The hooded figure stood before the final cell at the deepest level of the prison. The obsidian door, carved from anti-magic stone, slid open without a sound.
Unlike the other prisoners, the blind wizard seemed to have expected him. He remained seated cross-legged, his empty eye sockets turned toward the doorway, a complicated expression resting on his wrinkled face. It looked almost like relief... and acceptance.
"Teacher," The hooded figure called softly once more. His deep voice echoed through the cell, carrying the faintest trace of a tremor.
"...Mm," The blind wizard slightly raised his head, a complicated smile appearing on his aged face. "So you've come."
He spoke as calmly as though he were chatting with a student in the courtyard of a magic school.
"I could sense what was happening above. You're carrying out a purge, aren't you?"
The hooded figure fell silent for a long moment, his hood lowering slightly before he finally nodded. His voice was even hoarser than usual. "The corruption has already begun. It has to be stopped before it spreads completely. Anyone who came into contact with that power could become a host. We can't allow that to happen."
At last, the truth behind the massacre was revealed. He wasn't killing out of bloodlust; he was carrying out an emergency containment operation against a terrifying corruption. Those prisoners may already have been unknowingly affected by the Fallen God Incident, and any one of them could have become a new source of infection.
In truth, none of this was easy for the hooded figure. His hand trembled slightly inside his sleeve as he remembered every cell he had walked past, every desperate pair of eyes, and every final struggle.
"I figured as much," the blind wizard nodded gently, his thin fingers brushing across his empty eye sockets. "You did the right thing. You don't need to feel guilty; you've prevented an even greater disaster."
His voice carried the wisdom and kindness unique to an old teacher.
"I remember that when you were little, you were always a kind child. You would even carefully nurse injured magical creatures back to health. And now... you're the one forced to do something like this. Life truly has been cruel to you."
The blind wizard still looked like the man Ian had met before, but he had grown noticeably older. Perhaps after Ian left, he had cast some life-consuming spell.
"I..." The hooded figure stood silently like a statue.
The air inside the cell seemed frozen. Only the faint scent of blood drifting down from above reminded them of the brutality of the purge.
Images flashed through his mind, the countless lives he had ended, the confused faces of those who never understood why they had to die, but he also knew that if he hadn't done it, the entire magical world might have been doomed. His emotions were in complete turmoil, and he no longer even knew what to say.
The blind wizard let out a soft sigh. Seeing his student remain silent, he spoke again. "It seems... it's time to give you something to keep moving forward."
His voice suddenly became distant, as though it had crossed the boundaries of time itself.
"Have you not always wanted to know what truly happened back then? Why I lost my eyes, and why I willingly imprisoned myself in this sunless place?"
As he spoke, the blind wizard slowly raised both hands. Silver light began flowing from his fingertips. It wasn't dazzling, yet it carried the rhythm of time itself, as though a thousand years had been compressed into a single instant.
"Today... I'll tell you the truth."
As his words fell, the silver light spread throughout the cell, enveloping both of them. The surroundings began to twist and blur as the obsidian walls gradually faded away, and in their place appeared a world from a thousand years ago.
It was clearly a form of memory projection magic, very similar to the magic Dumbledore had once used to let Ian experience his memories firsthand.
The ability to cast memory magic at this level was proof that the blind wizard's skills were extraordinary. He might not have been Dumbledore's equal, very few wizards ever could be, but he was unquestionably at Headmaster level, perhaps even beyond it.
After all, a man capable of training one of the Department of Mysteries' senior operatives could never have been an ordinary wizard. Only a great teacher could produce such a student.
As the silver light stabilized, the prison cell disappeared completely. The hooded figure found himself standing upon a vibrant, ancient land.
The air was rich with pure magical energy, cleaner and denser than anything found in the modern age. Towering ancient trees surrounded him, strange flowers and plants covered the landscape, and in the distance came the cries of magical creatures unlike any alive today.
This was an era before the African Ministry of Magic even existed, a golden age when wizards still lived among scattered tribes or wandered the world freely.
Ahead of the hooded figure, three young wizards stood waiting.
