This Eyeless Basilisk possessed a fatal flaw. It could only track targets through thermal sensing and completely lacked the terrifying, instant-death ocular magic of its kin.
Faced with a wizard capable of masking their heat signature and wielding overwhelming firepower, it became little more than a massive, thrashing target.
Damian stowed the colossal corpse into his magically expanded pouch. The Undetectable Extension Charm was truly miraculous; even objects drastically larger than the physical opening could be swallowed whole, provided the internal spatial volume was sufficient.
Fortunately, he had upgraded the spatial capacity of his pouch a few months ago. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been nearly enough room to fit the giant serpent.
Upon closer inspection, he confirmed that this Eyeless Basilisk was radically different from ordinary Basilisks. Its skeletal structure was altered, and its skull was significantly rounder and thicker.
This mutated Basilisk would hold immense research value.
"Was that your magic just now?!" Eureka Asghar exclaimed.
The goblin had been jolted awake by the deafening thunder of the final strike. The very first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was the apocalyptic scene of raw lightning blasting the giant snake to death.
"Damian—are you okay?" Luna rushed over, circling Damian to meticulously check if he was injured. Puff Puff had just flown her over from the safety of the brass Faraday cage.
"I'm perfectly fine," Damian said modestly. "It was entirely thanks to Puff Puff's help."
Hearing its name, the massive Thunderbird puffed out its chest proudly and let out a pleased chirp.
"Even with the help of a Thunderbird... that level of destruction is still absolutely ridiculous," Eureka muttered, staring at the scorched crater. "The Spirit of Magic truly favors humans."
"Let's head back," Damian instructed. "There was a massive magical commotion here just now; it's not safe to linger."
The group mounted the Thunderbird and quickly flew back to the hidden Goblin Village in Cornwall, England.
"Old man, I almost died out there just now!" Eureka shouted into the house the moment he pushed the door open.
"A library-type terrestrial vault? What danger could there possibly be?" Bask Asghar snorted disdainfully from his workshop. "A library cannot support living things, nor can it be rigged with overly volatile magical defenses, as that would violently destabilize the spatial folding."
"It was a Basilisk! We encountered a massive Basilisk guarding the outside of the library!" Eureka gestured wildly, stretching his short arms to their absolute limit to convey its size. "It was even bigger than a normal Basilisk!"
Since the beast was already dead and lying in a crater by the time he woke up, Eureka wasn't entirely sure just how massive it truly was.
Bask clearly didn't believe him and looked skeptically at Damian.
"It was indeed a Basilisk, but a heavily mutated one," Damian clarified. "It had completely lost its eyes and possessed no petrification curse."
"A Basilisk without its legendary gaze... then it's indeed possible you managed to slay it," Bask mused, stroking his white beard. "But why would a mere information-storage vault have a Basilisk acting as a guardian?"
"I strongly suspect this library belonged to Herpo the Foul," Eureka said. "Many of the ancient texts and materials we recovered inside were authored by him."
"Herpo the Foul?" Bask's eyes widened slightly. "If it's truly his lost library, then a mutated Basilisk guardian isn't surprising in the least."
Herpo was an infamous Dark Wizard, and even the isolated goblins were well aware of his horrific deeds. As for why he was historically dubbed 'the Foul', the true origins were lost to time; mostly, only terrifying folk legends remained.
Bask rubbed his hands together with sudden, intense interest. "Quickly, let me see your harvest."
Ten days later, inside the study of Damian's house in Ottery St. Catchpole.
Damian sat at his desk, carefully reading through the duplicated ancient texts brought back from the hidden vault. Because there were so many books, he prioritized reading the materials that aligned with his immediate interests.
The heavy tome he was currently reading contained Herpo's highly illegal, detailed experimental records on breeding and modifying Basilisks.
"A 'Perfect Life'?" Damian frowned. He had just read a passage where Herpo referred to the Basilisk as the ultimate, perfect organism.
