"I just think the Avada Kedavra curse is too inefficient at killing, that's why I want to learn the Imperius Curse."
Three days had passed since Dumbledore's last meeting, and Cohen came to Quirrell's office again on the weekend.
Anyway, after leaving, Cohen secretly used his soul to go back and eavesdrop on Dumbledore's office. His plan was going smoothly, and now any violations of school rules he did were Quirrell's fault.
With someone to take the blame, he could be even bolder—of course, he had to be careful not to actually kill the students.
"So the Imperius Curse can only kill one person at a time?"
Cohen said with extreme disappointment, facing several rabbits under the Imperius Curse who were now performing a pole dance.
"But… but… that's what the Unforgivable Curse is like…" Quirrell said, sweating profusely. "Isn't killing or controlling one person with a spell enough…?"
"Is there any kind of magic—like chaining a bunch of wizards together and then killing them all with an Avada Kedavra curse?"
Cohen recalled:
"That's more efficient—"
If Quirrell hadn't seen Cohen cast the Unforgivable Curse like it was a life-saving spell, he would have thought the person who said that was crazy.
But since it was Cohen who said it, he just thought Cohen was a born "Dark Lord."
"This… not at the moment…" Quirrell said cautiously, "or rather, I haven't heard of it…"
Where did a little kid get so many negative emotions from using the Unforgivable Curse?
No wonder the Dark Lord took a liking to this child at first sight…
After this extracurricular tutoring session, the kind-hearted Cohen took the rabbits back to the Room of Requirement to prevent them from continuing to suffer the torment of the dark wizards.
"I think you are more dangerous than the dark wizards," the Earl commented.
"The kind owl won't get my roasted rabbit leg,"
Cohen retorted, flipping the whole roasted rabbit on the stick and sprinkling some cumin on it.
Life should be about roasting rabbit in the Room of Requirement.
At this moment, the Room of Requirement had expanded to include a kitchen to meet Cohen's needs, even boasting a brand-new barbecue grill and a secret passage leading to the school kitchen—Cohen had gotten a ton of barbecue seasoning from the elves. Cohen was
growing increasingly fond of this place; it was practically paradise.
He was even considering living in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts for the rest of his life, secretly moving in on graduation day, and becoming a parasite on Hogwarts…
The Earl ultimately succumbed to the temptation of roasted rabbit, admitting his willingness to join Cohen in his schemes and promising to take him to the troll's lair.
For the rest of the weekend, Cohen sneaked out to the Forbidden Forest again.
Since he had souls to eat, Cohen didn't plan to attend the dinner party.
After all, aside from the holiday dinners, many students were always absent from Hogwarts' Great Hall because the King of Scrolls was omnipresent—Cohen had seen Hermione pack her lunch to save time for studying more than once.
The last time, the Fire Serpent's genocide plan had left Cohen's soul integrity stuck at 15%, so this time he decided to shift his focus to another creature in the Forbidden Forest.
Deep within the Forbidden Forest, the already dim sunset couldn't penetrate the treetops, and it was practically nightfall.
The only light sources in the forest were the small, glowing creatures flying around and the pale blue fluorescent mushrooms on tree trunks and exposed roots.
"Crack—"
A lone eight-eyed giant spider's pincers made a threatening cracking sound; it had only come out for a snack—but a strange creature appeared in the forest.
The creature wore a cloak that looked like it had been soaked in water, had scabbed hands, and a rotting, hollow, and indistinct body, floating in the air like a rag doll.
Although still several trees away, the instinctive fear made the lone eight-eyed giant spider want to flee immediately—so it was retreating while emitting threatening sounds.
[Soul Strength: 7]
Cohen must attack immediately in Dementor form!
The next second, Cohen pounced on the eight-eyed giant spider, his wide, rotting robes fluttering in the wind.
Fortunately, unlike other Dementors, he didn't need to kiss the target mouth-to-mouth to absorb souls; he only needed to be within a meter or two.
Otherwise, Cohen certainly wouldn't have bothered with these arthropods covered in hard bristles; only the Earl would enjoy munching on insects.
Cohen sucked up the soul, and his system panel clearly showed the soul strength had increased.
15.1%!
The young eight-eyed giant spider's soul was replenished so quickly!
Animals whose souls were drained would soon die.
But Cohen didn't let the giant spider roam the forest—he gave this practically dead spider a small boost.
This way, Cohen could safely obtain the venom from the giant claws of the eight-eyed spider.
