Hogwarts Raven

Chapter 438, Section 437: Extremely Dangerous

no way.

To defy the gods.

Only the power of the gods.

For these groups that have taken different paths, it is difficult for Ian to use his magic to compete with and win against them, mainly because his understanding of magic is not very deep.

It's not that magic is ineffective.

“Wizards are a group that can use all powers for me, and so is divine authority,” Ian asserted, without directly confronting “decay.”

That would put you in the area where the other party excels.

He chose another way. With a light tap of his wand, a circle of formless and intangible energy appeared, yet it seemed to contain a wave of contradictory meaning, "both is and is not," "both exists and is nothingness."

It instantly spread out from him as the center.

"Definition rewritten: In this domain, decay is rebirth!"

The paradoxical power is acting on the level of rules! The sweeping gray-black decaying ripples underwent a strange change when they came into contact with the paradoxical domain that Ian had unfolded.

Some of the decaying energy is still at work, eroding the space.

However, another part, under the distortion of the paradoxical law, was strangely transformed into an extremely faint but with a hint of "new life" that seemed to come back to life!
Although this "new life" is pitifully weak.

It was far from enough to offset all the decay, yet it truly happened! It was like the foundational law of carving out a small oasis in a desolate desert.

"What?!" The fallen god's crimson eyes were filled with astonishment and rage. It felt its invincible, corrupt divine power being forcibly distorted in some aspects!

"What exactly do you control?!"

Paradox, after all, belongs to the power of the new god, an artificial divine right, so it is reasonable that this ancient god cannot understand it. It roared and increased its output of divine power. More gray-black ripples surged in like a tsunami, trying to crush the disgusting paradoxical domain with absolute power.

“Something as outdated as you should accept your fate and acknowledge that your era has passed.” Ian grunted, and the paradoxical domain around his body trembled violently.

The faint aura of new life that had just emerged was instantly extinguished by a more powerful wave of decay. After all, he was not a true god, but only possessed some characteristics of divine authority. In terms of absolute divine power, he was still far inferior to this fallen god who had existed for countless ages. But his eyes remained firm, and his wand moved once more.

"Cause and effect reversed: the cause of decay yields the effect of existence!"

Another paradoxical law has been triggered!
This time.

The object of its action is "cause and effect" itself.

The surging, decaying divine power, churning with an aura capable of corrupting everything, rushed straight toward Ian. However, as this powerful evil force approached Ian, its "cause" of "causing decay" was forcibly distorted, instead producing the "effect" of "maintaining existence"!
What Ian saw was that the space in front of him, which was about to be completely annihilated, stubbornly maintained a fragile but real "empty" structure under the impact of the decaying wave.

It's as if decay itself became the foundation of its existence!

"????!!!!!!"

This bizarre phenomenon nearly drove the fallen god mad! Its attacks had become part of the opponent's defenses? This completely violated all the laws it knew!
"Roar! Blasphemy! You have blasphemed the laws!"

It roared madly, no longer maintaining its human form. Its body began to swell and twist, transforming into an indescribable mass of churning, countless pained faces and decaying matter.

It abandoned the delicate manipulation of the laws and instead poured the purest and most violent corrupt divine power down on Ian like a floodgate being opened!

This is an absolute crushing of power, an attempt to overcome skill with brute force and forcibly destroy Ian's troublesome paradoxical domain.

"Such immense divine power." Ian's expression turned solemn. He knew that a direct confrontation was not the best strategy. While maintaining his Paradox Domain, constantly twisting, deflecting, and weakening the surging torrent of divine power, he moved like a ghost within the limited space, dodging the most fatal impact.

At the same time, he was also carefully observing the other party.

He found.

Although this fallen god's power is immense and evil, the "quality" of his divine power and the feeling it evokes carries an indescribable... "artificial" quality.
This artificiality doesn't mean it's weak, but rather that the way its power operates seems to be subject to some invisible constraints and frameworks, lacking the unbridled and unpredictable nature of an ancient evil god originating from chaos.

Moreover, deep within its raging divine power, Ian vaguely sensed some extremely subtle magical imprints that shared the same origin as the Ministry of Magic's defense system.

