The manor in the dead of night was immersed in a thick, almost solidified silence.
Outside the window, those golden decorations maintained by magic had turned a pallid verdigris under the moonlight. The luxurious scenes meticulously arranged during the day for the engagement banquet now appeared bizarre and austere, swallowed by the veil of night.
The magical barrier surrounding the manor—formed by layered defensive spells from Isabella's ancestors—emitted an extremely low hum in the night breeze, like the breathing of a slumbering behemoth.
The master bedroom was located on the highest floor of the manor's main tower.
This bedchamber, inlaid entirely with ebony and silver, was a full three times the size of a standard classroom.
The vaulted ceiling was painted with portraits of the successive patriarchs of Isabella's family. Those pale faces, bearing cold arrogance, wavered slightly in the illumination of the magical candlelight.
On the massive ebony four-poster bed, Jerry lay on his side.
Jerry's face, appearing somewhat exhausted from the excessive expenditure at Gringotts and the dressing room during the day, now presented a rare boyishness in his slumber.
His breathing was steady and even, his chest rising and falling slowly with every inhalation and exhalation.
The dark-colored bedding had slipped down to his waist, revealing a broad back that still carried a trace of youthful boniness.
And beside Jerry, Cassiopeia was not asleep.
Half-sitting, half-leaning against a pile of cushions stuffed with unicorn hair, that long black hair of hers—like a midnight waterfall—was scattered across the pillows and her bare shoulder blades.
She wore an extremely sheer, almost transparent dark purple silk nightgown. The fabric provided only slight coverage over her breasts and waist, leaving large expanses of fair skin faintly visible in the candlelight.
Her left hand turned the pages of an ancient tome bound in human skin, written with dragon blood for ink.
The book exuded a dry smell, a mixture of brimstone and decaying petals.
The pages were densely inscribed with variants and countermeasures for various dark magic spells. Every line of text trembled slightly under her gaze, as if those sealed malicious intents were trying to break free from the constraints of the paper.
But as long as those green snake-like eyes watched, even the constantly squirming text would be frozen.
Her legs, meanwhile, tightly clamped around Jerry's waist in a highly natural, possessive posture.
That pair of long, plump thighs wrapped around Jerry's flanks, her ankles crossed and locked beneath the bedding.
Whenever Jerry shifted his body slightly in his sleep, Cassiopeia's legs would instinctively tighten a fraction, like a bitch guarding her territory, absolutely refusing to let her prey leave by even half an inch in his slumber.
The sound of turning pages rustled in the silence.
Cassiopeia's gaze was focused and chilling, but her perception—rendered exceptionally sharp from long-term mastery of dark magic—never truly relaxed its monitoring of the surrounding environment.
This vigilance was not superfluous.
Ever since she had taken over actual control of the Death Eater organization with thunderous methods, the voices of opposition had never ceased.
Those old-guard followers, harboring an almost religious, fanatical loyalty to Voldemort, had been filled with deep-seated hatred for this "usurper" right from the start.
In their eyes, everything Cassiopeia had done—gradually transforming the Death Eaters from a radical organization pursuing pure-blood dominance into a covert faction centered on economic infiltration and political manipulation—was a desecration of the great ideals that they themselves couldn't even clearly articulate.
Cassiopeia no longer pursued that crude method of demonstrating power through terrorist attacks.
What Cassiopeia wanted was a control that was more precise, deeper, and more silent.
And this betrayal, to those zealots who had rotted in Azkaban for over a decade and had finally managed to break out, was more unforgivable than death.
The magical fluctuations in the air were the first to produce an anomaly.
It was an extremely subtle ripple, like a needle tip piercing the surface of water.
Cassiopeia's finger, turning the page, paused.
Her pupils contracted sharply in that instant, and those already sharp eyes turned into two cold blades.
The defensive barrier around the perimeter of the manor hadn't triggered any alarms.
This meant the intruder had used an internal password.
It was a Death Eater.
One of their own.
Cassiopeia slowly closed the book in her hands, placing it gently on the nightstand.
Her movements were extremely restrained, making no superfluous sound.
Then she looked down at Jerry.
The boy was still sleeping peacefully, his sharply contoured profile appearing calm and serene in the candlelight.
The legs clamping Jerry's waist didn't loosen; instead, they tightened further.
Moreover, she cast a Concealment Charm over their bodies.
Buzz.
A low sound, like the fluttering of a wasp's wings, came from outside the bedroom door.
This wasn't knocking; someone was using an extremely violent curse-breaking method, forcefully tearing through the three-layer protective ward she had set on the doorframe.
Cassiopeia's right hand raised in the darkness, her five fingers slightly spread. A wand made of obsidian and dragon heartstring flew silently from beneath the pillow into her palm.
The first layer of the ward shattered.
Bang! A muffled pop came from behind the door panel, immediately followed by the piercing shriek of glass shattering as the second layer of the ward was torn apart.
Cassiopeia's expression didn't waver in the slightest.
She merely tilted her head slightly, sweeping a glance toward the window out of the corner of her eye.
Through the gap in the curtains, three black, serpentine shadows were climbing up along the exterior wall.
Those were living curse-snakes, assassination tools mastered only by the most senior Death Eaters.
The fangs of every snake were coated in Basilisk venom; just one drop was enough to coagulate the blood of an adult wizard within three seconds.
The third layer of the ward shattered at the same moment.
Crack!
The bedroom door blew open.
