Hogwarts Raven

Chapter 441-440: Ancient God Anomaly

The perception of magic!
Finally, we got feedback!
To his left, about ten kilometers away from his current location, beside this seemingly endless main corridor, a fork in the road appeared! The fork extended a short distance inward, and at its end stood a door! A huge stone door, carved from a single piece of some dark stone!
The blurry image transmitted back by the "Kamaitachi" showed that the pattern carved on the door was different from any pattern he had ever seen before. It was a more specific but also more sinister pattern—as if countless eyes and tentacles were twisted and intertwined, forming a vortex that kept spiraling inward, as if it could devour souls!
The mere sensation of the images being transmitted back caused Ian's mental energy to feel a stinging pain and a strong sense of rejection.

"There..."

Ian snapped his eyes open, a glint of sharpness and determination flashing within them. Whether that door led to a way out or greater danger, it was at least a definite "variable."

It's better than wandering aimlessly in this endless corridor!
"Even if it's a den of dragons and tigers, I have to brave it." Without further hesitation, he immediately cast a spell, and a shimmering starlight-infused flying cloak appeared behind him. The cloak billowed, lifting him off the ground like a bat in the night, and he flew swiftly towards the fork in the road detected by the "Kamaitachi"!

The distance of more than ten kilometers was covered in an instant with the help of flying magic.

"A door again, another door. How many doors have I encountered these past few days? Am I just having bad luck with doors this year? Damn it!" Ian cautiously approached, his magical perception fully activated.

It was beyond his expectation.

The door didn't emanate much powerful magical energy, nor was it protected by complex alchemical runes. It simply felt ancient and heavy.

Incredibly ancient, and extremely heavy on a physical level.

"No restrictions? Just an ordinary stone door?" Ian was somewhat surprised, but he didn't let his guard down. He raised his wand, aimed it at the seemingly seamless door crack, and cast a powerful unlocking spell—which he had modified countless times and was powerful enough to unlock Gringotts' highest-level vault lock—in fact, it was still an unlocking spell.

"Alohomora Maxima!"

A condensed beam of magic shot precisely into the crack in the door.

A series of dull, clicking sounds, as if a huge mechanism was being forcibly pushed, came from inside the door, accompanied by a flurry of falling dust.

Immediately afterwards——

"Rumble..."

A deep, loud scraping sound rang out, and the incredibly heavy stone door slowly opened inward with a crushing force!
The area behind the door was shrouded in dense darkness, so much so that even the light of an illumination spell seemed unable to penetrate it immediately. There was no attack and nothing unusual.

The scene behind the door was shrouded in dense darkness, which even the light of the Illumination Charm seemed unable to penetrate immediately.

Ian held his breath, gripped his wand tightly, and stepped forward, his sharp gaze fixed on the doorway—he stepped directly inside, thus gaining some visibility of what lay beyond.

However, something Ian hadn't expected happened. The next moment, his eyes widened, contracted, and widened again! The color drained from his face in an instant, as if he were seeing the most unbelievable and terrifying sight in the world! His body even stiffened for a moment due to extreme shock.

"Damn it! How disgusting! How disgusting!!!" Ian's pupils contracted and dilated violently in the flickering light of the Illumination Charm, as if trying to force what was happening before his eyes out of his vision. He let out a low, almost groaning, incredulous whisper.

"My... indescribable~" The space behind the door was not the other corridor or some tomb chamber he had expected. It was a chaotic mess that was hard to describe in words.

The first thing that flooded my senses was a terrifying, foul aura that was so thick it was suffocating, originating from the same source as the fallen gods, but a hundred or even ten thousand times stronger!
This aura was no longer simply decay and madness, but a mixture of something more primal and essential... malice and distortion, as if a festering sore from the dark side of the entire universe had materialized here.

Then, he saw the source of light—not the illumination spell he had brought, but a morbid, dark purple glow emanating from the chaotic space itself. This light was not evenly distributed, but flickered like breathing, originating from the enormous, constantly writhing and changing entity at the center of the space.

Then... can it still be called "existence"?

