Chapter 226 - 225. The Necromancer Community. Part 1. The Castle.

Chapter 225. The Necromancer Community. Part 1. The Castle.

Using Robin’s memories to teleport, they found themselves on a stone bridge leading to a half-ruined castle. A single high tower rose from the structure, lacking windows or even a roof, while the walls meant to protect it from outside invasion were riddled with dozens of holes, to say nothing of the moss covering nearly every brick.

In appearance, the place resembled simple ruins, centuries old, and that wasn’t far from the truth.

The castle, surrounded by a wretched wasteland and swamp, had indeed been abandoned. But the enormous concentration of death energy permeating its grounds had attracted the attention of the Necromancer Community. They decided to settle here, establishing it as their main stronghold where only the best of the best in their craft gathered.

Severus had learned this from Robin’s memories; the young prodigy had moved here only five years ago and become the community leader’s apprentice, thanks to his enormous talent and great ambitions.

"How can anyone live here?" Nagini hissed with disgust, not even daring to flick her tongue to taste the air, already guessing at the swamp’s stench. Lucky’s reaction, clamping his little paws over his nose, spoke for itself.

"Meeeow..." he meowed pitifully. His sense of smell was incredibly acute; to him, this stench was like being dunked headfirst into filth, then pulled out and forced to breathe just above it, his sense of smell amplified fivefold.

"It doesn’t stink that badly here." Severus looked at his companions with a mocking smile. They glared viciously at him, silently promising the most terrible punishments if he didn’t do something. "All right, all right, you softies." He snapped his fingers, creating an air bubble around each of their heads, then calmly headed toward the castle. He recalled with dark nostalgia how he had once hidden in a genuine swamp for four whole days from his enemies, and how, five years later, he had drowned them in it with equal pleasure. *Sigh... those were the days.*

"By the way, why didn’t we teleport inside right away?"

"Because of the barrier over the castle. I don’t know how effective it is, and I don’t want to take risks with this operation. I want to do this quietly." Severus approached the first layer, hidden from sight. Extending his hand, he cast diagnostic charms. After a few dozen seconds, he found a small loophole, temporarily added himself and his companions to the exception list, and passed through. "Well, I didn’t expect anything else. The barrier wasn’t that simple. Most likely this place has a core with an artificial personality, so we have only two hours before we’re discovered and my cover is blown. The fact that all three barriers were powered from a single source was the worst possible design decision, but it works to our advantage."

"I didn’t understand everything, of course, but I’m glad you succeeded. And now?"

"Now we’re on the list and can move around this place without attracting undue attention." He continued onward, passing through the next two barriers. Almost immediately, at the huge gates, they were met by two giants about five meters tall, clad in silver armor, massive swords thrust into the ground beside them. At the entrance itself, two men in robes stood whispering to each other.

"They..." Nagini looked at them with unconcealed admiration.

"I doubt it. Not everyone can subjugate such undead. Even their leader isn’t capable of that." An artifact surfaced in Severus’s memory, one he wanted to examine. In that case, it’s quite possible, but right now he felt no magic in their bodies anyway. *Controlling them requires enormous amounts of magic, plus additional power to maintain that control...* *No, without a good magic generator or a magical background ten times higher, it’s simply impossible, even with that artifact.* He shook his head and walked calmly past the two dark wizards, who didn’t even glance his way, following the foolish logic that anyone let through the barrier must be one of them.

The place reminded Severus of an ordinary village: pleasant wooden-brick buildings with tiled roofs, a small well, barrels lying around. That is, if you ignored the wandering, suspicious wizards with skeletons and corpses shuffling behind some of them, houses decorated with actual skulls, and small shops selling potions and artifacts alongside human and animal bodies and organs, separate parts and even some living beings... relatively living.

The gloomy weather only enhanced the fairytale atmosphere.

For the first time, even the ever-confident Lucky decided to avoid trouble and burrowed under Severus’s cloak. Nagini tried not to show her lovely face at all, both clearly delighted to find themselves in such a pleasant little village.

Severus, of course, bought nothing here. He wasn’t particularly interested in dark magic or artifacts of that sort, and he had enough poisonous ingredients as it was. Thanks to supplies from the Magic Jungles, he could practically open his own herb shop.

Passing through the village, he climbed the slope to a large building resembling a half-ruined temple, with a huge roofless tower attached.

