Her skin was utterly bloodless, a deathly pale, like a corpse.
Her eyelids were lowered, and in the beautifully shaped orbits were dull, dilated blue pupils.
It was like an exquisite corpse without a soul.
“Could it be some kind of puppet?”
With a Dementor right behind him, Weilan, cloaked in an Invisibility Cloak, intended to duck under her arm.
“I’ll save you, come with me.”
The strange Veela suddenly spoke.
Her voice was mechanical, stiff, and wooden, like a winding robot buzzing.
But the words she spoke made Weilan’s breath catch.
Weilan remembered.
Barty had said earlier that when he was controlled by that Veela underground, a “third person” had saved him.
This girl in front of him must be that “third person” who saved Barty.
The Veela girl moved.
She ran as fast as she could towards the front right of the underground space.
Weilan followed her closely, still struggling with whether or not to trust the girl in front of him.
The distance between the girl and him grew wider, and Weilan trotted behind her, staring at her gradually shrinking figure, feeling a sudden sense of familiarity for no apparent reason.
“I’ve seen this girl before, it’s strange, where exactly did I see her?”
Weilan narrowed his eyes, carefully watching the girl’s flowing silver hair and the rippling white skirt in the distance.
The girl’s graceful figure in the dim light overlapped with a vague outline in his memory.
Weilan’s memory became clear.
On the morning of the second day after the Quidditch World Cup final, he had seen this girl from afar in the camp.
Then he had also gained two new skills: 【Charming Demeanor】 and 【Silver Light Protection】.
Could she be that Veela goddess—Ailyudia Serceirin?
Weilan quickly understood some things, so he sped up, following closely behind the girl.
This underground space was terrifyingly large.
The ground here was paved with smooth black flagstones.
Every few feet, a glowing stone would appear among the flagstones, providing faint light.
With the help of a Night Vision Potion, Weilan found himself in a huge cubic space.
It was just that this large space was empty, like a huge, unfinished room that had just been completed.
After running for an unknown amount of time, Weilan heard Olena’s shouts getting closer behind him, and the chilling cold brought by the Dementors began to lick at the skin on the back of his neck.
The girl in front of him suddenly stopped.
She reached her hand into a crack in one of the floor stones, hooked a groove, and pulled it horizontally.
A square, narrow passage appeared before his eyes.
She jumped straight down.
It wasn’t deep, and the girl beckoned to him, signaling for him to come down too.
The cold brought by the Dementors slowly pierced Weilan’s bones.
His Invisibility Cloak was useless against Dementors—these blind creatures located humans by smell and emotion.
He didn’t have a wand, so he couldn’t cast a Patronus Charm.
Weilan steeled himself and jumped into the square, narrow space under the floor.
The girl immediately closed the stone slab above their heads.
“There’s a Confundo on top of this.”
She pointed above them and told Weilan:
“It can confuse the sense of direction of people or Dementors above, preventing them from pinpointing our exact location.”
Weilan was safe, for now.
Unlike the vast space outside with its neatly laid flagstones, the surroundings of this space were damp earth, clearly dug out hastily.
And it was really cramped in here, so much so that Weilan and the girl were almost nose to nose.
He heard Olena hovering above him.
Olena seemed certain he was nearby, but under the effect of the Confundo, neither she nor the Dementors could determine Weilan’s precise location.
“Why do you refuse me?”
Seeing that she really couldn’t find Weilan, Olena changed back to a strategy of persuasion.
“Even if you don’t agree with the ideals of my new world, don’t you want to become stronger? Don’t you want to conquer Death?”
“Look at me, by sacrificing those pure-bloods, I have gained increasingly powerful magic—wandless casting, resurrection from near Death!”
“That time you cast the lightning strike, and that other time when those three people simultaneously cast spells on me, I had already entered a near-Death state—but I survived both times, and with the healing ‘blessing’ of Circe, I quickly recovered and stand here perfectly intact!”
The sacrifices of those pure-blood nobles had actually brought Olena benefits.
Weilan looked up in disbelief, at the dark stone slab above his head.
He could imagine Olena standing proudly on that stone slab.
But Weilan couldn’t make a sound now.
He waited quietly for Olena to leave.
