Chapter 133: Reclamation
With Tom's roar, the surrounding space instantly began to tremble violently.
The originally static black and white scenes twisted and contorted madly.
Countless streams of pitch black ink seeped from the walls on every side, transforming into thousands upon thousands of ferocious, poisonous snakes. They opened their maws wide, carrying a foul, blood soaked wind as they lunged toward Tamara.
Tamara stood her ground, her gaze sharpening slightly.
She understood clearly that these were no ordinary summoned creatures.
In this consciousness space constructed from memories, they could not inflict true physical harm.
These snakes were, in fact, the materialisation of Tom Riddle's aggressive soul.
Every drop of ink contained his insane desire to usurp the host.
Once bitten by those snakes, or enveloped by that ink, Tamara's self awareness would be instantly polluted, assimilated, and ultimately overwritten completely, like ink dropped into clear water.
If she lost in this mental world, then the one who awoke in reality would no longer be her.
It would be that sixteen year old Tom Riddle, having gained a new physical body.
"Trying to seize my body?"
Facing the overwhelming attack, Tamara's expression did not change in the slightest.
She merely watched the furious youth with cold eyes.
"Playing these tricks... on my home turf..."
Tamara was about to use the authority of the main soul to directly shatter these illusions.
However, in the next second, her expression changed.
"Hiss!"
Those ink snakes did not shatter as easily as she had expected.
On the contrary, they were like corporeal chains. They instantly wrapped around Tamara's limbs before tightening fiercely around her neck.
A will carrying a powerful corrosive force surged through those snakes, drilling madly into her mind.
It was the torrent of memories belonging to the sixteen year old Tom.
Countless days and nights of loneliness, hatred for his Muggle father, the ambition to conquer the world...
Those memories were like sharp knives, trying to forcibly slice open Tamara's self awareness and expel her original memories.
"You underestimate these fifty years far too much!"
Tom stood atop the crest of the ink wave, looking down as he laughed maniacally.
At this moment, his body was no longer human. He had merged with the surrounding darkness, becoming enormous and monstrous.
"You said it yourself. I am a memory trapped here."
"That means in this diary, I am the master!"
"So what if you are the main body? Your soul might be strong outside, but here, you are nothing more than an invader!"
With his roar, the entire consciousness space began to collapse.
The floor turned into an abyss.
The ceiling pressed down.
Tamara felt her soul being torn apart.
That pain far surpassed physical torment, as if countless hands were forcibly peeling her soul away from her body.
Her form began to turn transparent, even becoming unstable.
After all, she was currently using an underage body. The compatibility between soul and flesh was inherently less than perfect.
And Tom had seized upon that single flaw, attempting to usurp the host.
"Become my nourishment! I will use your body to accomplish our unfinished great work!"
The enormous ink serpent head opened its maw wide and bit down toward Tamara.
At that critical juncture, the tightly bound Tamara suddenly stopped struggling.
She raised her head.
Those eyes, which had been somewhat dimmed by the suppression, now erupted with an unprecedented crimson light.
It was the gaze of a demon lord who, even trapped in a hopeless situation, still looked down upon everything with contempt.
"Master?"
Tamara's voice was weak, but it pierced clearly through the roar of the ink.
"You have been swaggering around in this mouldy diary for a couple of days, and now you think you are the master?"
"The power you are so proud of is merely a fragment I casually sliced off back then."
The next moment, a power darker, deeper, and filled with an aura of death and decay erupted from the depths of Tamara's soul.
If Tom's power was a violent flood, then what Tamara displayed now was a bottomless black hole.
Boom!
The ink chains wrapped tightly around her evaporated instantly upon contact with that aura.
"This... what is this?!"
Tom discovered in horror that he was losing contact with the ink he controlled.
Not only that, he could feel his power being forcibly drained away.
"Some things... you will never understand."
Tamara slowly rose into the air. Her long hair moved without wind, transforming into a sky full of black poisonous snakes that, in turn, wrapped tightly around Tom's enormous form.
"You only possess the ambition of a sixteen year old."
"But what I possess... is true darkness that has transcended death, experienced hell, and ultimately crawled back from the abyss."
Tamara stretched out her hand and clenched it in the air.
The enormous monster let out a painful howl, its form rapidly shrinking until it was forced back into the shape of that sixteen year old youth.
Only this time, he was no longer arrogant.
Trembling all over, he knelt on the ground, half his body already swallowed by Tamara's shadow.
"Now, kneel."
Bang!
The snakes formed from ink instantly exploded in midair, reverting to harmless black water.
And the youth who had been so arrogant moments ago now seemed as though his backbone had been removed. His knees went weak, and he crashed heavily to the ground.
"This... this is impossible..."
Tom looked up in terror, feeling the tremors coming from the depths of his soul.
"Nothing is impossible."
Tamara walked up to him. Looking down from above, she reached out and placed her hand on the youth's head.
"You are merely a part of me."
"Since you are trash, you should be prepared to be reclaimed."
"No!"
With Tom's desperate scream, Tamara's hand suddenly clenched tight.
The entire black and white world began to collapse.
Countless streams of black light flowed along her arm, pouring madly into her body.
It was knowledge.
It was magical power.
It was all the talent and ambition of that genius youth from fifty years ago.
...
"Hah..."
Slytherin dormitory.
Tamara's eyes snapped open, and she took a deep breath of the cold air.
It was all over.
The diary on her lap had completely lost its lustre. When she opened it, the pages were blindingly white, without a single trace of ink remaining.
