With the Unspeakable Monster born from a fallen god finally destroyed, Ian stood within the absolute darkness, looking across the sharply defined boundary toward the Chaos Space, which had returned to an eerie calm. The foul swamp slowly writhed beneath the dim violet glow, radiating an aura of death and finality.
"Science saves the day again."
His theory that everything has limits had been proven right, putting him in an excellent mood. He slowly turned around, facing the endless darkness behind him, a darkness so profound it seemed capable of erasing concepts themselves.
Curiosity scratched at him like a cat's claws, while reason screamed at him to stop. Whatever lurked in there had frightened even that nearly immortal monster enough that it wouldn't dare cross the boundary. That alone spoke volumes about how dangerous it was.
"...Sigh." Ian let out a quiet breath.
If he had any other choice, he truly wouldn't want to step into this unknown place. The seemingly endless Ancient Corridor outside had been strange enough, but it had never inspired this instinctive feeling of dread that seemed woven into the very fabric of life itself.
After hesitating for a moment, he stepped back across the invisible boundary, leaving the absolute darkness and returning to the faintly illuminated Chaos Space.
"Ugh... that's disgusting."
Carefully avoiding the enormous bubbling swamp of corruption on the ground, Ian followed the path he'd taken before and quickly left through the massive stone door carved with twisted spiral patterns.
Beyond the door, the ancient corridor still stretched endlessly in both directions. The stone-paved road vanished into the distance, while rough, cliff-like walls towered overhead on either side, their surfaces covered in incomprehensible carvings. Trying to decipher them felt utterly meaningless.
"If only there were another way out."
Unwilling to give up, Ian began searching again. This time, his detection spells were even more refined and covered a much larger area.
His Magic Sickle spread through the corridor like a tidal wave, sweeping forward, backward, upward, downward, and to every side, searching for even the slightest trace of unusual magical energy, spatial distortion, or hidden passages.
He flew over a hundred kilometers in one direction. Nothing. Just the same endless walls and floor. He turned around and searched in the opposite direction. Still nothing.
Ian even tried attacking the walls and the floor, hoping to force open some hidden path, but the ancient material was so absurdly durable that not even a scratch appeared.
Every investigation led to the same conclusion: aside from the stone door leading to the Chaos Space, there were no forks, no hidden doors, and no unusual areas whatsoever. The corridor resembled a labyrinth designed with only a single destination. Every other direction was simply an infinitely long tunnel.
"Kind of like how Minecraft generates endless terrain... Looks like there's only one path after all."
Ian stopped in the middle of the corridor. Ahead lay endless darkness; behind him stood the only stone door. In the end, he could only accept reality. His caution was no match for the fear of remaining trapped here forever.
If he wanted to escape, or completely resolve whatever was happening in this place, he had no choice but to go back and face the darkness where even light could not exist.
Returning to the stone doorway, Ian glanced once more at the foul sludge inside. It still writhed faintly, but it had completely lost its vitality. A trace of emotion crossed his face.
"If I ended up like that... yeah, I'd hate it," he muttered with a self-deprecating smile. There was caution in his voice, but even more determination.
Without hesitating any longer, Ian took a deep breath and stepped into the absolute darkness once again. The moment he entered, that suffocating isolation returned, wrapping itself around him like a shroud.
Still unwilling to give up, he raised his wand again. This time, he poured every ounce of his immense magical power and unwavering mental strength into it, holding nothing back.
"Glimmering Light, Extreme Radiance!"
He cast the simple illumination spell with the force of a top-tier offensive spell. The tip of his wand erupted with a brilliance comparable to a miniature sun. The light was so intense that it even carried a trace of Ian's understanding of the Rule of Light, along with the power of his Light of the Mind.
Yet the radiance that could have illuminated an entire city was instantly descended upon by countless invisible mouths, greedily devouring every last ray. The light visibly dimmed, shrank, and contracted. Then, in less than a tenth of a second, it vanished completely without making a sound.
Light simply could not exist here. It was as though the true nature of this darkness was the absolute opposite of Light itself, an abyss of nothingness standing opposite to Existence.
Then, an invisible, icy wind brushed across Ian's soul. For a fleeting instant, he felt as though even the flame of hope burning within his heart might be extinguished.
"Even the Light of the Mind can be snuffed out by that wind..."