Splintered oak fragments and metal hinges spun in the air. A wave of black magic, smelling of blood, brimstone, and a certain rotting flesh scent, surged into the bedchamber like a tsunami.
Three figures wearing black cloaks and silver skull masks charged into the room.
Their movements were extremely swift, fanning out in a standard triangular formation, their wands raising simultaneously, pointing at Cassiopeia on the bed.
"Crucio!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Reducto!"
Three lethal spells shot out at the same time. Red, green, and white light wove into a net of death in the air, lunging straight for the woman who, in the candlelight, wore only a semi-transparent nightgown.
The corners of Cassiopeia's mouth hooked into an extremely subtle arc.
She didn't dodge.
Her right hand holding the wand thrust forward violently, and a beam of pitch-black light, completely silent and almost invisible to the naked eye, spewed from the tip of the wand.
"Blindness!"
"Shield Shatter!"
The black light, upon touching the three spells, acted like a massive black hole, completely devouring the red Cruciatus Curse and the white Blasting Curse.
But the green Killing Curse was not within the realm of counter-spells.
Cassiopeia's body rolled violently to the right.
This movement was extremely undignified yet filled with beast-like agility.
Because her legs had been constantly clamping Jerry's waist, the moment she rolled, the silk nightgown—as thin as cicada wings—caught on the carved corner of the bedpost, tearing from her left shoulder down to her waist with a rrip.
That astounding half of her body—breathtakingly full from years of magical nourishment—was completely exposed to the moonlight in that instant.
But those intruders couldn't see a thing.
Aside from their vision being completely blocked by Cassiopeia's spell, at the same time Cassiopeia rolled, something they had absolutely not anticipated happened.
Jerry opened his eyes.
It wasn't the kind of eye-opening of someone slowly awakening from sleep.
It was an instant filled with lethal killing intent, his pupils contracting to the size of pinpricks like a bird of prey hunting.
His body remained in a side-lying posture; even the frequency of his breathing hadn't changed.
But in his right hand—that right palm resting seemingly relaxed beneath the bedding—a mass of invisible magic had already condensed to a critical point.
Wandless magic.
Silent spell.
Jerry's fingers curled slightly, as if pinching an invisible harp string in the void.
Then he gave a light flick.
Pfft.
An extremely faint sound, like a bubble popping.
The assassin closest to the bed—a middle-aged man, emaciated from spending too long in Azkaban but still possessing ferocious magic—had his head cleanly severed from his neck in that instant.
No blood.
No wound.
That head, still wearing the silver skull mask, was like a gently flicked apple. It flipped twice in the air, then hit the carpet with a thump.
And the headless body maintained its wand-raising posture, standing stiffly for two full seconds before crashing down like a collapsing wall.
"What!"
The second assassin let out a terrified roar.
"Ava..."
The incantation was only half-spoken.
Jerry's left hand pulled out from under the bedding, his five fingers spreading flat, aimed at the chest of that assassin.
This time, it was no longer a flick of the fingers.
It was a clenched fist.
Bang!
That assassin's chest cavity caved inward in that instant. The snapping sound of ribs was like a string of firecrackers; from the first rib to the twelfth, all broke in less than half a second.
Those shattered bones were like biscuits crushed by a giant invisible hand, piercing the heart and lung lobes, churning all the internal organs into a paste.
The man didn't even have time to let out a scream; his entire body, like a stomped-on cardboard box, flew backward amidst a muffled sound of crushing bone and flesh, smashing the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the corner of the bedroom.
The sound of the mirror shattering was like ice cracking.
The third assassin was clearly the most experienced of the three.
Upon seeing his two companions die one after another in less than three seconds, he didn't choose to confront him head-on. Instead, he violently turned around, fleeing frantically toward the direction of the blown-open doorway.
His legs exerted force madly in extreme terror.
But he only managed to run two steps.
Jerry finally sat up.
His pitch-black eyes flashed with an icy light in the darkness, like two burning black stars.
His right hand raised casually, as if brushing a speck of dust off his clothes.
A gentle tap of his fingertip.
Swish!
An invisible force shot from Jerry's fingertip, accurately hitting the back of the fleeing man's head.
The assassin's body abruptly halted in mid-air, like a frozen frame of a picture.
Then, starting from the top of his head, a crack as fine as a hair rapidly spread downward.
That crack split his head in two along the midline, then continued downward along his spine, passing through the sternum, abdominal cavity, pelvis, finally reaching the soles of his feet.
The entire process took less than a second.
Like a dead tree struck by lightning, he split perfectly into two halves along the midline.
The internal organs and fresh blood were completely evaporated by some invisible force the moment he split apart, leaving only two paper-thin, dry human cross-sections, which fell to either side.
Quiet.
Absolute quiet.
Outside the window, the three curse-snakes, sensing the terrifying magic erupting indoors, let out sharp hisses, attempting to squeeze in through the window cracks.
Cassiopeia had already stood up from the bed.
"Incendio."
Three deep red tongues of flame spewed from the tip of her wand, piercing the glass window and instantly engulfing the three climbing curse-snakes.
The snake bodies emitted a pungent scorched smell in the flames, writhing as they turned into three piles of black ash, subsequently blown away by the night breeze.
Cassiopeia lowered her wand and turned around.
Moonlight poured in through the shattered window frame, enveloping her half-naked body in a halo of silvery-white light.
