Novel Chapter
The scattered fragments of consciousness finally made Valerius realize something was terribly wrong.
Fear screamed in every part of him.
He understood, at last, that he was being toyed with.
That wizard wasn't lagging behind—he was simply picking the perfect burial ground.
Desperately, Valerius drove his swarm of bats, forcing them to scatter in every possible direction, toward any glimmer of escape.
But some invisible force kept drawing them back.
Bats on the left would inexplicably hit a sudden headwind; those on the right would be startled by a sharp crane's cry, veering away in panic.
No matter how they struggled, this cloud of living ink was steadily, relentlessly herded toward a single destination by an unseen hand.
Despair, like a cold valley fog, swallowed Valerius whole.
He could already see the outline of the valley below.
Douglas's hunt had reached its final act.
He stopped toying with the panic-stricken bats.
Kreeee—!
The crane unleashed a clear, piercing cry that shattered the night and echoed through the mountains.
He no longer soared level with the treetops; instead, he beat his wings with sudden force, shooting skyward like a white arrow, climbing higher and higher into the heavens.
Up and up he went, his form in the cold moonlight shrinking to a single, sacred white point.
The night sky was deep blue velvet, the moon a silver clasp, and he—the only embroidery on that endless cloth.
As if he was about to merge with the radiant moon itself.
"A single crane rises through the clear sky, and poetry soars to the azure heavens."
A line of poetry from the distant East flashed through Douglas's mind.
He reveled in this sense of total control—a path uniquely his own, fusing the wisdom of two worlds.
At the very peak of his ascent, the world fell silent.
The crane's body contracted suddenly, wings folding in a flash.
He became a white meteor—no fire, only pure light—tearing through the air with a shriek as he dove straight down toward the open valley, where a mass of black despair had gathered.
The entire descent was a ritual of deadly beauty.
Halfway through the dive, Douglas shed his Animagus form.
A flurry of white feathers vanished in an instant, leaving only the impeccably dressed wizard.
His robes billowed in freefall, cloak snapping in the wind, but his eyes were as calm as a frozen lake.
He raised his wand.
"Heaven's Net!"
What burst from his wand was not a beam of light, but a ripple—an invisible wave, as if woven from the very laws of the world—that spread out in an instant.
This spell did not conjure a physical net.
In a fraction of a second, it locked onto the "causality" of a single bat in the valley below.
The invisible, absolute link between it and Valerius's core soul.
Using that bat as an anchor, countless unseen magical threads exploded outward.
These threads ignored distance and obstacles, connecting with perfect precision to every bat of the same origin within sight.
A breathtaking sight unfolded in the sky.
A colossal net, woven of starlight, descended from above, ensnaring the entire swarm in one sweep.
Every terrified bat was bound by a thin, unbreakable filament of light.
With a flick of his wrist, Douglas pressed his wand sharply downward.
"Contract!"
The invisible web constricted all at once.
Hundreds of bats were dragged and crushed together by an irresistible force, pulled toward a single point.
"AAAHHH—!"
A shriek, inhuman and layered with hundreds of voices, exploded through the valley.
Valerius's consciousness was violently ripped from each vessel, torn apart, then forced back together.
Flesh, bone, and skin twisted and reformed in midair, helpless before the spell.
The process was pure violence and humiliation—like an invisible giant hand squeezing a heap of mud into a human shape.
Thud!
A dull crash.
Valerius finally reformed, slamming into a pile of dead leaves at the valley's center like a sack of broken refuse.
His once-elegant robes were now in tatters, black blood trickling from his lips. His handsome face was twisted in agony, stripped of all aristocratic grace.
Above the ground, Douglas cast a gentle Featherfall Charm.
He touched down lightly, polished dragonhide shoes crunching softly on the thick carpet of leaves.
In the deathly silence of the valley, that sound was like a death knell.
Valerius lay limp, forcing his head up to watch Douglas approach, step by step.
No arrogance. No fury. Only the purest, most absolute terror.
He recognized those eyes.
Deep green, with a scholar's curiosity and an icy, merciless edge.
He recognized that spell.
The one whispered in vampire legends—a curse that, for three short months, had made all of Europe's dark kin tremble.
"Hea… Heaven's Net…" Valerius rasped, voice dry and broken, like sandpaper scraping together.
That name was a nightmare in the vampire world—brief, but eternal.
In just a few months, dozens of infamous ancient vampires—and their lairs—were utterly cleansed by that spell.
Heaven's Net never killed indiscriminately. He hunted only those who treated Muggles as nothing but blood bags.
But no target ever escaped that web of fate.
For a while, every vampire steeped in bloodshed lived in dread. Some of the oldest monsters, centuries old, hid themselves away in their coffins, choosing long slumber over facing that spell.
And then, one day, Heaven's Net vanished.
Rumor had it he'd angered a true vampire prince and been slain.
Valerius had always thought it was just a legend.
But now, looking at the man before him, at those unmistakable green eyes, feeling that predatory, bone-deep oppression—
He understood.
The rumors were a lie.
Heaven's Net had never died.
Terror made Valerius tremble uncontrollably.
Hearing that long-forgotten codename, Douglas paused, a gentle smile curving his lips.
"Oh, you recognized me."
He tilted his head, voice as casual as if greeting an old friend.
"But there's no need to be afraid."
He took two steps forward and crouched down, meeting Valerius's gaze with a look of sincere warmth.
"I've turned over a new leaf."
"I'm just an ordinary Defence Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts now."
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