From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 424: To! Saint! Kill!
"This is not only an extremely evil creation, but also an illusion of a witch." In Ivy's vision, what blocked everyone's way was not a gate, but a man huddled in a corner. He didn't have much left, only slightly better than Voldemort hiding in the Black Forest of Albania.

This hag has some dark magic skills, but she focuses more on torturing and playing with her prey. If Ivy wants, she can destroy everything she has created with just a flick of her finger. The crypts she has carefully constructed, the victims she has deceived for many years, and the unlucky people who have been trapped in the dark magic transaction.

Under the leadership of Ivy, the adventure team continued to move forward.

The victims of the witch were everywhere on the other side of the wooden door. Ordinary wealthy people would display their carefully collected treasures and artworks in glass display cases, while the witch would treat those who believed her promises as exhibits.

A drow holding his head; a wood elf trapped in place by many mirrors; a woman pierced by vines, with only a skull left to face the mirror; a petrified dwarf; a high elf whose eyes were taken away...

The victims were laid out by the hags in crypts covered with vines and tree roots, left to rot in the mud, and just looking at them made the adventurers furious.

Pushing open the wooden door above the stairs, the adventurers found themselves behind a fireplace. Through the flickering flames of the fireplace, they could see two people having a meal in the room.

"Here's your breakfast, poor Melina." The voice belonged to an old woman. As she spoke, the old woman placed wooden plates and other tableware on the table. Judging from the sound, the portion was quite large.

"Thank you, Auntie..." The young woman's voice was hesitant, "The pie looks delicious, but it seems a bit too much..."

"I don't like it, Melina," the old woman continued in a shrill voice. "You are eating for two people. Eat quickly!"

There was a pause in the conversation, followed by the sound of knives and forks clattering on plates.

The young woman had already started eating, and the old woman hummed with satisfaction, "Very good, Melina. It seems your two brothers have come to visit us. What do you want me to do?"

"They are just too worried about me... Just let them leave..." Melina hesitated, "Don't hurt them, okay?"

"Of course! I promise you, I will never touch a hair on their head." All the adventurers could hear the malice in the old woman's voice, and they were not prepared to wait any longer.

Ivy snapped his fingers, and the flames dancing in the fireplace suddenly went out. The kettle that was propped up emitted a puff of steam and then fell silent.

"You will not harm any more lives in my forest, witch!" Harsin took the lead and jumped out first, "Today is the day you die!"

Before the roar of the archdruid had completely dissipated from the wooden house, a sturdy brown bear that stood up like a man pounced on the old woman holding the wooden spoon.

When the evil wind from the bear's paw blew on the wrinkled skin, the witch disguised as a human finally reacted.

She wailed, and in a burst of emerald green light, she returned to her ugly hag form. Her shrunken human body was stretched and expanded, and soon caught up with the brown bear's shoulder height. The stench of its body wafted in their faces, causing the adventurers to raise their weapons in defense.

The person pinned to the ground by the brown bear was a green witch. She had a very eye-catching hooked nose on her face covered with pustules and moles. Her hairless head was carefully decorated with bones and leaves. Her long arms and claws that almost reached the ground were constantly waving, trying her best to defend against the brown bear's sharp teeth and claws.

"Ah--" The green witch who was almost controlled by the archdruid let out a shrill scream, and then her whole body turned into a gust of green wind, blowing towards the second floor of the teahouse.

The green witch built her residence very well. It was a teahouse, built around a big tree and forming a spiral structure. Melina, who was sitting by the fireplace, was on the first floor, and the wooden ladder behind her led to the second floor.

No one would remain calm when seeing a bunch of people jumping out from behind their fireplace. Melina screamed and fell back along with the armchair she was sitting on. The kind-hearted Edge stepped forward and grabbed the pregnant woman's arm in time, saving the widow from a double death.

