HP: Azkaban's Outstanding Graduate

The three wizards quickly disappeared into the dense shadows of the trees, leaving only a deathly silence and suppressed breathing in the clearing of the tribe.

Trom stood there, gazing in the direction they had disappeared, motionless for a long time. Elder Kakus walked to his side, his face full of worry and anger.

"Trrom! You're playing with fire! Making a deal with wizards? And letting them provoke those eight-eyed giant spiders? What if they die in there..."

“That means they’re nothing special after all,” Trom interrupted him. “And that solves our problem.”

“If they succeed…” He paused, his voice lowering, “then we will have to face an even more terrifying fact—we will not only need to ‘make a deal’ with him, but we may even need his ‘protection’. For survival, Kakus, the price… will always have to be paid.”

……

……

As Trom followed the path he had described, the darkness around him grew thicker and thicker, pressing in as if it were a living entity.

Twisted vines hung from the towering ancient trees, like the skeleton of a giant snake. The path underfoot was covered with a thick layer of fallen leaves and slippery moss, making a chilling "plop" sound when stepped on.

“Um…” Red Falcon’s voice sounded abrupt in the silence, tinged with a hint of nervousness, “The Eight-Eyed Giant Spider… is it really as… big as the books say?”

Sagles didn't turn around, his voice calm as he said, "A normal adult is about the size of a car."

The kestrel swallowed hard, its mind filled with images of magnified, grotesque spiders from the illustrations in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."

“Relax, Eliza.” The nightingale’s cool voice rang out from the other side, tinged with a hint of barely perceptible sarcasm. “Their size depends on their age and food sources. And the place we’re in now…” She paused deliberately, “…should be quite nutritious.”

These seemingly comforting words did not make the falcon feel any better; on the contrary, they made her feel even worse.

"Sister Nightingale," Red Falcon couldn't help but ask again, "you...have collected giant spider venom many times?"

“A few times,” Nightingale replied succinctly. “Most of the time I buy them directly; this stuff isn’t common in other places.”

"The venom of the Eight-Eyed Giant Spider is a Class A non-trade commodity, strictly controlled by the Ministries of Magic of various countries, and is prohibited from international trade," Sagres casually remarked.

"Are they dangerous?" the kestrel pressed, trying to find some comfort in the experience of its predecessors.

The nightingale paused for a moment, as if recalling something: "Quite dangerous. And noisy, their cries are piercing. Also, they move faster than you can imagine."

She glanced at the kestrels' hand gripping the wand tightly. "They are carnivorous creatures that actively hunt large animals, including humans. Moreover, they are quite intelligent, able to understand and execute complex commands, and know how to hunt cooperatively in groups."

"So powerful?" The red falcon's eyes widened in surprise, and a chill ran down its spine.

“After all, they are XXXXX level magical creatures, the highest level of danger,” Sagres added without turning his head. “They pose an extreme threat to a wizard’s life and cannot be tamed or safely controlled.”

They carefully avoided the spider webs hanging from the branches and continued deeper.

The air became damp and cold, with a sweet, rotten smell.

The ground beneath their feet began to slope downwards, and the surrounding trees became even more twisted and bizarre, their bark covered with thick, grayish-white, velvety fungi—the source of the miasma that Trom had mentioned.

Nightingale suddenly stopped, pointing her wand forward: "Strangler fig."

Three enormous ancient trees are intertwined in a bizarre manner, their massive, buttress-like roots exposed, forming a deep, dark tree cavity, like a giant mouth leading to the earth.

At the edge of the tree hole, several tattered, dusty spider webs hung.

“Turn right, down,” Sagres confirmed, his voice still steady.

He led the way to the tree hollow, the light from the tip of his wand dispelling a small patch of darkness at the entrance, revealing a steep slope covered with tree roots and slippery moss.

The scene at the bottom of the valley was even more terrifying.

Grayish-white miasma drifted around my ankles like a thin veil, reducing visibility to extremely low levels.

Countless fine spider silks, as dense as fishing nets, hang layer upon layer between the dead giant trees, forming enormous curtains.

The sweet, rotten smell in the air was so strong it was almost nauseating.

