From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 556 Desolate Universe
Heimawen stopped thinking.

As a legendary witch, Black Maven not only formed a powerful witch council at Baldur's Gate—the Sisterhood of the All-Seeing Pearls—but also, under the cover of the Sisterhood of the All-Seeing Pearls, infiltrated the deepest part of the Water Queen's palace and stole the faith and divine power of the Water Queen, Ambori.

She was able to do such an astonishing thing for two reasons: firstly, the sea witch Alandra had been the Mother of Waves in the church of Ambori for decades; and secondly, the green witch Ethel, who was conducting experiments in the Underdark, discovered the special abilities of the Kotto fish-men.

As a kind of foolish amphibious intelligent creature, the Kou Tao Fish people's beliefs are very easy to be manipulated. With just a little inducement, they can give rise to false gods and divine power.

When Blackmawwen took advantage of this characteristic of the Kotow Fishmen and developed the Mother of Waves of Ambori into her own infiltrator, a brilliant plan was born.

The sea hag, the mother of the waves, redirected Ambori's faith at Baldur's Gate, creating another, non-existent face for Ambori: the pearl goddess Maven.

As can be seen from the name, this Pearl Goddess Maven is not the face of Ambori herself, but rather the disguise of the witch Black Maven.

By spreading the name of the Pearl Goddess to the simple-minded Koto fishmen, Black Maven successfully dressed herself in the clothes of this false god, and through the faith guided by the Sea Witch from the Church of the True God, she gave the false god real divine power.

The plan is not complicated, but to carry it out consistently requires a level of caution that is hard for ordinary people to imagine.

The reason is simple: this is, after all, daring to challenge a true god. If they were caught, it would be a miracle if the three witches of the All-Seeing Pearl Sisterhood weren't reduced to ashes on the spot.

Moreover, Black Mawen's true purpose was not simply to steal some divine power, but to ascend to godhood by using the divine status of a false god and the divine power of a true god, thus achieving a transformation and evolution in the level of life.

To complete this step, Black Mawen needs to wait very patiently until the divine power contained within the false god is sufficient for her to cross the chasm between human mortals and divine miracles.

Before that day arrived, Blackmaven had never used the divine power from the Water Queen Ambori, because she did not want to cause any trouble. Only a god like the Water Queen Ambori, who originated from nature but sought faith from mortals, would so crudely govern the divine power derived from the fear of mortals.

Heimawen believed that once she used the divine power that originally belonged to Ambori, it wouldn't be long before the real power would come knocking on her door.

Indeed, this was the case. After the sea witch Alandra shed her disguise as the Mother of Waves, Ambori immediately issued a divine decree to the other wave priests in the Water Queen's Palace, ordering them to hunt down the witch hiding in the Pearl Palace.

However, the three witches of the All-Seeing Pearl Sisterhood had been plotting for a long time. The wave priests who received the divine oracle didn't even have time to see the real person before they were all transformed into fish-headed monsters by the sea witches.

The curse that transforms the Wave Priestess into a fish-headed monster is the latest research finding of the great witch Blackmawen, originating from the witches' methods of reproduction. However, this curse is more like a parasitic organism hiding inside its host, growing stronger, and finally being born after plundering all of the host's life force.

Blackmaven was able to develop this curse that could rapidly expand the ranks of believers because she was inspired by the reproductive methods of the Supreme God, the Mind Flayer.

She infused the life form of the Koto fish-men into the pearls through a curse, and then distributed these pearls to the priests and believers of Ambori through the sea witch, thereby secretly expanding the scale of the false god's followers.

Unfortunately, while the fish-headed monsters created using curses can indeed provide faith, their individual qualities are inferior to even the oviparous Kotō fish-men, let alone the Mind Flayers, whose birth methods are somewhat similar. It's utterly a waste of resources and a disregard for human life.

But for the ambitious witch Black Mawen, this cruel and dark method of ascending to godhood perfectly matched her vision.

She believed that with the help of these fish-headed monsters, the Pearl Goddess would soon transform from a false god of the Koto fishmen into another true deity on the continent of Faerûn.

However, all of Blackmaven's plans and visions regarding godhood needed to be carried out within her own palace—

The large, clumsy old woman awkwardly flailed her arms and legs, turning her body around in the water sphere.

