Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 542 Warlike, Ruthless, Kind, Radical

As soon as Rice stepped out of the lounge, she smelled an enticing sweet aroma – the smell of roasted pumpkin.

Compared to the pumpkins in Muggle society, the pumpkins at Hogwarts, which were enchanted, were larger and sweeter—Hagrid even cultivated a seedless pumpkin with Helga's help, the core of which was as sweet as honey.

Suppressing his inner longing to go to the auditorium to enjoy Christmas, Rice walked towards the principal's office located on the top floor of the castle.

On the way, he encountered Helga and Rowena, who were also on their way to the principal's office, and Rice immediately sensed that something was wrong.

What could possibly require Godric to summon all three of them together? Surely he wasn't preparing a Christmas-themed breakfast in his current office?

To be honest, this is actually quite something Godric would do.

Rice suppressed the strange thoughts that were rising in his mind and silently quickened his pace.

Godric's purpose can only be understood by meeting him in person.

"Make way, I'm here to retrieve something for the great Helga Hufflepuff!" Upon reaching the stone sculpture leading to the headmaster's office, Rice couldn't help but utter that special command.

Helga, Rowena: ? ? ?

"What did you just say?"

"Is there something wrong with my ears?"

Both of them were taken aback by the unrestrained password, and why was it different from the password they remembered?

Rice and the other person smiled slightly, feeling comfortable all over.

"It's just a little 'Easter egg' that Godric left at Hogwarts. Now we should go up and talk to him about that note."

Upon hearing Salazar's words, Helga and Rowena forcibly suppressed their thoughts about the password they had just heard and quickly walked towards the principal's office with Salazar.

When Rice pushed open the office door, he immediately realized that Godric hadn't come to invite them to a party.

There were no cold food platters or drinks in the headmaster's office, only the decorations left over from Dumbledore's or even earlier times, and Godric himself.

"Take a look at these." Upon seeing his three old friends, Godric didn't exchange many pleasantries with them, but instead tossed an envelope in front of each of them.

Rice opened it and found it was a letter requesting help from Durmstrang School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Helga and Rowena received the same letter, except theirs came from Beauxbatons and Iphamoni.

"It was sent this morning. They said that the evil spirits have become much more active in their area and they hope we can go and help them."

All three of them frowned.

"Why were they all delivered today?" Helga noticed something was wrong.

"I don't know," Godric shook his head, indicating that he was also confused about the situation. When he received the letters from the three schools this morning, he thought they were Christmas cards!

Fortunately, all three schools marked the envelopes "urgent," and Godric hadn't been lazy; he had checked the information on each envelope. Otherwise, he would have treated the three schools' requests for help as spam.

This is also why Godric hates the position of principal the most.

As a responsible principal, he had to open and read every single letter. This task might sound simple, but considering the number of emails he received every day, the workload was actually quite strenuous.

"It's possible that the problem of evil spirits is erupting all at once," Godric speculated.

"That shouldn't be the case; the peak usually falls on Halloween," Rowena said, expressing her confusion. "Has it been postponed this year?"

This Halloween, they made special preparations to guard against a large-scale invasion of evil spirits. However, the frequency of evil spirits appearing on Halloween did not increase as dramatically as they had anticipated.

At the time, they thought it was because the seal between the two worlds had been broken, and crossing the seal no longer required choosing a specific time of the year.

But now it seems there's more to the story.

"There must be something fishy about this," Rice concluded.

"It's possible that something is trying to divide our power and then launch a sneak attack," Helga concluded based on the fact that the three magic schools had simultaneously sent out letters requesting help.

This is clearly something dirty is behind it all; otherwise, how could it be such a coincidence? Helga doesn't believe in coincidences.

"What else could it be but those old scum from the underworld?" Godric said dismissively, "Great wizards from ancient times, gods who died in who-knows-when, and all sorts of powerful magical creatures."