The torn nightgown barely hung on her right shoulder, her left breast completely exposed. That bud, standing erect due to the adrenaline surge of battle, trembled slightly in the cold air.
She looked down at Jerry.
The boy was sitting on that massive bed, rendered a total mess by the battle just now. Hair fell over his forehead, hands resting on his knees, his expression as calm as if everything just now was merely an inconsequential little quiz.
"How long have you been awake?"
Cassiopeia asked.
"Since you closed the book."
Jerry's answer was brief and cold.
His gaze swept over the three corpses on the floor, mutilated to varying degrees, without a single ripple.
Then his line of sight fell on Cassiopeia's half-naked body.
"Looks like you're quite excited!"
Cassiopeia looked down at her own state. That nightgown, which was originally so thin it was nearly transparent, was now only half a piece, barely covering the area below her waist.
The moonlight completely exposed all those curves that had originally been concealed by the dress.
"Only you saw it."
There was no trace of shyness in Cassiopeia's voice. She walked to the side of the bed, bending down to pick up the kicked-off bedding, as if tidying up after an insignificant little accident.
"Who were those people?"
Jerry asked.
"Voldemort's 'orphans'." Cassiopeia smoothed the bedding back out, her movements calm and efficient. "Macnair's nephew, Karkaroff's old subordinates, and one I didn't recognize—probably third-rate trash that just escaped from Azkaban recently..."
She straightened up, her bare feet stepping over the scattered wood splinters and glass shards on the floor, walking to the side of the corpse that Jerry had cleaved in two.
"Your technique is cleaner than last time."
Cassiopeia used her toe to flip over that human cross-section that looked like a specimen, commenting, "Wandless, silent, precision cutting down to the molecular level.
I didn't find the presence of those little gadgets on your body.
It seems!
Your magical control has improved again.
No wonder Dumbledore can't stop thinking about you. If it were me in his shoes, I'm afraid I'd also be full of vigilance toward you—someone with an uncertain stance, yet possessing outstanding innate talent, who could anytime, anywhere become a guy with even more terrifying destructive power than Tom!"
"There isn't enough room here for so many people... Besides, is there anything about my strength you still don't understand?
My dear mother-in-law?"
"Oh, there are indeed things I don't understand. For instance, why did you kill them?
Couldn't you leave one alive?"
"Because, someone was disturbing my sleep."
Jerry yawned and lay back down.
"Of course, there's an even more important reason, which is that the Concealment Charm you cast on yourself and the Blindness Charm cast on them both have time limits. I was afraid they would see something in a moment that only I am allowed to see. I would be very angry then, so it was better to send them to meet Tom as soon as possible!
Saves trouble later!"
Cassiopeia looked at his boyish body—slightly heated from the battle, gleaming with a thin sweat in the moonlight—and a genuine smile finally surfaced on her lips.
"To be praised so highly by Mr. Rozier, who possesses even more outstanding innate talent than the Dark Lord... it truly is my honor!"
Cassiopeia used her wand to turn those three corpses into three clouds of black smoke, letting them drift out the shattered window into the night sky.
Then, she repaired the doorframe, window, and mirror, and reset a five-layer—instead of three-layer—protective ward.
Finally, Cassiopeia returned to the bed.
She casually tore off that tattered nightgown, crawling into the bedding completely topless.
Her legs wrapped around Jerry's waist once again, tighter and more forcefully than before.
"Go back to sleep."
She said in a low voice.
Jerry closed his eyes.
But his palms had already involuntarily scaled the peaks.
"You might not believe it if I say it, but I was just dreaming that I was climbing a mountain!"
Cassiopeia chuckled softly: "Then you keep climbing. This mountain will get even higher!"
The blue-white glow of the Portkey spun seven times in the air before extinguishing.
This was completely different from an ordinary cross-city teleportation.
Seven spins meant this teleportation crossed not just geographical distance, but dimensions themselves.
Aurora's feet landed on a patch of grass radiating an amber glow.
Her black travel cloak billowed violently the instant she landed, as if propped open by some incredibly dense energy current surging up from underground.
The silver star-map embroidery on the hem of her cloak immediately began to flash frantically upon contact with the air of this world. Those runes representing different constellations darted around on the fabric like startled fireflies.
"Magical concentration... no, this isn't magic."
Aurora raised her left hand, five fingers spread.
Her long fingers, suited for holding an astronomical telescope, trembled slightly in the air.
As a top-tier existence, her ability to perceive various energy fluctuations far exceeded that of ordinary wizards.
At this moment, Aurora could clearly distinguish that what permeated every inch of space in this world was something far more primal and violent than magic...
Elements.
Pure, primal elemental energy, unfiltered by any civilization.
The Fire Element evaporated upward from the cracks in the soil beneath her feet in visible red threads. The Water Element condensed into tiny blue points of light, constantly gathering and dispersing at the tips of the grass blades. The Wind Element, carrying a whistling sound with a metallic texture, traveled between the tree canopies, while the Earth Element continuously delivered a heavy pulsation upward from the core of the earth, making Aurora's every step feel like stepping on the back of a slumbering behemoth.
This was the backyard of the False Gods of Olympus.
Unlike the frontline world of the Goddess of Harvest, which had been completely destroyed, this place was fertile to the point of luxury.
Looking up, three distinctly different mountain ranges stood simultaneously on the distant horizon—on the far left was a massive black peak composed of pure volcanic rock, constantly spewing lava. Dozens of Fire Elemental Dragons with wingspans exceeding twenty meters circled the summit; their scales looked like flowing red copper in the reflection of the magma.
