Chapter 32: Chapter 32: The Battle of Azkaban (991 AD)

Chapter 32: The Battle of Azkaban (991 AD)

991 AD, somewhere in Britain

The search for the dark man wasn’t going well. We started by investigating the areas that were attacked by him. There wasn’t a single trace of him anywhere; which means he found a way to hide his magical signature. What we did discover was that the first attack he ever executed, he had killed a man in London. They had a duel where the victim identified him as Ekrizdis.

The name is somewhat familiar, but I can’t think of it off the top of my head, but unlike the other murders, Ekrizdis didn’t steal a book or an artifact, this was personal. We discovered that the victim was a wizard called Janus Diggory. After some research, we found out that he was a magical researcher that focused on the soul. He had a partner, who Salazar identified as the man that killed his family, Ekrizdis. As wizards always do, they were trying to achieve immortality. People really need to start being original, this was getting old.

From what I understood from the process, he was able to suck people’s life force to extend his own and strengthen his magic. He didn’t use the souls of his victim, they still died. He created a spell that takes the potential lifespan of a victim and adds it to his own. The energy was very malleable, so it could be added to his magical core, which would explain how powerful he is. This method didn’t violate the natural order so I didn’t sense anything.

He had to get started somewhere, so we identified the disappearance of multiple victims, through the last few years, it seemed to go north. In fact, the last place we arrived was the last one. We were at the coast of the North Sea, where countless fishermen disappeared when they entered a specific section of the sea. Ekrizdis must be on an island.

So, we set sail exactly where we probably shouldn’t have. We hid ourselves using secrecy wards and illusions and suddenly, we sensed something foul ahead, something wrong. I knew there was something important I was missing, something I’m so very close to remembering. We sailed towards what we were sensing, against out instincts. We finally arrived to the edge of the island, it was a place devoid of life, and I could feel an aura of death in this place. On the island was a gigantic fortress that radiated malice. And then it hit me, I knew where we were. I was home, this was what remained of Atlantis after my fight with Death.

Someone built a fortress out of the ruins of my home, and I was furious. Before we could step onto the island, a swarm of hooded figures floated from the top of the fortress and flew towards us. I was immune from their aura but I could feel Godric, Rowena and Salazar shivering besides me. I couldn’t really blame them; this was the stuff of nightmares.

“Don’t worry guys, I got this. You go find Ekrizdis, I’ll deal with them.”

I could see them attempt to protest but I wave my wand and conjure a brilliant white light that repels the dementors. I can feel my friends staring. “Go!! Now!”

I keep my spell up until they disappear through the entrance. There weren’t supposed to be that many dementors. Only thirteen members of the Grimm clan were cursed into becoming dementors, not the thousands in front of me. I focus on one of them and try to figure out what they’re made of. All I could sense was pain, they weren’t old, barely a couple of decades old. Ekrizdis must have tried to replicate death’s curse and bind his victims to himself.

But how could something like this get past me? I should have sensed it. Ah, yes, the deathly aura on the island must have hidden it from me. The most important thing now is the fact that these new dementors aren’t cursed by death. I can actually kill them. A grin grew on my face as I conjure a white fire around me. I make it grow, growing to be the size of the actual fortress. I create a firestorm around the island, the usually dark area is illuminated as it was noon on a cloudless day. Every single dementor that was touched by the fire, disappeared with a wail.

Soon enough, every single dementor was killed by my spell and I enter inside the fortress to help my friends.

Making my way up, I found them at the top of the fortress, and it wasn’t pretty. Salazar was bound by some spike chains made of shadows; he had a deep bloody gash on his chest. Rowena was unconscious but looked the least hurt with just a small injury to the head. Godric on the other hand had every limb impaled by steel rods, his broken sword on the other side of the room.

The room itself was circular, with a dementor bound at the wall, thirteen dementors to be exact and I instinctively knew they were the original ones cursed by death. In the center, the Darkhold was on a pedestal and from the look of the runes on the ground, Ekrizdis was in the middle of a ritual. Some sort of summoning ritual to be precise. I didn’t have time to decipher it.

What was more concerning was the use of the Darkhold. The book was even older than me. From what I could understand from Agamotto’s notes of it, it’s a relic of the elder god Chthon, the god of chaos and a high demon. It serves as a connection to this realm, the god having predicted Agamotto’s spell, he created a link to earth so that he could still have influence over it. The book contains a number of very powerful spells and rituals but the more a person reads it, the more it starts corrupting and influencing him to do Chthon’s bidding.

“What do we have here?” Ekrizdis asked.

“An interloper I suppose, I’m guessing you’re Ekrizdis.”

“That is correct. And who are you?”

“I’m Helga, and what I’m really interested in is that ritual. From what I can see, you plan to open a gateway and use it to summon an army. More specifically, an army of wraiths like the one I just destroyed outside, the same kind of beings. You seem to like them, and you even tried to replicate their abilities. It seems like you connected the ritual to a dimension that was able to replicate them. And it seems you used the Darkhold itself as a stabilizer.”

“How do you know that? Who are you really? How did you kill my soldiers?”