While Basilisks undeniably boasted terrifying vitality, millennial lifespans, staggering magic resistance, and lethal curses, in Damian's eyes, they were still far from 'perfect'.
Continuing through the notes, Damian realized Herpo's definition of "perfect life" was strictly in the context of creating Horcruxes.
Herpo had heavily theorized using a living Basilisk as a Horcrux container. He believed that if he were ever resurrected through a Basilisk Horcrux, his new soul-vessel would inherently grant him the serpent's petrification gaze, its near-indestructible vitality, and its millennial lifespan.
The subsequent chapters detailed Herpo's grotesque experiments to artificially enhance specific traits of the Basilisk to make it an even better vessel.
The giant Eyeless Basilisk Damian had slain at the vault entrance was clearly a product of these physical enhancement experiments. However, without exception, Herpo's extreme modifications ultimately failed to achieve true perfection.
For example, the Basilisk with the magically enhanced physical body gained a longer lifespan and impenetrable muscle density, but it completely lost its eyes and magical gaze in the process.
Records of experiments attempting to strengthen the petrification curse resulted in the Basilisk permanently turning itself into stone. Attempts to increase the toxicity of its venom caused the serpent's internal organs to rapidly melt and collapse.
This was exactly why Herpo eventually concluded the natural Basilisk was a "perfect life"; its baseline biology had already reached an absolute, delicate magical balance that rejected further tampering.
"In that case, the Eyeless Basilisk I killed was just a failed, discarded prototype for Herpo," Damian thought, tapping his fingers on the desk. "But it isn't necessarily a failure for me."
Damian's eyes gleamed. He could refine alchemical golems using the automated production line on the 2nd Floor of Aemon's Wizard Tower!
He could theoretically process the giant Basilisk's magic-resistant corpse into a massive, biological alchemical golem. If successful, he would possess an indestructible, towering juggernaut capable of both taking devastating hits and physically crushing his enemies.
But thinking of the logistics, Damian couldn't help but feel a massive headache coming on.
Transforming such a colossal Basilisk corpse into a functional golem would require an astronomical amount of magical resources. It would far exceed the resources he had spent creating his assistant golem, Orianna, which had already cost him refined Mithril and a staggering 10,000 Degrees of magic.
A few days ago, he had consulted Tower Spirit Zero regarding the project. The calculated energy and material costs needed to successfully reforge the Basilisk were far beyond what he could currently provide.
"If I had ten more targets as incredibly rich as Madam Alsha, I'd have more than enough..." Damian sighed, his mind wandering back to the Syndicate boss.
He had successfully ambushed Alsha, drained her magic, and imprisoned her inside his magically expanded pouch so he could steal her vast, accumulated wealth.
Meanwhile, in the Goblin Village in Cornwall, England.
Ring, ring, ring!
The sharp doorbell of Bask Asghar's house rang insistently. Inside, the white-bearded goblin was deeply engrossed in studying the Herpo materials brought back from the library.
"Eureka, what are you doing? Go open the door!" Bask shouted impatiently toward the hallway, annoyed at being interrupted.
After a long moment, there was no response from his son.
"Did he go out? Was I so absorbed in these texts that I didn't even hear him leave?" Bask muttered to himself.
Hearing the bell continue to ring, Bask had no choice but to set his magnifying glass down and walk to the front door himself.
When he pulled it open, he found the fierce-looking, bald goblin Lannock standing on his porch.
"Bask, have you forgotten something?" Lannock's voice was dangerously low and grating.
Bask immediately looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Lannock."
"I was so completely absorbed in my reading that I forgot to send over the guild's copy of the texts." Bask stepped aside to let him in. "The harvest this time is absolutely unprecedented! That hidden vault is very likely the lost library of Herpo the Foul!"
"Oh? The Herpo the Foul?" Lannock asked, his hostile demeanor momentarily breaking into genuine surprise.
Before Bask could answer, Lannock's expression suddenly twisted into sheer horror. He stared blankly at something in the hallway behind Bask and shouted:
"Eureka! What in the name of magic are you trying to do?!"
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