It had become a true piece of scrap paper.
Tamara casually tossed it to the foot of the bed, then slowly raised her hands.
Even without using a wand, she could clearly feel the magical power boiling within her body.
The sense of blockage that had always constrained her had disappeared for the most part.
The glass cup on the bedside table silently floated into the air.
Tamara recited no incantation, nor did she even move a finger.
She merely watched the cup coldly, transforming the immense magical power she had just acquired into an invisible, substantial force, and fiercely squeezed.
Crack.
There was no flash of light, nor the roar of an explosion.
The hard glass cup in the air seemed to be clenched by an invisible giant hand, instantly disintegrating into a sky full of sparkling powder.
Immediately after, Tamara hooked her finger slightly.
"Reparo."
The glass powder scattered through the air seemed to have been put in reverse, instantly gathering and reassembling.
In the blink of an eye, an intact water cup returned to the bedside table.
Destruction and restoration.
All in a single thought.
An operation that would seem like a miracle to a second year student now felt as natural as breathing to her.
"That's more like it..."
Tamara looked at herself in the mirror.
In the shadows, a flash of crimson light passed through those pitch black eyes, brighter, more enduring, and more filled with killing intent than ever before.
She subconsciously waited.
Waited for that noisy system to pop up, to give her some disgusting punishment or warn her about illegally enhancing her power.
However, one second passed.
Then two.
Then a full minute.
Dead silence filled her mind.
No pop up.
No warning.
That system, which usually screamed if she so much as glared at Harry, now seemed to have crashed, maintaining absolute silence about this behaviour.
Tamara narrowed her eyes slightly.
"So that's how it is..."
She seemed to have touched the edge of some rule.
Feeling that long lost sense of fullness deep within her soul, a mysterious intuition suddenly welled up in her heart.
Faintly, she seemed to have grasped some underlying logic of this damned system.
With the return of that part of her soul just now, she could clearly feel that the shackles originally tightening around her soul had inexplicably loosened by a fraction.
The feeling was faint, but it absolutely existed.
"So that's how it is..."
Looking at the eyes flashing with crimson light in the mirror, Tamara curled the corner of her mouth into a playful, cold smile.
The more complete her soul became, the closer she drew to that former, complete self.
And the weaker the system's binding force on her would become.
The day she reclaimed all the Horcruxes and completely reforged her soul might also be the day she dismantled this broken system and once again reigned supreme.
This was excellent news.
In a pleasant mood, Tamara lay back down on the bed and closed her eyes.
Just as she was about to enjoy this long awaited, peaceful sleep, the mattress beside her suddenly dipped slightly.
A furry, warm black ball silently crawled up.
It was the black cat named Nagini.
Usually, this was just a stupid cat of questionable intelligence that only ate, slept, and occasionally went mad.
As if sensing the dark aura deep within Tamara's soul, now replenished and becoming increasingly powerful and pure, the black cat acted as though it had inhaled the highest grade catnip.
A purr rose from its throat, almost fawning, even carrying a hint of fanatical trembling.
It cautiously approached Tamara, rubbing its furry head desperately against the back of her hand.
It even tried to press its entire body against her, as if merely being close to this aura would grant it supreme happiness.
However, before it could rub against her twice, a cold hand directly grabbed the scruff of its neck.
Its fate.
Tamara opened her eyes, looking disdainfully at this suddenly crazed cat trying to cuddle.
"Get down."
No warmth.
Only a cold command.
Immediately after, the Dark Lord flicked her wrist and mercilessly threw this servant, who had been expressing its supreme reverence for its master, off the bed like rubbish.
Thud.
The black cat rolled once on the carpet and let out a pitiful meow.
"Don't get your fur everywhere, you idiot."
Tamara coldly turned over, completely ignoring the pair of eyes beneath the bed filled with resentment and adoration.
Now that the diary was dealt with and the power reclaimed, she could finally enjoy a period of peaceful school life.
However, the Dark Lord, immersed in the joy of victory, did not realise she had made an arrogant mistake.
The consumption of the soul in the diary was indeed complete.
But what about the container?
...
At the same moment.
Gryffindor Tower, girls' dormitory.
Ginny Weasley, who should have been sound asleep, suddenly sat bolt upright in bed.
Her movements were stiff, like a marionette.
Moonlight shone on her face, making it appear exceptionally pale and eerie.
She slowly opened her eyes.
Those eyes, originally a warm brown, were now a dead, silent black.
No pupils.
Like two bottomless black holes.
"...give mine... back..."
The girl's lips twitched slightly.
The voice that emerged was not Ginny's, but a strange sound mixed with countless hoarse whispers.
The main consciousness of the diary had indeed dissipated.
But the residue left behind by the prolonged erosion of the soul, those discarded resentments, had lost the control of the main body and now gone completely out of control.
It no longer possessed the cunning and reason of the sixteen year old Tom Riddle, nor the ability to formulate meticulous plans.
It was now like a beast whose head had been severed but was still twitching.
No logic.
No thought.
Only the most primitive, purest instinct of Dark Magic remained.
To complete the death command etched deep into the soul.
To survive, it had to find new nourishment.
And this weak soul before it was the best offering.
Ginny threw off the covers and stepped barefoot onto the floor.
She did not take her wand.
Because now, she herself was a walking container of Dark Magic.
"Kill... all... Mudbloods..."
The shadow silently slid out of the dormitory, disappearing into the stairwell leading deeper into the castle.