rifts, completely exposing Ian's hidden "boundary between reality and illusion."

That's why Osiris was able to find him.

It was precisely because this boundary became unstable in the aftermath of the divine war, like ripples on a calm lake after a boulder is thrown in, that the raven's presence was exposed.

Ian's raven form, concealed using advanced polymorphism and cognitive interference magic, was indeed difficult to completely hide under this level of reality shock.

Like a person hiding behind a curtain, when the curtain itself starts to shake violently, the figure will naturally be revealed.

"Perhaps that's the reason."

This is just speculation for Ian.

However, he was not given time to verify his guess.

Fortunately, it was Hades, not an evil god, who discovered him. Osiris was clearly helping him in secret, not only not exposing him, but also subtly guiding him in the right direction.

But we absolutely must not let the evil god find out!

Once the all-consuming monster turned its attention to him.

Then.

The meaning of his long hiding will be lost.

He didn't have time to ask any more questions.

The most urgent task at present is to enter the cellar and find out why Hades cares about it and is distracted by the battle, telling Ian that he should go and check it out.

"We must hurry."

Ian suppressed all his shock and questions, focusing all his will on the raven's body.

Ian, in his raven form, flapped his wings and flew away.

Like a black lightning bolt, it weaved through the chaotic battlefield.

He skillfully dodged the energy shockwaves that were shooting out in all directions, and the splashing Styx water and evil god light fragments corroded spatial holes in the air.

Just then, taking advantage of the moment when Osiris and Isis launched their most ferocious offensive together, completely drawing the evil god's attention to the main battlefield.

The raven transformed into a streak of black light and rushed at top speed towards the area directly beneath the massive fleshy mountain of the evil god—an area shrouded in writhing flesh and purplish-red light, almost merging with the earth!

The closer he got to the evil god's true form, the more terrifying the surrounding energy turbulence became. Ian had to constantly adjust his flight path, narrowly avoiding the energy storms that could tear apart legendary wizards. Several times, the evil god's wings almost grazed his feathers, the resulting energy fluctuations causing his shapeshifting spell to momentarily falter.

“This can’t go on.” Ian keenly realized that he would find it difficult to break through the energy barrier that automatically formed around the evil god on his own. Those distorted halos were not only a defense, but also a sensory domain—any intruder would be immediately detected by Set-Appep. How sharp was the evil god’s perception!

Ian almost got caught just now.

Despite being restrained by the two great gods, it still sensed a faint, otherworldly "anomaly" below. A thin, serpentine tentacle, accompanied by a piercing shriek, shot out from the bottom of the mountain of flesh, heading straight for the black light! Its speed far surpassed that of a raven's flight!

At the critical moment!
Only Ian's timely retreat saved him from the evil god's detection. Of course, this wasn't a good thing either, as Ian once again found himself in a precarious situation.

Just as he was pondering a countermeasure, the battle situation suddenly changed.

Osiris seemed to have noticed something. His hooked staff suddenly changed direction, no longer attacking the evil god's true form, but instead stabbing towards the root of the third wing of light on Set-Apep's left. Yes, Osiris, the god of the underworld, who was battling several enormous tentacles, seemed to have "just happened" to sense the danger below.

He did more than just attack the allegory of the evil god.

With a sudden slash of his shepherd's staff to the side, he unleashed a powerful underworld suction force, forcefully deflecting a massive tentacle that was about to strike Isis! This minute movement caused the evil god's enormous body to shift to maintain balance and attack, precisely at a crucial juncture in the flow of its energy. "Damn it! Damn it! Why can't you submit!" After being attacked, Set-Appepp roared in fury, instinctively shifting half a body length to the right.

This seemingly insignificant shift revealed a fleeting flaw—that very half-step! The mound beneath the evil god's body was suddenly exposed outside the protective range of the energy barrier!

"Now!" Ian seized the opportunity without hesitation. The raven flapped its wings and transformed into an almost invisible black streak as it swooped down on the raised mound.

A jet-black raven.

It was like traversing the most dangerous minefield.

In the instant the tentacles brushed past him, he precisely and effortlessly slipped beneath the body of the evil god's mountain of flesh, into the unfathomable darkness where writhing flesh and purplish-red light intertwined. The closer he got to his target, the thicker the chaotic energy permeating the air became, as if he were flying through viscous honey.

He could feel the terrifying body of the evil god hovering above his head, like a mountain of flesh that could crush him at any moment, radiating a suffocating pressure.

At the same time, Isis launched a coordinated attack. The Anka Cross in her hand shone with unprecedented light, and life energy surged towards the evil god like a tidal wave, forcing Set-Appepp to concentrate on dealing with it. This gave Ian a precious fraction of a second.

Just as the raven was about to touch the mound, a sudden change occurred.

An invisible force surged from the ground, gripping him like a giant hand. Ian felt his shapeshifting magic being forcibly dismantled—his feathers retracted, his beak deformed, and his wings transformed back into arms. In the blink of an eye, he was forced back into human form, staggering as he fell into the buried temple.

