Hogwarts Raven

Chapter 440, Page 439: The Mysterious Giant's Palace
The despairing and resentful roar of the fallen god seemed to still faintly echo in the deep ruins.

But its chaotic and filthy aura had been erased as if wiped away by an eraser, completely disappearing into the absolute darkness from which even light could not escape.

"My sassy Dumbledore..."

Ian stood rooted to the spot, his muscles tense, a fine sheen of cold sweat beading on his palms as he gripped his wand. He wasn't unfamiliar with powerful beings, but the force that had appeared out of nowhere, forcibly intervened, and taken away the fallen god was far beyond his comprehension in terms of its level and nature.

It wasn't magic, it wasn't divine art, it didn't even resemble any known form of energy; it was more like... the enforcement of the rules themselves.

Cold, absolute, and beyond question.

"What the hell is that thing..." Ian's heart was filled with shock, and a chill ran down his spine to the top of his head. He had originally thought that his opponent was just a corrupted and imprisoned fallen god, but now it seemed that what was hidden in the abyss was probably far more terrifying than the god himself.

this moment.

Ian really just wanted to retreat.

return.

I don't want to cause trouble.

however.

He turned around abruptly and looked back at the road he had come from.

The portal that passed through the broken barriers and connected to the upper prison area had vanished silently from this space at some unknown time.

Where is the gate behind us? What should have been a gap in the barrier has now been replaced by a seamless rock wall covered with ancient signs of wind erosion.

The rock wall blends perfectly with the surrounding ruins, without any seams or magical fluctuations, as if the passage to the "outside world" had never existed.

"Damn it! We've been tricked!"

Ian's heart sank. He strode to the rock wall and reached out to touch it. It felt cold and solid, real rock. He tried to sense it with his magic, but the feedback was a chaotic mess, as if the rock wall isolated not only physical space but also the transmission of information.

"Has space been altered? Or... has the 'area' I'm in itself been moved?" Ian's face was grim. He immediately tried the most direct form of spatial teleportation magic.

"Phantom Appearance!"

Magic surged, targeting a coordinate he had previously passed through in the Upper Ministry of Magic. However, the expected spatial pulling sensation did not occur, and the magic did not work.

He remained firmly in place.

obviously.

The magic failed.

It wasn't because the space was unstable—although the previous battle had indeed disrupted the spatial structure nearby, Ian could sense that the space above the Ministry of Magic was itself stable.

The power of a legendary wizard.

Traversing a spatial turbulence should have been effortless.

What prevented him from leaving was something else entirely—an absolute restriction rooted in the underlying rules of this place. A force that forbade any form of spatial teleportation!

An unbreakable law!
"Damn it! Is that thing trying to trap me?!" Ian refused to believe it and mobilized his paradoxical divine authority, which he had just improved in the battle, in an attempt to distort and deny this rule.

"Definition rewritten: Here, phantoms are permitted!"

He roared in a low voice, and a paradoxical divine light emanated from his body, attempting to impact and cover the invisible binding law. However, the strength of that binding law far exceeded his expectations.

The paradoxical divine light struck it, like a stream hitting ancient ice, failing to even create a ripple; instead, its own radiance dimmed. That rule seemed to be one of the cornerstones of the entire ruins space, its "existence" carrying a weight and priority so high it was almost despairing.

Even with Ian's current control over the paradoxical divine authority, he cannot shake it in the slightest.

"That's bullshit..."

Ian couldn't help but mutter a curse under his breath, his face filled with disbelief and solemnity, "The African Ministry of Magic is practically invisible on the international stage!"

"What the hell are they hiding in this damn depths of the earth?!" Rules and restrictions that even divine authority cannot distort—this is beyond the comprehension of modern magical civilization!

hard to imagine.

Such things can be found in Africa.

It's still Africa during the Voldemort era!

Surprisingly, no one in later generations discovered it!

"The fact that it wasn't discovered proves that it didn't cause any major disaster, but how can such evil seem like it didn't cause a major disaster? Or is it that the era I live in hasn't yet reached the point where disasters will erupt?"

Many thoughts flashed through Ian's mind.

