"James, do you think Lord Black will grant our request?
I don't know, Sirius, but I would be very happy to be back in Rocky Refuge, and although being there means getting up at five in the morning every day, along with hard study and exhausting training, at least we will be among peers who don't try to pretend to be someone they're not and are open to communication. I'm incredibly annoyed by the polished faces of our peers from the "sacred 28" and the idiots trying to get on that list. Their arrogance and conceit are irritating!
"Yeah," Sirius sneered, recalling one of the episodes that annoyed him, "Remember that turkey Nott? So much arrogance and haughtiness, but he has absolutely no real reasons or merits to have such a high opinion of himself!"
"Heh.... Still can't forgive him for that patronizing and condescending tone when he refused to resolve your disagreements at the training ground?" James had laughed for a long time after that incident at Sirius, when, after arguing with Theodore, the heir of Nott, barely restraining his rage, he offered the pompous turkey to go to the training ground and have a duel, where they could find out if Theodore was really as skilled and strong in magic and fencing as he claimed? The boastfulness of the Durmstrang student had greatly angered the two boys, one of whom was only seven at the time, and the other had just turned eight, and it was in honor of this event that a celebratory reception was organized that day, where they met some children not only from the "gray" but also from the "light" and "dark" factions. However, Theodore merely ridiculed the desire of the "haughty" Black heir and his confidence that an eight-year-old boy, who had not even held a wand yet, had any chance against one of the best students of a school famous for graduating "powerful" dark wizards. But at that time, Sirius and James had already undergone six months of training within the walls and on the territory of Salazar's domain called Rocky Refuge, where they had seen with their own eyes the skill of witchers in the craft of killing their neighbor and destroying creatures, as well as tasted the sweat and blood from training and studying under their guidance, adopting their experience. So, in reality, Nott had no chance against young Black, who could already perform about a dozen charms and curses wandlessly and non-verbally almost instantly. On the day of the disagreement between the Black and Nott heirs, when Sirius turned eight, he and James were excused from classes at Rocky Refuge and moved to Grimmauld Place 12, where the heir of the Black family was introduced to the public. And the very next morning after the celebration, the boys were again sweating on the simulators and training grounds of Rocky Refuge.
"As if that pompous turkey didn't piss you off too? Only Lucius was worse, but at least he didn't open his mouth as often, and only tried to express his superiority over us, the 'plebs,' with his demeanor, appearance, and facial expressions."
"Nooooo.... You probably didn't notice something, as you were consumed by your characteristic Black rage towards Nott, but Lucius that day was completely focused on our princess Cissy, trying in every way to charm her and concentrated all his attention on her!"
"Whaaat?! I'll tear that bitch apart.... Rrrrrr...." Instantly turning into a ball of fury, Sirius demonstrated the distinctive calling card of his family that James had just mentioned, their characteristic short temper, the ability to instantly fall into a berserker state, and this led to the Black heir beginning to transform into a Grim.
"Calm down, nephew." Potter, not at all frightened by the menacing appearance of his friend and close relative, "Calm down, your sister handled that pale moth's attempts to charm her perfectly well herself, and Andromeda, unnoticed by Malfoy himself, applied some modification of former medical charms to him,"which she cursed and, as she later told me, he had painful urination for at least a week when stones and sand from his kidneys poured into his urinary system!
Under the careful tutelage of Svyatozar, Andromeda had already mastered many magical arts, but her heart was most drawn to dark healing, in which the girl had incredible talent, so it was not difficult for her to put Malfoy in his place, who was trying to win over her precious younger sister, who was not thrilled about it.
"Ugh... I've calmed down now, friend. Stop." And only then did James stop trying to influence his friend's emotional state with his own magic, in an attempt to calm him down. "Hmm, you know, I just realized during the transformation that I can easily get to Malfoy. I clearly felt his location and, if I wanted to, I could move to him!"
"Well, you're a Grimm, so there's nothing surprising about that. But you should still tell Grandpa Phineas about it. I think he'll have something to tell you about this condition and give you more useful information that could help." James mused aloud. He had long understood that power rules the world, and if you don't want to be led, but to be the master of your own destiny and future, then you need to study and train a lot. Only then is it possible to achieve the necessary power!