"A suppression field?" Ian frowned, sensing his surroundings. The energy field here was extremely peculiar, seemingly designed specifically to counter magical transformations of all forms. This energy field contained not only magic but also other energies, to the point that even Ian's magic-immune raven form was not spared.

There was no time to hesitate. Ian took out his wand and cast a precise digging spell on the ground.

"Rock dissolution."

Wherever the wand pointed, the soil and rocks, as well as the flesh and blood of those evil gods, melted like hot butter, revealing the deeply buried architectural structures beneath.

It was the dome of an ancient temple, its once pristine white marble now stained a strange, fleshy pink. Ian found a broken opening and leaped inside without hesitation.

The sight inside made him gasp.

The temple's interior had been completely assimilated by the evil god's flesh and blood. The walls were covered with a pulsating network of blood vessels, and the floor was covered with a layer of soft biological tissue that oozed a viscous liquid when stepped on. The main hall, which had once housed the idols, was now a huge chamber, filled with a sweet, pungent stench.

Most chilling of all are the "ghost brides" embedded in the walls—dozens of women dressed in tattered wedding gowns, their lower bodies fused to the walls, leaving only their upper bodies exposed. Their eyes are empty and lifeless, but their mouths open and close, emitting continuous wails.

But these wails carried a strange sense of pleasure.

It was as if pain was the ultimate pleasure for them.

“Merlin,” Ian felt a wave of nausea. These women were clearly remnants of the evil god, devoured and then “expelled,” becoming decorations and guardians of this temple of flesh and blood.

The moment Ian observed them, all the ghost brides suddenly stopped wailing. Dozens of faces turned to him in unison, their empty eyes suddenly glowing with a blood-red light.

“Foreign object.” A ghost bride spoke, her voice like countless fragments rubbing together.

“Clear.” another chimed in.

"Assimilation." The third addition.

Just as an organism's immune system recognizes a foreign virus, the entire temple of flesh and blood suddenly "came to life." The blood vessels on the walls throbbed violently, and the ground began to undulate.

The ghost brides struggled frantically, trying to break free from the walls. The first ghost bride succeeded in freeing herself from the walls' constraints. Her lower body was no longer legs, but a swarm of writhing tentacles, propelling her toward Ian with incredible speed. Her fingernails grew long and sharp.

Go straight for Ian's throat.

"Protect me!" Ian cast a protective spell in time. The Ghost Bride's claws were stopped by an invisible barrier inches from his throat, making a harsh scraping sound.

Due to the magical suppression capabilities of this place, Ian's magic didn't seem very powerful. Fortunately, he was strong enough that even the weakened magic could still withstand the attack.

But more ghost brides were breaking free. A second, a third, and soon more than a dozen monstrous women surrounded him. Their wails were no longer mournful cries, but a dizzying mental attack, attempting to disrupt Ian's mind.

"Close your ears and plug your ears!"

Ian strengthened his mental defenses while his wand traced complex trajectories.

"Fiery Blaze - Ian's Improved Version!"

A blue whirlwind of flames erupted outwards from him. This was no ordinary flame, but rather "Cold Flame," created by Ian by combining ancient runes with modern spellcasting.

Specifically designed to deal with creatures that have magic resistance.

The ghost brides screamed in agony as their bodies, engulfed in blue flames, rapidly charred. But disturbingly, their faces retained that eerie expression of pleasure, as if they were enjoying the burning process.

Worse still, new flesh and blood kept seeping from the network of veins in the walls, quickly coalescing into new ghost brides. Ian realized that this would only lead to an endless war of attrition.

He had also experienced the abilities of these ghost brides.

A series of control spells temporarily halted the Ghost Bride's pursuit. But the temple itself was also hindering him—the fleshy layer of the ground suddenly bulged up, attempting to entangle his feet.

Corrosive liquid spurted from the blood vessels on the walls; even the air became viscous, making breathing difficult.

"Purify the Domain!" Ian had no choice but to divert his magic to maintain a purifying bubble around himself, isolating him from the evil god's corruption. This consumed a great deal of his magic, but he had no other option.

“We must find the entrance to the cellar.” Ian fended off the attacks while quickly reviewing the temple’s layout in his memory. According to his previous research, the cellar of this sun temple should be behind the west wall of the main hall, where the priests stored sacred objects and conducted secret rituals to incubate the embryo of the evil god.

“My immediate priority is not to fight these damn things.”

Ian's body suddenly became ethereal, allowing the three ghost brides who pounced on him to pass right through him. This was the high-level combat magic "Phase Shift," which allowed him to briefly transfer himself to the spirit world.

The closer he got to the western wall, the greater the resistance became. The ghost brides seemed to realize his objective and grew even more frenzied. They no longer attempted a direct attack but began to merge—several ghost brides coalesced into a larger, fleshy monster, blocking Ian's path. This, however, gave Ian pause for thought.

"They frantically tried to stop me. It seems there really is some evil god in the cellar that doesn't want me to find it."

(End of this chapter)