The young man standing in the middle immediately drew the eye. He was strikingly handsome, with silver hair, lake-blue eyes, a tall, straight posture, and a confident smile.
The hooded figure recognized him at once. This was his teacher from a thousand years ago, Saruman Light-Eye, the most renowned explorer of his era, known as the "Walking Encyclopedia of Magic."
"Look! It's right up ahead!" the young Saruman pointed into the distance, his voice filled with excitement. "The legendary Lake of Stars! The forbidden land recorded in the ancient texts!"
Standing beside him were his two loyal companions. One was Kag, a burly warrior mage carrying a massive totem battle axe across his back, its blade engraved with ancient protective runes.
The other was Lina, a petite Seer whose eyes constantly shimmered with prophetic light, a crystal ball hanging from her waist and scattering rainbow-colored reflections beneath the sun.
It was a classic adventuring party of the age, very much in the style of the medieval era. Back then, alongside wizards, warriors and swordsmen were still common; King Arthur was one such example.
Those professions eventually faded into history, however. Compared to wizards, they were simply too limited, while also demanding exceptional talent and an indomitable will.
That said, they hadn't vanished entirely. Even in Ian's era, people still followed those paths, though their numbers were small and they no longer enjoyed the glory they once had. Gryffindor, the legendary Sword Saint, was perhaps their last great representative. But that was beside the point.
Back in the memory, the hooded figure silently watched his teacher's past unfold. These were scenes from a thousand years ago, meaning his teacher had truly lived for an entire millennium. That alone showed just how extraordinary he was; he had accomplished what Voldemort had desperately pursued his entire life yet never achieved: true immortality.
"They say an ancient treasure sleeps beneath the lake," Kag said in his deep voice as he rubbed the handle of his battle axe. "It supposedly holds enough power to change the world. But there's a problem, the local tribes all call this place forbidden. They even erected warning stones along the shore."
"Perhaps they were right," Lina gently shook her head. Her voice was soft, but full of unease. "My visions are clouded. I only see stars reflected beneath the lake... stars that shouldn't exist. And endless darkness." She tightened her grip on the crescent-shaped silver amulet hanging around her neck. "This place gives me a very bad feeling. No... it's far worse than that. Something truly terrifying is hidden here."
"When has treasure ever come without danger?" Saruman laughed heartily, patting both companions on the shoulders. "That's exactly why we have to explore it! Don't forget the oath of the Eye of Dawn. Our mission is to uncover the truth of the magical world and bring the forgotten past back to light."
His blue eyes sparkled with an endless thirst for knowledge. It was obvious that this was an archaeological expedition.
The three continued onward, passing through untouched primeval forests where no human had ever set foot. Saruman walked in front, parting thorny vines with a tap of his wand to open a path. From time to time, he knelt to study ancient runes carved into the ground, hurriedly recording notes on parchment.
"These symbols... they don't belong to any civilization we know," his fingers gently traced the weathered carvings, a scholar's concentration filling his eyes. "Look at this spiral. It seems to depict some kind of existence beyond our understanding. These may be relics from an even more ancient age."
Kag carefully scanned the surrounding forest, his warrior's instincts keeping him constantly on guard. "I feel like something's watching us. Not an animal. Something... much older." His battle instincts screamed warnings, and his hand never left the grip of his axe.
"Wait..." Lina suddenly stopped walking, her face completely pale. "I hear singing. It's coming from the lake..." She covered both ears as her body trembled. "The voice is beautiful... but it's terrifying. Oh... no. I've encountered Sirens before, and even they weren't this frightening."
Being the youngest woman in the group, her fear was only natural.
Saruman listened carefully, a puzzled look appearing on his handsome face. "I don't hear anything. But if your gift of foresight sensed it... we need to be even more cautious." He raised his wand and cast a faint protective barrier around the three of them.
The closer they drew to the lake, the stranger everything became. The trees twisted into impossible shapes, and the flowers released intoxicating fragrances that left the mind dizzy. Even the magical energy filling the air became thick and alien.