Undeterred, he tried several other methods to escape.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

Ian unleashed a powerful blasting spell at the rock wall. The magic, powerful enough to flatten a small mountain, struck the rock, leaving only a faint white mark, without even a single speck of stone breaking off.

"Change it!"

He then attempted to use advanced transfiguration techniques.

The attempt to transform the rock wall into a penetrable flow of air or water was futile; the light of the transformation spell fell upon the rock wall as if it had vanished into thin air, producing no reaction whatsoever.

The "essence" of the rock face refuses to be altered.

This is why the previous battles did not affect them.

They were kept in a constant state.

"I just don't believe it!"

Ian is also a stubborn person.

He even tried the oldest and most unpredictable method of creating random door keys, infusing them with magic from items within the ruins, but the door keys he created showed no spatial fluctuations.

Just like an ordinary stone.

All attempts failed.

Ian's face darkened completely. He realized that he might... really be trapped by something. Trapped in this ancient, mysterious ruin deep within the earth's core. "Calm down. This isn't the first time I've encountered danger. Before becoming a legendary wizard, I faced many dangers, but without exception, I always emerged victorious!"

With no way out, the only possibility seemed to be exploring forward. Rebuilding his invincible spirit, Ian took a deep breath, suppressing his unease and anxiety, raised his wand in front of him, and walked steadily and cautiously in the opposite direction from the darkness that had devoured the fallen gods—that is, deeper into the ruins.

He walked on a huge "road" paved with bluestone slabs, with rough, towering rock walls on either side, still etched with incomprehensible things, like ancient patterns of a distinct style. He tried to decipher them again, concentrating all his mental energy to perceive and analyze them.

But the result was still disappointing.

Those patterns seemed to possess some kind of information shield; when his mental power probed the past, he could only perceive a blank space, or some illogical, wildly jumping fragments of imagery. What made him even more uncomfortable was that when he stared at certain distorted patterns, which resembled countless tiny tentacles intertwined, for a long time, he would have an illusion—that those patterns seemed to be slowly writhing, twisting and deforming, emitting something indescribable.

The whispers, a mixture of seduction and madness, seemed to directly stir the depths of his consciousness.

"They seem to be twisting, writhing, trying to lure me in some way?" Ian forcibly looked away, feeling a slight mental lapse. This was the only information he could discern, a clue with clear initiative but no clear direction, and the clue itself was ominous.

"If I look at it a few more times, I feel like my Binzhou might start to glow." He dared not look at the wall any longer, focusing his attention on the road beneath his feet and the darkness ahead. The light from the Illumination Spell could only illuminate a range of about twenty or thirty meters around him; beyond that, there was an impenetrable darkness that seemed to absorb all light.

To know.

This is an illumination spell that incorporates the light of Ian's soul.

He's like a little sun.

Providing illumination for a city is not difficult, but in this place, in this corridor, the lighting distance is still so limited.

This is obviously unreasonable.

“That darkness wasn’t just the absence of light…” He walked along the seemingly endless corridor. The silence was terrifying; only the sound of his own footsteps and breathing echoed clearly in the empty space. After walking for an unknown amount of time, he heard the wailing of the fallen god again.

"Aaaaaahhhhh! No!!!" The sound seemed to come from the darkness not far ahead, filled with extreme pain and torment, sending chills down one's spine.

"Over there?"

Ian's spirits lifted, and he quickened his pace to chase after the source of the sound. However, a strange thing happened. No matter how fast he walked, the wailing sound seemed to always be just a few dozen meters ahead, the distance never closing. He ran for a full half hour, and the sound still echoed in that fixed "not far" spot, while the surrounding scenery, except for the seemingly endless cobblestone path under his feet and the infinitely extending walls on both sides, remained unchanged.

"This is really weird! It doesn't feel like a confusion spell at all!"

Ian stopped, his brow furrowed. He crouched down and, in an inconspicuous spot on the wall beside him, used magic to carve a clear symbol bearing his personal magical imprint.

Then he continued on his way.

After walking for a long time, he stopped again and looked back. Behind him was darkness, impenetrable by the light of the Illumination Charm. But he could sense that the magical mark he had left behind was indeed in the distant direction behind him, and the sensation was gradually weakening. This meant that he hadn't fallen into some kind of spatial loop or maze.