“Me? Oh, I’m just a healer. But you, you turned thousands of people into wraiths, to serve you. As for killing your wraiths, it was easy. First principle of death, anything that is alive can die. But a ritual this size in a magicless environment, how do you plan to power it?”

“I plan to do it with them.” He pointed at the bound dementors. “Not only would they provide the template for my army but their curse is one of the strongest I have ever encountered. It will power the ritual successfully.”

Shit the man was an idiot. This is a lot more dangerous than I thought it would be. The idiot planned to access Chthon’s dimension and use it to continuously conjure dementors to serve him, using the original dementor’s curse. He didn’t know how potent the curse actually was, being that it was done by a cosmic entity. This is bad. The breach would be enough for Chthon to escape and I don’t think I can fight an elder god without at least destroying half the continent. I don’t even know if I could win that fight. The ritual already started, destroying it now would just create an explosion that could have unforeseen side effects. I need to somehow counter an unknown ritual from the Darkhold, it’s my only chance.

But closing a portal is a delicate process so I need to restrain Ekrizdis before doing it. Or have him preoccupied; I could use my friends’ help with that while I prepare a counter ritual.

I immediately attack without warning. Sending him flying into the air, hitting the wall at an impressive speed. Though I could see his wounds visibly disappearing so I quickly healed my friends.

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“I need to reverse the ritual, keep him busy until I’m done.” I exclaimed.

The three of them nodded and got up, with fire in their eyes, trying to defeat their enemy. Godric transfigured the debris from their fight into lions that attacked their opponent, Salazar kept casting spell after spell, Rowena had already reversed engineered the chains Ekrizdis used on Salazar and conjured golden chains to restrain him as she didn’t know how to kill him yet.

While they’re busy doing that, I kept casting rune after rune trying to make head or tails with this ritual, it was made by a god after all. I was able to modify the efficiency of the ritual, making sure that the yield would be as little as possible. It was a slow task but it was working. I couldn’t change the power source since there was nothing magical on the island.

Suddenly, Ekrizdis emitted a pulse of magic that threw us around. It was pretty powerful too, and that’s me speaking. Considering the strength of the magical pulse, he must have killed many people to have a magic core that strong.

“I will not be defeated by insects; my plans will not be ruined by a bunch of talentless brats.”

I couldn’t cast anything as it would negate everything I changed in the ritual, so Salazar stepped up. He suddenly removed his mother’s pendant and poured some blood over it. Suddenly, It got consumed in flames turning into a familiar locket with a snake on it. It opened and started to suck Ekrizdis into it, but Ekrizdis resisted somehow, yet it was clear he could barely move.

“Your device can barely contain me. All I need is some more strength and I’ll escape this little trap.”

Pointing his wand at Rowena, she started choking and coughing, like something was trying to escape her. She was resisting but she couldn’t hold it for long. Suddenly, Godric came from behind Ekrizdis and a sword materialized out of nowhere and cut off Ekrizdis’ wand hand freeing Rowena from the dark man’s curse.

The sword in Godric’s hand was familiar, it was Anduril, Mordred’s sword. The one I made her. I push out my sad thoughts, this wasn’t the time.

Suddenly, the dementors around the room started to fade, one by one, consumed by the Darkhold, I needed to activate my modifications as soon as possible. A sickly purple portal opened and I could feel the malevolent aura from the other side.

“It doesn’t matter what you do, I have already won. My army will rise and I shall be known as the most powerful wizard to ever live.” Exclaimed Ekrizdis, no longer in pain, his hand being regenerated by whatever he did to himself.

Dear god, that man was crazy. Was that honestly his goal? I guess living with dementors for decades would do that for a man’s psyche. Not the time.

I leap towards the center of the ritual, just below the portal and activate my counter ritual. Suddenly, the portal became unstable and started to shrink.

“What have you done? No! I’ll destroy you.” Ekrizdis bellowed.

“I just made a small modification to your ritual,”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you tried to bring something to our realm, but I reversed it, I made it so that we bring something to the other side and the only person currently connected to the ritual is you.”

Ekrizdis suddenly floated and was pulled to the portal. He tried to resist as much as possible but it wasn’t enough, with a scream, he was pulled to the other side of the portal. He would probably have his precious immortality, but he definitely won’t be enjoying his time there. Suddenly, the portal shut with a force that sent us all flying a few feet.

Slowly, the four of us got up, tired and exhausted. Salazar walked up to me, his locket thankfully closed, “Is it over?”

“Not quite, I couldn’t cancel the main objective of the ritual, I just delayed it as much as possible.”

“How much of a delay are we talking about?” Rowena questioned.

“One of Ekrizdis’ wraiths will be born every ten years or so. I couldn’t completely stop it, maybe I could have if I had more time. But I did make sure that they will be bound to this island, so they can’t threaten anyone outside this cursed place.”

The three of them sighed in relief. “We are so not doing this ever again and I’m looking at you Godric.” Said Rowena.

We all looked at each other and broke into laughter.

It was then that I realized that Godric, Salazar and Rowena were the closest thing I had to a family ever since Mordred. It was nice to know that I was moving on.

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