Ian lowered his wand, giving up on illumination altogether. He would have to rely on his other senses. The ground beneath his feet wasn't completely empty; there was a strange but solid feeling of something supporting his weight, so walking wasn't a problem.
But sight was useless, hearing was swallowed by silence, and even his Niffler Sense and sense of taste had become meaningless. All he had left were touch, his magical perception, and, most importantly, his instincts.
The darkness here was unlike anything else. Even if Ian released his mental power, it produced no feedback whatsoever. Worse, it could corrupt his mental force, so he didn't dare probe too deeply. It also meant spells like Magic Sickle were completely unusable.
He stood still, closed his eyes, and expanded his mental awareness as carefully as possible, limiting it to the area immediately around his body so he could instantly retract it if something went wrong. Soon, a bone-chilling sensation crept over him like icy vines.
"...What is this?"
He felt countless eyes upon him. Not literal eyes, but rather an invisible, intangible gaze overflowing with extreme malice and twisted desire. It poured toward him from every direction like countless frozen needles, trying to pierce his mental defenses and burrow into the depths of his consciousness.
Those gazes carried an indescribable corruption. They made no sound, yet they seemed to scream silently, whispering chaotic madness in an attempt to erode his sanity and awaken the deepest fears hidden within his heart.
"The farther I go... the stronger this feeling becomes. The greater the malice trying to corrupt me."
Ian immediately understood. Within this absolute darkness, where direction itself had lost all meaning, the intensity of that unpleasant feeling of being watched had become his only available compass.
The source of the corruption, the origin of everything, had to lie in the direction where the malice was strongest.
"So all I have to do... is head that way."
Steadying himself, Ian pushed his Brain Sealing Technique to its absolute limit, standing like an unshakable lighthouse against a raging sea. Then, without hesitation, he strode forward, straight toward the place where the malice was most concentrated and the unseen gazes stabbed at him with the greatest intensity.
He had no idea how long he walked, an hour, a day, perhaps even longer. Within this darkness, the concept of time simply no longer existed. As he ventured deeper, the invisible corruption became more tangible, more dangerous.
It no longer settled for just watching him; instead, it began directly assaulting his senses, trying to collapse his mind from within.
Then, the hallucinations began.
The darkness around him faded away, and Ian found himself standing inside a magnificent ancient hall, brilliantly lit and lavishly decorated. An enormous banquet table overflowed with exquisite delicacies whose aromas were almost irresistible.
People he knew, and people he didn't, sat around the table, Dumbledore, Snape, Hermione, and even his long-dead parents whom he'd never actually met. All of them smiled warmly, raising their glasses toward him.
"So this is trying to tempt me with family... friendship... the things I long for?"
This wasn't Ian's first time facing an illusion, so he remained perfectly calm as he analyzed it. At first glance, everything seemed beautiful. But when he looked closer, the feast slowly began to writhe.
Every dish transformed into countless squirming maggots and rotting organs. The smiles of his friends and loved ones stiffened unnaturally, their skin peeling away piece by piece to reveal pale, wriggling tentacles and empty eye sockets beneath.
"...Gross."
Ian wasn't actually disturbed in the slightest; he simply muttered the childish complaint to lighten the mood. Looking at those familiar faces, he watched as they all spoke together in voices that were wet, slippery, and unnaturally sticky.
"Come, Ian... Join this eternal feast..."
At that moment, the air filled with an indescribably strange stench of decay. It was sweet, sweet enough to lure anyone toward corruption.
"That's it? Seriously? This is what corrupted that ancient god? That ancient god wasn't very impressive."
Ian's eyes turned cold. His wand never moved, but his mental power surged on its own.
"End of All Curses, Ian Version!"
The magnificent banquet, his decaying friends and family, everything burst like a soap bubble. In an instant, the illusion vanished and the endless darkness returned, though the cloying, rotten sweetness still seemed to linger in the air.
And that was far from the end. As Ian continued deeper into the darkness, whether the thing lurking ahead was trying to stop him or desperately trying to assimilate him, the corruption gathered once more, weaving itself into a new illusion.
The darkness transformed into endless bookshelves. Upon them rested countless magical books and ancient scrolls that shimmered with forbidden knowledge.