"Absolutely, but we still have half an hour of free time before family dinner, so let's fly some more! Catch me!!!" Sirius, having sharply jumped onto a broom summoned from a spatial pocket bracelet, soared into the sky at a decent speed, joyfully laughing as he moved away from James, who didn't make him wait long and was already rushing at full speed after his relative.
"Hello, Dorea. I see you're also happy about the strong friendship between our heirs?" said Nigelus, shedding his invisibility charm. He had recently moved to the garden behind the house on Grimmauld Place, where he had just felt the presence of an otherworldly Grimm force. So it was not surprising that he became slightly anxious and at the same time curious about what had happened here that could upset his heir, the only member of the Black family, besides himself, who could transform into this astral, pack predator Grimm. And once he was there, invisible near the two talking boys, he felt the presence of James's mother nearby, who, like him, was under concealing charms and was carefully listening to the conversation between her son and grand-nephew.
"Thank you, Grandpa! You are the best thing that has happened in my life since my wedding and James's birth." the young woman said sincerely, addressing her ancestor. She was proud of her origin and her connection to the Black family, but what had happened recently before her eyes, where Orion and Walburga were leading the majestic family when they were Lord and Lady of the family she came from, could not but disturb and sadden her. And she was also grateful to her grandfather for not allowing them to ruin the character and personality of her son with their own hands, whom they were ready to endlessly spoil and deny nothing. After all, James was a very long-awaited child, born when they had practically despaired and almost lost faith that they would be able to conceive an heir.
"For this, we should thank our suzerain. If he hadn't been in my life, if my acquaintance with him hadn't happened almost a century ago, I would have remained just a line on the pages of history, as not the most popular former headmaster of Hogwarts. By the way, tomorrow there will be a meeting of all members of the Black family, and you are also invited."
"Alright, Phineas, I'll be there." Dorea replied in agreement, continuing to watch intently the children darting through the air and performing dangerous feints and tricks at a high level of aerobatics.
***
— Salazar, where did you get these amazing samples?! They are incredible in their repulsiveness and at the same time perfection! – With the look of a crazy fanatic for science, he literally lunged at his brother-in-arms Alfonso, passionately wanting to get answers to the many questions swirling in the head of the archmage-demonologist.
— I now have some information about who we are dealing with and who has been fooling our detectives for years. And all the bodies of dead elves, demons, and the dragon I found in the place where the demon we are looking for was previously imprisoned. – And I told Alfonso in detail about the underwater city I saw and discovered there, as well as about almost all the information I know about the world of the Craft of War, except for the source of the information from which I learned all this.
— Hm... Corruption, you say. I see. Speaking of the synergy of the disgusting content and the energies that embody it. This filth is an imagination-stunningly effective mutagen that restructures the essence of any creature whose energetic shell it has penetrated. Moreover, it is a self-replicating plague; once it enters the victim's body, the corruption begins to expand through the energies of the infected soul, simultaneously remodeling the body and soul of the unfortunate being according to itself. As a result, the victim in a short time acquires a body able to exist solely on corruption, and the soul is completely transformed for the new conditions and begins producing energies that synergize into this very corruption. Ha... This word perfectly fits the designation of this filth! Even the most repulsive demons I have met during my long practice as a demonologist did not possess such a suffocating stench of decay and revulsion, the sensation of which I experience when my sensory sensitivity comes into contact with the Corruption! A rare abomination!!!
— I haven't even started studying what was found, but I totally agree with you about the Corruption itself. Its amount in the elven city was too great, and in the end, to secure the ocean and nearby territories, I had to absorb all this filth. And even being Jormungandr, a chthonic for whom any energy is a joy as food, I found it disgusting to absorb it.
— I have already conducted some research and can confidently tell you that those thirteen demon corpses belong to different races and even different worlds. Their physiological features are too distinct, and the genome of each individually has nothing in common with the other demon bodies you provided.