In the silence, a rustling sound, as if something were crawling in slime, came from all directions, stimulating everyone's nerves.

The kestrel felt something cold creep up her spine; she wasn't sure if it was fear or if something had actually touched her.

The three wand lights went out instantly, and darkness engulfed the three of them like a tidal wave.

The kestrel's heart pounded wildly, almost leaping out of her throat. She struggled to adjust to the absolute darkness, relying on the faint sounds of Sagres and the nightingale's movements to orient herself.

"Eyes..." the nightingale's voice whispered in the falcon's ear, "They're everywhere."

The kestrel strained to open her eyes, and with the faint light filtering through the gaps in the treetops, she finally saw clearly.

Behind those enormous spiderweb curtains, in the crevices of twisted tree roots, and in the shadows of overhead branches... countless tiny, eerie green lights flickered.

Those are the eyes of an eight-eyed giant spider!

Thousands upon thousands of cold, greedy eyes silently watched the intruder in the darkness. The points of light flickered in and out of existence as the spider moved, as if the entire forest were breathing.

“Merlin’s beard…” Red Falcon gasped, her voice trembling so badly it was almost incoherent. She felt as if she had fallen into a jar full of spiders.

"Calm down!" Sagres's icy voice carried an undeniable authority. A silent spell instantly enveloped the Red Falcon, leaving her only able to open her mouth in vain, unable to utter a sound.

Sagrass glanced at her calmly, his eyes as cold as ice.

Red Falcon immediately fell silent, knowing all too well what Sagres looked like when he was serious. If she performed poorly, he might really punish her afterwards.

Sagles ignored her and turned to Nightingale: "What kind of target do you need?"

"No freshly molted ones, and no juveniles either." Nightingale's wand glowed faintly in the darkness. "The best are healthy adult individuals, the older the better."

“Then we need to go deeper,” Sagles said. “The outermost parts are mostly young individuals, or those that have just reached adulthood.”

Chapter 153 Aragog

Sagrass pointed in the direction where the miasma was densest and the spiderwebs were most concentrated, where a huge, raised entrance to a nest formed by mud, dead branches, and thick spider silk could be vaguely seen, like a tumor crawling in the darkness.

There was a hissing sound like leather rubbing together in the air, and the "drip...drip..." sound of some kind of liquid dripping.

Just then, behind a clump of giant fungi less than ten steps to his left, several pairs of slowly moving eerie green lights suddenly stopped and turned in unison toward their location.

Sagrass gently raised his wand, and a sharp cutting spell shot out silently, instantly tearing apart a large section of spiderweb blocking his path, along with several small spiders that had just poked their heads out.

Foul-smelling bodily fluids and severed limbs splattered.

The falcon's heart nearly leaped out of its chest. In the darkness to its right, a shadowy figure the size of a car suddenly pounced.

She instinctively unleashed an obstacle spell, the light striking its target. The giant spider let out a piercing hiss, its eight long legs suddenly becoming clumsy and sluggish as it slammed heavily onto the slippery ground.

“Don’t chase those that run away,” Sagres said without turning his head, casually flicking his wand backward, a beam of red light hitting the head of the giant spider that pounced again. “But if they dare to attack, kill them.”

The moment the words were spoken, the giant spider's hissing abruptly ceased, and its massive body instantly turned into a pool of foul-smelling liquid.

“There are too many of them, and they have no natural predators in the Forbidden Forest,” Sagres said calmly. “Here, they are no different from invasive species.”

The other two didn't know what invasive species were, but the overwhelming swarm of spiders before them made them deeply understand the weight of that term.

The path deep into the lair became a bloody trail paved with death.

Like the most precise assassin, Nightingale silently alternated between cutting spells, shattering spells, and powerful frost spells, either dismembering any giant spiders that dared to show their faces or blasting them into the rock wall.

At the same time, she did not forget to use magic to collect the venom sacs of those huge spiders.

Any threat coming from the side or rear, whether it be a huge venomous claw or a spitting venom, is neutralized by the kestrel's defenses and deflected by an invisible barrier.

She was surprised to find that her reaction was much faster than she had imagined, as if her body had made the judgment before her mind.