In the middle was a vibrant green mountain range covered in millennium-old trees. The root systems of those trees were thick enough to house an entire village, and Elven suspension bridges woven from spider silk and moonlight hung between the canopies.
On the far right was a transparent mountain ridge formed from crystal and ice, refracting dazzling, multicolored light in the sun.
And on the vast plains between these three mountain ranges, countless racial settlements were scattered.
Aurora could see the smoke rising in the distance—those were the rugged camps of the Orc tribes, their tents built from the ribs of giant beasts swaying in the wind.
She could see the Elven city-states suspended in mid-air, maintained by magic, their silver-white spires faintly visible in the clouds.
She could see the Dwarven fortresses bulging on the surface like anthills, steam constantly spewing from their metal-forged chimneys.
She could even see Trolls, dragging mud-covered spiked clubs, wandering aimlessly in the swampy area at the edge of the plain.
And, at the foot of that volcano, on a wasteland piled with black granite, was a Giant tribe composed of a dozen rough stone towers.
The heights of those Giants ranged from ten to thirty meters. Their skin presented a deep gray, rocky texture, and every step they took caused a perceptible tremor in the earth.
Clearly, even in this world with a multitude of races, Giants were one of the absolute overlords at the top of the food chain.
Aurora took all this in, then looked down at the sealed container next to her foot, made of black carapace material, about the size of a suitcase.
The surface of the container was covered with dense runic seals. Those runes were not products of the wizarding world, but a biological lockdown array carved by Jerry based on some knowledge system.
Every seam of the container was seeping a very uneasy, fine sound outward, like millions of ants gnawing on iron walls.
That was the sound of hunger.
Ceaseless, inscribed from the depths of genetics, an absolute craving for all organic matter.
Aurora crouched down.
Her black travel cloak spread out on the grass, those silver star-map embroideries flashing even more frantically after contacting the ground's elemental energy.
She drew her wand, the tip accurately pointing at the core seal on the top of the container, formed by three intertwined snake-shaped runes.
"In the name of Rozier, release the first layer of biological lockdown."
Her voice was steady and calm, carrying the restraint typical of a well-trained wizard executing a dangerous mission.
Click.
The first layer of seals shattered, and the runes on the surface of the container dimmed by a third.
"Release the second layer."
Crack.
Another layer. The container began to vibrate violently, and that sound of hunger turned into a low rumble, like the stomach churning of some giant beast.
"Release the third layer."
Boom!
The instant the final layer of seals burst, the container cracked open a seam down the middle.
A strong smell, a mixture of acid and a certain cloyingly sweet, rotting scent, rushed out of the crack. Aurora instinctively took a step back, holding her wand vertically in front of her chest, her eyes staring dead at that widening crack.
From the crack, a hand reached out first.
The shape of that hand was almost identical to a human female's palm—long fingers, smooth knuckles, even the shape of the nails was as exquisite as if she had just had a manicure.
But its color was a tone between ivory white and pale purple, with a semi-transparent texture. The tips of the fingers faintly revealed a dark red liquid flowing inside, like magma.
That hand grabbed the edge of the container and pushed hard.
The container completely shattered.
Standing up from that pile of black carapace fragments was an existence capable of inducing a sense of "contradiction" in any creature at first glance.
The Tyranid Broodmother.
Her appearance was that of a human female, about one meter seventy tall.
This shell was customized entirely according to Jerry's aesthetic preferences—an oval face, large eyes, a straight nose bridge, full and slightly upturned lips, bearing a subtle expression somewhere between "innocent" and "bloodthirsty."
Her hair... if it could be called hair.
It was composed of thousands of extremely fine biological fibers, like tentacles. Each one wriggled independently in the air; the color transitioned from deep purple at the roots to fluorescent blue-green at the tips, emitting a hypnotic halo in the wind.
The body curves were extremely exaggerated.
Full breasts, an impossibly narrow waist, and buttocks presenting a perfect curve due to genetic optimization—all of this was tightly wrapped in a layer of deep purple chitinous carapace, like a second skin.
The carapace had gaps at the joints, revealing the pale purple, soft epidermis beneath, carrying a faint pulsation.
But the most unsettling thing was her eyes.
Four eyes.
The upper two were large, presenting an amber color similar to human pupils, carrying a certain disguised gentleness.
The lower two were small, pure pitch-black, without pupils, without irises, holding only endless hunger, like an abyss.
The instant the Broodmother stepped out of the container, her four eyes blinked simultaneously.
Then, she opened her mouth.
In the process of opening, that seemingly exquisite and petite mouth had its lower jaw bone flip downward as if dislocated, revealing three circular rows of densely packed, tiny, razor-sharp teeth inside. A long tongue, split into four petals like a whip, shot out from the rows of teeth, rolling a rapid circle in the air, as if tasting the flavor of this world.
"Hungry."
The Broodmother emitted her first syllable.
That sound didn't seem to come from her throat, but from a resonance generated simultaneously by every cell in her entire body vibrating.
Deep, hoarse, carrying a pressure that made the listener instinctively want to run away.
"Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry."
She repeated this word. Every time she repeated it, her four eyes would turn to a new direction—the Orc camp in the distance, the Elven city-state in mid-air, the Dwarven fortress underground, and that Giant tribe.
"I know, you're hungry."
Aurora's voice came from behind the Broodmother, calm yet commanding.
