The moment Theodore saw that line of chaotic text, he froze.
Empress Houtu?
The saint of the primordial world who had transformed herself into reincarnation, granting the souls of the dead a path to be reborn?
In terms of rank, the reincarnation Houtu had united with was part of the Earthly Dao, equal in standing to the Heavenly Dao itself. In that sense, Houtu and the Primordial Ancestor stood on the same level.
It was only because the Primordial Ancestor had always consciously suppressed the Earthly Dao that Houtu remained forever within reincarnation, never appearing openly and never taking part in the great tribulations.
And now—
he had drawn Houtu's gaze?
A moment later, Theodore came back to himself, his expression turning grave.
There was no such thing as Houtu in the magical world.
He had already seen what the System called "Hongjun" and "Yuanshi Tianzun." It did not take much imagination to guess what sort of thing could be judged as "Houtu" by the System.
Another horror had fixed its attention on him.
Just how many such abominations were hidden within this tiny magical world?
Then, above the venue, a crack suddenly opened in the darkness.
It was blacker than the night sky itself.
Theodore opened his Microscopic Heavenly Eye, golden light flashing in his pupils, and immediately saw clearly through the fissure. On the other side was a pale, washed-out world filled with drifting mist.
This was not the station from Harry's final meeting with Dumbledore in the original story. That had been a halfway place between life and death, where Dumbledore had only remained in order to wait for Harry.
What Theodore was seeing now was the true world of the dead.
He could make out shadowy souls wandering on the far side of the passage.
It was as though they had wandered so long that they no longer remembered what they were supposed to do.
Then a black mist—so cold to the eye that it seemed to seep into the bones—began spreading across the far side of the passage.
The lost souls instinctively feared it and tried to avoid it.
In the very next moment, they were swallowed.
After that, points of crimson madness began lighting up beyond the rift, like evil ghosts selecting their prey.
Theodore frowned.
The eerie scene before him was different again from Godric Gryffindor, from the grey mist in the Forbidden Forest, and from the flesh-born horror behind the werewolves.
This one was aimed directly at souls?
The thought had barely crossed his mind when the black mist on the other side began pushing into the world of the living. Strands of it rolled toward Theodore like grasping tendrils, threaded through with tiny red lights and echoing cries of ghosts.
And behind it, more and more black mist was shoving through the narrow crack, carrying with it the corrupted wandering dead.
On the System screen, dim chaotic script trembled.
[You are of the Jade Void lineage, a disciple of a Saint, and have even touched upon the Heavenly Dao. You also carry karmic ties with Hongjun Daoren.]
[Such a figure, and yet you have still laid hands upon the authority of underworld judgment. In the eyes of Empress Houtu, this is plainly the Heavenly Dao tightening its suppression upon the Earthly Dao.]
[Though she dwells within reincarnation and rarely emerges, how could she not be enraged at being calculated against in this manner?]
[Today is the Ghost Festival. The connection between the underworld and the mortal realm is especially close. With one glance from Empress Houtu, the Ghost Gate is thrown open!]
[At this moment ten thousand ghosts surge forth, and Empress Houtu's gaze is utterly indifferent.]
[So—you wished to interfere with the underworld? Then survive first, if you can!]
Thought moved quickly through Theodore's mind.
If the System's correspondences truly had logic to them—if even Hongjun and Houtu's conflict over the Heavenly Dao and Earthly Dao could be mirrored here—
then it meant the horrors hidden in the magical world might not all stand on the same side.
Perhaps they too had conflicts of interest.
Perhaps some of them were even mortal enemies.
That answered one of Theodore's lingering doubts.
If countless such horrors had truly existed in the ancient age, and if they had worked together, then the magical world should have been doomed long ago.
But if the horrors also fought among themselves, if not all of them directed their claws solely at the magical world, then its survival suddenly made much more sense.
Then Theodore's gaze fell upon the black mist spilling from the fissure, and especially on the corrupted wandering souls hidden within it, and a strange look crossed his face.
The Judge's Brush had only just taken shape.
Only the tip had manifested.