In the dark and crowded space, the girl raised her hand again.
Weilan feared she meant him harm and quickly grabbed her slender wrist.
But the girl’s hand was not reaching for him.
Under Weilan’s control, the girl slowly pressed her fingers to her temple.
Then, she pulled out wisps of silvery-white mist.
Weilan knew what this was.
This was “memory.”
He took off his Invisibility Cloak and rummaged through his backpack for an empty bottle.
This was the bottle left after drinking the Night Vision Potion, which Weilan had casually stuffed into his backpack.
Now, Weilan carefully used it to collect the memory from the girl.
After sealing the bottle, Weilan put the bottle filled with memory back into his backpack.
Above, Olena’s voice gradually faded away.
Weilan’s anxious heart finally settled a little.
He began to converse with the girl in front of him:
“What’s your name?”
“Ailyudia Serceirin.”
“Why are you giving me this memory?”
“To make you save me.”
“What’s in the memory?”
“Things I want you to know.”
“Why should I save you?”
“Olena imprisoned me.”
“…”
Although Ailyudia’s toothpaste-squeeze answers provided little information, it was clear that she and Olena did not have a good relationship.
This was similar to Weilan’s deduction a moment ago.
Olena had said that Circe had “voluntarily” joined her.
But what she said was most likely false.
If the other party truly was a Veela goddess holding two authorities, how could a being of such identity and status be so easily fooled by Olena’s empty words?
The truth should be that Olena had kidnapped Ailyudia through coercive means.
Just as she had once tried to kidnap Weilan.
In fact, on the day after the Quidditch World Cup final, after he gained two new skills, he felt very strange.
He should have been the enemy of that Veela, so why would she grant him a faint power of authority?
At the time, Weilan, unable to understand, attributed it to her wanting to use him.
Now, thinking about it, this conjecture was very flimsy.
A more reliable deduction should be—Ailyudia and Olena were not teammates with the same goals at all!
Ailyudia, for some reason, was forced to stay by Olena’s side.
But she completely disagreed with Olena’s practice of casually using the Killing Curse to murder people for the sake of the so-called “new world.”
So, after that Quidditch World Cup match, she shared a small portion of her authority with Weilan.
And then, when Olena was about to kill the traitorous Barty, she suddenly burst out and saved Barty.
Everything she did was an attempt to disrupt Olena’s plans to the best of her ability.
To verify his deduction, Weilan cautiously asked her:
“Since Olena imprisoned you and used you, why don’t you actively escape? You clearly seem very powerful, capable of wandlessly extracting memories from a brain…”
“I am rarely conscious; most of the time, I am in a daze.”
Ailyudia’s voice was monotonous and lacked inflection:
“My soul is very weak; although I possess the power of authority, I lack a sufficiently strong soul to wield them.”
“I originally had the ‘healing’ authority to resist spell control, but now I cannot use them normally. A ghost has therefore controlled me with an Imperio, using my power to help Olena.”
“Because Olena herself is not strong, her perception has been somewhat distorted by that ghost. Many times, Olena does not believe she has done anything too extreme to me.”
“Moreover, whenever the distance between me and Olena becomes too great, the Cruciatus Curse on me automatically triggers.”
As if recalling the taste of the Cruciatus Curse, the first emotion—pain—finally appeared on her blank, pale face.
Every time the distance was too great, the Cruciatus Curse would automatically trigger?
Weilan’s dark eyes narrowed slightly, looking at the girl opposite him with some pity.
He knew it; Olena was not a benevolent person.
But the origin of this Ailyudia was also shrouded in mystery.
According to Fleur, this Veela goddess should have died over 1000 years ago.
Moreover, at this moment, she looked more like a moving corpse than a living person.
“I can save you.”
Weilan’s mental abacus clicked loudly:
“Can you give me more power now?”
His demands weren’t high; he didn’t want the charm ability, but he wanted a share of Olena’s terrifying healing ability.
Anyway, once the power of authority was in his hands, it would be his.
As for whether this Ailyudia was human or ghost, good or evil…
Weilan also didn’t believe that he could find a way to remove the Cruciatus Curse from Ailyudia today.
Saving her would definitely be a long-term endeavor.