— The Burning Legion structurally resembles Genghis Khan's horde. There is a strong leader at the head, Sargeras, the Fallen Titan, and many generals—extraordinary and gifted individuals who were previously rulers or simply famous figures in the conquered worlds. This demonic filth, as a well-organized army of demons, is strong because it not only destroys worlds and life in them, it assimilates them and incorporates them into its mechanism as a forge that supplies them with new soldiers. Corruption accelerates this process, and it is already a well-established system. Hundreds of worlds have already fallen and become resource bases for the army of creatures led by Sargeras. By the way, here, – I materialized in my hand a crystal representing concentrated Corruption. Having the ability to absorb any energy, I can also, if I wish, reproduce any of the powers absorbed earlier. So I had no difficulties creating this filth, the only thing being that during the generation of the Corruption I experienced not the most pleasant feelings in the process, and holding in my hand the quintessence of repulsiveness, filth, and corruption, these feelings of rejection became even stronger. So I quickly passed this nastiness to my brother-in-arms.
— Alfonso, I really hope you will be extremely cautious and careful with this filth. Corruption is very insidious, and please, don't even try to experiment with it.if this in any way could concern you or your loved ones.
— Of course, brother. I am fully aware of the treachery of everything connected with demons and even more so of what causes fear and disgust in you, Salazar. I will be extremely careful. – The obsession and investigative zeal disappeared from Alfonso's gaze, replaced by a flame of resilience and unshakable will, without which a demonologist could not have reached the heights my brother-in-arms achieved.
— I really hope so. I will also later engage in my own research on the Corruption and the demon corpses found, but right now I have other, more urgent matters requiring my personal involvement.
Now that I have access to the Corruption, I intend to create artifacts that scan and register its presence, which should help me search for a living demon from the Burning Legion hiding somewhere in our universe. I also plan to create artifacts that will identify system owners at a certain distance from themselves, which I'll try to make as wide-ranging as possible, to reduce the number of artifacts required for production, through which I will later be able to monitor the entire territory of Earth and the known part of the Magical realm.
"Although..... Why not!" A bold and at the same time wildly ambitious idea flashed through my mind. After all, I am the supreme god of the local universe, so I should not expect any external resistance from divine beings. And possessing the former egregore of the One, which is closely connected with the world of Earth and the Magical realm, it will be easier and more reasonable for me to create a divine, energy-based artifact and connect it to the power from the Ba-Khion, setting it to register the signatures I'm interested in. Accordingly, in one of the artifact searchers, the registrar will work on Chaos, tracking its signatures and fluctuations in the universe, the other on Corruption, doing the same.
But such a project is on a completely different scale, truly grandiose. And in this way, you can attach many other interesting features to this future scanning system and develop it into something much more complex in terms of functionality, capabilities, and purpose! The main thing is to foresee this possibility and open the door to future improvements of the system with the ability to add other structures.
My contemplation of these Napoleonic plans was interrupted by a message from my illusory clones, who had completely cleared the former city of the night elves of anything that might be of any interest to me.
Alright, it's time to deal with everything my clones have managed to stash in my storage from the two lost and dead cities I encountered on my way during the past month by local Earth universe time. Although again, because of time manipulations and constant movement from my own domain to Earth and back, and now living simultaneously in several time streams, when for part of my soul and ten bodies several months have passed, but for me, it's still one day, it's quite disorienting, and I have to make a considerable effort to coexist in this mode without going insane. In general, I need to make a decision about the collected weapons and armor in the city where I recently encountered Sholotl, which contain a certain amount of adamant. That small quantity of pure divine metal items I've already put into my spatial pocket, and it was only a couple of dozen kilograms (though, to be honest, I've grown a bit spoiled). And all those spear tips and swords with their small content, but still deadly weapons against divine beings, I planned to deliver to Ader's forge. I no longer need to worry about the loyalty of the witchers.My person has long been inseparable from their idea of right existence and their place in the arrangement of the local universe. They associate me with their own happy life, which came to them after they fell under my hand. And since they are now an immortal race of fae, I don't worry that they might ever forget this, especially since I do not fall out of the life of the Witcher order. They see and appreciate my care for their well-being and blessing, so they understand better than anyone else that as long as I live, they do not need to worry about their own peace of mind. Only thanks to me have they been able to become and remain to this day the shield and sword guarding humanity, basically doing the work they are happy about.