Before her lay a magnificent sight beyond words. Without atmospheric scattering, the sky was no longer a clear azure blue, but rather a vast curtain more magnificent than the most precious black velvet, upon which countless diamonds shone with dazzling brilliance.

This was a space without top or bottom, and without front, back, left, or right. More dazzling than the diamonds on the black velvet curtains was the enormous sun that was constantly spewing out silvery-white plasma fluid. Through the refraction of the water surrounding it, the entire sun was enveloped in a pearly halo in Black Mawen's eyes. The swaying filaments of light reminded her of the glowing tentacles of a jellyfish in the deep sea.

Water, which flows downwards on the ground, spontaneously coalesces into a huge mass in the desolate universe, constantly vibrating and changing as the creatures inside move about.

Even through the thick layer of water, Heimawen felt her eyes being burned by the intense sunlight. She twisted her body with difficulty to keep the sunlight out of her eyes.

After a pause, Black Mawen recognized the blue celestial body that occupied most of her field of vision. It was like a deep blue sapphire with many swirling vortices on its surface. The outline of the yellowish-green continent was faintly visible through the gaps in the white clouds. The polar ice cap was even more eye-catching than the finest white glazed pottery made by the Gonde followers.

"Toril..." The frustration and resentment gushing from Blackmaven's chest almost overwhelmed the entire Toril Wilderness. She was originally going to become a true god and rule over all the blue areas on that planet, but now, that wish has become a luxury that can never be fulfilled.

Heimawen turned her body for the third time, and another celestial body that she often looked up at from the ground appeared in front of her.

The Tear of Serengeti, trailing countless asteroid tails, is three times the size of what we see on Earth. Every detail is as clear as an oil painting laid out before us. The bluish-gray craters are like circular scars, the lunar maria are like solidified asphalt lakes, and the highlands are like white marble sprinkled with plaster powder. Without the obstruction of the atmosphere, all the shadows are sharp as if cut by a knife or cleaved by an axe.

On the long tail of the asteroid trailed by the Tears of Serenne, a burst of fire once again drew Blackmaven's attention.

"It was you—it was you who put me in this situation!" As a legendary creature with exceptional eyesight, Blackmaven saw through the flames at a glance. "I will tear you to pieces! To vent my hatred!"

Black Mawen stared wide-eyed, panting heavily as she rolled over her layers of fat belly, pulled out a broom with almost no tail left from the bottom, and rode it towards the place where the fire had erupted.

— As a spell to neutralize the Hag's home-field advantage at the Hag's gathering and to keep the Hag who had usurped Ambori's divine power away from the Water Queen's palace, Ivy's ninth-circle spell, enhanced by the legendary class trait of [Persistent Interdimensional Portal], undoubtedly exceeded its objectives.

Not only did it utilize the vacuum suction of the desolate universe to create a surging vortex, bringing all the creatures in the Pearl Palace to the desolate universe, but it also consumed two or three of the Great Witch's spatial teleportation spells. After all, under such intense rotation, even Ivy couldn't calmly complete the spellcasting.

As the last creature carried into the desolate universe by the water flow, the Great Witch was further accelerated by the cavitation bubbles that surged out before the gate to another world closed, propelling her to an unknown distance.

After all, the desolate universe is a vacuum environment with no air resistance. If the giant ghost, which is surrounded by a lot of water, doesn't collide with anything else, it will theoretically continue moving forward forever. If it is unfortunately captured by a massive celestial body, it will become a human asteroid and begin to move in a circular motion.

However, Ivy's tactics were not without flaws.

In fact, after dealing with the remaining sea hag of the All-Seeing Pearl Sisterhood and the ugly fish-headed monster she summoned, the adventurers encountered an unexpected but also predictable enemy.

A large group of Giuseppes riding red dragons and sailing pirate ships.

Although the Lich Queen Vairakis dared not venture deep into Toril's atmosphere to cause trouble, the Githyanki, a space race, held an unparalleled advantage within Toril's desolate cosmos.

The Star Bay Nursery, where Leezel was born, is located on an asteroid behind the Tears of Selenne, hidden among countless meteorites floating around the moon.

Since the Supreme God's hull ship stole the Astral Prism and the pursuit team led by the legendary centurion Voss went missing, the Lich Queen Vairakis has turned the Star Bay Nursery into a frontline military outpost.

The Gith Yankees are preparing for war here, constantly monitoring the changes on the blue planet below, seeking an opportunity to invade it and reclaim the Astral Prism.