Ian could barely recognize that this was the fallen god who had fought him so fiercely not long ago, and who had even shown a glimmer of hope for purification. Its barely maintained human form had vanished, replaced by a massive, bloated mountain of flesh that seemed to be haphazardly pieced together from countless rotting flesh, twisted limbs, and eyes flashing with mad light!
Its volume filled most of the space, and its height almost touched the invisible dome. Countless tentacles of varying thicknesses, covered with suckers and mouthparts, extended from its body.

It was unconsciously waving and slapping the ground and walls, making a sticky, teeth-grinding sound.

"Is this the elven girl's pleasure house I saw in the Black Bible when I was a child before I transmigrated?!" Even at this moment, Ian still couldn't help but make sarcastic remarks.

The other party's body was constantly secreting an extremely viscous, foul-smelling black liquid, which dripped onto the ground and wriggled as if it were alive.

It is eroding the already strange ground.

At the very top of this maddening mountain of flesh, one could still vaguely make out half a twisted, distorted human face, contorted with extreme agony—the last remnant of that fallen god. Its mouth opened and closed, as if trying to say something, and the last glimmer of clarity in its crimson eyes struggled violently between madness and pain.

Just as Ian pushed open the door and the light shone in, the half-face suddenly turned to Ian, and with its last bit of strength, squeezed out a hoarse, broken syllable from deep in its throat, a syllable filled with a certain warning.

"roll--!!!"

That shout of "Get out!" seemed to have exhausted his last vestige of humanity. Before the words were even finished, half of his face, like a melting wax figure, was rapidly swallowed and covered by the writhing flesh around him.

Thus, the last glimmer of reason was extinguished, replaced by countless newly born eyeballs filled with pure destruction and insane desire.

They all locked onto Ian, who was standing frozen in the doorway!

“Roar, ahh ...

A deafening, inhuman roar erupted from the depths of the mountain of flesh, no longer language, but a primal, frenzied scream. The enormous, twisted monster had completely lost all intelligence and divinity, transforming into a truly indescribable being that knew only destruction and devouring!

Its countless waving tentacles, as if they had spotted delicious prey, swept towards Ian with a shrill shriek that tore through the air! Before these tentacles even arrived, the extremely dense malice and mental pollution, enough to corrupt the soul, had already rushed towards him like a tsunami!

"Damn it! But I'm not an elf girl! I don't like this kind of pleasure!" Ian snapped out of his utter shock, a strong sense of crisis making him react almost instinctively!
"Armor Protection - Divine Barrier!" He swung his wand rapidly, and a high-level protective spell, radiating pure white-gold light and flowing with holy runes, instantly unfolded, firmly shielding him behind him. This was no ordinary armor spell, but a specialized defensive technique infused with his understanding of positive energy and order.

"Pfft! Bang!"

Several enormous tentacles lashed out and wrapped around the sacred barrier!

The dark purple, foul energy clashed violently with the white gold, sacred light, producing a corrosive hissing sound and a dull thud.

The barrier flickered violently, its surface runes fading intermittently, clearly under immense pressure. Even more terrifying was the mental pollution carried on its tentacles.

Like invisible poison needles, it relentlessly tried to penetrate the barrier, eroding Ian's consciousness. "As expected... has this guy completely lost his mind and divine power, leaving only the most primal corruption and physical strength?" Ian analyzed calmly while maintaining his defense. Although the opponent's form was terrifying and its aura horrifying, its attack methods had become singular and direct.

His eyes sharpened, and he decided to take the initiative.

"Blade of Paradox - Denial of Existence!" Ian condensed the divine power of paradox, and an energy blade that shimmered with a gray-white contradictory light extended from the tip of his wand.

It slashed down fiercely at a thick tentacle tightly wrapped around the barrier! There was no splatter of blood, nor the sound of flesh tearing. The paradoxical blade sliced ​​through, and that section of the tentacle vanished silently, as if it had never existed, leaving a smooth, mirror-like cut without any residue.

efficient!

However, before Ian could even catch his breath, a chilling scene unfolded. At the base of the severed tentacle, the flesh writhed violently as if boiling, and almost instantly, a new tentacle, even thicker and covered with more disgusting mouthparts, grew back, lashing fiercely at the barrier once more!

The dark purple glow and foul odor that filled the surrounding air seemed to dim slightly, as if the growth of these tentacles had consumed some kind of environmental energy.

