This was nothing more than routine now. After several turns, they arrived at a sealed chamber.
The room was dim and heavy with the scent of aged herbs and poultices.
Clank.
The priest opened a hidden hatch in the floor.
Raising his hand, a glowing orb burst into light in his palm, illuminating the narrow stairwell that spiraled into the darkness below. He had cast the spell without a wand, and without incantation, a feat that left Ian inwardly stunned.
"So Professor Morgan was right," Ian murmured. "Ancient wizards really didn't need wands."
To see it in person was something else entirely.
Then again, Morgan was a legendary witch, rumoured to cast spells with nothing but a breath and a glance. Hardly fair to hold her up as a typical standard…
"Is this the infirmary?" Ian asked as they descended, his voice echoing faintly. He stayed close beside Cassandra, the air growing damper and colder with each step.
"This used to be a dungeon," the priest replied. "Now it serves as an isolation ward."
His tone was flat and emotionless, as though the horrors down below had long dulled his nerves.
The stone stairs spiraled deeper underground. Ian's boots landed soundlessly on moss-slicked steps, potion vials at his hip clinking gently with each movement. The priest's robe swished ahead of him, the sigil on its back glowing faintly in the orb's light.
"We're here."
The priest pushed open a corroded iron door, releasing a wave of stagnant air heavy with rot and medicine. The room beyond was cloaked in shadow, lit only by flickering wall sconces and the soft, golden light of the priest's conjured orb.
The patients lay scattered across makeshift bedding. Every one of them was withered, skin drawn taut over bones, as though all the moisture had been drained from their bodies. Some still had movement in their hands and feet, others were nearly corpses in all but breath.
But all shared the same fate.
They were decaying.
Becoming husks.
"Don't meet their eyes," The priest warned, tugging Cassandra gently back when she tried to move closer.
"What is this?" Ian whispered, stepping toward one of the patients, a man nearest the entrance who was feebly reaching toward a water jug. Ian handed it to him, and the man offered a hoarse thanks before greedily drinking.
"It's a curse," Priest Ryan said darkly. "One that even we cannot dispel."
He moved to the corner of the chamber and lit a bundle of incense. The thick purple smoke twisted unnaturally, writhing like a serpent in the air.
"Who's this?" one of the other priests asked, eyeing Ian warily. A few exchanged glances before turning toward Ryan for explanation.
"He's a potions apprentice," Ryan replied calmly. "Sent to observe the illness for his master."
Though mistaken, Ian saw no reason to correct him.
"Has word reached the great cities?" asked a female priest, stepping forward. Her concern wasn't about Ian, but about whether their patients had any hope of a cure.
"Perhaps," Ryan said uncertainly, casting a sideways look at Ian.
In truth, he didn't know.
Were it not for Cassandra's status as Dream Queen, he never would have brought a stranger down here.
"I'll need to examine them," Ian said simply.
He didn't offer more.
With narrowed eyes, he moved between the patients, studying each one intently. Their conditions were nearly identical, too identical. Even the progression of the illness followed the exact same pattern.
He crouched beside one and examined the grooves forming in the man's desiccated skin, jagged lines that curled and cracked like charred runes. Then he checked another patient, same lines. Same placement. Same depth.
It was unnaturally uniform.
Which could only mean one thing.
This was not a plague born of nature, but of design.
"All we know is this," said the female priest. "They have seven days left. After that… they become something no longer human. Something wretched and corrupted."
"Even sacred oils cannot delay the process. Forgive my bluntness, but not even a potions master could undo this."
She pulled back a cloth from a patient's chest. The skin was etched in splintering cracks, as though something monstrous beneath was forcing its way out. She carefully dabbed the wound with holy salve, her touch gentle, but her expression resigned.
"This is a patient who has entered the final day; it is about to be completely twisted and transformed by the curse…" The female priest's voice was sorrowful, and she maintained her gaze away from the patient's face.
"This form…"
Ian leaned in to touch the so-called late-stage patient.
The familiar texture.
The familiar structure.
Made his pupils suddenly constrict.
"That creature is an alchemical product!" Yes, Ian had seen such humanoid monsters before, specifically on the altar in that previous temple.
In the bronze room, atop the throne.
The monster that Ian had destroyed was just like this.
Identical.
Even the dry grooves, height, and form showed no differences whatsoever!
"Ah? You… you killed this before? I didn't dare to look closely at the time." Cassandra exclaimed in surprise, having her eyes covered by Priest Ryan, upon hearing Ian's words.
"You've encountered such a thing before."
Priest Ryan's expression was one of panic as he hurriedly checked Cassandra's eyes. After a careful examination, he slowly let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness, thank goodness."
Ryan's tone of relief puzzled Ian.
"Can someone explain what's going on here?"
Ian looked around at the priests, who had gathered to examine his eyes, seemingly confirming that he had not been "infected" before dispersing.
"This is a curse we discovered after losing several companions and many residents," Priest Ryan explained in a heavy tone.
"In the eyes of these patients, there is a special image. Anyone who has seen that image will be cursed, and even we, the priests blessed by the gods, cannot escape."
Ryan's words were filled with sorrow, and the other priests also showed sadness. The female priest was even sobbing, and sensing the emotions, Ian understood that she had lost a loved one.
"How can there be such a curse!" Ian was greatly astonished. He was knowledgeable about dark powers but had never heard of such a tyrannical and unreasonable curse.
A curse that even divine blessings cannot dispel?
With such power, the three Unforgivable Curses would probably be considered trivial in comparison.
"It has appeared."
Ryan bitterly tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"Our comrades who were affected left us their judgments before dying. Several priests provided warnings just before they transformed into monsters."
At this point, Ryan hesitated, as if unsure whether to reveal the information earned at the cost of the priests' lives to Ian, a stranger.
"Can we trust you?"
Ryan looked at Ian with uncertainty.
"Can you still trust anyone else?"
Ian calmly met Ryan's gaze.
He countered with a question.
"…"
Perhaps feeling that Ian had a point, Ryan organized his thoughts and slowly spoke in a hoarse and heavy voice.
"Ordinary curses certainly cannot possess such power; this is a level beyond what mortals can reach, a force that we wizards may not even be able to comprehend."
Ryan spoke vaguely.
"What do you mean?"
The little wizard frowned and pressed for clarification.
"It's related to the image in these patients' eyes; it should not exist in the mundane world. Our priests were shouting to us before they died…"
Ryan glanced at the other priests.
He paused for a moment.
"Whatever carries the essence of an Angel will ultimately become an Angel… This is the source of the curse. Someone saw what they should not have seen and was then assimilated by that which does not belong to the mortal realm."
"This assimilation affects everyone, impacting all the unfortunate souls who glimpsed that figure through the eyes of the original observer. That's why I didn't want you to look into their eyes."
"If you make eye contact with them, your eyes will also bear what you cannot endure… an Angel." Ryan's voice was filled with compassion, tinged with an almost imperceptible despair.
The atmosphere in the dungeon grew somber.
"This…"
Ian felt a tingling sensation in his head.
Not that he was about to grow a brain.
It was just a simple case of his scalp tingling, and goosebumps rising all over his body. To be honest, Ryan's words indeed sounded very frightening and terrifying.
However.
If viewed through the lens of alchemical techniques beyond this era, similar biological alchemical methods were not impossible. A thousand years later, Slytherin's notes would mention similar techniques. A curse rooted in Alchemical Artifacts that could spread in this manner, a meme curse.
Who its creator was, Slytherin did not say.
However.
The threshold for using it was clearly stated by Slytherin, it required at least a legendary figure.
(End of Chapter)
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