It was still far from complete.
In the primordial world, the Judges of the Underworld had refined such a brush only after judging an unimaginable number of souls over long ages. Theodore's own demand for souls was immense.
And twisted, guilty souls were especially valuable.
One such soul could be worth dozens of ordinary ones.
Where in the magical world was he supposed to find enough of those?
And yet now, within this fissure, all those scattered crimson lights—
were they not perfect nourishment for the Judge's Brush?
"So they're delivering themselves to my door?"
Theodore gave a quiet laugh.
Then he pushed the Purple-Gold Crown of Auspicious Clouds upon his head.
At once, a sheet of spiritual light poured down and enveloped him.
Faced with the surging black mist and the countless red sparks within it, Theodore did not retreat.
Instead, he advanced.
He leapt straight into the air, his body blazing with golden radiance.
"So the Ghost Gate is open? Then it still has to pass through me."
The next moment, the thirty-six-petaled lotus bloomed, and a narrow line of light rushed forward.
Where that light passed, the black mist crumbled away.
The wandering souls within it, their eyes shining red, were likewise annihilated beneath the Lotus Holy Path Heaven-Splitting Light.
Dots of dim spirit-light silently flowed toward the Judge's Brush.
Within the underworld, the newly formed law of judgment was slowly growing stronger.
Clearly, that was not what the horror hidden behind the black mist wanted to see.
One blast of Lotus Holy Path Heaven-Splitting Light did not fully halt the tide of black mist. If anything, the passage widened a little further instead.
More black mist surged through than before, carrying with it a boiling sea of crimson light, all of it rushing madly toward Theodore as if determined to swallow him whole.
Theodore did not retreat.
Bones throughout his body cracked loudly.
His frame suddenly grew larger, and the divine art of Three Heads and Eight Arms unfolded.
Since a wizard's magical power was for all practical purposes inexhaustible, Theodore showed no hesitation at all. One blast of Lotus Holy Path Heaven-Splitting Light after another roared forth, each stronger than the last, colliding against the black mist.
At the same time, his many arms struck out in a frenzy, rolling baleful force surging as his blows hammered into the dark tide.
For an instant, the fissure became a battlefield of extremes.
On one side, surging black mist.
On the other, lotuses blooming in profusion.
Fire burst across the night sky, and the countless sparks that exploded outward were strangely beautiful, like fireworks launched into the heavens on Halloween night.
And yet who could guess how deadly that beauty truly was?
Every one of those "fireworks" contained flesh-eating ghosts and madness-bearing black mist burning themselves away.
And all the while, more and more dim spirit-light was being absorbed into Theodore's Judge's Brush.
The brush, which had only just manifested a tip, now showed that dark point with deeper and deeper intensity.
Theodore's heart brightened.
In this short stretch of time alone, he had saved himself an untold amount of work in refining the Judge's Brush.
The only pity was that his Sword of Slaughter had not yet reached a high enough level. It could slaughter living beings, but against souls that had already died, its effectiveness dropped sharply.
Otherwise, if he had unleashed that blood-red sword-light too, he would have made a killing in every sense.
On the System screen, chaotic script flickered.
[The Ghost Gate opens wide. Ten thousand ghosts surge like a tide. The host stands alone at the pass, swearing to keep this horde of evil spirits outside the mortal world.]
[One man, one sword. The slaughter drives ghosts to shriek and wail. Sun and moon lose their light. Though the host's body is covered in wounds, not a single ghost is able to cross the boundary by even one step!]
[Suddenly, from within the Ghost Gate, a giant hand stretches out, eclipsing sun and moon, and with it comes a vast and ancient name—]
[My name is Shentu. By Empress Houtu's command, I have come to kill you.]
Theodore's brow rose slightly.
Shentu?
In the primordial world, one of the great beings who served Houtu and guarded the Ghost Gate?
And if there was Shentu, then there should also be Yulei.
It seemed this horror had quite a few subordinates.
At that very moment, a faint, mournful weeping began to sound out from the black mist.
It sounded like the frightened, helpless crying of a little girl.