"Sigh~"

Ian gasped.

He discovered that this guy's self-healing ability was even faster than that of the evil god he encountered in ancient Egypt, perhaps due to the strange space he was currently in.

"Roar! Join...us...become...a part of it!"

The monster of flesh let out a muffled yet eerily seductive roar, as if it were the only obsession remaining in its consciousness.

Ian's heart sank.

Physical attacks are not possible.

The "erasure of existence" effect caused by paradoxical divine authority is actually offset by this terrifying regenerative ability? No, not offset, but "covered up"!
The new "existence" covers the denied "existence"!
The monster's essence seems to have become one with this strange, chaotic space. As long as the polluted energy of this space does not run out, it can be reborn indefinitely!
"All petrified!"

The petrifying light disappeared into the monster's body, like a stone sinking into the sea, without even a ripple.

"Crushed to pieces!"

The powerful shattering spell can blast a huge hole in a monster's body, but the hole is instantly filled with newly grown, more twisted flesh.

"Fierce flames scorch the heavens!"

Ian summoned a blue Fiendfire powerful enough to incinerate a city.

The flames did indeed scorch the monster, causing it to roar in agony, its flesh charred and falling away, but more flesh surged out from within, seemingly endlessly pouring forth in waves.

The fierce fire seemed to be suppressed by the dense, foul aura!
Ian kept changing his magic, from elemental attacks to soul curses, from spatial cutting to time slowing; he used almost every attack method a legendary wizard could master.

Each attack can inflict considerable "damage" on the monster, but the monster is like the deepest nightmare. No matter what kind of injury it suffers, it can recover completely in a very short time. In fact, after each recovery, its form becomes more ferocious and illogical, and the madness it exudes becomes more intense.

"Join...us...forever...one..."

The seductive whispers, like demonic chants, relentlessly assaulted Ian's mental defenses. He even attempted exile magic, trying to banish the monster to another dimension or a temporal rift.

"Exilio in Vacuum!"

A massive spatial rift appeared beside the monster, its powerful suction attempting to engulf it. The monster roared in fury, its countless tentacles gripping the ground and walls, resisting the suction.

Just when Ian thought he was about to succeed, a dense dark purple light suddenly filled the area around the spatial rift. The rift itself began to become unstable and distorted, and finally disappeared completely as if it had been smoothed out by an invisible hand! The monster remained in the same spot, unharmed, but even more enraged.

"Even spatial exile can be interfered with by the rules of this area?!" Ian's heart sank to the bottom. He realized that in this bizarre chaotic space, this monster twisted from a fallen god was practically immortal! It had become part of the rules of this place.

Or rather, it's a "tumor" born from these rules!
The battle reached a desperate stalemate. With his superb magical skills, deep reserves of magical power, and the bizarre nature of paradoxical divine authority, Ian was able to deflect the monster's attacks time and time again, and even "eliminate" parts of its body.

But the monster, with its near-infinite regenerative ability connected to the entire space and its constantly adapting, distorted form, clung to Ian like a leech.

True.

This guy, who has lost his divine magic and power, isn't as much of a threat to Ian, but he's also more disgusting, and it seems like he gets stronger every time he's resurrected.

It is absolutely disgusting.

"Another tough battle. Why is it a tough battle all day?"

Ian's magic is being depleted.

The mind is also exhausted from trying to resist the endless whispers of madness.

The monster, however, seemed tireless, its attacks coming wave after wave, its form increasingly distorted in incomprehensible directions. Sometimes it would extend scythe-like limbs, sometimes it would spew out acid that could corrode magic, and sometimes it would split open countless mouths filled with sharp teeth from all over its body, emitting shrieks that could shake the soul.

“This won’t do…” Ian dodged a tentacle that was biting like a giant python while using the Paradox Blade to “erase” it again, his mind racing as he considered a solution. “I must find its core, or… find a loophole in the rules of this space! Otherwise, it will wear me down here sooner or later!”

However, in this realm filled with madness and chaos, finding patterns and loopholes is easier said than done.
"Roar! Ro ...

The scales of victory and defeat have not tipped.

But the passage of time is itself disadvantageous to Ian, who is trapped here.

(End of this chapter)