So I decided that on the eve of the upcoming confrontation with the Burning Legion, it would be worth equipping the most worthy and strongest of my vassals and knights of the Dragon order with lethal weapons that, without any magic, are capable of killing gods. Giving them weapons made entirely of adamant, I considered too extravagant; better to give this excess metal to my wives so that they constantly carry it with them in their spatial pocket to increase their own degree of reality, so to speak, the massiveness on the body of the universe. For the Witchers, weapons with at least twenty percent adamant content will suffice, but to make them even more deadly, I have to task Ader with figuring out the construction of artifact swords of the night elves. To be honest, I was very impressed and amazed by the craftsmanship of the enchantments on the swords found at the bottom of the ocean. It seems that the enchantments woven into the swords, shields, and other combat gear of this immortal race were literally embedded into the items from the very first hammer strike on the metal billet, which later became the warriors' equipment, and this process did not stop throughout all the forging stages. If I had bothered, I could have figured it all out myself, but why stress myself out when I have an epic blacksmith-artificer of practically divine rank at my disposal, who is only one step away from reaching a new level of existence, thanks to which he will acquire his own ninth shell. Heh-heh-heh, soon I will have my own Hephaestus!
But I will still help him with one thing, because without me, something like that would simply be beyond his power. I am going to engage in industrial-scale materialization of two metals that mostly make up the night elf equipment I found. One of them is mithril, and the other is most likely orichalcum. Why most likely? Because I haven't encountered such metal before, and what I know about orichalcum comes only from fantasy literature in my past life, while in this one I have only confirmed its existence by learning about it from Alfonso, who trades with various Dark Planes through demon intermediaries.
The second metal, which I discovered in the night elves' weapons and named orichalcum, was an excellent conductor of light energy and completely rejected any manifestation of darkness and negativity. So the future weapons that Ader will begin forging using it for the Witchers will be intended exclusively for those warriors who have no kinship with dark elements, forces, and who do not use spells and techniques requiring a negative emotional state in their fighting style. And such gifted ones among my knights are very few, but weapons and armor containing orichalcum will become a magnificent resonator and amplifier of their existing abilities and affinity with everything that can be designated as a manifestation of light.
For these purposes, in order to transmute these two metals, I moved into the egregore of the One. For any other being in our universe, what I envisioned would be an impossible task, or at least extremely difficult, and at most they could hope for only a couple of hundred grams of metal.after which they would have to spend a very long time restoring the depleted energy reserve. And all because in our worlds Earth-Magic there are no such two elements. And to create them, it is not only necessary to have a lot of energy for the materialization of two magical metals, but also to exert effort to push through reality and convince it of the possibility that these elements can exist in principle and possess the incredible properties endowed to them by another universe.
As for me, having an almost bottomless reservoir of ba-hion, which is rapidly replenished every second, and was already incredibly vast at the time I claimed rights to it, when I became the owner of the egregore of the One, so pulling off something like this costs me practically nothing. And within half an hour, I became the owner of a hundred tons of each metal, having spent only the amount of ba-hion equivalent to what the egregore mines from its flock on Earth in a couple of years. And now I have significantly more believers thanks to my agents in other worlds in the form of reincarnations. About ten thousand worlds already serve as sources replenishing the ba-hion of my egregore. Growing, indeed!
After finishing creating the metals, keeping a couple of tons of each for myself, I sent the rest, the larger part, to the Citadel to Ader, along with samples of elven equipment and weapons, as well as weapons from the city of snake-people containing adamant. Let him figure out the way they were made, and after obtaining the new enchantment technology, using the new sample combined with previous successful solutions, he will create new equipment for the combat wing of our order from an adamant alloy mixed with either mithril or using orichalcum.
Well then, now it is time to create a monitoring system for detecting holders of the system based on Chaos and other energies, as well as registering manifestations of Corruption on Earth and in the Magic World.
I accelerated time in my egregore to the maximum allowed concerning Earth's timeline at a ratio of a thousand to one. I could have gone faster, but that would have required extreme energy expenditures from my side, and although I have plenty of ba-hion, what I had was acceptable. I was occupied with this task for one and a half years. It's not to say it was difficult work, rather painstaking and requiring high concentration from me since to envelop the diagnostic network of the specified manifestations around two universes, I needed the full power of my mental sphere to embrace the worlds with my attention and allow my divine spells to extend across their entire expanse.
