Hogwarts: Lacus doesn't want to be a witch who destroys nations.

Lux nodded, popped the potato into her mouth, chewed it, and dusted off her hands.

She hid too quickly and hadn't finished eating the potatoes.

Vova stared at her coat, then suddenly remembered something and stepped forward: "You can become invisible, is that also a kind of magic? Can you take me to the military camp? I want to see if the corpse was created by magic."

Lux shook her head, took out an automatic translation pen from her pocket, and wrote in the corner of Vova's old newspaper: "The Disillusionment Charm can only cover one person, it can't take you. I'm going to the military camp to check, I'll come back and let you know if anything happens."

The handwriting automatically switched to Russian as soon as it was written.

Vova stared at the words for a few seconds, then glanced at the fountain pen in Lux's hand, and finally nodded: "Be careful, there are guns in the military camp, don't get spotted."

"The military camp is heavily guarded. There is a gap in the wall on the east side near the stable that can be opened, and there will be a few minutes of downtime when the patrol changes shifts. Also, the morgue is in the northwest corner of the camp, a separate wooden hut with sentries at the door."

Lux gave an "OK" sign, waved her wand again, and vanished into thin air, leaving Vova alone in the empty house, staring at the snowflakes falling at the door with a complicated expression.

Lux followed silently behind the two soldiers who were returning to the camp.

The cold wind whipped snowflakes against her face, and the Disappearance Spell was struggling to maintain its effect in the snowstorm. She had to concentrate and carefully control it to ensure that she wouldn't suddenly appear in front of a patrolman.

The military camp was much simpler than she had imagined. There were no high walls, only a simple fence made of sharpened wooden stakes, and a few watchtowers stood forlornly in the wind and snow.

Two heavily bundled-up sentries stood at the entrance, clutching their rifles and hunching their shoulders to keep warm. The soldiers showed their identification and grumbled about the weather as they went inside.

Lux originally wanted to go in through the main entrance as well, but the illusion spell would still leave footprints on the snow, so she could only find a less crowded place to go in.

Lux then went around to the eastern wall that Vova had mentioned. Sure enough, near the stable, a section of wooden stake had been knocked askew by something, revealing a small gap, big enough for a thin person to squeeze through.

She patiently lay prone in the snow until she saw a patrol of soldiers trudging through the thick snow around the corner of the barracks to change shifts.

Right now.

Lux quickly squeezed through the gap, rolled around in the snowdrift as she landed, and then filled the hole with her feet.

The interior of the military camp was even more rudimentary, with low wooden huts and tents scattered haphazardly. Snow covered most of the ground, and only a few main passageways were muddy and impassable.

The air was filled with the smell of cheap tobacco, horse manure, and an indescribable, stuffy odor mixed with disinfectant and rust.

She moved quickly through the camp rooms, guided by Vova's description.

Avoiding the soldiers huddled in the corner smoking, and bypassing the warehouse piled with wooden crates, we finally saw the lonely wooden house in the northwest corner.

It was more dilapidated than the barracks, with half of the windows boarded up. Sure enough, a sentry stood at the door, pacing back and forth with his gun, trying to ward off the chill.

Lux held her breath, observing the sentries' patrol routes and blind spots.

She needs to create a brief disruption.

Her gaze swept over a pile of miscellaneous items covered with a canvas, and an idea struck her. With a very subtle tap from her sleeve, she pointed her wand at a rickety, empty wooden crate at the edge of the pile.

"Yugadimurleviosa!"

The wooden crate floated silently half a foot into the air, then landed softly on the snow behind the sentry with a "thud." The sound was not loud, but it was exceptionally clear in the quiet snow.

The sentry whirled around, his gun instantly pointed at the source of the sound, and growled warily, "Who?!"

Taking advantage of the moment when the sentry's attention was diverted, Lux darted like a shadow, skimming along the ground, from the shadows on the other side of the cabin, out of the sentry's blind spot, to the cabin door.

The door wasn't locked, it was just ajar.

She gently pushed the door open a crack and slipped inside, then silently closed it again.

A strong, nauseating stench of decay wafted over.

The room was extremely dimly lit, with only a kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling, covered in a thick layer of dust, casting a dim, flickering light that barely illuminated a few simple wooden tables below.

Three corpses lay side by side on a cold wooden platform, covered with a dirty white sheet.

Lux suppressed the churning in her stomach and cautiously approached.

She reached out and gently lifted a corner of the white cloth closest to her.

Even though she was mentally prepared, Lux still shuddered at the sight before her.

A sallow, withered face was exposed in the dim light.

The skin clung tightly to the bone, appearing a deathly grayish-white. The eye sockets were sunken into two black holes, the lips were shrunken, revealing stark white teeth, and the entire face was contorted, frozen in an extreme fear and pain.

Her body from the neck down was covered by a white sheet, but Lux could imagine what a horrific scene it must be like underneath, completely drained.

She then lifted two more white sheets, revealing corpses with identical deaths. One of the bodies had a hair stuck to its collar, the tip of which had a dark red mark, like blood.

She gently lifted the hair with the tip of her wand, uttered "Reveal your true form," and a wisp of black mist flashed across the hair before quickly dissipating.

The black mist churned violently under the light of the magic wand, gradually condensing into a shape.

The shadow lingered by the wooden platform for a moment, then vanished into the corner of the room in the next second, leaving only a fleeting afterimage.

Lux recalled the textbook; this was probably not an ordinary magical creature, but rather seemed to be a vampire.

Do Slavs also have vampires?

The movement of the shadowy figure inside the house made the guard at the door more alert. He was certain that he hadn't put anything in there; there were only the three corpses inside.

Thinking about it this way, he became even more frightened.

"There's someone inside, who is it?" He mustered his courage and turned around, followed by the creaking sound of the wooden door being kicked open and the sharp crack of the bolt being pulled back.

The guards rushed in, guns raised, their eyes sweeping over the wooden platform before abruptly turning to the corner of the room, but it was empty; Lux had vanished without a trace.

Lux, realizing what kind of creature it was, didn't dare wait any longer and immediately used Apparition to return to the village.

After a brief moment of dizziness, she fell to the ground with a thud. Looking up, she saw that it was right at the threshold of the Vova family's house. Snowflakes seeped into her collar, making her shiver from the cold.

Apparition still requires a lot of skill.

"Why are you back so soon? What happened?" Hearing the noise, Vova rushed out with a machete in hand. Seeing it was her, he leaned the machete against the door, pulled her inside, and handed her a bowl of hot water. "Your face is pale. Did you run into something at the military camp?"

Lux warmed her hands by holding the cup, then picked up a pen and quickly wrote on the paper: "It's vampires. Those dried corpses were all caused by vampires."

Vova nearly spat out the water he had just drunk, and the bowl in his hand wobbled: "Vampires? These things really exist?"