The underworld and the mortal world are somewhat like a pond, with the mortal world being the clear water at the top and the underworld being the silt at the bottom.

Aside from the Norse gods and other powerful beings whose souls were killed in the past, they all fell into the underworld and became part of it. Heaven knows what kind of beings reside in the depths of the underworld.

Don't be fooled by the current chaos caused by the evil spirits; the truly ancient beings haven't even made their move yet. Only the Greek gods couldn't resist and rushed out.

"Looks like some scum think the four of us are in their way." Rice chuckled, his eyes turning as cold as a deep lake.

Their previous "sniping" of Zeus successfully intimidated the ancient beings in the underworld.

As long as the four of them are still around, those remnants will not dare to return to the world, because they cannot withstand the combined annihilation of these four.

Once they've set their sights on you, there's no escaping back to the underworld; it means true death will befall them. This is unacceptable to these ancient beings accustomed to their lofty status.

Rice and his three companions have become obstacles to the resurrection of these ancient beings.

No one knows whether they'll be ambushed and killed by the four giants after being resurrected. There's a chance they'll successfully negotiate and gain territory, or there's a chance they'll be wiped out completely.

The scum dared not gamble, so they could only try to destroy these four obstructive stones.

This is the conclusion Rice reached after analysis.

"Oh? Salazar, what do you think we should do?" Rowena raised an eyebrow and asked Salazar for his strategy.

She felt that since Salazar had said that, it meant he must have already thought of a solution.

"There are three options, with the risks and rewards increasing progressively," said Lesch's old friends, holding up three fingers.

Three pairs of eyes simultaneously focused on Rice's face.

"The first solution is to ignore these letters for help and pretend we didn't receive anything. Anyway, those three schools aren't closely related to Hogwarts, and if they really can't hold out, they can just run away—at worst, we can just allocate a piece of land next to Hogsmeade for them and turn this place into a magical city."

As long as the four of them remain at Hogwarts, no foolish scoundrel will dare to cause trouble here. At the same time, their attitude will spread: the four founders of Hogwarts are "peace-loving" and unwilling to interfere in matters outside of Britain.

This would bring long-lasting peace to Hogwarts and the island of Britain. However, the outside world would likely be very different, because the last sword of Damocles hanging over the remnants of the old era would be gone.

Godric and Hufflepuff hesitated, but after exchanging a glance, they remained silent. They wanted to hear the remaining two methods before making their judgment.

"The second option is for us to team up and go to these three schools one by one. Considering that Hogwarts needs someone to stay behind, we should form teams of two or three and choose one school from Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, and Ilfamoni to provide support."

The third method is the most dangerous, and it's what those scum want us to do: the three of us split up and go to the three schools. There will definitely be traps waiting for us there, but the advantage is that those filthy creatures who think they're the hunters will surface. In the end, we'll definitely have a good fight.

After listening, Godric almost immediately decided to adopt the third method. He felt his longsword was itching for a fight.

Helga frowned.

Like Godric, she immediately ruled out the first option.

Helga felt she couldn't just stand by and watch those evil spirits wreak havoc on the world.

However, she felt that the second option seemed more feasible, and it didn't necessarily have to be a three-person team. They could simply call Dumbledore back, and then the two of them could team up in pairs, which would allow them to support the two magic schools immediately.

In fact, with Hogwarts' current strength, if they were bold enough, they could send three teams to support the three schools at the same time, but then they would have to be wary of enemies coming to raid their base.

"Where is Dumbledore now?" Helga looked at Godric, hoping to find out Dumbledore's whereabouts from him.

"He told me he was going to Switzerland for vacation." Godric actually knew. Dumbledore had mentioned his next move to him before leaving his post.

Why Switzerland?

"He said he was going to see an old friend."

Helga raised an eyebrow: It's quite unexpected that someone of Dumbledore's age would still have old friends.

"Should we call him back?"

"I'll go write the letter right now."