The Gith Yankees' long history as astral pirates led them to develop devices capable of tracking and monitoring various teleportation spells.

With these psionic devices, embodying the wisdom of Gith Yankee craftsmen, their warriors can quickly identify high-value targets in the cosmos and carry out attacks and raids on their enemies.

Therefore, the moment Ivy's interdimensional portal opened in the Toril Wasteland, the whereabouts of him and his companions were already known to the Githyanki within the Star Bay military outpost.

"Shameless Vairakis!" Lyezal pulled the Soulbreaker Greatsword from his comrade's body, cursing the queen he once revered as a god. "She never intended to keep her promise! These soldiers, bewitched by her, were noble warriors who should have been pioneers in the fight against the Mind Flayers, but because of Vairakis's chaotic orders, they died needlessly at our hands!"

The Gisyanki manhunt is large in number, but its strength is far from top-tier, which is related to the long-standing short-sighted approach of the Vellakis.

The Gith Yankees, who launched their attack aboard their pirate ship, didn't even have time to utter a battle cry before being struck by Ivy's meteor burst and reduced to astral debris in the explosion.

If Ivy hadn't been so interested in how these pirate ships were propelled, she probably wouldn't have even launched a boarding maneuver, but would have simply used a powerful evocation spell to send them to meet the Queen.

"Their red dragon is approaching!" Karak licked her lips and let out an excited battle cry. "Lirakoor! Your dream is about to come true!"

“Your dream is about to come true, Karak.” Ivy directed Bigby’s Hand to stuff the pirate ship’s engine, which Leezel called the Exorcist’s Helm, into the Grimoire of Destruction. “Once we get what you need most from these Heart Deliverymen, we can immediately return to Baldur’s Gate to perform your heart transplant.”

“You’ll love the exhilarating life force that the Red Dragon’s Heart brings.” Ivy painted an enchanting picture for the Bloodbath Champion from Hell. “You won’t be limited by the Hell Engine, and you might even be able to master the Red Dragon’s innate fire abilities. If you agree, I can even modify a pair of wings for you to fly. Then you won’t have to stay in my wind elemental field to enjoy the joy of flight.”

"Ah! What you're saying is making me hot-blooded!" A large plume of sulfurous steam billowed from the vent on Karak's shoulder. "But you have to take things one step at a time, right? Let's start by getting the heart!"

“…I’ve always dreamed of becoming a centurion of Kethrak in Vyrakis.” Leezel crossed the broken deck of the pirate ship to rejoin his companions on the other side. “Who would have thought I’d soon be a red dragon slayer? The red dragons that follow the Githyanki Knights are all young dragons, but that doesn’t mean they’re weak. Because there’s no concept of time in the astral plane, these young red dragons often have several times the combat experience of their kind…and of course, the same goes for the treasure they’ve accumulated. We must be careful.”

Although similar to the space Ivy imagined, the desolate universe in the D&D world has many amazing characteristics.

Gravity is not entirely absent here; even in a vacuum, living organisms can still breathe.

Both of these situations stem from a condition that Ivy categorizes as subjective gravity.

Here, everything generates gravity, and conscious beings can even make the direction of their gravity coincide with the "most convenient direction" for themselves.

For objects without consciousness, the gravity they generate does not follow some so-called "law of universal gravitation" and point towards the object's center of mass, but rather towards a gravitational plane.

The gravitational plane of these objects is bidirectional; both sides can be used by other organisms or objects to stand on. Objects captured by the gravitational plane from both directions will land back to back on opposite sides of the plane.

If a creature with a subjective sense of gravity falls into a plane of gravity created by an object, the only factor determining whether it is affected by this plane of gravity is the difference in mass between the two objects—the one with greater mass will capture the one with less mass.

Mass is also a decisive factor in whether a living organism can maintain its ability to breathe in the wilderness.

Because all life forms that leave a planet's atmosphere and enter the wilderness will capture a certain amount of air, forming an air sac that is constantly being consumed. If no new air is obtained before all the breathable air in the air sac is used up, these life forms will suffocate.

Although the restrictions in the desolate space were numerous and complex, Ivy felt generally good. After all, he possessed magic and didn't need to worry about survival. Moreover, his magical flight ability was effective in the vacuum of the desolate space, unlike ordinary animals that needed to create updrafts to fly.

(End of this chapter)