Yet the instant that crying arose, a sinister wind swept through both sides of the passage, and a rain of blood began falling from nowhere. An overwhelming atmosphere of dread descended.
Within the blood rain, a line of footprints spread slowly toward Theodore.
The golden light around his body and the spiritual radiance cast down by the Purple-Gold Crown of Auspicious Clouds seemed, for the first time, to have met something even more seriously tainted than anything before.
Countless drops of bloody rain struck against the gold light and spiritual light, hissing into foul vapor.
The line of footprints drew closer.
The crying of the little girl became clearer and clearer.
Hidden within it, Theodore thought he could hear the furious echoes of a quarrel.
A flicker of confusion passed through his eyes.
But this was not the moment to dwell on it.
Faced with the horror in the blood rain, Theodore raised a hand and poured another surge of Origin Sea power into the Purple-Gold Crown.
At once, a golden auspicious cloud descended.
Rolling cloud-vapors gathered about him, and Theodore seemed to become a sacred presence standing in the mortal world itself—untouched by all arts, untainted by all corruption.
The torrential blood rain transformed entirely into golden auspicious light.
And the approaching footprints within the blood rain finally revealed the outline of a small, shrinking girl, as though she had been frightened by the sudden appearance of that auspicious cloud.
Theodore's expression did not change in the slightest.
The power of his Origin Sea surged, all of it pouring into the Judge's ability to sever and destroy souls.
Dim black radiance condensed and flowed into the tip of the Judge's Brush, turning the point of the brush into something like a blade, wrapped in the authority to judge ghosts and sentence gods.
Then Theodore's face became solemn and imposing, like a true Judge of the Underworld descending into the mortal world.
He raised the brush and struck.
With one stroke, the rain of blood dispersed.
With one stroke, the black tide retreated.
With one stroke, the horror let out a piercing, deranged scream and fled headlong into the dispersing mist, escaping toward the depths of the underworld without daring to look back.
On the System screen, the chaotic text slowly thinned and faded.
[The host battles Shentu's ghostly hand in blood, and grows ever more aligned with the authority of underworld judgment. Even Empress Houtu can do nothing.]
[The Heavenly Dao and Earthly Dao may be equal in name, but at present the Heavenly Dao is ascendant. Hongjun Daoren has never once relaxed his suppression of the Earthly Dao. Houtu manifests only briefly before withdrawing once more into the depths of reincarnation.]
[Shentu is unwilling, but he too has no choice except to retreat.]
[Though the Ghost Gate stands open, though ten thousand ghosts surge forth, the host alone holds his sword and guards the mortal world!]
A look of satisfaction appeared in Theodore's eyes.
The Judge's Brush truly was worthy of being a treasure of the primordial underworld. While it lacked the powerful protective abilities of the Purple-Gold Crown of Auspicious Clouds, on the path of the soul it was unmatched.
Against horrors of the underworld like these, Theodore with the Judge's Brush in hand was their absolute nemesis.
Perhaps one day, if the opportunity presented itself, he could even enter the underworld on purpose.
To establish a true Court of the Dead.
To found reincarnation.
If there was even the slightest chance of obtaining such enormous merit, Theodore had no intention of letting it slip away.
Just then, Theodore descended back to the ground.
Nearby, within the venue, there came the sharp crack of Apparition.
Dumbledore appeared before him.
Theodore had just opened his mouth to speak when he saw the look on Dumbledore's face.
It was more urgent than Theodore had ever seen.
More than that—it carried a fear and panic Theodore had never once witnessed in the old headmaster.
The moment he spoke, Dumbledore's voice came out in a rush.
"Where is she?"
"I felt it. She was here. She was just here."
"I think I heard her crying. Where has she gone now?"
"She was always so timid. She must have hidden herself. Theodore—did you see her?"
Looking at Dumbledore, who seemed almost on the verge of madness, Theodore could only stare in total bewilderment.
"Headmaster… who are you talking about?"
In the next moment, Dumbledore said a name that carried all the grief and memory of his life.
"My sister."
"Ariana."
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