She stepped forward, her wand retracted into her sleeve, replaced by a parchment map hand-drawn by Jerry, detailing the topography and racial distribution of the entire world.
"But I suggest we start with the Giant tribe first."
Aurora unrolled the map in the air, her finger tapping the location of that black granite wasteland at the foot of the volcano.
"There are three reasons. First, the genetic sequence of Giants contains a natural adaptability to elemental energy; devouring them will allow your brood to reproduce faster in this high-element-concentration environment. Second, the Giant tribe is located at the foot of the volcano—the terrain is enclosed, making it suitable for a siege and unlikely for news to leak and alert other races. Third..."
Aurora paused, the corner of her mouth hooking into an extremely tiny arc.
"Giants are stupid. They won't even try to call for reinforcements."
The Broodmother's four eyes focused simultaneously on that map.
Those tentacle-like strands of her hair began to squirm frantically; every single one was like an independent snake sniffing the scent of prey.
A very muffled rumble, like distant thunder, came from her abdomen.
"Go."
The Broodmother said only one word, and then her body began to change.
That pair of human-shaped legs liquefied from the knees down, resolidifying into six segmented limbs—the end of each limb tipped with three razor-sharp chitinous claws capable of piercing granite.
On her back, two pairs of wings, as thin as cicada wings yet hard as steel, unfurled from the gaps in her carapace. Fluorescent bodily fluids flowed through the wing veins, drawing two eerie streaks of light in the twilight.
Her speed was astonishing.
Her six segmented limbs alternately struck the ground; every step left a half-foot-deep footprint smoking with acid mist on the grass.
Those blades of grass she stepped on rapidly withered, dissolved, and vanished upon contact with the acid, leaving only rings of scorched black marks.
Aurora followed closely behind.
She didn't choose to fly, but used a short-distance Blink technique similar to Apparition but much more mana-efficient; every blink could move her a distance of about fifty meters.
With every blink, her black cloak left a fleeting, star-map-shaped afterimage in the air.
The distance from the plain to the foot of the volcano was about fifteen kilometers.
It took the Broodmother less than three minutes to run the entire distance.
When she stopped, that Giant tribe was right before her eyes.
Twelve stone towers, piled from rough granite, were scattered across a wasteland covered in volcanic ash.
The height of each stone tower ranged from fifteen to twenty meters. The towers were draped with the bones and pelts of various giant creatures—those were the Giants' trophies.
In the clearing between the stone towers, seven adult Giants were sitting around a massive bonfire fueled by entire burning trees.
Their heights ranged from twelve to twenty-five meters; their gray, rocky skin appeared rough and hard in the firelight.
They were eating out of stone bowls larger than carriages—the bowls contained whole roasted bison and giant fish scooped from nearby rivers.
At the edge of the tribe, there were five smaller juvenile Giants playing and roughhousing; every time they wrestled, the ground would shake.
And two Boss-level Giants, visibly taller and larger than the others, wearing crowns made from the skulls of behemoths, stood atop the largest stone tower, looking down at the entire tribe.
"This tribe has fourteen heads."
Aurora crouched down behind a rock, reporting the numbers in a low voice. "Two Boss-level, seven adults, five juveniles."
The Broodmother crouched beside her, that humanoid upper half leaning slightly forward, her four eyes simultaneously locking onto the targets.
Her mouth opened again, and those three circular rows of teeth began to spin at high speed, emitting a sharp buzz like a miniature saw blade cutting metal.
"Need help?"
"Hungry!"
The Broodmother's voice became even more hoarse.
Her abdomen began to writhe violently.
That layer of deep purple chitinous carapace split open at her abdomen, revealing a semi-transparent ovipositor inside, like a jellyfish tentacle.
The end of the ovipositor swelled into a fist-sized spherical body; inside, one could clearly see dozens of rapidly maturing, deep purple eggs.
Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.
Four eggs were shot into the ground in rapid succession.
Upon contacting the soil of this world, rich in elemental energy, each egg immediately began to expand at a visible rate.
The carapaces cracked, and four Tyranid Hormagaunts—the size of large dogs, with scythe-like forelimbs—struggled out of the eggshells.
Their bodies were still soaking wet, transparent amniotic fluid clinging to their exoskeletons, but those compound eyes had already begun to spin frantically, searching for the scent of prey.
Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.
Six more eggs.
This time, what hatched were smaller but more numerous Tyranid Rippers.
They were only the size of cats, with flat bodies and a ring of glands on their bellies capable of secreting strong acid.
Their role wasn't combat, but "cleanup" after the battle ended—dissolving and digesting all organic remains, and then delivering the nutrients back into the Broodmother's body.
Her ovipositor swelled again; this time, it shot out two special eggs, distinctly larger and covered in red veins.
As soon as they appeared, they began to expand rapidly.
Just like balloons.
What drilled out of these two eggs were two Tyranid monstrosities the size of small trucks.
Their forelimbs had evolved into two giant battleaxes fused from bone and chitin; each was a meter and a half long, the edges so sharp they made tearing sounds when swung in the air.
The Broodmother moved!
Her six segmented limbs pushed off violently, her entire body shooting out like a cannonball fired from a barrel toward the Giant tribe.
Those newly hatched offspring followed closely behind; the four Hormagaunts spread out on the flanks, the six Rippers moved rapidly close to the ground, and the two monstrosities brought up the rear.
The first to spot the intruders was a juvenile Giant at the edge of the tribe.