When Godric wrote the letter, Helga revealed her choices: she and Rowena would go to aid Beauxbatons, while Salazar would go with Godric to support Durmstrang.

Hogwarts is protected by their apprentices and Dumbledore.

This would allow them to simultaneously support the two nearest magic schools while also leaving five domain wizards to protect Hogwarts. Even if Zeus reneged on the treaty, he wouldn't be able to harm Hogwarts.

"Royna, what do you think?"

At this point, all three had stated their positions: Rice believed that "isolationism" should be pursued, regardless of the fate of other magic schools; Godric was willing to walk into the trap and engage in a fierce battle; Helga proposed a compromise, providing support while leaving Hogwarts with a sufficiently strong protective force.

"Either we don't go to provide support, or we go big." Seeing that her three old friends were looking at her, Rowena slowly expressed her opinion.

Her mindset was either to do nothing at all, or to go all the way; that was her approach.

"The four of us will all go out and fight, along with a few juniors, and split into three groups to support those three schools. Granger and Dumbledore can stay here at Hogwarts to guard it."

Upon hearing this, Rice and the other two were stunned: Rowena, you seem to be going a bit too far.

"Hermione..." Rice frowned, a bold guess forming in his mind.

Has this girl's field evolved yet?

Seeing Sarah looking at her, Rowena nodded to her.

"I've been reading with Granger in the library for the past few months, so now I can summon my phantom in her field as well."

Upon hearing this, Rice couldn't help but swallow hard.

Good heavens, that area is truly terrifying. Even if I went in now, I might not be able to get away with it.

"Bring Athena along," Rice stated his position.

He agreed with Rowena's idea, but at the same time offered a small suggestion for modification.

"Can!"

"As expected of you, Salazar!"

"I have no objection."

The four reached an agreement with astonishing speed, and then Godric threw a handful of Floo Powder directly into the burning fireplace, then stuck his head into the fireplace in a rather ungraceful posture—he was contacting Dumbledore.

FiloNet is undoubtedly the fastest communication method.

At this moment, Dumbledore was playing wizard chess with Grindelwald in Nurmengard's castle.

"General." Dumbledore's expression was relaxed and nonchalant.

He only needed to checkmate the king to win the game. But just then, the flames in the castle fireplace turned green.

Grindelwald quickly knocked over all the chess pieces on the board, then pointed to the fireplace and said, "Someone's here to see you."

As the castle where the previous Dark Lord was imprisoned, Nurmengard's fireplace was not connected to the Floo Network until September of this year. It was only in early September that it was connected to the Floo Network by Hogwarts.

Both sides are considered exceptions.

Therefore, the fire in the fireplace must have been lit by someone from Hogwarts looking for Dumbledore.

Dumbledore sighed, tossed the chess piece on the table, and walked to the fireplace.

The fireplace contained Gryffindor's large face.

"What's the matter?"

"Please return to Hogwarts as soon as possible."

Dumbledore didn't ask for further explanation, but simply nodded.

Godric's face vanished instantly. Before the flames in the fireplace could even return to their normal color, Dumbledore sprinkled in a handful of Floo Powder.

The flames turned emerald green again.

"Goodbye, Gettler. Hogwarts!" Dumbledore said, leaving only those words before stepping into the flames, not even waiting for Grindelwald's reply.

The next second, he disappeared.

Grindelwald sighed as he gazed at the flames, which had returned to their orange hue.

Will we really ever see each other again?

He wasn't sure, but he knew that Albus being called away in such a hurry couldn't possibly be to invite him back for dinner.

"What happened?" When Dumbledore emerged from the fireplace and saw the four founders gathered in the headmaster's office, he immediately realized that something big had occurred.

"It's like this..." Rice briefly explained to Dumbledore that the three schools had requested assistance at the same time.

"Dumbledore, Hogwarts needs your strength."

"It is my duty."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Update delivered, goodnight everyone~

The next update will be at midnight tomorrow night.

(End of this chapter)