The hooded figure and his blind teacher silently followed behind the younger Saruman and his companions, witnessing this forgotten chapter of history together. Because this was only a memory, they couldn't interact with it; they could only watch.
"Teacher..." the hooded figure finally spoke, as though he wanted to ask something.
"Keep watching," the blind wizard interrupted him.
The memory continued unfolding.
"The magical laws here are changing," Saruman frowned as the light at the tip of his wand flickered erratically. "I've never felt a source of magic this... alien."
Even so, none of them considered turning back. They pushed through the last stretch of dense forest, and then all three of them stopped breathing.
Before them lay an enormous lake, so vast that its opposite shore couldn't be seen. Its waters were a strange, deep violet, with wisps of mist drifting across the surface and refracting into eerie rainbow colors beneath the sunlight.
Most unsettling of all, although it was broad daylight, the surface of the lake reflected a sky full of stars. But they weren't any constellations known to mankind; they formed bizarre arrangements that defied every law of astronomy, creating patterns that instinctively filled anyone who looked at them with unease.
"That's impossible! This makes no sense at all!" Kag muttered, his rugged face frozen in disbelief. "It's noon... so where are those stars coming from?" His voice was full of uncertainty.
Saruman's blue eyes shone with a mixture of excitement and caution. "It looks like we've found the right place.
The arrangement of those stars is probably the result of some kind of magic within the ruins. Honestly, I've never seen anything that violates the principles of astronomy so completely." He quickly pulled out his notebook and began sketching the positions of the stars. "This could be the star chart of a lost civilization."
By this point, his excitement was obvious. Sure enough, every wizard who reached the pinnacle of magic shared one trait: an insatiable obsession with knowledge. Only that obsession could carry them so far.
The young man who would one day become the blind wizard still had his sight. He enthusiastically recorded everything before him, talking excitedly about how they might be uncovering another forgotten secret of the magical world.
Then,
"Ahhh!" Lina suddenly clutched her ears and dropped to her knees in pain. "The singing's getting louder! Something's wrong! It's calling to us... no... It's warning us!"
Thin streams of blood seeped between her fingers as she desperately resisted some kind of mental attack. Saruman immediately knelt beside her, supporting her with one hand while drawing an even stronger protective barrier with his wand.
"Hang on, Lina. What do you hear?"
"It's singing... about the Sleeping God... about the end of all cycles..." Lina's trembling voice was filled with terror. "It also says... when the stars are right... R'lyeh will rise from the depths of the sea." Her face was deathly pale with fear.
"R'lyeh?" Saruman repeated the unfamiliar name, frowning deeply. "I've never seen that place mentioned in any ancient record."
Clearly, people of this era knew absolutely nothing about the Cthulhu Mythos. Which wasn't surprising, the works that would one day spread those legends throughout the world hadn't even been written yet. No one in this age could possibly know what R'lyeh was.
"Maybe we should go back and bring more people," Kag swallowed nervously after seeing Lina's condition.
Saruman shook his head. "You know what those people are like. To them, treasure exists to be claimed for themselves. That's not why we're here. If we bring treasure hunters along, there's a good chance they'll turn on us. It wouldn't be the first time we've ended up fighting our own allies to the death. If we enter the ruins together, they'll become another danger we have to guard against instead of helping us."
His reasoning was hard to argue with. Even in the era of the Ministry of Magic, conflicts over treasure were unavoidable. In this lawless age before the Ministry existed, murdering rivals and stealing discoveries was simply part of life. After all, this was Africa; the local wizarding world wasn't exactly known for its high sense of morality.
"Fair enough," Kag nodded in agreement. "But we still need to do something about Lina's condi, "
Before he could finish, the lake suddenly began to ripple. The violet water slowly parted to both sides, revealing a broad stone staircase descending into the depths below.
The steps looked unimaginably ancient, covered in thick moss and strange aquatic plants. Within the towering walls of water on either side, enormous shadows drifted silently past, shapes far too massive and far too inhuman to belong to any creature that should exist. Just looking at their outlines awakened a primal fear deep within the soul.
(End of Chapter)
You can read ahead up to 110 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395