It was only about five meters tall, currently squatting on the ground poking a glowing ore with its finger.
When it felt the abnormal vibration from the ground, it raised that pumpkin-sized head.
Then it saw the Broodmother.
A tiny thing, only reaching its knees, looking like a human female, was charging toward it at an inconceivable speed.
The juvenile Giant tilted its head, showing a confused expression.
This was the last expression it would make in its life.
The Broodmother leaped from three meters away from the juvenile Giant.
Her six segmented limbs launched simultaneously, sending her body fifteen meters into the air.
In mid-air, her mouth opened to its limit once again.
But this time, what sprayed from those three rows of teeth was not a tongue, but a high-pressure jet stream of concentrated acid, about thirty centimeters in diameter.
Hiss!
The acid jet accurately hit the juvenile Giant's face.
That gray skin, as hard as rock, began to smoke the instant it contacted the acid, emitting a violent corrosive sound.
The acid was like a red-hot knife, slicing straight through the Giant's forehead, melting through the skull, and dissolving the small but still-functioning brain inside into a puddle of grayish-white paste.
The juvenile Giant didn't even let out a scream; its entire body, like a building with all its supports removed, crashed down with a boom.
The ground cracked open a deep trench from the impact of its fall.
The six Rippers immediately pounced on it.
They used the glands on their bellies to secrete a massive amount of digestive fluid, rapidly dissolving that massive corpse from the outside in.
Flesh, bone, organs—all organic matter turned into a deep red nutrient paste exuding a musky-sweet smell under the effect of the digestive fluid.
The Rippers greedily sucked this nutrient paste into their bodies, and their bellies began to swell violently.
Very quickly, the Broodmother received the first wave of nutritional pheromones.
"Ah!"
She let out a sound somewhere between a moan and a roar.
That was the primal reaction when hunger was briefly satisfied, but this tiny bit of satisfaction only stimulated a deeper craving.
Her abdomen began to writhe again, and her ovipositor shot out twelve eggs in continuous succession within three seconds.
The new offspring hatched even faster in this elemental-energy-rich soil.
In less than twenty seconds, twelve brand-new Hormagaunts had broken out of their shells, joining the hunting party.
The adult Giants by the bonfire finally noticed the anomaly.
That largest Boss-level Giant, over twenty-five meters tall, stood up. Its movement triggered a minor earthquake.
It looked down at those little purple bugs gnawing on the corpse of its kin and let out a deafening roar of rage.
That roar carried a sonic shockwave unique to the Giant race, capable of triggering landslides.
Nearby rocks shattered in the sonic wave, debris flying everywhere.
The Broodmother was flipped straight to the ground by this sonic wave.
Her tentacle-like hair danced wildly in the shockwave, and several hairline cracks appeared on the surface of her carapace.
But very quickly, she scrambled up.
Those four eyes simultaneously locked onto the Giant Boss.
"Hungry!" The Broodmother's voice became even more hoarse from excitement.
The Giant Boss raised a fist the size of a small hill and smashed it down violently toward the Broodmother's position.
The ground burst under the impact of the falling fist, forming a crater over ten meters in diameter amidst flying dust.
But the Broodmother was no longer there.
Her speed far exceeded the Giant's cognitive range.
Her six segmented limbs struck the ground frantically, her body darting between the Giant's legs, like a venomous wasp dancing between an elephant's legs.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
Three acid jets consecutively hit the inside of the Giant Boss's right knee—the joint's soft tissue that even rock-skin couldn't completely cover.
The acid began to corrode frantically.
The Giant Boss let out a roar of pained rage; its right leg lost its support due to the dissolving of the knee joint, and its entire body tilted to the right.
In that very instant, the two Tyranid monstrosities charged out from both sides simultaneously.
Their bone battleaxes drew two arcing afterimages in the air, accurately hacking into the Giant Boss's Achilles tendons.
Crack!
The shockwave of the Giant falling blew away everything within a thirty-meter radius.
The Broodmother steadied herself in mid-air, then, like a purple shooting star, shot straight toward the Giant Boss's throat, exposed by its fall.
Her entire body drilled into the Giant's windpipe.
From the outside, one could only see the Giant Boss's neck constantly bulging and receding, a writhing lump—that was the Broodmother inside the Giant's body, digging deeper while using the glands all over her body to secrete digestive fluid, dissolving and absorbing all tissue along the way.
Aurora stood on a rock in the distance, hands tucked inside her cloak, quietly observing this massacre.
The wind blew from the direction of the volcano, carrying the smell of brimstone and charred meat.
Her expression didn't waver in the slightest.
The work was done.
The rest could just be left to hunger.
The audience stands of the Hogwarts Magical Dueling Arena were currently enveloped in an almost fanatical clamor.
Hundreds of students from different houses crammed onto the tiered bleachers built of ancient oak, screaming madly for the two sixth-year students undergoing their assessment duel in the center of the arena.
Red and green cheer banners flipped in the air; occasionally, a few cheap fireworks set off by lower-year students exploded against the dome, scattering a shower of colorful yet pungent magical confetti.
No one noticed that in the corner of the highest-level stands, the woman who always attended various intra-school tournaments in the capacity of a "Guest Referee" was currently experiencing a silent fury.
Hera sat in that black velvet high-backed chair enchanted with a Permanent Cushioning Charm, one leg crossed over the other.