A pint of eight-eyed spider venom alone could sell for a hundred gallons—Cohen felt that Hagrid was practically a gold mine, able to breed any rare species to an uncontrollable population.
Cohen would accept the gallons.
After collecting a small vial of venom, Cohen clearly saw the spider's venom sac shrivel.
"A bit weak, looks like it won't last long,"
Cohen commented with some regret.
One eight-eyed spider was certainly not enough, Cohen planned to continue drifting a distance deeper into the Forbidden Forest to see if he could find more spiders.
For some reason, Cohen never sensed any emotion in these animals, which meant their souls were tasteless. Perhaps this was why the other Dementors didn't attack animals?
The giant spider colony wasn't hard to find. Following the direction the young spider had fled, Cohen quickly spotted the sticky webs between the ground and tree trunks.
These spiders were more burrowing spiders; they didn't stay on the webs all the time. The webs were primarily used to catch prey—Cohen had just seen a panicked stag run into one.
The next second, a giant spider chasing the stag darted out of the forest, its pincers digging deep into the stag's abdomen. After a few convulsions, the stag finally died.
At the moment of its death, more and more spiders began to crawl out around it, including several young that looked no bigger than hunting dogs.
[Soul Strength: 7]
[Soul Strength: 8]
[Soul Strength: 6]
...
Due to food shortages, the giant spider colony had struggled to expand, unable to cross the borders set by the centaurs.
But today, their savior, Cohen, had arrived!
Cohen would clear half of their colony, allowing them to continue breeding without restraint—and then Cohen would continue killing, and they would continue breeding.
Cohen was thrilled, the spiders were thrilled, and he won!
The eggs of the giant eight-eyed spider only needed six to eight weeks to hatch, and Cohen felt he could sell the giant eight-eyed spider's venom for the same price as the fire serpent eggs.
Those who made potions were thrilled too, another win!
"Slurp—"
"Crunch—" "Slurp—
"
"Crunch—"
Under the cover of night, Cohen devoured the souls of the giant eight-eyed spiders one by one from the edge of the spider swarm, while the giant eight-eyed spiders also devoured the robust stag they had just caught.
Everyone had been content in life; Cohen felt that if spiders had emotions, this place would be a honeycomb pool right now.
In no time, all sixteen adult spiders and three juvenile spiders around him had been completely devoured by Cohen, and his own soul integrity had reached 17%.
The next bottleneck hadn't been reached yet, and Cohen intended to continue hunting spiders, but an old creature intervened—
"Crack, crack—"
More and denser spider sounds emerged from all directions, surrounding the Dementor-like Cohen. Leading them was an extremely aged spider with eight white eyes—Aragog.
[Soul Strength: 20]
Besides Aragog, the older spiders beside it also possessed soul strengths of seventeen or eighteen.
Damn it, just thirty more spiders and he could wipe them all out!
"Outsider…leave this place…"
Aragog's voice was angry and rough; Cohen's slaughter of its offspring greatly displeased it.
"Oh."
Cohen consumed the soul of another eight-eyed giant spider nearby—its soul integrity had reached 17.1%.
He wouldn't normally be so cruel to intelligent beings, but Cohen simply didn't like these spiders.
Hagrid had raised and protected them, yet during the Battle of Hogwarts, they had directly sided with Voldemort.
So… a fence-sitter, no need to reason with him, he deserves to die!
"Kill him—"
Aragog roared hoarsely, seeing Cohen's repeated failures to learn his lesson.
The few slightly more powerful spiders around him pounced on Cohen almost simultaneously.
But they clearly didn't realize one thing: Cohen wasn't limited to hovering a foot off the ground—in fact, he could fly much higher.
So, unsurprisingly, after Cohen flew upwards, the spiders missed their target.
Spider silk and venom sprayed towards Cohen, but he easily dodged them, and in the process, he swooped down to ascend, killing a few more spiders along the way—perhaps even an elite monster with 17 points of soul strength.
His soul integrity had reached 19%, so he could actually stop now.
Cohen lingered in the treetops, counting the number of spiders below.
It seemed there were still about twenty left, enough to prevent his clan from being wiped out by the centaurs who were hostile to the spiders due to a sharp decline in their numbers. He should be able to make up for the dozens he killed today soon.
[Ding!] [Goodwill Value +33]
What a good thing!
"Thank you for the hospitality. Good luck with your offspring, I'll come again next time!"
"*** (Octopus Spider profanity)!"
Cohen left Aragog and its children with a satisfied message, but unfortunately, only Aragog's angry curses responded to Cohen.
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(End of Chapter)