Ian saw tomes containing the secret of immortality, runes that described the Laws of Creation themselves, and even the ultimate answer he had pursued for so long: the true nature of Time and Paradox.
They seemed to be within arm's reach. All he had to do was reach out, and limitless knowledge and power would be his.
"Hmm. This would've worked on Voldemort," Ian gave the illusion an honest evaluation.
But when he focused on the words, the letters suddenly came alive. They twisted into countless tiny tentacles covered in eyes, crawling along his line of sight as they tried to burrow into his mind. A deep whisper filled with insane wisdom echoed directly inside his skull, promising omniscience at the cost of his sanity.
Fortunately, Ian had expected something like this. Suppressing his instinctive desire to absorb knowledge, he immediately shut his eyes, severing the mental connection and calming his mind.
"The path I seek... isn't one of madness."
The illusion of the bookshelves collapsed. Yet the temptation of that forbidden knowledge, along with the lingering echo of insanity, still made his temples throb.
"Cheap trick. Garbage."
Ian continued walking without the slightest fear. Naturally, the third attack arrived right on schedule.
Suddenly, he felt his body beginning to change against his will. His fingers grew long and slick like tentacles. Something writhed beneath his skin, swelling into grotesque tumors. His vision split into countless perspectives, allowing him to watch his own body twisting and mutating from every possible angle.
Of course, it was another illusion. Anyone else would have panicked; after all, few things terrified wizards more than the loss of their own humanity.
But Ian had been on guard the entire time. He never truly believed what he was seeing, and without genuine panic to feed on, the illusion lost much of its strength. His mind remained perfectly clear.
"Heh... So you're trying to exploit humanity's fear of change. What a shame. I don't fear change."
Ian sighed softly as he looked at his own reflection. The figure staring back at him was no longer human; it had become the embryonic form of the monster he'd fought earlier. No, it was even more twisted, even more indescribable.
A seductive voice echoed inside his heart, sounding exactly like his own. "See? This is the real you... Embrace it... Gain true power... Gain true freedom..."
A wave of nausea crashed over him, along with a violent conflict between the illusion and his own sense of identity. Ian held firmly onto the clarity of his mind, then quietly declared, "I am myself. Ian. A wizard who seeks the truth of magic. I am not filth like this."
He anchored himself to the certainty that he could not be defeated, then imagined the grotesque mutations peeling away from his body like dirt being washed off. The illusion shattered once again beneath the force of his unwavering will.
It wasn't the last ambush. The deeper he walked, the more frequently the illusions appeared. Again, and again, and again.
One horrifying vision after another descended upon him, each one striking directly at his deepest fears, his desires, and his weaknesses. They were terrifyingly real, real enough to blur the line between illusion and reality.
But Ian spoke calmly toward the darkness itself. "None of these are what I truly fear. It seems you can't actually peer into my heart. You're just gambling on probability, hoping something will corrupt me. That only exposes your own weakness."
His mind had been tempered like steel through countless trials. No matter how bizarre the illusions became, and no matter how relentlessly the corruption seeped into every crack, his understanding of who he was never wavered.
Every whisper, every temptation, and every attempt at corruption stopped at the walls of his soul.
Ian had no idea how many illusions he'd already shattered. Mentally, he was more exhausted than ever before, feeling as though he'd been trudging through a bottomless swamp for countless centuries.
Yet, his invincible heart remained exactly as it always had. No illusion could break through his mental defenses, and without a crack to exploit, the corruption had no path into his soul.
Possessing a heart that was nearly impossible to shake, that, too, was one of the defining qualities of a Ravenclaw.
"No more tricks? If that's all you've got, save your strength. I'm coming to find you. Using the same tricks over and over is pointless."
Ian spoke once more into the darkness. He was convinced the being hiding there could both hear and understand him; after all, it had absorbed that fallen god who could communicate, which meant it had also inherited that god's knowledge and its understanding.
The malice and the corruption both continued growing stronger as Ian advanced. Just as he felt the hostile gaze and relentless hallucinations reaching their absolute peak,
Suddenly, the malice disappeared. The whispers of corruption vanished, and the suffocating feeling of being watched was gone. Everything receded like the tide.
More than that, the absolute darkness surrounding him, the darkness that devoured everything, seemed to thin. Little by little, it began to fade into a dim, hazy gray.
(End of Chapter)
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