Flynna looked at the Dark wizards retreating from Theodore's name, her expression almost collapsing.
"Are you people even capable or not?"
"Weren't you all bragging about killing countless people?"
"Now you hear the name of one first-year wizard and you're scared like this?"
"Can you even call yourselves Dark wizards?!"
The Dark wizards in the bar laughed awkwardly, their faces suddenly pure and innocent.
"Who said we killed countless people?"
"Exactly. What era is this? Under the wise leadership of the Ministry and the glorious light of Dumbledore, how could Britain's magical world possibly have room for Dark wizards?"
"This lady, Knockturn Alley is not beyond the law. We are all law-abiding wizards."
"We know Ministry regulations better than Aurors. We're good citizens. You can't slander us."
"As for what we said earlier…"
"Ahem. This is a bar. We were drunk. Isn't it normal to boast a little when drinking?"
"I've even heard someone claim he once fought the Dark Lord evenly and remained undefeated against Dumbledore. You didn't actually believe that, did you?"
Flynna's face turned iron-blue. Her hands trembled.
"You people!"
One Dark wizard sighed and advised her.
"Listen to me. No matter what hatred you have with Theodore Snow, he isn't someone you can afford to provoke."
"Why pick a fight with him of all people?"
Before he could finish, Flynna's face darkened. She turned and left without another word.
After walking out of Knockturn Alley, her heart sank.
She truly could not understand.
What terrifying power could a Muggle-born first-year wizard possibly possess?
For a brief moment, Flynna wondered if she should simply accept defeat.
But in the next instant, she shook her head fiercely.
She refused to believe it.
She was a herbology master with vast connections.
How could she fail to deal with a first-year wizard?
A moment later, she made her decision.
"Teacher will have a way."
The moment she thought of asking her teacher for help, her hand tightened slightly.
Back then, after she lost the competition for the Herbology professor position and suffered setbacks everywhere because of the academic fraud scandal, she had nearly reached the end of the road.
It was her teacher who had accepted her at that time, taking her in as his final student.
Because of that, Flynna had found a path forward and eventually become a renowned herbology master.
Naturally, she was grateful to her teacher.
But at the same time, she also felt deep fear.
Not long after becoming his student, she had received an ancient plant fragment from him—one rarely seen in the magical world.
It was a small section of blood-red thorn.
Flynna still remembered the ecstasy she had felt when she first saw that blood-red thorn.
It was not a seed.
It was a living part of a plant.
Cultivating it to maturity would be far easier than starting from a seed.
Her teacher had handed her a project capable of changing the entire field of magical herbology.
How much did he value her?
But very soon, Flynna sensed something wrong with the blood-red thorn.
It fed on flesh and blood.
And it especially loved human flesh.
Whenever she watched it feed, fear crawled out from the marrow of her bones.
It felt like an ancient terror engraved into instinct, passed down from some distant age.
This thing was undoubtedly evil beyond measure.
But thinking of the brilliant future she had pinned on it, and remembering her teacher's expectations, Flynna had gritted her teeth and continued down that path.
She used everything she could to cultivate the blood-red thorn.
Her own blood and flesh.
The flesh of magical creatures.
And, more than once, Muggles she had either kidnapped herself or purchased from Dark wizards.
Their lives watered the blood-red thorn.
Her teacher had never been stingy with his support during this period.
Profound herbology topics were delivered to her almost effortlessly, allowing her to publish one top-tier paper after another without much difficulty.
It was as though those papers were rewards for cultivating the blood-red thorn.
Yet over the years, as the thorn drew closer to maturity, her teacher had become stranger and stranger.
She had not seen him in person for a long time.
Instead, she communicated with him through the blood-red thorn.
Whenever the thorn pierced into her body, she could speak to him directly.
Flynna comforted herself.
Her teacher had studied the blood-red thorn for so long. It was only natural that he had made progress.
How could she possibly imagine the height of his herbology?
And now, she truly had no other choice.
Gritting her teeth, she left Knockturn Alley and returned to her castle, heading straight toward the underground chamber where the blood-red thorns grew.
She walked to the cluster of thorns with practiced ease and stretched out her hand.
The moment she cut her wrist, before the blood could even drip down, the blood-red thorn greedily drilled into her wound.
At the same time, a hoarse, obscure voice echoed in Flynna's mind.
"Weren't you going to Hogwarts?"
