Night fell like ink, slowly spreading from the eastern bank of the Nile River and swallowing the last traces of the setting sun.
The final ray of sunlight was blood red, as if fading nourishment were being smeared across the tip of Memphis's towering obelisk before gradually losing its color. The streets of Memphis grew quiet in the dusk.
The bustling daytime marketplace had long since closed. Merchants hurried home, and even the most mischievous street children dared not linger in alleyways. It was as if everyone had moved away and locked themselves inside their homes.
An amulet hung outside every house. They looked ordinary yet carried a faint aura of mystical power. Ian had examined one earlier, but he failed to determine its function.
The entire city seemed shrouded in an invisible fear. Even the wind was cautious, whispering only beneath the eaves. Ian stood in the middle of an empty street, the black-robed woman's warning still echoing in his ears. The night wind swept fine sand across the stone road, producing a snake-like hissing sound.
"Why only at night? Everything is normal during the day?"
After all, in ancient Egypt, Ra was the chief deity and the Sun God. If something were wrong, it would have appeared during the day. Yet the temple showed subtle, concealed changes only at night, which was an utterly baffling situation.
Ian stared at the temple's silhouette as it was gradually consumed by shadow, unconsciously tracing the patterns on his wand with his fingers. The woman had easily overturned the decision of a high-ranking priest, proving her extraordinary status. Yet her attitude was contradictory... part warning and part plea for help. He recalled the twitch at the scepter priest's mouth when she mentioned "the Lord's messenger."
That expression had not been reverence.
It looked more like dissatisfaction.
Could it be that, despite her honored position within the Temple, she was constrained by something beyond her control?
He pondered.
Why had the black-robed woman, the young woman with runes carved into her face who called herself a "servant of the Sun God Ra", guided him? Why did she specifically tell him to visit the temple at night?
'She had status in the temple but could not speak openly.'
'Could she influence the priests' decisions without appearing personally?'
'Was she a bearer of warnings or a guide?'
Perhaps she existed somewhere in between, someone with authority yet bound by rules, someone capable of saving others yet unable to intervene directly.
Gradually, his thoughts aligned.
A cold intuition crept up his spine.
"She's waiting for me," Ian murmured. "She wants me to witness something with my own eyes."
He looked up at the sky.
The last trace of sunlight had vanished completely. Silently, stars emerged, the Milky Way stretching across the heavens and reflecting upon the waters of the Nile like a luminous path leading to the Underworld.
He knew the true secret would reveal itself only in darkness.
After all, Ian suddenly realized that he might be standing at the edge of an ancient mystery. In Egyptian mythology, night was when the sun god Ra crossed the underworld.
Perhaps it was also the moment when divine power was at its weakest.
Maybe the priests intended to deceive the Sun God Ra or even stage a rebellion at this time.
Anything was possible. The exact truth still required investigation. The instant the last light faded, Ian's body began to twist and contract.
A faint glow flickered. His form rapidly shrank, his skin transforming into jet-black feathers and his limbs reshaping into talons and wings, one of Hogwarts' most extraordinary magics: Animagus.
Animagus.
Black feathers replaced his linen robes. His arms became wings, and in an instant, a raven soared into the air, its sharp eyes gleaming faintly in the night.
He flew above the city, overlooking the once-glorious capital.
By day, Memphis was prosperous, lively, and full of vitality.
However, by night, Memphis resembled a city of the dead. From above, the entire city radiated an unhealthy stillness. The streets were deserted, and even the patrolling guards had withdrawn early and retreated into their barracks.
Every household kept their doors and windows tightly shut, with faint lamplight seeping through the cracks, as if praying for the night to pass quickly.
Occasional barking echoed, only to stop abruptly moments later, as if even the animals sensed an ominous presence. Ian flew over the marketplace, where stalls had been emptied, leaving only scraps of cloth swaying in the wind like funeral banners calling wandering souls.
Doors and windows were sealed everywhere, and even the livestock sheds were silent.
The night guards no longer performed their duties either. Before sunset, they merely went through the motions hastily.
Then...
With his extraordinary, legendary vision, Ian saw the guards rushing back toward the barracks. The clashing of their bronze armor sounded especially harsh in the silence as they shoved and crowded together.
One young soldier accidentally dropped his torch. The flickering firelight illuminated his deathly pale face. He was trembling and constantly looking back as if something far more terrifying than military punishment lurked in the darkness.
It's worth noting that outside the military barracks, protective amulets hung in far greater numbers than outside ordinary homes. Ironically, the group that should have been the least superstitious appeared to be the most steeped in superstition.
"What exactly do those amulets mean?"
