Hogwarts Raven

Chapter 362, Section 361: The Room That Cannot Be Found

The night was as dark as ink, enveloping Memphis.

The temple bells had long since fallen silent, the courtyard was deserted, and only the wind rustled through the stone pillars, producing a low, mournful sound. The solemnity and order of the daytime had been replaced by a hidden, almost decaying silence.

The woman in the black robe glanced one last time at the pulsating embryo, then turned and left. Her long robe brushed against the stone steps silently. The robe rustled on the stone floor as she turned, and the golden runes embroidered on the hem flickered in the torchlight, like a swarm of fireflies trapped in the fabric.

“She should also be able to sense the malice of that embryo, but not with the same clarity that I can perceive… My Animagus form possesses the vision of a god.”

The beam Ian was perched on was about thirty feet above the ground, a height that allowed him to have a complete view of the inner sanctum without being noticed by the busy priests below.

Shortly after she left, a middle-aged man dressed in a dark blue priest's robe quietly entered the underground chamber. He held a black obsidian tablet engraved with runes in his hands and chanted an ancient concealment incantation. As the incantation was completed, the obsidian tablet released a halo of eerie blue light, enveloping the entire magic circle.

The pulsating embryo gradually blurred in the light, as if it were wrapped in an invisible veil.

Followed by.

The scepter priest strode in, accompanied by four young priests dressed in white linen robes, carrying copper bowls filled with black powder. Ian's raven eyes narrowed slightly—the powder emitted a strange aura, resembling both burnt ashes and a sharp, metallic sheen.

"let's start."

The priest's voice was like sandpaper scraping against a stone wall, and his withered fingers drew three intersecting circles on the surface of the embryo. The translucent mass of flesh immediately began to writhe restlessly.

The golden patterns on the surface flicker, as if in protest.

The eldest priest began chanting incantations, his voice as deep and resonant as muffled thunder from the earth. As the incantations continued, four younger priests sprinkled black powder onto the embryo. The moment the powder touched the amniotic sac, the light throughout the inner sanctum distorted for a fleeting instant. Ian felt a slight dizziness.

It was as if someone had gently plucked a string in his bird's brain.

When the view cleared again, the embryo on the altar had disappeared, replaced by an ordinary small statue of Ra, so crudely made that it looked like a fake bought at the market.

The chamber returned to silence, leaving only the cold stone walls and the extinguished brazier. No one could tell what had happened; clearly, the priests had concealed everything with magic.

This was an extremely sophisticated magic, which even affected Ian's Animagus form, but Ian could still see that the thing had sunk into the ground.

The priest with the scepter wiped the sweat from his brow and turned to the others: "Seventh cellar, strengthen the guard. Especially that new priest from Thebes; I always felt there was something fishy about his eyes."

"High Priest, must we really place our Cocoon of Resurrection underground?" a young priest couldn't help but ask. "Last time we placed it underground, it almost..."

"Shut up!" The priest slammed his staff on the ground, the sun disc at the top vibrating jarringly. "Do you want all of Memphis to know what we're doing?"

The young priest immediately fell silent. The five quickly cleaned up the traces around the altar, even wiping away the bloodstains in the cracks in the ground with some kind of pungent medicine. In a short while, the entire inner sanctuary returned to its solemn and dignified state, as if the strange ritual had never happened.

The priest put away the stone slab, left the secret chamber, and closed the heavy stone door behind him. The temple fell silent once more, as if everything that had just happened—the fluctuations of the embryo's will, the priests' argument, the sacrifice of life—had all been an illusion. Unbeknownst to anyone, a raven on the rooftop was silently watching everything unfold.

What is a disaster?

The "calamity" mentioned by the priest with the scepter was clearly not an ordinary war or plague. What could drive the entire temple to the point of sacrificing living people and creating false gods must be a catastrophe capable of overthrowing the entire pantheon.

"And the sun god Ra... really fell?"

This idea was hard for Ian to believe.

"Do ordinary people not know that the sun god may have fallen? No, perhaps even the gods don't know?" Ian watched the priests' departing figures, his beak opening and closing unconsciously.

The priest's final warning lingered in his mind.

Things are getting increasingly bizarre.

The raven tilted its head slightly to one side as Ian fell into deep thought. If the sun god Ra had truly perished, the entire Egyptian pantheon should have been turned upside down. In the Egyptian pantheon, Ra was the supreme god, the master of light, and the eternal lord who piloted the sun boat across the heavens every day. His existence maintained the order of life and death, and even Anubis of the underworld operated within his system.