"Why are you back so soon?"
Flynna's expression twisted bitterly.
"Teacher, something unexpected happened. I need your help."
She quickly explained everything that had happened at Hogwarts.
After listening, the voice in her mind fell into a long, strange silence.
Only after a long while did it speak again.
"You're saying that someone in the current magical world can truly cultivate plants from ancient seeds, and even make them mature within an extremely short time?"
"And that under his magic, the Whomping Willow transformed into an unknown plant?"
"Flynna, are you hallucinating?"
Flynna said urgently, "Teacher, I'm certain I wasn't hallucinating. I saw everything with my own eyes. It was real!"
The voice paused, then became low and deep.
"Real…"
"Then this is interesting. Such magic has appeared in the magical world, and on a first-year wizard no less."
"Even the wizards of the mythical age did not have such ability."
The next instant, a force resembling Legilimency surged through the blood-red thorn, reading Flynna's memories.
Scenes flashed through her mind like a revolving lantern.
Then, when the voice saw Theodore make flowers bloom with a single thought and revive the Whomping Willow—especially when it sensed Yi Wood Divine Light and Phoenix-Resting Parasol Flame through the memory—the blood-red thorn suddenly went berserk.
Overwhelming greed and killing intent rushed into Flynna's mind.
Mad roars echoed inside her skull.
"The little wizard!"
"I want that little wizard! Theodore Snow!"
"His magic is extremely useful to me!"
"And the Willow. That Willow must die. How can such a thing exist in this world?"
The rampaging blood-red thorn stabbed deeper into Flynna's body, drilling further and further into her flesh as if it had lost control, constantly devouring her blood and meat.
Flynna screamed in terror.
"Teacher! I'll find a way! I'll bring Theodore Snow and the Willow to you!"
"Teacher, the blood-red thorn has lost control! It's draining too much of my flesh and blood!"
Then an icy, mocking voice sounded in her mind.
"Lost control?"
"No. Everything is under my control."
The malice in that voice was no longer concealed.
"Weren't you always anxious? Didn't you keep wondering why the blood-red thorn remained one step from maturity?"
"Then I can tell you now."
"All these years, you drank the special potions I instructed you to drink. And this cluster of blood-red thorns fed most often on your blood."
"Your flesh and blood are the best nourishment to help it mature."
"The only thing left before this cluster fully matures is to drain you dry."
"That is your final use to me."
The color drained from Flynna's face at a visible speed. Her skin and flesh seemed to fade, becoming pale and withered.
Her voice trembled as she begged.
"Teacher?!"
"I'm your student!"
"Have you forgotten? Back then, you said I had outstanding talent in herbology. You said you valued me and wanted to take me as your final student!"
The voice in her mind suddenly laughed mockingly.
"Hah?"
"You actually believed that?"
"Back then, when I found you, did you truly think I valued your herbology talent?"
"It was only because you had nowhere left to go. You had lost everything. Whatever I asked of you, you would convince yourself to do it."
"All these years, you used your own flesh and blood to cultivate it. You secretly kidnapped so many Muggles as well."
"You know better than anyone how evil the blood-red thorn is."
"But didn't you ignore it all and keep cultivating it until now?"
"I have taken in many students over the years. Do you think I don't understand how people like you think?"
"With your herbology talent, did you really think you were qualified to become my student?"
"Sprout's talent is far above yours."
"For so many years and so many students, I spent endless time and effort gathering so many fragments."
"Now, with the fragment you cultivated, this plant from the ancient age of myth is finally about to become complete."
Flynna's eyes widened.
They filled with venomous hatred as she cursed everything.
"I curse you!"
"I curse you!"
But the voice in her mind sounded pleased.
"Curse me?"
"Flynna, you still don't know the true name of this blood-red thorn, do you?"
"Then allow me to tell you."
"It is called the Curse King."
"In the age of myth, it once pierced the chest of a god and left behind a god-slaying curse."
"Your curse? To the Curse King, it is nothing more than nourishment that lets it grow more joyfully."
The Curse King burrowed deeper into Flynna's body, its color becoming more vivid and crimson.
At that moment, far away in Hogwarts Castle, Theodore's heart stirred.
He frowned.
"Hmm?"
His gaze fell upon the system screen.
There, Qingfeng's blood-red hostile relationship with him was becoming blurry, as if it would soon fade from the screen entirely.