For this purpose, I even had to temporarily deprive my bodies, those minds present with my wives, to be able to use the full strength of my mental sphere. So for about half an hour, my wives were serviced by flesh robots driven solely by reproductive instinct and entirely lacking consciousness, guided by sensual spirit. But my wives didn't even notice this since they were in a state of unrestrained lust at that time. The main thing was that the member was standing, and that was enough. To be honest, at the moment I feel somewhat conflicted. Knowing that now part of my physical soul vessel—that is, my ten bodies—like a hand extended without the involvement of reason to scratch an area of discomfort, amusing my raging libido, is a very unusual and even embarrassing fact for me. And praise be to me that I felt no jealousy about it. After all, it's like being upset with your own body, which greets you in the morning with an unyielding, unbendable erection, with underwear and bed linen stained with pollution. Like, why is it doing that when I don't even remember anything about it?
Well, it's time to stop these not very important thoughts for my position and switch to truly worthy matters of my attention.
As soon as I completed deploying the scanning network, it instantly justified all the efforts spent on its creation. Now I knew exactly where the creature that had hidden from me for so long was located. I also found three newcomers with the system, but they had no connection to the already known Vadik and his master, the Chaos God. I'll have to look into these characters later. The demon I was interested in was currently incognito as Armando Dippet, teaching at Ilvermorny. It was fortunate that the school's headmistress was a devout Catholic, and I could easily look into her mind through the religious bond with her. I learned that Dippet has worked at this school for three decades, and when he first arrived from overseas to the States, seeking employment at Ilvermorny, he asked the young headmistress, Venera Sain, not to reveal his "real" identity. Naturally, he signed a magical contract with her and assured under his "true" name—Armando Dippet, while at school he is known as John McCoy. And this information alone gives me some idea of his powers. He is at least an archdemon since a demon of a lower rank would not have been able to overpower the strongest magic source in North America.which the mages managed to tame and on which the Ilvermorny school now stands, with which he effectively signed a labor contract. So, we are dealing not only with a very educated, skilled opponent but also one possessing at least archdemon-level powers.
Yeah..... And it seems like a serious creature, but I already have more than three thousand archmages under my command, and that's just counting warlocks. Then there is the Creator's Order, with about half a hundred of them, the Inquisition, which also numbers about two dozen, in other church structures including the Orthodox Church, there are roughly two hundred more, plus the armed forces of the Russian Empire, Japan, and China, all currently ruled by my vassal Kenmei, plus my three thousand clones possessing similar or perhaps even slightly higher power, already at the level of weak deities, and here I am playing hide and seek with one lousy little demon! And now I'll have to play along, waiting for that bastard to finally prepare a path for me to his kindred and other unclean entities that make up the Burning Legion.
Ah.... It's only been one day, but I've already done so much today: raided an elven city, taking all valuables, met with Nigelus, brought him up to speed so now he knows about the looming threat over our world, gave Alfonso a month's worth of interesting work and materials for study, produced two hundred tons of precious metals, kept Ader and his subordinates busy in the kitchen for a couple of years. Also, I created grand enchantments for scanning and surveillance over two universes, which will become the foundation of the divine system in the future. Overall, I'm quite pleased with myself!
***
— Marcus, stop..... Oh..... Just let me go already! – and although everything Iolanta said sounded believable, in reality, she felt content and happy that even after so many years, the fire of their passion with Marcus didn't even think of dying down.
— This is all entirely your fault, my love! – holding his precious wife's bare waist tightly, Marcus said, then with great pleasure submerged himself in the cascade of her magnificent mane of hair, flowing all the way to her waist and at the same time very lush and voluminous, as well as incredibly soft and gentle.
— Oh... Stop it, you animal!!!.... Wheee..... Where are you reaching! – Iolanta still hadn't found the courage to interrupt her beloved Lady Peverell when her husband's hand invaded the most intimate place on her body and busily explored that wet, so captivating and hot opening, studying every inch of depth with broad, calloused fingers hardened by daily sword training.
Only after an hour, the married couple, who had never lost their passion over the years they lived together, finally managed to leave the bed.
