Forced by Louis's cold, silvery authority, Voldemort had no choice but to walk toward him.
Inside, however, his thoughts churned wildly—hundreds of murderous ideas flashing through his mind every second.
At the same time, he deliberately mixed in all sorts of useless thoughts to conceal his true intentions.
As a skilled Legilimens, Voldemort knew the principles of Legilimency far too well.
And seeing the starlight glimmering in Louis's eyes, he instinctively suspected that the boy might be reading his mind.
Yet no matter how he tried to disguise his thoughts, every time even the faintest trace of hostility toward Louis arose, a nameless terror would swallow him whole.
It was as if he were standing on the edge of a cliff, peering into an endless abyss—knowing that even a single wrong breath would plunge him into eternal ruin.
"You'd better really behave yourself," Louis warned. "I went through a lot of trouble to bring you back to life. I'd rather not have to patch you together and resurrect you again."
He gave Voldemort a casual glance, then snapped his fingers. A shadow rose from the floor like smoke and wrapped around Voldemort's body.
"For Merlin's sake," Louis muttered in disgust, "you're a grown man—put that thing away. Have you no shame?"
Veins bulged on Voldemort's shiny bald head, but before Louis's unfathomable power, he didn't dare to protest.
"All right, hand out," Louis said.
Reluctantly, Voldemort extended his arm. Louis glanced at him, then reached toward the charred black mask in his hand and drew out a twisting, living face—a demonic visage that writhed like a shadow.
He pressed it onto the back of Voldemort's hand. The face sank into his skin, forming a grotesque black tattoo.
"This is another form of assistance I'm giving you," Louis said calmly. "It should be easy enough for you to use. All you need to do is stir up your malice—and you'll be able to summon shadow ninjas from the darkness to serve you."
It looked simple, but in truth, this was the result of Louis pouring all his understanding of Qi Magic into Tara's Magical Codex and forcibly extracting a fragment of power from the Tara Mask—
a creation he called the Mark of the Oni-Faced General.
This mark was essentially a reduced version of the mask—removing the physical enhancement and erasing the mind-warping side effects.
The bearer of the Mark could summon the dark shadow legion under the Oni General's command.
Though its authority was lower than Louis's, it was still powerful enough for show—as long as Voldemort didn't get too ambitious.
However, the moment the mark was granted, the Ravenclaw-fragment Voldemort came under Louis's constant surveillance.
It was the perfect safeguard against any unrealistic ambitions the fragment might have.
Voldemort stared skeptically at the tattoo, then—just as Louis instructed—let his malice rise.
Instantly, circular shadows appeared at his feet. Within moments, several cold, corpse-like ninjas with bluish skin emerged from the darkness, kneeling before him.
"Ninjas…?" Voldemort murmured in surprise. He began to ponder whether Louis's "mask magic" came from one of the Asian schools of magic.
There was only one such school in Asia—the one perched atop the southern cliffs of Rurii Island in the Sakura Nation.
The thought intrigued him.
Perhaps that place hid many secrets worth exploring—perhaps even the origin of Louis's mask.
Louis, of course, had no idea that Voldemort was already scheming against an unsuspecting Japanese magic academy.
His own thoughts were far more practical: once Voldemort began using his shadow ninjas to stir trouble, the ninjas Louis had planted inside the Ministry of Magic could move in response.
That was the real reason he had bestowed the Oni-Faced General's Mark—to create a convenient lightning rod.
Besides, the mark also contained a teleportation sigil of Louis's own design.
If Voldemort disobeyed, Louis could appear instantly—and beat him senseless.
Both men wore masks of composure, but each harbored their own schemes behind the façade.
In the end, Louis led the Ravenclaw-fragment Voldemort to a secluded corner and released him.
At this time, the entire school was watching the Quidditch match—no one would notice.
He watched as Voldemort's body dissolved into a streak of black smoke and vanished into the distance.
Then, sighing, Louis trudged back to the Room of Requirement, face clouded with worry.
"Quirrell's soul is already used up," he muttered, rubbing his chin. "Now then… who should be the next lucky donor?"
He still had the Gaunt Ring, and soon he would acquire the Diary—both Horcruxes would require souls as fuel to feed Voldemort's fragments and serve as substitutes in Louis's twisting experiments.
Without a soul, his plan would grind to a halt.
And he couldn't exactly go around sacrificing random people, could he?
As he pondered, Louis flipped through Advanced Secrets of the Dark Arts, hoping to find some clue—
but, unfortunately, there was nothing related to soul creation.
Just as he was considering a quick trip to Knockturn Alley to find a couple of "lucky" dark wizards, a memory surfaced.
His first year. The Restricted Section. That one book—
"Hermes and the Homunculi."
A mad text on the creation of artificial life—written by someone deranged enough to sacrifice hundreds of innocent lives just to craft a single mindless creature. Even Voldemort would have called the author insane.
Louis didn't remember it because he wanted to build one of those abominations—
but because he recalled a particular ritual he had glimpsed within its pages.
A ritual to gather souls and forge them into a new one.
"Combining multiple souls into a new, artificial one… not a bad idea," Louis murmured to himself.
After all, no one said the souls had to be human.
And since the resulting product would be a mindless husk anyway, there was no reason to waste human ones.
The souls of the Basilisk and the Acromantulas, on the other hand—those would do nicely.
Especially the Acromantulas. Plenty of stock to go around.
The only problem was that Louis had merely skimmed the book last time before nearly vomiting from disgust, so he hadn't paid attention to the actual ritual details—and had completely forgotten them since.
Back then, he hadn't yet absorbed the Eye of Fate, and his ocular powers were weak.
Worse, overusing high-level illusions had degraded his eyesight.
So really, all he remembered now was the book's title.
"Guess I'll just have to take another look," he sighed.
He packed away the Gaunt Ring, then glanced at the Ravenclaw Diadem.
After applying the potion that neutralized Horcrux defenses, he'd thought the crown was ruined.
But surprisingly, after the soul fragment had been removed, it was once again gleaming and pristine.
He wasn't sure, however, whether it still retained its famed ability to enhance wisdom.
"It shouldn't, right? The magical effect was probably washed out by the potion…"
Still, just to be safe, Louis peered briefly into the future—seeing no danger—and cautiously placed the Diadem on his head.
In the next instant, it felt as though a veil had lifted from his mind. His thoughts grew sharper, his senses brighter—
as if a fog that had always clouded his brain had suddenly been swept away by a cool wind.
"Wait… did I actually get smarter?" Louis asked aloud in astonishment, taking the crown back off.
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