Hearing Lannock's reprimand, Bask Asghar instantly grew agitated. The grumpy, white-bearded goblin turned his head and shouted, "Eureka! All you do is laze around your room all day. Even asking you to open a single door takes forever!"
He was intensely displeased with his son's laziness. However, the moment he turned around, a cold hand clamped violently onto his face.
Bask instantly became furious. He had only criticized the boy slightly, and the ungrateful whelp dared to lay a hand on him? "What... do you think you're doing?!"
Just as the Alchemy Master was about to erupt, he glimpsed a horrifying sight through the gaps between the fingers crushing his face. Eureka's expression was completely vacant, and his face was horribly withered. His pupils were gone, leaving behind only the dead whites of his eyes.
In the instant Bask froze, the hand Eureka used to grip his face began to glow with a sickly black light.
Suddenly, Bask felt a tremendous force rip him backward. He was dragged away by Lannock just as an explosive shockwave erupted from Eureka's hand, blasting both of the older goblins across the room.
Fortunately, Lannock's quick intervention saved Bask from fatal injuries. However, the white-bearded goblin was still severely wounded and struggling to move.
Suffering from internal injuries, Bask sluggishly pushed himself up and spat out a mouthful of blood. Once he caught his breath, he gasped, "The Imperius Curse?"
"It doesn't look like it," Lannock said, frowning deeply. Because Bask had absorbed most of the blast's damage, the bald goblin was largely unharmed.
Lannock was a rare goblin highly skilled in the Dark Arts. Capable of casting most offensive spells wandlessly, he was intimately familiar with the Unforgivable Curses.
Although Eureka appeared to have had his mind seized and manipulated, the magical signature felt entirely different from a standard Imperius Curse.
"Capture him first." Lannock raised his right arm, and a bright red light erupted from his palm.
The spell struck the vacant-faced Eureka, instantly blasting the younger goblin away. He smashed through the hall's tables and chairs before falling completely silent.
Lannock slowly walked over, assessing that the boy had passed out.
Just as the bald goblin crouched down to examine him, Eureka suddenly snapped his eyes open. Staring blindly with those dead, white eyes, Eureka stretched out his right hand and violently grabbed Lannock's calf.
Lannock instinctively swung his right arm, casting another wandless blast. Eureka was thrown across the room once more, hitting the wall and slumping to the floor, entirely motionless.
This time, however, a black, lychee-sized bead rolled out of Eureka's pocket.
Lannock cautiously conjured a wandless magical barrier to isolate the strange black bead before picking it up. His instincts screamed that Eureka's horrifying transformation was directly tied to this object.
To his absolute shock, the magical isolation barrier completely failed. Lannock immediately felt a tremendous, parasitic suction force emanating from the bead.
He found himself completely paralyzed. His right arm rapidly withered, shrinking down like a dried corpse utterly drained of moisture, as the black bead melted directly into his flesh.
This cursed object was something Eureka had secretly acquired from the bookshelf in Herpo the Foul's terrestrial vault.
When Damian had discovered the Void Mushroom on those same shelves, he hadn't made a fuss. However, Eureka had noticed the lychee-sized black bead hiding among the ancient documents.
Assuming anything hidden within a goblin's terrestrial vault had to be a priceless treasure, the foolish goblin had pocketed it.
While Damian had been distracted by the library's contents, Eureka had successfully hidden the artifact on his person.
He never expected that the moment he claimed it, the bead would begin continuously and secretly draining his life force. By the time Eureka realized the danger, he was unable to discard it, and his mind had been completely dominated.
Back in the present, the skin on Lannock's right arm suddenly cracked open. The flesh and tendons beneath had mutated, becoming abnormally thick and horrifyingly intertwined.
Then, the flesh in his palm split apart. The melted black bead transformed, blooming into a demonic, blood-red eyeball. It rotated wildly in his palm before finally fixing its terrifying gaze upon Lannock's face.
"Lannock! What happened to you?!" Bask cried out in alarm. Despite his severe internal injuries, the white-bearded goblin had been nervously tracking the fight.
Lannock did not answer. In truth, he couldn't. At that moment, he had completely lost control over his own vocal cords.
A sinister, ancient voice echoed directly within his mind. "I feel it... your yearning for power..."
"I see it... you wretched goblin..." the voice hissed. "I see your deep hatred for humans... Release your mind to me..."
"I can make your aging body regain its vitality... I can grant you immense power. The power to do whatever you desire..."
The voice was entirely unfamiliar to Lannock, yet a dark magic forced him to feel an overwhelming sense of trust toward it.
With every whispered word, his resistance eroded. Finally, he completely surrendered his mind, fully accepting the entity's presence. Lannock's physical control returned, but his actions and desires were now heavily warped by the voice.
"Kill them... and you will gain even greater power..." the voice coaxed.
Lannock's eyes went utterly cold as he turned and began walking toward Bask.
Seeing the lethal intent radiating from his old friend, Bask felt a suffocating sense of dread. "Lannock, are you being controlled? Snap out of it!"
Bask deeply regretted leaving his Undetectable Extension pouch full of alchemical items in his workshop. The goblin settlements were usually so heavily fortified that even Dark Wizards didn't dare cause trouble. He had grown far too complacent in times of peace.
Lannock callously stretched out his grotesque, mutated right arm. He grabbed the white-bearded goblin by the throat, hoisting him violently into the air.
Bask choked and gasped for breath, violently kicking his legs as he forced out a few desperate words. "What... are... you... exactly...?"
To his horror, the sinister voice echoed directly within Bask's mind in response. "Herpo..."
Bask's eyes widened in sheer terror. Suddenly, his body deflated like a punctured balloon.
Within moments, all the flesh, blood, and bone in his body vanished, leaving nothing behind but an empty, shriveled sheet of skin falling to the floor.
Lannock immediately felt a rush of scorching heat flow upward through his right arm. A moment later, his aging body surged with vitality, making him feel decades younger.
Old, hidden combat injuries were instantaneously repaired. More shockingly, the total capacity of his innate magical power actually expanded slightly.
Normally, once a goblin fully matures at the age of fifty, their internal magic power permanently stabilizes. It was physically impossible for it to increase again for the remainder of their two to three-hundred-year lifespans.
Feeling the impossible surge of power within his veins, Lannock threw his head back and burst into maniacal laughter. "Hahaha! Damn humans! I will turn every last one of you into my nourishment!"
Still cackling, the corrupted goblin turned his gaze toward the unconscious Eureka on the floor.
The entity within him required an incubation period of rapid growth, and Lannock refused to waste a single opportunity. Without hesitation, he walked over, planning to completely drain Eureka's life force as well.
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