Her long, wavy dark brown hair was loosely pinned behind her head with a silver hairpin; a few stray locks fell beside her sharply contoured, almost sculptural cheeks.
She wore a meticulously tailored, deep blue velvet corseted gown. The neckline opened just right, revealing a large expanse of skin below her collarbones as fine as top-grade porcelain, radiating a warm luster in the firelight of the dueling arena.
Those breasts, so full they almost defied the laws of physics, were propped high by the whalebone stays of the corset dress. With every breath, they produced an extremely subtle tremor enough to instinctively distract every male creature within a ten-meter radius.
Her legs were crossed, revealing a section of her calf wrapped in deep gray semi-transparent silk stockings beneath the hem of her dress. The texture of those silk stockings was clearly not a mortal product—the fabric would present different lusters depending on the angle of the light, sometimes like the silver radiance of moonlight spilling over a lake, sometimes turning into a soft light with a dark gold warm tone, full of carnal desire.
But right now, the expression on Hera's face formed an extremely violent contrast with her elegant exterior.
Hera's right eyelid was twitching uncontrollably.
Her left hand was currently pinching a perception crystal the size of a walnut, condensed from pure divine power.
This crystal directly connected to the "Faith Shares" she held in the backyard world of the Olympian Gods—whenever a large-scale loss of life occurred in that world, the flow of the Power of Faith would fluctuate, and this fluctuation would be transmitted directly into her hand through the crystal.
Three minutes ago, the crystal had begun to burn hot.
It wasn't a slow temperature rise, the faint fluctuation indicating a small tribe being pillaged by Orcs.
But a violent, searing pain, as if someone had shoved a whole block of red-hot iron into her palm.
Hera's first reaction was to frown.
She held the perception crystal up to her eyes, pouring divine power into it.
A semi-transparent, remote image formed by the Power of Faith immediately surfaced on the crystal's exterior.
In the image, the Giant tribe at the foot of the volcano was undergoing a one-sided massacre.
Fourteen Giants—two Boss-level, seven adults, five juveniles—had already seen nine of their number fall in less than five minutes.
Those gray, mountain-like massive corpses were being broken down at an astonishing speed by a swarm of small purple creatures radiating the smell of acid.
And at the center of the massacre, a humanoid creature with four eyes and tentacle-like hair was drilling out of the windpipe of a Giant Boss.
Its entire body was covered in deep red blood plasma and grayish-white brain matter; that delicate face, almost like a human maiden's, wore an expression of pure, irrational satiation.
The Tyranid Broodmother.
Hera recognized this thing.
Her eyelid twitched even more violently.
"That little bastard, actually lent this thing to her..."
Hera's voice squeezed through her teeth, low and dangerous.
Her fingers squeezed hard on the perception crystal, a crack appearing on its surface.
She began to rapidly assess the situation.
First was the reproduction rate.
"Three minutes."
Hera muttered this number in a low voice, a tone of disbelief in her voice. "Produced three batches of eggs within three minutes, totaling thirty-two offspring individuals. At this rate, if it devours the biomass of all fourteen Giants..."
She calculated rapidly in her mind.
The biomass of Giants is extremely massive; an adult Giant weighs between eighty and one hundred and twenty tons. Fourteen Giants added together, about one thousand three hundred tons of organic matter.
Based on the Tyranid Broodmother's standard conversion ratio of organic matter to reproductive resources...
"Within six hours, the number of offspring could break two thousand."
Hera's other hand slammed onto the armrest of the chair.
That armrest, made of ancient oak, let out a tooth-aching crack under the impact of her divine power, a spiderweb-like crack appearing on the surface.
A few students sitting near her were startled by the sound and looked back.
Hera immediately restrained her expression, switching to a gentle smile full of scholarly temperament, and elegantly waved her hand, signaling that it was nothing major.
Once those students turned their attention back to the dueling arena, Hera's smile vanished instantly.
She looked down at the image in the perception crystal again.
Although the combat power of those Tyranid offspring wasn't considered strong individually—roughly equivalent to a medium-sized elemental creature in this world.
Their terrifying aspect lay in their numbers and coordination.
The actions of every offspring were under the direct neural control of the Broodmother; their coordination precision reached the millisecond level.
Even more terrifying, the Broodmother could grant subsequent offspring corresponding abilities by devouring the genes of different races.
If she devoured the genes of Giants, the next batch of offspring might possess the Giants' rock-skin and elemental affinity.
If she then devoured the genes of Elves, those offspring might simultaneously possess the Giants' defense and the Elves' magical talent.
This snowballing evolution, once it lost control.
"The faith output of the entire backyard world will hit zero within a month."
Hera bit her lower lip, her eyes gloomy.
That world was one of the most important sources of faith for the Olympian Gods.
Dozens of races, billions of intelligent lives, the Power of Faith contributed to the Gods every day was enough to maintain the daily consumption of at least seven Higher Deities.
And Hera, as the Queen of the Gods, held a share in it second only to Zeus.
But the problem was...
Hera took a deep breath, closing her eyes.
She couldn't stop this.
At least, she couldn't stop it openly.
This was a chess move.
A move to draw the Gods' attention away from a more critical location.
This was also one of the conditions between her and Aurora...
And, once Aurora's plan failed, all the chips she had invested previously—including the intelligence, resources, and asylum she had secretly provided Aurora in her capacity as Queen of the Gods—would all go down the drain.
As for the asylum treaty signed with Aurora, and the remuneration she might receive, those went without saying.