Ian flew past the temple district. The braziers of the other temples, those of Horus, Thoth, Isis, and the rest, had already gone dark.
Only the Temple of the Sun God Ra remained brilliantly illuminated.
Ian landed silently on the eaves of the temple. The magnificent structure was built from enormous limestone blocks, and its roof was plated with gilded copper that reflected an eerie sheen in the moonlight.
Carved divine statues with falcon heads stood at each corner of the roof, their obsidian-inlaid eyes seemingly watching every approaching figure in the darkness.
Folding his wings, Ian crouched in the shadows, his gaze sweeping downward like a hunting hawk's.
In the temple courtyard, dozens of priests moved back and forth.
They wore pure white robes with dark-red runes embroidered on the hems. These were not the sacred scripts commonly seen in ancient Egypt but twisted, almost malevolent symbols, like writing formed from blood.
The priests carried various ritual objects, including an obsidian statue of a falcon-headed figure with flame crystals embedded in its eyes, several sealed ceramic jars marked with rune seals from which faint, low groans could be heard, and the corpse of a young man wrapped in linen covered with spells, which they carried deeper into the temple.
A massive bronze cauldron stood nearby, filled with a dark red liquid that emitted a strong metallic scent.
Blood.
The entire temple district felt deeply unsettling. Twelve bronze braziers surrounded the main hall and burned with strange bluish-white flames that distorted the priests' shadows into demon-like shapes.
The priests worked in silence, transporting disturbing offerings: a golden chalice embedded with human teeth, transparent stone vessels filled with liquid mercury, and a jackal skull bound by seven chains.
These offerings were certainly not meant for the orthodox Sun God. Instead, they resembled sacrifices prepared for a sinister deity, sending chills down the spine.
"This isn't an ordinary ritual. These offerings aren't for the Sun God Ra."
Even without being an exceptionally learned Hogwarts student, Ian could easily reach that conclusion.
Ra was a god of light and a symbol of order. His rituals should have been bright and pure, filled with hymns of praise. Yet, everything before him was steeped in darkness, oppression, and taboo.
The priests' expressions were grim. No one spoke. No one prayed. They simply performed their duties mechanically, as if uttering an extra word terrified them.
One by one, the offerings were placed on the altar in front of the main hall. At its center stood a massive statue of Ra.
But something about the statue was off.
Its facial lines were too rigid. Its eyes were hollow, yet the corners of its mouth turned up in an eerie smile.
"Are the priests using Ra's statue to worship an evil god hidden within it?" No, that doesn't seem right either. A divine statue of Ra carries divinity, it shouldn't be so easily possessed by evil beings."
The situation grew increasingly confusing.
Ian did not act rashly.
He knew that intruding now would only alert them.
So he waited, like a true raven, blending into the night and becoming part of the shadows. From the shaded eaves of a side hall, his sharp eyes pierced the drifting smoke. In the center of the inner courtyard, nine high-ranking priests were carving complex patterns into the stone floor with obsidian knives.
With each incision, dark red liquid automatically filled the grooves, spreading across the stone like living veins.
Ian's avian heart pounded violently.
Under the moonlight, the liquid shimmered with a pearlescent glow.
He could not mistake it.
It was diluted Divine Blood.
And more than that, the priests were drawing a massive magic circle around the altar. The lines of the array were formed from a mixture of gold powder and bone ash, glowing faintly with a ghostly green light. They laid the corpse at the center of the formation and chanted spells Ian had never heard before. Their syllables were twisted, like an ancient magical language.
As the ritual progressed, blood was slowly poured from the bronze cauldron into the circle. Astonishingly, the blood floated in midair, forming a spiraling stream of light that connected directly to the eyes of the statue.
The obsidian falcon statue was placed at the formation's focal point, and the flame crystals within it began to pulse as if breathing.
Due to the large number of offerings required, the priests became busier and busier.
Each priest carried out their role with precise coordination.
"Faster!" A hoarse voice rang out from within the inner hall. "All preparations must be completed before the Pleiades reach the zenith."
The scepter priest Ian had seen earlier strode out. The Eye of Horus marking on his forehead was bleeding. He carried a crystal box in his hands.
Inside, a glowing creature curled up. Each time it wriggled, frost spread across the crystal's surface.
"What is that thing?"
However, what shocked Ian most were the priests' expressions.
There was no devotion in their eyes, only mechanical numbness and suppressed fear. When a young priest accidentally knocked over a bronze censer, everyone nearby froze instantly.
Only after confirming that nothing unusual had happened did they resume their movements... It was as if they were avoiding the gaze of some invisible watcher.