Sargeras was like a shadow that controlled death; many of the eight-eyed giant spiders that rushed towards them fell silently before they even got close. However, he did not use fire magic to avoid damaging the venom sacs.

The three men made no unnecessary movements, as if they were carrying out a ruthless harvest. Soon, their path was covered with sticky spiderwebs, broken carapaces, splattered green blood, and fragments of internal organs.

The sweet, rotten smell in the air was completely replaced by a strong, nauseating stench of blood and burnt flesh.

The eight-eyed giant spider's angry and terrified hisses rose and fell, merging into a deathly symphony that sent chills down one's spine.

The three worked in perfect harmony, advancing with unstoppable momentum, carving a path through the dense swarm of giant spiders to the deepest core of the nest.

As they passed through the last spiderweb barrier, the sight before them made everyone raise an eyebrow.

The space here is exceptionally vast, like a hollowed-out mountain belly. The cave walls and ceiling are covered with thick, sticky spider silk, several feet thick, like a white blanket.

However, what's most chilling isn't these things, but the ground.

Piles of white bones lay like mountains!

Human skulls, broken ribs, massive horse leg bones, and various unidentifiable animal skeletons were carelessly discarded like garbage, covered by thick cobwebs and filth.

Some of the skeletons were still fresh, with tattered pieces of leather clinging to them, emitting a putrid stench.

The kestrel glanced at them, and its stomach churned; it quickly averted its gaze, its face turning deathly pale. The nightingale also coldly swept its eyes over the skeletons that clearly belonged to centaur warriors.

In the center of this mountain of bones, a white cocoon, several times larger than the other spider silk cocoons and resembling a small hill, lay prostrate.

It undulated slightly, radiating a suffocating pressure.

Scattered around it were the corpses of several large, elderly giant spiders—clearly the guards who had tried to protect the cocoon but were instantly killed by Sagles and Nightingale.

Sargeras pointed his wand at the enormous cocoon, the tip of which glowed with a dangerous red light.

"Wait! Wizard! Don't... hurt me..." A hoarse, aged voice, filled with indescribable weariness and fear, muffledly came from deep within the cocoon.

The sudden human voice startled the falcon so much that it almost jumped up, and the nightingale instantly pointed her wand at the source of the sound, her eyes flashing with disbelief and shock.

A talking eight-eyed giant spider?! This completely overturns the common sense of magical biology!

Sargeras paused slightly in his gathering magic, but the red light at the tip of his staff did not dissipate. He simply stared coldly at the writhing cocoon: "Show me your head, or I'll blow you and your grave to smithereens."

The enormous cocoon began to writhe violently, and a hole was torn in the surface of the spider silk with great difficulty.

First to emerge were a pair of enormous, unimaginably large chelicerae covered in grayish-white hairs and hideous scars. Then, a bloated, aged spider head, the size of a dilapidated truck, crawled out.

Its compound eyes were no longer bright, but covered with a layer of grayish-white film. All eight eyes looked murky, and its carapace was covered with traces of time and pits left by battles.

This is the king of this lair—Aragok.

Aragog's massive body slowly crawled out of the cocoon, each step appearing exceptionally difficult.

Its aged carapace groaned under the strain, and its eight long legs trembled as they supported its bulky body.

When it was fully exposed to the light of the wand, everyone could see the shocking signs of aging on the giant spider's body—its carapace was covered with cracks, its hairs had all fallen off, and even its most deadly claws seemed dull and powerless.

The giant spider glanced fearfully at the destructive red light at the tip of Sagres' staff, its compound eyes sweeping over the corpses of the guards and the mountain of bones around it, before finally fixing its murky gaze on Sagres.

The fear in those eyes was so obvious that even the kestrel felt a sense of unease.

“A powerful wizard…” Aragog’s voice was like the rustling of withered leaves, each word carrying a heavy sigh, “Please…please spare me.”

Its abdomen contracted with difficulty, a swollen venom sac appearing and disappearing at the end of its abdomen, its surface gleaming with a sickly eerie light. "I know why you have come. Venom... I can... give it to you. Just... spare me and... my remaining offspring."