The mark, like a chain, was faintly wrapped around its divine fragments. This was definitely not something that arose naturally, but rather had a strong element of human intervention.

The reason.

It's not hard to make a guess.

"Captive..." The word flashed through Ian's mind. This fallen god was probably not a completely free and terrifying being. It was very likely that, to some extent, it was an ancient god being "captured" and "utilized" by the African Ministry of Magic, or rather, by certain controlling families behind it, in some unknown way!
Its rampage might not have been completely out of control, but rather an act of tacit approval or even guidance? This could also explain why the Ministry of Magic kept this deity so well hidden.

It's highly unlikely that the Ministry of Magic was completely unaware that such a thing existed in their prisons. Every Ministry of Magic, regardless of location, is established by top wizards.

Such a wizard would definitely notice something amiss. You see, in any country's wizarding community, there are always many exceptionally talented individuals who emerge.

When the Ministry of Magic was established around the world, it was led by this group of brilliant individuals, and wizards from different countries exchanged ideas very frequently.

This is why every country has a Ministry of Magic. Perhaps some small countries cannot establish their own magic academies, but that's simply because they don't have enough top-tier wizards.

There will always be something.

Moreover, they were the same group of people who established the Ministry of Magic.

Therefore.

The reason the Ministry of Magic was established here, and even the prison was built under the Ministry of Magic, is very likely because at that time, some of the most outstanding wizards from certain wizarding families discovered that something was wrong with this place.

perhaps.

It was here that this fallen god was discovered. In order to use this god to achieve some purpose, the Ministry of Magic and the prison were chosen to hide a certain tomb.
This is Ian's guess.

Although there is no evidence, the possibility is very high.

"Humans just love to play with fire and get burned. This was true in ancient Egypt, and it was true in Africa. We always like to try to control things that are extremely dangerous."

Greed is the original sin.

This discovery weighed even heavier on Ian's mind.

If the opponent is not only a mad fallen god, but also a force manipulating the situation from behind the scenes, hidden deep within the Ministry of Magic, then the situation becomes even more complex and dangerous. In the instant Ian was distracted in thought, the fallen god seized upon a tiny flaw in his defenses! A dark spike, condensed to the point of being tangible and imbued with the law of "soul decay," silently pierced through the weakening layers of paradoxical domains.

It instantly reached Ian's brow! Attacks on the material level can be dodged or distorted, but this was an erosion of the very soul's essence, moving faster than thought could process! Ian only had time to retract and defend most of his mental energy before the dark spike pierced deep into his mental barrier!
but.

Ian was not alarmed.

"Therefore... we must combat it at its root."

Ian also closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into the depths of his soul.

Let's play along.

He will.

Deep within his consciousness, there, his "paradoxical divine authority" intertwined with his "legendary status," like two coiled dragons. One represented the divine authority he had plundered, the other his essence as a powerful wizard. The two should have been in conflict, but under Ian's will, they achieved a dangerous balance.

"Om-!"

Ian felt as if his entire mind had been thrown into a pot of boiling oil!

Countless whispers and hallucinations filled with pain, despair, and madness surged in like a virus! He "saw" civilization crumbling in decay, stars dimming in annihilation, and countless lives turning into withered bones in wailing... These were not merely hallucinations, but rather the things contained within the corrupted divine authority of fallen gods.

That kind of fanatical belief in and experience of "the end"!
It wanted to imprint its madness and despair completely onto Ian's soul, assimilating him! This was a spiritual erosion far more dangerous than any physical attack!

It is a direct clash between will and the essence of the other's life and divine authority!

"That was pretty dangerous!" Ian's forehead veins bulged, and his jaw clenched. He held onto the last vestiges of clarity in his core consciousness, pushing his brain-blocking technique to its limit.

He tried to repel these foreign, insane thoughts. But the spiritual power of the fallen god was like a malignant tumor, clinging tightly to his soul.

It kept assaulting his willpower.

"Give up... mortals... embrace the end... this is the destiny of all things... and the only truth..." came the seductive and mad whisper of the fallen god.

It resonated directly in the depths of his soul.

"Destiny? Reality?"

Ian sneered in his mental world; his will, like steel forged through countless trials, swayed in the raging tide but never bent.