The sudden chanting from the inner hall made every hair on Ian's body stand on end. It was an incantation recited in the long-lost Heliopolis dialect, a spell originally intended to honor the rebirth of the sun god Ra, but now distorted into a strange, descending tone.
The raven's vision blurred for an instant. Something beyond the perception of ordinary birds was awakening deep within the temple.
Ian quietly moved to a higher corner of the roof. From this vantage point, he could see part of the inner hall. The golden altar, which had once stood atop seven tiers of steps, had been transformed into something terrifying.
The solar disk, which once symbolized the sun, was now adorned with countless gemstones that resembled eyeballs.
In the hollow at its center...
Ian's breathing stopped.
It was a familiar blue fragment.
It was larger than any Eye of Ra he had ever seen.
The black-robed woman suddenly appeared before the altar; her attire was completely different from what she had worn earlier that day. The hem of her robe, embroidered with intricate golden threads, trailed more than three meters behind her. Upon closer inspection, however, the ornate patterns revealed themselves to be countless twisted miniature human figures.
The runes carved into her face had all turned blood red and flickered in rhythm with the chant, as if flames flowed beneath her skin.
"The time has come." Her voice was no longer cold. It carried an inhuman resonance. "Prepare to welcome the birth of the new sun."
Yet, beneath her words, a faint, almost imperceptible sense of helplessness lingered.
No one noticed.
All the priests knelt simultaneously, foreheads pressed to the ground. The scepter priest tremblingly presented the crystal box. The black-robed woman drew a bone knife across her wrist.
The moment her blood fell, every brazier in the Temple district erupted violently. Bluish-white flames shot ten meters into the sky, forming an enormous inverted human silhouette against the night sky.
Suddenly, the wind shifted, carrying the scent of strange incense from the inner hall. The raven's vision warped, and his animal instincts screamed warnings. Without hesitation, he spread his wings and flew away. His final glance showed the black-robed woman pushing the creature from the crystal box toward the altar.
The instant the creature stretched its body beneath the moonlight... Ian recognized its true nature.
It was an embryo forged within the Twilight Zone's Mount Doom. Having encountered such an aura before, Ian immediately recognized it.
The blood-red patterns on the temple floor ignited.
The priests' chants turned into agonized screams. Their shadows split on the walls as if a second existence were tearing free from their bodies. High above, the stars on the dome ceiling had rearranged themselves into an unnatural formation, seven stars forcibly aligned into the shape of a pupil, observing the blasphemous ritual below with cold indifference.
And yet... No god descended to stop it.
The ritual continued.
It seemed meant to nurture the embryo.
Far away, the surface of the Nile River suddenly churned without wind. Waves struck the shore like the slow beating of a heart. The entire city of Memphis trembled in its sleep, yet no one dared to wake up and investigate.
Only the Raven flying into the distance understood.
The true darkness did not come from the night itself but from something about to be born, something cloaked in the guise of the sun.
At that moment... the embryo on the altar convulsed violently.
Golden, vein-like patterns burst with blinding light across its surface. The radiance flowed onto the ground like liquid gold, but the instant it touched the stone floor, it solidified into thick black matter.
This substance twisted and writhed as it gradually rose upright, forming shapes that defied reason: three-legged humanoids, spiked spheres, and mist-like monsters that constantly split apart and reassembled.
The black-robed woman spread her arms wide, runes glowing beneath her skin.
"Go... retrieve the nourishment you require!"
In response, the swarm of shadows emitted piercing hisses, like glass shattering inside a skull. They lunged toward the living humans chained around the altar, over a dozen ragged civilians whose mouths were sealed by spells, leaving them able to emit only muffled cries through their noses.
A shadow leaped forward and engulfed the head of a young man.
In an instant, his body shrank and withered. His skin withered and cracked until he was nothing but a skeleton covered by a thin layer of flesh. The shadow feeding on him grew noticeably more solid, taking on a sickly pearlescent sheen.
The shadows were consuming the essence of human life, the very foundation of existence.
Then, they fed it back to the embryo.
"Not enough! Still far from enough!" The scepter priest clawed frantically at his bleeding forehead.
"The embryo needs more life essence!"
The shadow swarm grew restless. They shoved and tore at one another like starving hyenas. With too few living victims to consume, many shadows surged outward from the temple.
Like a black tide, they rushed toward every exit.
The Patronus carvings on the stone pillars seemed to close their eyes as the shadows passed, as if unwilling to witness the impending tragedy.
Perhaps the city's residents had not been spreading rumors after all.
When night fell... something truly did emerge to hunt humans.
(End of Chapter)
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