[Wuzhuang Temple has strict rules. Daoist child Qingfeng lost composure during a Dao debate and even attempted to defy Zhen Yuanzi, provoking punishment from Zhen Yuanzi.]
Theodore calculated with his fingers.
Mystic light flowed through his eyes.
Then he saw what was happening to Flynna.
Her limbs and body had been completely pierced by the blood-red Curse King. Clusters of thorns were growing wildly from her, and the price was that Flynna had become nearly skin and bones.
Almost every trace of her flesh and blood was being drained away.
She could no longer speak.
But the despair, fear, and resentment in her eyes were so thick they almost became tangible.
At the top of the Curse King growing from her body, strange organs bloomed like flowers—eyes, mouths, ears, and other messy things.
A chaotic voice rang out.
"The final fragment of the Curse King is about to mature."
"After thousands of years, it will reappear in the magical world."
"As long as I capture that young wizard from Hogwarts and obtain his magic, I may even restore the Curse King's god-slaying power."
"When that happens, I will be invincible!"
"Dumbledore? Voldemort? All ants. They are merely ordinary men born in an era without me!"
Theodore frowned.
What was this now?
Another old schemer hiding in the magical world?
This so-called Curse King did look somewhat like those corrupted things, and it carried a faint aura of madness.
However, compared to the corrupted entities Theodore had encountered before, it was far too weak.
He had already destroyed Dagon's projection.
Theodore was now much stronger than he had been then.
This so-called Curse King was not enough to concern him.
"With this little ability, you still want to steal my kill?"
"If I had reacted any slower, you might really have succeeded."
"Are you going to compensate me for my Cloud-Raising Rain-Summoning Art, my Wuzhuang Temple Talisman Arts, and my musical Dao?"
In an instant, a strange straw doll appeared in Theodore's hand.
The doll had already absorbed a dense aura belonging to Flynna.
Theodore drew a small black bow.
One arrow shot straight toward the straw doll's brow.
The moment it pierced the doll's forehead, a terrifying and sinister fluctuation followed the mysterious connection and erupted inside Flynna's body.
It was the strongest curse-killing art of the Primordial World—
The Nailhead Seven Arrows.
Even Voldemort and Quirrell had been helpless before the Nailhead Seven Arrows, suffering endlessly under its power.
Flynna, now barely alive, had even less chance of resisting it.
The curse power erupted.
Flynna felt pain even more intense than having her soul torn apart. Compared to this, the Curse King growing through her body was almost nothing.
Blood exploded from her seven orifices.
The next second, Flynna's soul scattered completely.
A notification immediately appeared on Theodore's system screen.
[You have killed Qingfeng, Daoist child under Zhen Yuanzi.]
[You have obtained the reward: Cloud-Raising Rain-Summoning Art.]
[You have obtained the reward: Wuzhuang Temple Talisman Arts.]
[You have obtained the talent reward: Voice That Halts the Clouds.]
Seeing the notifications appear one after another, Theodore finally exhaled.
Comfortable.
While Theodore examined the system prompts, the Curse King growing from Flynna's corpse froze.
The next instant, wild laughter erupted from the chaotic organs growing on it.
"A curse?"
"Such a powerful curse! Was this released by me? Is this the magic of the nearly complete Curse King?"
"Strong. Truly strong. Even Dumbledore would die under such a curse, wouldn't he?"
Then came a puzzled sound.
"Hmm?"
"Flynna has already been cursed to death. Why hasn't this curse returned to the Curse King?"
"Is my fusion with the Curse King still insufficient? Is my control over curses still lacking? Yes, that must be it. Even I did not expect this curse to erupt."
"Fine. I'll swallow back the curse power first, recover this fragment of the Curse King into the main body, and study it slowly."
The crimson Curse King wrapped itself around the remaining power of the Nailhead Seven Arrows inside Flynna's corpse.
It opened a mouth and swallowed.
Refined in an instant.
The next moment, the chaotic voice became visibly ecstatic.
"Power. Such powerful curse energy!"
"Power is surging from every part of my body! Come, curse, return to the body of the Curse King!"
"Wait…"
"Why does it feel a little hot?"
"Hiss. Hot. So hot. Why is it getting hotter?"
"Damn it… this isn't the Curse King's curse?!"
"Who the hell is throwing random curses around?!"
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