Before the structure, to the left of the entrance, lay the missing section of the tower. A little farther ahead, on either side of the path, stood two gargoyle statues.

He wasn’t the only one heading there. A small procession of eight dark wizards holding staffs and whispering among themselves made their way toward the building.

Severus wasn’t particularly interested in their rituals. Using Disillusionment Charms and chameleon charms, he walked past them and entered the building. Inside, it looked exactly like an ordinary church, except for the absence of icons and any statues of deities. He immediately headed toward the passage leading to the tower.

Though Robin knew almost nothing about the object Severus sought, that wasn’t necessary. Severus had already found it himself, thanks to the foolish decision to power all charms and barriers from a single source.

He was ninety percent certain the artifact would be wherever that source was located. All rune connections led toward the tower, so that was where he headed.

Nagini couldn’t look at the human skeletal remains scattered here and there without trembling. The vile magic and oppressive air in this place defied description. Once, she had asked him to remove the air bubble. She regretted it deeply.

Absorbing the local magic, she immediately felt dirty and corrupted, as if she had dived headfirst into that same swamp and tasted its contents. Lucky had long since wrapped himself completely in Severus’s cloak, trying not to poke his head out unnecessarily. The place was so disgusting to him; after all, he was a creature of light, barely able to tolerate death energy.

Severus didn’t linger on the first floor of the tower. Finding the stairs almost immediately, he descended to a huge library that was accessible to all community members.

As for Robin and Xardos, they were both at the top of the tower. At that very moment, Robin was explaining to Xardos, with the help of a switch, the importance of the Severing of Ties ritual.

The ritual was designed to break connections with lost body parts: hair, nails, saliva, skin. Falling into the wrong hands, such things could turn the owner’s life into hell.

Besides the usual Polyjuice Potion, they could be used for curses that were extremely difficult to remove, assuming the victim didn’t die prematurely.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs, an incredibly beautiful sight unfolded before Severus: a long corridor illuminated by cold, dark blue light, lined with bookshelves, dozens, perhaps a hundred of them, each at least twenty meters tall. To the right, stairs led down to another level where the shelves reached a full twenty-five meters.

Besides Severus, only ten other wizards were present—to his genuine surprise. That no one else visited this place truly amazed him.

If he were a member of this community, he would never leave the library. He would live in it.

Much as he wanted to stay for a couple of days, their time was limited. With a heavy heart, he turned and headed for the reading room, a small space in green tones with a fireplace, thirty tables with chairs, and about a dozen small sofas along the walls.

Strange as it might sound, there was no one there.

The hall was completely empty. He didn’t waste the opportunity. Thanks to the same runes, he quickly found a secret passage and opened it without trouble, finding himself before another long staircase leading downward. He descended without fear but with far greater caution; he didn’t know what might await him, since Robin hadn’t even known this place existed.

The staircase was much longer than Severus expected. As he descended, he studied the drawings on the walls. They seemed to tell the story of some necromancer’s exploits, though it read more like fiction: in one, he defeated a huge snake; in another, a dragon; in a third, he destroyed a castle using the first two as undead; in the last, he sat before subjects on a throne of bones, himself half-skeleton, half-human.

Interesting as the story appeared, Severus didn’t dwell on it. He had seen the last creature quite recently, so it didn’t surprise him much.

As soon as he left the staircase, he spotted an altar of bones in the center of the stone room. Upon it lay a book with a black cover, and above it hovered a black skull, two blood-red lights gleaming in its eye sockets.

"Who..." a menacing, aged voice rang through the room, but Severus didn’t let him finish.

In that instant, a flask of dark red ink appeared in his hand. He splashed it outward, and the droplets transformed into symbols that surrounded the altar, landing on the floor and beginning to glow.

All of this happened in a single second. The lights in the skull’s eye sockets slowly faded until they vanished completely.

"It’s naive to assume I’ll simply listen to your speech and give you time to prepare. You won’t catch me like that." He looked at the skull with a contemptuous smirk, but didn’t approach the altar. Instead, he pulled out another vial containing a mixture of dragon blood and ink.

Though Severus had temporarily blocked the core’s ability to control the castle’s functions and access the magic that powered it, he decided to strengthen his runes with another layer, just to be safe.

With such things concealing dangerous artifacts, carelessness was simply not an option at his current power level.

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