Therefore, Hera could only do one thing.
Cover it up.
Hera opened her eyes, and within those irises formed of pure divine power—which appeared dark brown under her disguise—flashed an icy calculation.
She raised her right hand, her five fingers slightly spread.
An invisible divine power, as smooth as silk, flowed from her fingertips, passing through the dimensional barrier, projecting directly above that distant backyard world.
That was an extremely high-level divine spell—"Cognitive Obfuscation."
It wouldn't change any physical reality, wouldn't remove a single Tyranid bug, and wouldn't even weaken the elemental fluctuations by the slightest fraction.
It only did one thing: making all other Deities remotely perceiving this area automatically ignore the anomaly happening here on a conscious level.
It was as if your eyes clearly saw a cockroach in the corner of the room, but your brain told you it was just a shadow.
The difficulty of casting this divine spell was extremely high; even for a Deity of Hera's level, the consumption to maintain it was quite substantial.
More importantly, it had a time limit—calculated by the amount of divine power Hera could currently call upon without arousing the suspicion of other Gods, this obfuscation could be maintained for seventy-two hours at most.
Three days.
She could only buy Aurora a three-day window.
"Three days." Hera murmured softly, her fingers tapping rhythmically on the armrest. "Within three days, if this ugly thing still can't reach the point of threatening a God, then it has nothing to do with me..."
Her nails dug into the crack in the oak armrest during her tapping, emitting a sharp scratching sound.
"I'm only doing this out of respect for that little bastard... next time I see him I will definitely teach him a lesson."
The corner of Hera's mouth twitched. That aura belonging to the Queen of the Gods, imposing without anger, caused the air temperature within a three-meter radius around her to suddenly drop by two degrees.
A few students sitting nearby shuddered simultaneously, yet couldn't find the cause.
She looked at the perception crystal in her hand again.
In the image, the Tyranid Broodmother had completely drilled out of the corpse of the Giant Boss; that humanoid shell of hers, covered in blood plasma, was frantically laying eggs on the wasteland at the foot of the volcano.
The new batch of offspring was noticeably larger than before, and their exoskeletons already exhibited the gray rocky texture unique to Giants—the genetic devouring had already begun to take effect.
Not far behind the Broodmother, a figure wearing a black travel cloak was standing quietly on a rock; the silver star-map embroidery on the cloak fluttered gently in the elemental wind of that world.
It really is Aurora... where on earth did she find the spatial node?
What she gave her clearly wasn't this world, but the world of Apollo, the Sun God... could it be that she had already prepared a backup plan during her previous travels?
Whatever, why bother caring about so much?
"Good luck... Aurora!"
Hera stuffed the perception crystal back into the hidden pocket of her dress, then readjusted her sitting posture.
Those long legs in black silk crossed again; the hem of the dress shifted up slightly with the movement, revealing more of the thigh meat wrapped in silk stockings.
Her chest heaved massively with her deep breaths, the whalebone stays of the corset dress emitting faint creaking sounds under such movement; the shadow at her cleavage became even deeper in the firelight of the dueling arena.
Hera closed her eyes, beginning to calculate this bill in her mind.
The divine power consumed to maintain Cognitive Obfuscation for seventy-two hours, converted into the Power of Faith, was roughly equivalent to the entire annual faith output of three medium-sized worlds.
Plus the value of the intelligence she had provided Jerry previously, and the political capital she had expended to run interference for Aurora and Jerry at the Council of the Gods...
This bill had grown so large that even if Zeus, the King of the Gods himself, were to settle it... it would be extremely painful.
And what had Jerry given her in return so far?
"Absolutely nothing."
Hera's teeth ground together audibly.
No, she couldn't say absolutely nothing.
That little bastard, and Aurora, had indeed promised what they would do after the matter was settled, but up to now, she hadn't seen even a shadow of those resources...
Hera's fingers unconsciously stroked the fabric of her dress; the velvet touch produced a subtle, suggestively comfortable sensation beneath her finger pads.
She suddenly thought of a certain extremely indecent, but in this moment of anger appearing exceptionally "reasonable," idea.
That little bastard Jerry's white seed.
"At least ten bottles."
Hera muttered, the volume so low only she herself could hear. "Ten bottles is barely enough to compensate for the consumption of this Cognitive Obfuscation.
If that little bastard dares to renege..."
Her right hand violently gripped the fabric of the dress; the velvet let out a mournful tearing sound under the squeeze of her divine power.
"I will go milk him personally."
Hera took a deep breath, forcefully suppressing that emotion woven from anger and a certain indescribable feverish heat.
She restored that gentle and refined face, picking up the cup of black tea that had gone cold on the small table beside her, and took a sip.
In the center of the dueling arena, the duel between the two sixth-year students entered a white-hot phase.
The light of Disarming Charms and Shield Charms crisscrossed in the air, triggering another wave of deafening cheers from the audience stands.
Hera watched all this expressionlessly.
Her right hand hung by the side of the chair armrest; her fingertips were continuously sending the divine power of Cognitive Obfuscation to that distant backyard world.
That continuous consumption made her fingers tremble slightly, an abnormal pallor even appearing at the base of her nails.
But her expression remained motionless.
In this dark chess game spanning two worlds, Hera, the Queen of the Gods, was using her own divine power to foot the bill for the reckless actions of a wizard from an opposing faction.
And this bill, she would collect back with interest.
Ten bottles.
Not a single bottle less.