Chapter 263: Awakening, Dispute, and Scattering
Opening his eyes to see an unfamiliar ceiling, Aiden found himself lying in bed with obvious disorientation.
"You're awake!" a familiar voice came with obvious relief.
"Don't tell me I've turned into a girl. I can feel my condition," Aiden joked, which was rare for him.
"Haha, that's a good joke. Next time I'll say that to Salazar," the visitor was Godric, with obvious amusement.
"How's the battle situation?" Aiden asked with concern.
"It's over. Muggles, goblins, and other magical creatures have all surrendered. We separated out the spell-casting goblins and implanted special runes in their minds. The first batch has already been sent to Hogwarts to begin work, with the public story being that Helga discovered and took them in. The book and quill you created after the battle now serve as Hogwarts' recruitment tools. Because they carry the wills of many departed wizards, young wizards across Britain being monitored don't resist them."
Godric briefly explained the situation with obvious satisfaction.
"That's good," Aiden said, burying his head in the pillow.
"By the way, we've decided to make this tower a medical facility. We'll call it the Hospital Wing and recruit a healer," Godric said with obvious excitement.
"Indeed, children practising spells will inevitably get hurt. Having a resident healer will be much safer," Aiden said after thinking for a moment.
"Also, what's the situation with the Deep Realm King?" Aiden asked.
Godric put away his playful expression and became serious. "Come with me."
Aiden touched his clothes with his right hand, and they automatically became neat.
Getting out of bed, he followed Godric.
The two walked all the way to Hogwarts' underground, where the castle's original core appeared again.
Inside the core, Lady Rowena was standing guard, secretly yawning with obvious fatigue.
"Oh, Aiden, good to see you've recovered. Congratulations on earning the title 'Battlefield Rose'. Your legend has even spread in the Muggle world."
"What the hell is Battlefield Rose? I'm... never mind. What's this about a legend?" Aiden asked with obvious puzzlement.
"Cough, well, as the person who personally imprisoned the Deep Realm King, wizards believe you possess some kind of destiny, and in times of need, they can pray to you to oppose the Deep Realm King," Godric said with a smile.
Lady Rowena filled in the details. "Those who worship you include both wizards and Muggles. Oh, and they've even established an organisation called... what was it... the Hermitage?"
Aiden stared in shock. "!!??"
"But I don't have such abilities. What are they worshipping? This legend is just a..."
Dream, the system completed his sentence.
So my ritual was completed just like that? Aiden felt somewhat absurd.
Otherwise, did you want to fish up another Deep Realm King to slaughter? the system retorted.
"What's wrong, Aiden?" Lady Rowena asked, seeing Aiden spacing out.
"Nothing, just a bit surprised." Not continuing this topic, Aiden asked again, "What's the current situation with the core?"
"As you can see, after imprisoning Chaos, the core manifested within Hogwarts. But this ritual connects to the young wizards, so there's a certain danger," Lady Rowena explained.
"Because of this matter, we've thought of many solutions and even had some disagreements," Godric said.
"So what do you plan to do?" Aiden asked with a bad feeling.
"I, Rowena, and Helga hope to use our bodies and souls as locks to seal the core again and sink it into the Misty Illusion," Godric said, his eyes showing a trace of determination.
"But Salazar disagrees. He believes the culprits behind all this are Muggles and those magical creatures, so they should bear the consequences," Lady Rowena added.
"None of us four can convince the others, so we could only shelve the dispute and wait for your awakening," Lady Rowena continued.
"Now that you're awake, you'll support us, right?" Godric asked, carelessly patting Aiden's shoulder.
"No!" Aiden refused without thinking.
"Do you agree with Salazar's thinking then?" Lady Rowena asked with obvious surprise.
"No, I disagree with both of your ideas!" Aiden said decisively.
"But..." Godric was about to speak when Aiden interrupted.
"Find another way! Don't rely on sacrifice anymore!" Aiden said, his voice somewhat low.
Both realised their thinking was somewhat irresponsible and fell silent.
The next day, after finishing lunch in Hogwarts' Great Hall, Helga hurriedly found Aiden.
"Something's happened," Helga said, immediately delivering bad news.
"What is it?" Aiden asked, putting down his knife and fork.
"Originally it was Salazar's turn to stand guard today, but when Godric went to bring him food, he discovered that Salazar had disappeared along with the largest piece of the core," Lady Helga said, briefly describing the situation.
"Let's go see!" Aiden said, shooting up from his seat.
The two hurried to Hogwarts' core area.
"You're here," Godric said. At the core, he and Lady Rowena were already studying the chains.
Six Chains of Order showed cracks, with the central seal broken open with a small gap. It looked like Salazar had taken the fragment from here.
"Can we find Salazar and bring him back?" Aiden asked.
"No, people who reach our level are very hard to find if they're determined to hide their whereabouts," Lady Rowena said.
Aiden pulled out his staff, extracted a Virtual Personality, and used the Transfiguration Curse to modify concepts, turning it into a silver chain to temporarily plug the gap.
The group left the core area. At the other end of the sky, a purple beam shot into the sky.
The four exchanged glances and immediately rushed toward where the beam originated.
Deep in the forest, there was now a flat area that appeared to have been levelled by Salazar's spells.
A massive alchemical matrix was carved on the ground, with corpses of various races placed within the matrix.
Salazar used their remaining bodies as conduits, connecting Chaos's core to the various races.
"Are you insane, Salazar!" Godric said, rushing up and punching him.
"Scattering Chaos like this will only result in our children also becoming linked to Chaos!" Lady Rowena said, rarely showing an angry expression.
"No, we still have Hogwarts' ritual. After children enrol, they'll be protected by the Chains of Order, able to isolate Chaos's influence," Salazar answered, covering his face.
"But have you considered that if you let the vast majority of creatures immerse in Chaos, while it might share Hogwarts' burden, their continued chaos will cause order to decline while making Chaos itself and Folly even stronger?" Aiden said.
"That's still better than having us wizards sacrifice as a single race!" Salazar roared with obvious desperation.
In the end, it was Lady Helga who mediated. After this incident, Salazar seemed to develop disagreements with the other three giants.
Whether influenced by Chaos or not, his thinking became extreme. Finally, on a rainy night, he left Hogwarts alone.