The forest fell deathly silent. Every gaze was fixed on the Obscurus in Leonard's hand, wrapped in silver chains.
Terror, suspicion, disbelief, madness...
All kinds of looks fell on Leonard. No one had expected that the trump card they had pinned such high hopes on would be subdued so easily.
"This can't be... this isn't real!"
Theodore had completely fallen apart. The hand clutching his wand shook like he had suffered a decade-old stroke.
That was an Obscurus, something lethally dangerous to wizards. All magic was drastically weakened against it, and subduing one was practically impossible.
And yet that impossible thing had just happened right in front of him. A monster with a grotesque face, controlling grotesque plants, had actually bound an Obscurus with chains.
This had to be a dream. There was no way this was real.
But the pain from the bloodsucking vines that had already climbed to his waist forced Theodore to accept reality.
All of it was real. His final trump card had been casually broken, and even he himself had been captured.
All because of the terrifying man in front of him.
Theodore's spirit broke. He could not imagine what kind of enemy he was facing, and for a moment he lost all will to resist. His wand slipped from his hand. Too weak to struggle, he could only watch as the vines wrapped him up completely, leaving only his face exposed.
"Spare... spare me. You don't want to make an enemy of us." Theodore stared at Leonard, forcing himself to sound calm. "Do you know who we are?"
"That's my question. Who are you?" Leonard looked at Theodore with interest as the vines dragged him right in front of him. "Tell me. Who gave you the nerve to attack my men?"
The terror on Theodore's face turned blank.
"Those werewolves... they're your men?" He stared at Leonard in disbelief.
If he had fucking known those werewolves had someone like this behind them, there was no way he would have attacked them.
"Stop wasting my time." Leonard raised a hand and slapped Theodore across the face. "Answer my question. Who are you?"
As he spoke, he glanced at Schneider, who was tied up so tightly by the vines that he looked mummified. "And don't bother lying. You've got plenty of people here. I can question them one by one."
Theodore's face instantly went greenish-white. He wanted to look at Schneider, but his neck was locked tight by the vines. He could practically hear his own neck bones screaming.
If he tried to turn his head by force, this thing would definitely twist it right off.
"Don't do anything rash, or our leader won't let you off." Unable to exchange looks with Schneider, Theodore could only keep bluffing through gritted teeth.
"Your leader, is it?" Leonard watched Theodore for a moment, then curled his lips. The Living Tree Vine on his face twisted with the motion, revealing a cold smile.
Crack.
An extremely faint sound rang out in the dead silence.
Theodore's face turned white, then darkened to a sickly bluish-green. His body convulsed uncontrollably, a hissing breath escaping his throat. A thin line of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, and sweat-soaked hair stuck to his face.
The man who prided himself on elegance no longer had the strength to care about appearances. His rapidly fading life stripped away every thought except the instinct to survive.
But no one was going to save him. Very soon, the light vanished from his eyes, and his lifeless pupils reflected Leonard's writhing face.
"You talk too much." Leonard looked at Theodore's corpse, took the metal bottle that had contained the Obscurus from his hand, and stuffed the Obscurus he was holding back inside.
Fortunately, he had learned ancient sealing magic from Harris Raymons. Otherwise, it would not have been nearly so easy to subdue this Obscurus today.
An Obscurus, formed from chaotic magic, was the natural enemy of most spells. There were basically no truly effective ways to suppress it.
The only method recorded in books for destroying an Obscurus was to strike it directly with overwhelming magical power, like flushing out a blocked pipe with a massive torrent of water, or letting crashing tides wipe away marks on a beach.
Using normal magic to directly erase chaotic, corrupted magic. That was the textbook method for dealing with an Obscurus.
Without the ancient magic he had gotten off Harris Raymons for free, Leonard would have had no choice but to use a large number of temporary plants to devour the Obscurus's magic, then try to capture it once it had been reduced to a manageable level.
The problem with that method was not that the Obscurus might escape. It was that Leonard was worried he might misjudge the balance and accidentally drain it dry and kill it.
At the end of the day, it was just a mass of magic. To Leonard's plants, chaotic or not made no difference. They would just suck it up.
So catching this Obscurus meant Harris Raymons deserved a little credit. If they met again in the future, Leonard could consider treating him slightly better, or sparing him once when the stakes were not too high.
Theodore's corpse was rooted into and consumed by the vines, and before long not even a trace remained.
Leonard glanced at Schneider, smiled faintly, and walked toward him.
Schneider's body shook. Watching Leonard come closer step by step, he immediately plastered a flattering smile across his face. "Sir, I..."
But what awaited him was not questioning. It was a pair of eyes like swirling vortices.
Not good... it's... Legilimency...
Horror filled Schneider's eyes. He instinctively tried to close them, but the vines coiled around his temples had already silently pierced into his head and taken over his nerves.
His eyes instantly filled with bloodshot veins, and within the vessels of his eyeballs, tiny green roots could faintly be seen wriggling.
"Now then, tell me. Who exactly is behind you?" Leonard asked.
Schneider did not answer, which did not surprise Leonard in the least. But at this point, his silence was meaningless.
For people without specialized training, when someone asks them a question, even if they have no intention of answering, their mind still runs through the answer first.
It was instinct. And clearly, as a wizard, Schneider did not understand this bit of Muggle psychological research, nor had he ever trained himself against it.
So that little bit of resistance in his mind could not escape Leonard's Legilimency.
Schneider's thoughts involuntarily produced the answer, and through Legilimency, a particular symbol was transmitted into Leonard's mind.
"This is..." Leonard looked at the somewhat familiar symbol, his expression turning strange.
That answer was a little outside his expectations.
"How could it be this thing?"