"In the face of my paradox, destiny can be overturned and reality can be redefined!" He no longer passively defended himself, but actively invoked his own paradoxical divine authority.

Apply it to your own spiritual world!

He began to "reconstruct" his existence.

This is not a simple release of magic.

Rather, it was a philosophical deconstruction of the "self." He stripped himself of his identity as "Ian Prince," of his memories of Hogwarts, of his perception of emotions, and even of his judgments of "good" and "evil." He reduced himself to a pure "personal vessel."

An empty container, only to hold that paradoxical divine authority.

This will allow Ian, in his mortal form, to truly grasp the authority that belongs to God.

The fallen god sensed something was amiss.

"Are you... denying yourself?" For the first time, uncertainty appeared in its voice. "You're insane! How can you exist without 'me'?"

"I can only exist because there is no 'me'."

Ian's voice came from the void, as if from all directions, "You rely on faith, on fear, on everything external. But I... rely on the qualification of 'non-existence'."

Paradoxical divine authority fully awakened within him.

It is no longer runes, no longer light, but a kind of "logical violence." It proclaims: a person who should not exist stands before God in reality and declares war on God.

This “irrationality” is itself a supreme power.

“Impossible…” The fallen god’s voice trembled, “Divine authority… can only come from faith… from sacrifice… from…”

"from where?"

Ian's figure solidified again, his eyes no longer human pupils, but two swirling nebulae. "From 'being needed'? But you are no longer needed. You just refuse to admit that you are dead."

He raised his hand, his fingertips pointing to the core of the fallen god—the "eye of the heart" formed from pain.

“And I don’t need to be needed. I just need to be ‘here’.”

A silent shockwave spread out.

It is not magic, nor divine power, but a declaration of "existence".

"The realm of paradox unfolds: I think, therefore I am and I am not!"

This is a paradoxical application of Descartes' famous quote! Ian's mental world underwent a bizarre change in an instant. His states of "existence" and "non-existence" began to overlap and alternate! When the fallen god's mental attack attempted to erode Ian's "existence," he instantly entered the void of "non-existence," causing the attack to miss.

When the attack attempted to target the "non-existent" Ian, he instantly "appeared" from nothingness and launched a counterattack with his complete will!

This was not a simple dodge, but a fundamental disruption of the mental attack's lock-on and target definition! The fallen god's vast, insane will, in the face of Ian's paradoxical spirit that constantly switched between "existence" and "non-existence," was like punching cotton, or trying to grasp flowing mercury—unable to find a foothold, utterly chaotic!

"Impossible! Your soul... how can it be so... twisted?!" The fallen god roared in shock and rage on the spiritual level. It had never encountered such an opponent, one that could not only distort the laws of matter but also display such bizarre and troublesome characteristics on the spiritual level!
Ian did not answer. He concentrated all his will, condensing the power of paradoxical divine authority into a spiritual blade that shimmered with contradictory light—the "Blade of Logical Fallacy"! This spiritual blade was not sharp, but it contained the power of various logical paradoxes such as "denying premises," "circular reasoning," and "equivocation"!
He used this power to fiercely slash at the mad thoughts that were entangled in his soul!
"Your end is not my end! Your madness is not true madness! All definitions can be reconstructed!" The "Blade of Logical Fallacy" pierced into that mad mind, but did not shatter it. Instead, it stirred up a violent logical chaos, like a stone thrown into water! The fallen god's mad belief based on "all things will eventually decay" began to question and conflict with itself under the impact of the power of paradox!

Why is this mortal able to resist decay?

If the end is the only truth, then what is resistance itself? If even "truth" can be redefined, then what is the "end" it believes in?
This kind of logical clash, originating from the very foundation, is far more damaging to divine beings that rely on fixed beliefs and laws than a mere clash of forces!

For the first time, the mental roars of the fallen gods carried a hint of pain and confusion.

The roar and energy storms of the material world continue, but at this moment, on this silent battlefield of the mind, a more dangerous and fundamental war is being fiercely waged in Ian's sea of ​​consciousness.

The paradoxical light and the decaying darkness eroded, distorted, and negated each other, resulting in a bizarre stalemate.

(End of this chapter)