Dark clouds churned in the sky, constantly shifting their shape. While they blocked the moonlight, they also seemed to shield against some hidden, prying gaze, clearly the work of the goddess who walked among mortals.
"So, you're the goddess who represents the moon?" Ian stood in the dim back garden of the temple, looking up at a sky where not even a single star could be seen.
There was no lightning, no rain, only a heavy canopy of clouds covering the heavens like a curtain. Without the few light sources on the ground, it would have been pitch black, with not even a hand visible before one's face.
"As the daughter of the Sun God, I have the authority to decide when the sky should shine and when it should not," The "Priestess" replied with a soft laugh, having exercised that right.
Ian nodded at her words.
That fit well enough with his deductions. If the hazy tower illusion he had once seen had not been mistaken, then the black-robed skeleton he had sought, this goddess before him, was indeed once a fallen sun.
"Shall we go?"
Ian glanced at the time on his wrist. Even though he felt anxious about facing a legendary wizard, if he wanted to return to the proper future, he had no choice but to confront it.
Fortunately, he'd pulled a goddess into his party. Otherwise, on his own, he would have stood no chance against a legendary wizard.
'What? Riddle? Please. Among all the Voldemort soul fragments, this one was without question the weakest.'
And besides, only someone whose brain was broken would trust Voldemort to be a reliable teammate. If Riddle didn't betray him halfway, it would already be considered a blessing. The only reason Ian brought him along was to prevent Riddle from staying behind to play his own schemes.
Not that Riddle himself wanted to go.
"Couldn't you just lock me up in a dungeon? Or better yet, send me straight back to Hogwarts?" He kept muttering about the school he had once sneered at.
Perhaps only now did he realize how wonderful Hogwarts truly was.
"I can't go back whenever I please. Only when Professor Nicolas Flamel realizes I'm in this era can I return to Hogwarts under his guidance," Ian said.
Not that he wouldn't like to solve the Riddle problem first, but he simply couldn't open a temporal passage on his own. This era didn't exactly have some giant antique clock embedded with an ancient time converter.
"That might be the scariest thing I've heard all day," Riddle said with biting sarcasm. "You chased me all the way here and didn't think you might never get back? With a gap of over two thousand years, even the smallest miscalculation could cost you half your life. Honestly, I think you belong in Gryffindor more."
It was hard to tell if he was insulting Ian or genuinely thought him a reckless fool.
"I trust my alchemy professor. And besides…" Ian's temper flared the moment the topic came up. He jabbed his wand right up to Riddle's nose.
"I thought you were really going back to Wool's Orphanage! Back to your childhood! Is this is your childhood? Why the hell did you even come here this time, you weren't even a fertilized egg yet!"
Ian's wand was practically poking inside Riddle's nostril.
"What I meant was… to start over…" Riddle quickly retreated under the nasal assault. His hands were tied behind his back, and he wore Ian's custom-made collar around his neck. Not only could he not cast magic, but even trying to stir his magic power would trigger the collar to blow his head off.
Who knew how a second-year student got hold of dragon's-blood explosives?
Real, honest-to-Merlin, exploding potions.
"You two outsiders, could you not argue?" The "Priestess" interjected, clearly irritated. "I was supposed to be sleeping soundly in my palace chambers, and now I'm the victim here, being dragooned into fighting some filthy wizard."
She was probably munching on some tribute fruit she'd summoned from afar. She had traded her ceremonial robes for a set of heroic armor, and instead of her staff, she now held a massive greatsword from who-knew-where.
The greatsword was wider than her own body.
"I just want to get rid of the curse I'm under. I never planned to go up against a legendary opponent…" Riddle's voice had grown much smaller. After being disciplined, he behaved extremely obediently in front of the "priestess."
"If Herpo dies, the curse you bear will naturally disappear. This isn't ordinary dark magic, it's a form of 'assimilation' built upon the power Herpo himself possesses." The "priestess" gave the greatsword in her hand a light swing. She didn't seem reluctant at all; on the contrary, she looked rather eager for battle.
"…Is that so?" A faint glimmer flickered in Riddle's pupils.
Who knew what he was thinking?
"I'll bet he's scheming up some trick or ploy again," Ian thought, with alarm bells ringing in his mind as he caught Riddle's expression. He knew that contemplative look far too well.
"Don't assume everyone's as bad as you." Riddle rolled his eyes at Ian and shook his hands, which were still tied behind his back.
"I don't just not have a wand, I don't even have hands free to hold one. On top of that, there's your bomb around my neck. What exactly are you worried I can do? And by the way, the wand you snapped belonged to your classmate, not to me." Riddle, utterly lacking the self-awareness of a prisoner, even had the gall to sound amused.
"I doubt Lucius Malfoy would care about losing a wand. Otherwise, he'd have to go through the trouble of getting himself a new son," Ian said indifferently, not the least concerned whose wand it had been.
Whether he could even bring Malfoy back was still in question, Malfoy might already have been turned into one of those eerie, mummified corpses.
As Ian was pondering whether Malfoy was still alive…
"Your Highness, we are ready." Priest Ryan approached with a procession of robed priests, their faces inscribed with runes. Ian counted four or five different robe colors among them.
Some were even from the temple he'd seen earlier. The little girl Cassandra was among them, protected at the front by the temple's high priest, happily waving at Ian.
"What's with this formation?" Ian was stunned by the sight of several hundred priests, meaning several hundred wizards, gathered together. In his own time, that was enough to start a wizard war.
"I'm only an avatar, not my true body. And the opponent we're about to face is a legendary figure who's become an Angel. Of course we must gather every bit of power we can."
"Other than the night watchmen, every wizard in the city is here," said the armored goddess, rolling her eyes. She clearly thought this young wizard had no concept of what a 'legendary' truly meant.
Of course, It wasn't that Ian underestimated their foe.
He simply believed numbers couldn't make up for the gap in quality.
(To Be Continued…)
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