"Halcin!" The witch's shrill voice, filled with shock and anger, rang out above the adventurers' heads. "Who gave you the guts to bring so many people into my territory? Silvanus can't hear your prayers here!"

Her hooked nose turned towards the adventurers below, and she immediately recognized Gale in wizard robes from the crowd: "My lovely little petal, it's you! You've found quite a few companions... More importantly, they all look like they're in desperate need of help - the tadpoles swimming in your brain juice are a bit troublesome, right?"

Harsin, who had transformed into a brown bear, had already rushed up the stairs, and the green hag had to move again. She jumped down from the high platform and rushed straight towards the door. She originally wanted to go back to her crypt, but adventurers who jumped out of the fireplace one after another blocked that road tightly, so she had to find another way out.

Just outside the gate, in the swamp, there was a group of red-hat sheep that she had raised to serve as gatekeepers and thugs. After hearing the green witch's call, they abandoned their disguise as sheep and came to help their master.

A heavy adamantium shield flew out from the hands of Shar's priest and accurately hit the green witch who was trying to fly over everyone's heads.

The green witch let out a scream, and her forward momentum was greatly curbed by the shield. She could only fall heavily to the ground in a dog-eating-shit posture.

Her experience tells everyone that at any time, do not try to use acrobatic attacks, otherwise the gravity of the earth will teach you this lesson.

Minsara's iron boots rested on the green hag's back, and the magical sword blessed by Eilistraee was across her moss- and corpse-spotted neck.

"We should listen to her finish her words. She knows the mind flayer tadpoles in our brains." Minsara stepped hard, causing the green witch to groan.

"All those in desperate need of help in Faerun will come to see me, and I will help them as much as possible." The green witch smiled cunningly. She began to feel that the rhythm of the conversation had returned to her familiar territory. As long as these people still had the desire to survive, she felt that she could control them.

"No hag can be trusted." Harsin had transformed back into human form. "Think of the victims in the crypt! They all made deals with the hags!"

"We have what those fools don't have." Minsara's magical sword cut a bloody wound on the green hag's neck. "We hold her life in our hands! Now, tell me, how did you find out?"

"Move your sword away! If you are not careful, you will end up committing suicide in despair and becoming a mind flayer." The green hag chuckled like an old hen with a hoarse voice.

"I guess she knows nothing about the mind flayer tadpoles in your heads." Ivy smiled nonchalantly, and the lightning dancing on her fingertips burned all the red hats that rushed in from the door into charcoal. "They stink!" The green hag shouted loudly, "No matter where I am, I can recognize the stench of the mind flayer! It's a simple matter for me to remove a parasite. I can do it with just a flick of my finger!"

The green witch twisted her neck with difficulty and found Gale among the adventurers: "From the first day I met you, little petal, I could tell that something was not right in your mind... Now you finally found me..."

She suddenly stopped talking in the middle of her words, and the expression on the green witch's face changed from a leisurely and sly smile to confusion and disbelief.

"Five days! You haven't even started to transform! How did you do that?"

Ivy spread his hands and smiled without saying anything.

Minsara also lost the desire to continue the conversation. She raised her sword high, called upon the power of the oath, and prepared to deliver a heavy blow of holy slash to the green ghost woman lying on the ground.

The green ghost woman, sensing danger, was unwilling to sit and wait for death. She waved her two skinny arms wildly, trying to hurt the holy warrior with the claws on her fingers that were sharper than blades, forcing her to give up the attack and giving herself a chance to escape.

If it were an ordinary heavy-armored warrior, the armor plates would be connected by belts, so they would always be hurt by thin and sharp blades. However, Minsara was wearing heavy plate armor made of one-time melted and forged refined gold. The armor plates were completely connected by fine refined gold rings, leaving no space for blades.

After breaking two or three nails, the witch finally noticed the sarcastic smile on the face of the drow who was holding up the sword.

"Is this your last attempt? Then die!" Minsala has already enjoyed the green witch's fear and despair, and it's time to put an end to it.

