Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 355 "Grandpa, the Escaped Water Snake from Greece"

Cohen felt there was no need to say anything more.

Edward silently lay back down on the ground and closed his eyes.

Then, he opened his eyes again, struggled to get up, and pretended to have just woken up:

"Cohen?! Where am I? Aren't you in a competition?"

“Even if you restart ten times, it won’t change anything…” Cohen said helplessly. “It’s not my decision—besides, your guardian spirit is already a Dementor, so getting another Dementor grandson shouldn’t be too hard to accept…”

“I should have known this…” Edward took a deep breath, “It… really is… yours…”

"Dementors reproduce by splitting," Cohen explained to Edward, explaining how Mick split into two and why he called Cohen "Dad."

Of course, Cohen romanticized his encounter with Mick as an accidental meeting in the basement of Burke Manor.

Edward's expression softened slightly after hearing Cohen say that Mick wasn't Cohen's offspring with a female Dementor.

“Dementors don’t have genders, so if I really wanted to have children, I could just have a single-sex child…” Cohen explained, “If you don’t believe me, I can demonstrate it for you right now—”

"No need!" Edward immediately jumped up, stopping Cohen from suddenly splitting into a small Dementor in front of him. "Didn't that giant squid point you in the right direction? Let's hurry over there and take a look. You're still in the competition. If we drag this out any longer, forget about first place, you might not even make it into the top three..."

Edward kept muttering to himself as he pushed Cohen deeper into the cave. Although he kept saying things like "If you have a child, you have to be responsible for the child" and "Don't think that raising offspring is a short-term task," he was not less vigilant. He walked ahead of Cohen and carefully swept the wet rock walls and damp sand with the light of his wand.

"Ok?"

Edward stopped when he saw a very familiar creature at the end of the cave.

It was a large snake clinging to a smooth rock, with two antlers on its head—unlike Cohen's chimera tail, this snake was clearly much older, and the gem on its forehead was as if covered by a layer of gray mist, extremely dull.

Edward looked at Cohen, since things involving magical creatures seemed to have something to do with Cohen—but Cohen shook his head, meaning he didn't know it.

[Snoring... Huff—Hmm?] The old water snake groggily raised its head, its dark eyes glancing at the two people in front of it holding glowing wooden sticks. It immediately jumped up, hissing menacingly at Cohen and Edward, [What are you doing? Don't come any closer! If you do, I'll bite you!]

It hesitated for a moment between "biting you" and "butting you with its horns," then chose the more ferocious option of "biting you," but then it suddenly remembered that humans couldn't understand its words.

[Hiss hiss hiss hiss!] It began to hiss menacingly at the two men, trying to intimidate the two damned wizards.

"What did it say?" Edward asked Cohen in a low voice.

“He said he’d bite us if we came any closer—but water snakes aren’t venomous, so it was probably just a threat,” Cohen said. “Wait, I’ll ask him about it later…”

"Didn't you send the giant squid to find me?" Cohen asked it. "If there's nothing else, I'll go back to the competition—you keep sleeping—" "Hurry up, hurry up!" the old water snake urged. "What are you babbling about in human language? I can't understand it. And don't shine that light in my eyes... Huh? What did you just say?"

"If there's nothing else, I'll go back and continue the competition." Cohen pursed his lips, then glanced down at his waterproof watch. There were still about twenty minutes left; if he rushed back, he might still be able to secure a top-one finish. "I'm very busy; I don't have time to chat with the lonely old snake. If you really want to chat, I can have the other snakes talk to you."

"You can speak snake language?" the old water snake asked curiously. "Ooou! Or are you actually a snake disguised under a human skin?"

It curiously crawled toward Cohen, and Edward hesitantly pulled Cohen behind him.

“It’s alright,” Cohen reassured Edward. “It would be much more dangerous for me to become a snake than for it.”

The old water snake flicked its tongue and scanned Cohen's body from head to toe.

"It doesn't seem like it. The snake smell is so faint, it has a hint of something else... Have you ever seen a beautiful long-horned water snake? On a silly lion's body?" it asked Cohen. "She looks a lot like me, with horns on her head and shiny jewels—she's just a bit temperamental, but actually she's a good snake, all bark and no bite..."

"What kind of snake are you to her?" Cohen frowned.

Surely that voice isn't from a Chimeramon's partner?

"I am her father," the old water snake said proudly. "Have you seen my daughter? Where is she? I've been following the scent, but lately I keep losing track of her in this area..."

"What did it say?" Edward asked, somewhat puzzled, when he saw that Cohen paused for a moment and didn't continue hissing.

“It said it was my grandfather.” Cohen felt he was already used to it.

After all, the bloodline network involving a magical creature father or mother is already enormous, not to mention that Cohen has so many different species of divine parents, one of whom is even an ultimate hybrid monster...

"..."

Edward didn't speak, but simply smiled politely at the old water snake, then immediately pulled Cohen aside and asked in a low voice:
"What does it want you to do? Join some water snake family? Am I supposed to call a snake 'father-in-law'?"

“It’s here to find the Chimera,” Cohen said. “It seems its focus is entirely on the Chimera. I’ll take it to the cage after the competition; there shouldn’t be any problem—and don’t take ethics so seriously. Nobody wanted things to get this far…no animal will force you to become related to them…”

“Your basilisk father doesn’t think that way,” Edward said dryly.

“You can’t understand what Sissoko is saying!” Cohen said, rubbing his forehead. “I don’t understand how you two started arguing—never mind that for now, I’ll deal with this old water snake. You cast a head-soaking spell on yourself, and maybe I can still compete for a top spot when we get back to the lake…”

"What's going on? Haven't you seen her?" the old water snake asked Cohen, puzzled. "Then I'll go and look for her myself again... That squid might not be that smart. I asked it to help me find my daughter, but it found two wizards..."

(End of this chapter)