The sonic wave of the Dementor's scream penetrated the thick stone door, injuring the guards standing watch outside.
If the sound was powerful enough to make men outside bleed from their eyes and noses, one could only imagine the devastation inside the chamber.
Within the massive stone dungeon, Rey's attempt to seal his ears with magic had failed long ago.
Dizzy and disoriented, with blood trickling from his eyes, ears, and nose, Rey's vision began to fade into darkness.
Suddenly, Raphael's black cloak materialized out of thin air. It expanded rapidly, forming a large, protective sphere that enveloped both Rey and the Dementor trapped in his ward.
The cloak's soundproofing was absolute. The ear-splitting shriek that was tearing the dungeon apart was instantly muffled, reduced to a noise no more annoying than the buzzing of a mosquito. In an instant, Rey's world became quiet.
Inside the cloak's domain, there was only the single Dementor. No matter how loud it screamed, without the resonance of the cavern and the other creatures, it was just a scream—not a sonic weapon.
Rey finally let out a breath of relief. But at the same moment, Raphael's roar echoed in his mind:
"You are nothing but trouble! You're going to pay for this later!"
With that angry shout, her presence vanished. She had already expended a significant amount of energy forcing Rey's body to recover earlier. Stepping in again to cast this shield was pushing her limits.
Rey could only offer a bitter, mental smile in return. But thanks to the Wraith Queen, the struggling Dementor now seemed much less terrifying. Its cries sounded monotonous, even desolate.
Free from the sonic assault, Rey focused his mind and increased the output of his purification ward.
The trapped Dementor was pulled apart like stretched dough. The impurities were stripped away, and the raw dark energy was absorbed into the ward, flowing directly into Rey's Soul Orb.
As the creature's black, physical form was dismantled and filtered through the barrier, something else passed through Rey's defenses unscathed.
A transparent soul.
It was the ghost of a little boy, no older than eight.
Rey was stunned. He hadn't expected that beneath the layers of rot and darkness, the core of a Dementor was simply the soul of a child.
The boy's transparent spirit floated in the air for a moment. He looked at Rey and offered a smile—a smile of pure gratitude. Then, he began to fade, thinning out until he vanished completely.
The soul is the most elusive mystery in the magical world. Perhaps the boy had finally found peace, moving on to whatever lies beyond.
Rey lowered the barrier, staring at the empty space where the soul had vanished. His heart was a mix of complicated emotions.
Relief. Sympathy. And a burning, quiet rage against the Holy Church.
One Dementor represented the twisted mutation of one child's soul. But not every child becomes a Dementor; perhaps only one in a hundred suffers such a fate.
That meant the number of dried corpses in this cavern was far higher than what Rey could see.
Perhaps this cavern was once much deeper. Perhaps the floor he was standing on was simply a layer of compacted bodies, raising the ground level over centuries of slaughter.
---
Rey didn't swear a dramatic oath to destroy the Church.
There was no point in empty words. If he made it out alive, he wouldn't need an oath to make them pay ten-fold—a hundred-fold. Especially that Red-Robed Cardinal with the stench of rot beneath his holy facade.
Some debts are best kept in the heart, not shouted at the sky.
With the Dementor fully absorbed, the screaming outside the cloak stopped.
Rey closed his eyes and checked the changes within his Soul Orb.
What he saw left him stunned for a long while.
Originally, the fist-sized Soul Orb had contained only wisps of dark energy. But now? It was ten percent full.
A single Dementor had filled one-tenth of his capacity. What would happen if he absorbed ten? Or a hundred?
The one thing this hellhole didn't lack was Dementors. There were thousands of them here.
---
Since the high-decibel screaming had ceased, there was no longer a need for the cloak's protection.
The black sphere dissolved. Rey looked around, expecting to see the swarm, but the Dementors that had been drifting nearby were gone.
He didn't know where they had hidden, but the area near the door was empty.
"Maybe there's a way to lure them back like before?"
Rey suspected the previous attack was triggered by his meditation. He immediately sat down and began to meditate again, trying to gather ambient dark energy.
Earlier, his absorption of the ambient magic had provoked a Dementor to attack his ward. He wanted to replicate that.
Directly absorbing a Dementor was like drinking a concentrated Elixir of Life for his dark magic. It was dangerous, yes, but with Raphael's cloak as a safety net, the risk was manageable.
However, things are rarely that simple.
After a long period of slow absorption, nothing happened.
The darkness beyond his purification ward remained still. Not a single Dementor approached. It was as if they had all vanished into the depths of the cave.
And gathering energy from the air? It was slower than a snail crawling.
---
Rey quickly lost interest in the slow method. It's easy to go from poverty to luxury, but hard to go back to poverty.
After tasting the "feast" of absorbing a whole Dementor, sipping on ambient energy felt pointless.
"Um, Miss Raphael? Could you teach me some Dark Arts?"
Bored, Rey reached out to Raphael in his mind. Communicating with her was easy; he just had to project his thoughts clearly.
"What do you want to learn?" Raphael's impatient voice echoed in his head.
"Mist Form," Rey replied instantly, his excitement rising.
This was a spell he had tried to learn when he first arrived in this era. At Stonehenge, a mysterious, stooped old man named Burke had tried to teach it to him.
Rey had studied it back then but failed to master it. At the time, he thought he lacked the talent or insight. But now, he realized he had simply lacked the raw dark magical power required to fuel it.
Raphael, being a Wraith Queen, surely knew a vast array of dark magic. Even if she didn't know this specific spell, her understanding of dark energy would be invaluable.
As expected, upon hearing the name, Raphael immediately understood the theory behind it.
"Mist Form," or Shadow Transformation, was essentially the pinnacle application of Transfiguration mixed with Dark Arts.
Turning the body into black mist required high-level Transfiguration.
The characteristics of mist are that it moves with the wind and is light as smoke. The reason a wizard in Mist Form can rival the speed of a broomstick lies in these two traits.
"Moving with the wind" refers to magical propulsion. Think of magic as the engine of a Muggle airplane. The more refined your control and the higher the quality of your magic, the faster you fly. Combined with a body as light as smoke, achieving speeds greater than a Firebolt is entirely possible.
The hardest part of Mist Form isn't the transformation itself—it's maintaining the transfiguration while moving at high velocity.
To achieve this, one must first observe smoke. Then, through endless experimentation and adjustment, align the magic to mimic it perfectly.
Since Rey wanted to learn, Raphael saw no reason to refuse. If her "landlord" became stronger, her tenancy in the Soul Orb would be more secure.
Furthermore, Mist Form was an excellent spell for escaping danger. That was likely the real reason Raphael had the patience to teach him.
---