He is indeed moving forward, heading into new areas.

"So, it's just that this ruin is huge, but it's way too big..." Ian felt a sense of helplessness. The scale of this ruin was completely illogical.

He had already traveled at a considerable pace for over fifty kilometers, yet the corridor ahead remained utterly dark, without a single fork in the road, a side room, or even a slightly different architectural structure! Moreover, he vaguely sensed that the distance between the walls on either side seemed to be slowly increasing, and the height above his head was becoming increasingly difficult to perceive. The scale of this "corridor" was clearly not designed for humans, or even for any known intelligent race!
You know, Ian had seen the ancient Titans, but now he felt that the scale of this place was so great that even a Titan would exclaim that he had entered the home of a giant!

It is more like a passage prepared for some ancient being that is as huge as Mount Tai, or even much, much bigger than Mount Tai, and has a completely different form!

"Damn it! I shouldn't have been curious about that bronze door in the first place. If I hadn't been curious about the bronze door, I wouldn't have been pulled into the ancient era and wouldn't be here!"

"Isn't it better to just study at Hogwarts!" Ian was exhausted, not only physically but also mentally. This aimless, seemingly endless exploration, along with the constant vigilance against the unknown, was greatly draining his mental energy.

He knew that blindly continuing down this path was not a solution.

"Food is the foundation of life! You won't grow tall if you skip a meal!" Ian still loved growing taller, so he simply sat down on the spot, leaning against the cold, hard wall, and took out food and water from the pocket in his magical extension space—although with his current magical skill, he had already invented and perfected the "Bread Charm," "Water Charm," "Vitamin Generation Charm," "Pork Creation Charm," "Beef Creation Charm," and even, to satisfy his appetite, he had researched the "Spicy Dry Pot Creation Charm" and the "Butter Hot Pot Creation Charm." Theoretically, he could live here for a long time relying on magic.

but……

“But I can’t live here forever.” Ian gnawed on the magically created, realistic-tasting beef jerky, finding it utterly tasteless. He sought the mysteries of magic, the reality of the world, and the joy of exploring the unknown, not to be trapped in a godforsaken place as a “homebody” for life.

Loneliness and loss of freedom are more terrifying than any powerful enemy.

We must find a way out!

Ian has regained some of his composure.

After resting for a while and regaining some of his energy and magic, he stood up. Conventional methods of exploration were clearly ineffective; he needed more efficient and broader approaches.

I saw.

Ian closed his eyes, and a vast amount of magic began to surge and flow within him. He recalled a book he had once read, a novel from the East called Dragon Clan.

And the description of the wind demon "Kamaitachi" in Japanese biohazard movies.

At this moment, inspired by this, he combined magical puppetry, energy perception, and information transmission techniques to create a unique detection magic.

What is talent?

This is magical talent!
Top-tier magical talent!
Unless it's extremely urgent, Ian can create any magic effect he desires; he's reached a legendary level, enough to establish his own school of magic!

"Hearers of a thousand winds, eyes of ten thousand phenomena, heed my command, and explore the unknown!"

Ian chanted his self-composed incantation softly, his wand waving gently. In an instant, countless tiny magical creations, invisible to the naked eye and composed of pure magic and a trace of spiritual will—as small as dust mites—emerged from his body like a disturbed swarm of bees, then silently merged into the surrounding air.

They spread rapidly in all directions, front, back, left, right, up, and down the corridor!
"Buzz~"

"Buzz~"

"Buzz~"

Each "Kamaitachi" is a sensory node for Ian, capturing information such as spatial structure, energy fluctuations, sounds, and smells, and feeding it back to Ian's mind in real time. Indeed, this is an extremely mana-intensive spell, especially one that needs to cover such a vast and strangely shaped area.

but.

The legendary wizard remained calm.

Ian could feel his magic gushing out like a flood, but he gritted his teeth and persevered, continuously creating and releasing more "Kamaitachi".

Time ticked by, and sweat beaded on Ian's forehead, his face growing paler. Just as he felt his magic was running low and was about to give up on this method...

suddenly!

A distinct emotion, and a unique feedback message.

Like a lighthouse in the darkness.

It entered his consciousness!

(End of this chapter)