If Ra was truly dead, how could Anubis remain so calmly on the other side of the River Styx? How could he have the leisure to chat and laugh with him, discussing the Styx oars and the trials of duel?
The jackal-headed Grim Reaper seemed perfectly normal, even having the leisure to duel with Ian. Logically, if Ra, the chief god of the pantheon, were to be in trouble, the underworld would be the first to be affected. Perhaps… the sun god Ra wasn't "dead," but rather "missing"? "asleep"? "imprisoned"?
That doesn't make sense!

Even so.

Anubis should also have some reaction and perception.

"unless."

Ian's black feathers rose slightly.

"Unless Anubis also doesn't know."

The thought sent a chill down his spine. What kind of being could silently make the head of the Nine Pillars of Gods disappear, leaving even the other gods in the same system unaware?

Ian frowned.

The sound of evening prayer bells echoed from outside the temple, their long reverberations reverberating among the stone pillars.

Moonlight streamed through the stained-glass windows high above, casting an image of Ra defeating Apep on the ground. Ian watched as the priests returned to their posts, their white robes spotless in the morning light, their expressions impeccably devout. Had he not seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed that such a terrifying secret lay hidden beneath this sacred temple.

"It's truly perplexing," the raven silently flapped its wings and flew towards a deserted corner of a side hall. "But I came to this era to gather materials, not to solve a case."

His goal for this trip was to obtain the authentic fragment of "La's Eye". Although everything he had just seen shocked him, it was ultimately a trivial matter for someone who did not belong to this era.

He needs fragments, not the truth.

time flies.

After their evening prayers, the priests went to rest. As the last priest's footsteps faded at the end of the corridor, Ian gracefully descended from the eaves. The instant he touched the ground, his form twisted and stretched like smoke, his feathers transforming into a black robe, and his beak retracting into a high, straight nose.

Ian stood in the moonlight, gently patted his robes, and then took out a small silver pocket watch from his pocket—his self-made "divine sensor".

On the dial, the hands trembled slightly, but did not point in a clear direction.

"It seems the fragment is neither in the underground chamber... nor in the main hall."

He whispered.

“I’ll have to find him myself.” Ian cast an illusion spell on himself—a high-level illusion that allows his figure and aura to blend completely into the environment, making him invisible and imperceptible like air. Given Ian’s current cultivation level, only a very few beings with divine perception could detect his presence.

Ian's body gradually became transparent, only occasionally reflecting a faint rainbow of light from certain angles. He moved close to the wall, his ears picking up every subtle sound. The temple's morning activities were in full swing, and the distant, rhythmic chanting of the night watch priests was harmless.

They rarely left that room. After all, in this era, very few fearless thieves would dare to break into a temple; the temple was protected by many dangerous magical barriers.

Even many highly skilled wizards wouldn't be able to evade detection. Of course, these highly skilled wizards don't include legendary wizards like Ian.

Ian is searching.

The air was filled with the mingled aromas of myrrh and cinnamon. The main temple was soaring and magnificent, its dome painted with murals depicting Ra piloting his solar boat through the sky, gold dust shimmering in the moonlight. The central statue of the deity stood solemnly, holding a scepter and the Ankh cross.

Ian walked in slowly, his gaze sweeping over the altar, incense burner, and offering table. Each object emitted a faint divine fluctuation, but none of them were the fragments of the "Eye of Ra" he was looking for.

He crouched down and examined the hidden compartment at the base of the statue, finding only a scroll of papyrus covered with prayers.

"It's a bit too serious."

Ian sighed softly.

Go deeper.

He first sneaked into the nearest sacristy. The room was small, with wooden shelves embedded in the walls, neatly arranged with various ritual implements—gilded scarab statues, scepters inlaid with turquoise, and bronze mirrors engraved with hieroglyphs. Ian's wand tip glowed faintly.

"The true form is revealed!"

no response.

Although these objects contained faint magical blessings, they had nothing to do with the power of the sun god. He paid particular attention to a sapphire ornament shaped like an eye.

Unfortunately, those were just ordinary decorations. The library, located in the east wing of the temple, housed thousands of papyrus scrolls. Ian knew that true divine objects were sometimes recorded in ancient texts.

Rolls of papyrus filled six tall bronze shelves, arranged by year and category. Ian quickly flipped through the records of the last three months, mostly ritual schedules, offering lists, and oracle manuscripts. At the bottom of the last shelf, he found a secret scroll bound with black rope.

Ian was greatly disappointed upon unraveling the scrolls—they were nothing more than dry records about the training of new priests. He flipped through the scrolls, his fingertips lightly touching the text, trying to sense if there was any magic hidden within that could store items.