The green witch let out a scream, and green light flashed all over her body again. She was casting a spell, and the sound coming from that terrifying big mouth was undoubtedly one of the components of her spell.

Ivy's masterpiece as a bard once again showed its effect. With just a flick of her fingers, the green hag's spell came to an abrupt end, and along with it, her evil life as a hag also came to an end.

Minsara kicked the hag's head away, a satisfied smile on her face. "Hags usually don't like to live in the Underdark, but if they do, they are usually very difficult to deal with. I never thought it would be so easy to chop off a hag's head without having to deal with all kinds of poisonous mushrooms and strange creatures she cultivates."

"The hag is dead, and things here have come to an end. We should hurry back to the Green Forest. I remember that today should be the last day of the Ritual of Thorns." Ivy looked at the miserable sunlight casting through the gloomy treetops outside the door. Although the hag is dead, it will take a long time for this swamp to struggle out of corruption.

“Before I return to the Verdant Grove, there is one place I must visit that I am particularly concerned about,” said Harsing, looking worried. “Even though the hag is dead, the nature of this swamp is still shrouded in shadows. I suspect there are other things growing in the shadows, not far from here, on the riverbank.”

"We certainly won't stop you from fulfilling your duties, Harsin." Although Ivy didn't know what the shadow Harsin was talking about was, he still believed in the judgment of the Archdruid. After all, this wasn't his forest. Even if they really didn't make it in time to stop the Ritual of Thorns, the tieflings would at most be driven out. There was no need to make a fuss. The adventurers' pace would definitely be able to catch up with a group of old, weak and sick people.

"You...what on earth have you done!" Melina, the village woman whose breakfast was knocked over, opened her eyes wide, tears blurring her smoky makeup, "You have ruined everything!"

"If this is your thanks, then I guess you don't need that tongue anymore." Minsara looked at her as if she were a noisy insect and was about to step on it to death.

The domineering nature of the drow was almost innate, and the scene of her chopping off the witch's head was still replaying in Melina's mind.

So she lowered her voice involuntarily: "Ethel has promised to bring my husband back and revive him...but now everything is messed up...I will never see Connor again..."

"You want to make a deal with the witch?" Xie Nian asked with interest, "What is the bargaining chip she wants?"

Melina looked at her round belly and said, "My child, Ethel promised to teach her magic..."

"That's not a lie," Shadowheart commented. "The hag will eat your child and spit it out, and then she will become a new hag, and she will indeed be teaching her magic."

The expression on Melina's face collapsed again: "I... I never thought about it... I'm so stupid, so stupid!"

"And bringing your husband back would just make him into a zombie." Ivy waved the Iron Hand dwarfs over and took out a fork from the mediocre treasure chest they were carrying.

The moment it left the treasure chest, the fork turned into a short magic wand.

"A low-quality necromancy wand." Ivy threw the wand to Melina. "It can summon your husband's body. Is he outside? I can feel the connection between him and the wand."

Melina's legs went weak, and she fell to her knees holding her wand, still muttering to herself: "I'm so stupid, really... I want him to come back - to be his original self, not a rotting corpse..."

"Then you can bury him again," Asdeln casually picked at his nails with a dagger, "Believe me, he will definitely like a comfortable and warm coffin."

Two young men who looked like farmers rushed in, holding pitchforks and sickles in their hands. The room was already almost full, and when they saw the shining swords and armor, they couldn't help but feel fear in their hearts.

“Haunted woman! Hand over our sister!” The two peasants bravely shouted at Laizer, the only one with green skin present. “We are not afraid of you! We have weapons and a lot of people! If you don’t want to suffer, let Melina go!”

Laizer sighed and tried to draw his weapon from behind, but his teammates were all around him, leaving him no room to use his greatsword.

"Who can help me chop up these two farmers who can't count?"

(End of this chapter)