— Darling, in three years our grandson will have to dive into the swamp of intrigues of the English high society, and I'm very worried about this. Will he be ready for it? – Iolanta asked her husband in a calm voice hiding serious concerns, sitting in front of her boudoir and brushing her stunning hair.
— In terms of combat training, he already outpaces any Hogwarts graduate. And even though he knows only a couple dozen spells for now, they are ingrained in him to the point of instinctive execution and will be applied without delay or wasting time on any thoughts when the situation demands it. And in three years, he will be able to fight a fully-fledged magic master! – Marcus proudly praised the achievements of his beloved grandson. He himself was not inclined to elegant sciences in his time and did not possess a brilliant intellect, so everything he managed to achieve by his age was thanks to his own perseverance and self-belief. His grandson, Severus, inherited only the most valuable and impressive traits from each of his parents and grandparents. Brilliant intellect, thirst for knowledge, desire for continuous improvement and development, tireless diligence, along with incredible talent in many magical aspects: the gift of a mentalist,A strong inclination toward death magic, incredible talent in potion-making and dark magic, and thanks to an organized mind and a strong, properly trained magical body, outstanding talent in enchantment construction, runology, and arithmancy. Simply a miracle, not a child.
— And I'm not too worried about that. Especially since this year I'll begin his training in death magic and give him access to our family's knowledge on the subject. What concerns me is something else. He has no real understanding of how cunning and repulsive human nature can be outside the walls of our order. Among the witchers and vassals of our lord, he doesn't have to watch his back—he won't receive any underhanded attacks. Any misunderstanding is settled in the ring or at the training grounds. But out there, in the big world, it's all different, and I'm afraid for our boy's mental state when he has to face this unpleasant side of the world head-on.
— To me, you're really exaggerating and blowing up the danger our grandson might face from that side in your imagination. And you're clearly underestimating Severus's abilities. He, more than anyone his age, can read people and sense what's in their hearts. But you should also consider the fact that our grandson has become very close friends with Lord Black's grandson and a Potter offspring. And they certainly won't be lacking contacts with heirs of other families who will be studying with them at Hogwarts in the coming years. Those boys are no pushovers, and having gone through the school of life within the Grimmauld Place house, they will be some of the most savvy newcomers at school when it comes to the intricacies of intrigues and other traps so beloved among aristocrats. I'm sure they'll be a great support and backup for our grandson at Hogwarts.
— You think my worries are unfounded? –
— Of course, we'll worry about it anyway. But for me, it's better to have more faith in our descendant and show visible support for them in any situation. The main thing is that they never doubt that at home they will always be listened to, given advice, or helped if needed. But there's no need to wrap them in cotton wool. They must learn to handle difficulties on their own!
— Alright. I'll try to think less about it and not worry unnecessarily. — Yolanta found the strength to try to reconsider her attitude toward Severus and the upcoming events, — And now I have to hurry. I've already stayed at home way too long because of you, and by the way, today I have another ritual to raise a dracolich! — Already dressed in a gown and ready to leave, fully dressed as a true Lady should be, Yolanta was about to leave the bedroom, but before taking a single step, her husband again spoke to her with a tone of discontent.
— Dear, maybe you could slow down the pace a bit and spend less time creating your army of the dead? It would be even better if you stopped that practice entirely for a while, and we finally thought about having another child.
— I can't, my love. You should understand. As long as the world is threatened by the demon wishing to bring about the apocalypse, I can't just drop everything, especially since our lord personally asked me to do this. I'd rather have my undead meet the demon horde in the front lines than our warriors, yourself included!
And to such an argument from Yolanta, Markus had nothing to oppose except...
— If I knew I had a heavily pregnant wife at home or a very young child needing family care, then if demons invaded our world, my fury and determination would be twice as intense and strong! I would do everything possible and impossible to keep those creatures from crossing the threshold of my home.
And these words inflamed Yolanta's feelings even more, making her feel like a young girl every single day thanks to her loving husband, so the feelings of tenderness and passion between the spouses never even think about fading.
— I'll think about your proposal!– full of enthusiasm and inspiration, young at heart Iolanta set off to the lagoon where she practiced the highest death magic. Today she felt an incredible surge and was now determined to create at least two dracoliches, not just one as she had planned before.