"Hymn of Ra" - None.

"Solar Boat Navigation Chart" - None.

Temple Ritual Rituals - None.

The Trials of Anubis—and so on.

He discovered a deliberately smeared passage of text in a scroll with a torn edge:
"...On the seventh day, Ra did not ascend, the heavens cracked...the gatekeeper closed...the god slept..."

The text stopped abruptly.

Ian's pupils contracted slightly.

Did Ra not ascend to heaven?
Is the sky cracked?
Divine sleep?

This differs slightly from the term "fallen".

It was more like some kind of seal or dormancy. Ian was somewhat surprised to find that he seemed to have found some more information, but he still hadn't found the fragment he was looking for.

"That shouldn't be the case."

Ian rubbed his temples. A genuine fragment of Ra's Eye would radiate intense solar magic, just as he had learned from the Hogwarts library in the future.

however.

The magical fluctuations throughout the temple were unusually calm, as if deliberately suppressed by something. Passing through a corridor lined with portraits of past high priests, Ian arrived at the spice storeroom. The aromas were so intense they were almost visible to the naked eye; bags of frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon were piled in the corners.

He sneezed as soon as he stepped inside and quickly cast a filtering spell on himself.

Upon inspecting the third bag of spices, the wand suddenly felt slightly warm—a small silver box was hidden at the bottom of the bag, containing several pieces of golden crystal, extremely rare and rare alchemical materials.

"Crystallized sun salt!"

Ian's eyes lit up. This substance only forms around objects that have been in prolonged contact with the sun god's power. But strangely, the crystals had become cloudy and grayish, as if they had been contaminated.

He continued his search following this clue and arrived at the priests' dressing room. A dozen or so white robes hung neatly on copper hooks, each exuding a faint scent of cedar.

Ian noticed a tiny gold stain on the cuff of the innermost robe, which felt unusually warm to the touch. Pulling back the lining, he found a hidden pocket containing a shard of blue glass—at first glance, it looked like an ordinary artifact, but when Ian touched it with his wand…

Suddenly, spiderweb-like golden patterns appeared inside the glass.

"A fake. Just a slightly more advanced fake than the one that old man had. Why do they make so many fakes?" Ian put down the fragment in disappointment. It was just an ordinary crystal that had been enchanted with a high-level imitation spell. Although it could mimic some of the characteristics of the real Divine Eye, it lacked the most crucial element: the essence of the Sun God.

after all.

The true Eye of Ra is the manifestation of the eyes of the sun god Ra. Time ticked by, and Ian had inspected most of the rooms in the west wing of the temple: the scarab breeding room, the ritual instrument storehouse, the calendar calculation room—everything was frustratingly normal. Several times he nearly got discovered by passing priests.

Fortunately, the illusion spell was reliable enough.

Several hours of searching.

Ian still hadn't gained anything.

He sighed and went to the medical room in the east wing. It was empty, the shelves filled with various herbs and ointments. In the corner was a bronze basin with a suspicious black substance settled at the bottom. Ian was about to approach to examine it when he suddenly heard footsteps outside the door. He quickly hid behind a statue of Isis.

They watched as two priests helped a pale-faced companion into the room.

"It's flared up again?" the older priest asked, his voice weary.

"Suddenly at the cellar entrance..." the young priest's voice trembled, "he said he saw countless eyes."

"Shut up! Go get the holy oil, quick!"

While they were busy, Ian slipped out the door, his heart pounding. "The cellar"—the scepter priest had indeed mentioned this place. He had to find the entrance to the cellar; perhaps, that entrance held not only the embryos, but also the true treasures of this place.

"But where exactly is the cellar?"

The world of magic is truly wondrous. The embryo, seemingly merely sunk underground, was actually placed in a secret room that, under normal circumstances, would never appear within the building's structure. Later versions of Hogwarts also contain many such rooms.

The House of Requirement is a similar case.

For the next two hours, Ian explored almost every corner of the temple, even venturing into the high priest's private prayer room. There was a detailed plan of the temple there, but strangely, the location marked as the "seventh cellar" on the plan turned out to be just an ordinary stone wall when he actually explored it.

There was no trace of a hidden door.

“Spatial folding?” Ian stroked the cold stone wall. His wand detected faint spatial magical fluctuations, but the intensity was far from enough to support a complete cellar space. Unless… unless the cellar itself was a magical creation, or simply existed in another dimension, even that was highly unlikely.

After all, small worlds are extremely rare.

(End of this chapter)