HP: Azkaban's Outstanding Graduate

The old farmer was struck dumb, his face turning ashen instantly.

Two Fire Knights immediately stepped forward and gripped his shoulders with iron-like hands.

"No! No! Your Excellency, spare me! I'll take it! I'll take you to get it right now!"

The old farmer, tears streaming down his face, practically crawled as he led the knight toward his dilapidated hut.

A short while later, the knight returned with a small earthenware jar covered in mud, from which he poured out a few gold and silver coins.

The clergyman picked up one of the gold coins, held it up to the light, and a wisp of white smoke rose as his fingertips touched the surface of the coin.

"Hmph, as expected, the curse of darkness is like a maggot clinging to the bone."

He casually tossed the gold coins back into the bag the knight was holding, then looked at the old farmer slumped on the ground. "Since you surrendered them voluntarily, the sacred fire will not burn your body. But your soul still needs to repent."

The old farmer collapsed to the ground, like a limp rag doll. The joy of surviving the ordeal was intertwined with the pain of being stripped of his property, leaving him only able to utter mournful whimpers.

The clergyman didn't even glance at him, turning his gaze to a sallow-faced, emaciated middle-aged man beside him.

"Do you have any hidden evil gold or silver artifacts?"

The man was so frightened that he backed away repeatedly, stammering, "No...no..."

But the clergyman caught up with him and placed his hand on his forehead again.

"what!"

The clergyman abruptly stopped, as if burned, and pointed at the man, shouting sternly, "Evil aura! You are shrouded in concealed depravity! Disloyalty to the Church flows in your blood!"

"I didn't! Sir, I really didn't have anything!" the man screamed in despair.

"Stubborn to the end!" The clergyman flicked his sleeve, and a scorching beam of light burst forth once more.

"Ugh—!"

The screams abruptly ceased, and another charred corpse lay in the center of the village square, side by side with the previous one, a horrifying sight.

The clergyman, unfazed, barked at the village chief: "You, lead the way! To the house of this blasphemer! Holy light guides me; there lies a silver candlestick, an object that holds profound darkness!"

The elderly village chief trembled all over, not daring to disobey in the slightest, and hurriedly led a knight away.

Chapter 394 The School of Withering

The knight and the village chief returned shortly after leaving, carrying a simple yet gleaming silver candlestick.

"Look!"

The clergyman held the candlestick aloft, its silver reflecting a blinding light in the sunlight. "What an exquisite object! But beneath its smooth surface lies a curse powerful enough to plunge the entire village into hell! This is the proof! To conceal it is to associate with evil!"

The continuous bloody suppression and this "conclusive" accusation completely shattered the villagers' psychological defenses.

It's unclear who was the first to run home, but then, like a dam bursting, the villagers rushed back to their homes and began ransacking them.

They brought out what they had hidden in the most secret corner—things that carried all their hopes and possessions: perhaps an ancestral ring, perhaps silver jewelry from their dowry, perhaps a few silver coins they had painstakingly saved over the years to exchange for land…

Trembling, they piled the valuables before the clergy as if offering sacrifices, hoping to gain a sliver of hope for survival.

The clergymen paced before the scattered gold and silver, their eyes discerning, as if selecting goods at a market.

He picked up a decent silver ring, weighed it in his hand, and finally put it down.

He then picked up a heavy gold ring, examined it for a moment, and put it into another, larger cloth bag that the knight behind him had opened.

He only selects gold and silver of good quality and sufficient weight, and disdains those with slight silver shavings or poor quality.

At the same time, his hand would occasionally brush quickly across the foreheads of some villagers.

Suddenly, he pointed to a woman who had handed over a silver button: "You, you've hidden a better pair of silver earrings in your pillow!"

He then pointed to a man who handed over a silver coin: "You, you've been hiding an ancestral gold coin at home, trying to get away with it!"

The woman and man turned pale instantly and tried to explain, but the clergy had already turned their backs.

“Purify them.”

The cold, hard order was given.

Two flashes of white light appeared, and flames rose again, engulfing the two desperate figures and their greed.

Or rather, it was their last remaining, meager hope for the future.

The cries and pleas for mercy vanished into nothingness in the flames.

When the flames of execution were extinguished, the cloth bag behind the clergyman had become quite heavy.

He weighed the group of villagers in front of him with satisfaction, their eyes vacant and numb, as if their souls had been ripped out.

"Today, the sacred flame has purified the evil and lies of this place."

He said loudly, "May you take this as a warning, uphold your faith, and keep to your duties."

He waved his hand, and the Knights of the Pure Fire, escorting the string of prisoners, including John, along with the supposedly "unbelievably strong" ox and their bulging "trophies," turned and left the village shrouded in fear and sorrow.

The sunlight cast long shadows on them, like spreading darkness, covering the charred remains and the mess on the square.

The hustle and bustle and despair of the village were gradually left far behind, with only the occasional sound of horses' hooves treading on fallen leaves and the staggering footsteps of prisoners breaking the silence.

Deep in a dense forest several miles from the village, sunlight struggled to penetrate the thick canopy, casting dappled patterns of light.

An owl glided down silently, its sharp talons nimbly seizing a withered branch hanging from an ancient pine tree.

Its amber eyes sharply scanned a simple tent half-hidden by vines below, then it spread its wings and glided to the ground.

The moment the owl lands, its body begins to writhe and swell unnaturally.

The feathers retracted, the bones made a faint crackling sound, the beak retracted, and the limbs stretched.

In just a few breaths, the owl disappeared, replaced by an old man wearing a dark brown cloak with wrinkles and age spots on his face.

The tent flap was suddenly flung open, and a young woman strode out.

She had long, unkempt brown hair, and her face was pale from years of hiding, but her eyes burned with suppressed anger and gloom.

"Morgan, how is it?" The young witch's voice was urgent and low.

The old wizard Morgan shook his robes, as if trying to shake off the foul air of the village, and replied in a hoarse voice, "Things are bad, Isabella. Omar is indeed in there. I saw it with my own eyes. He was shackled by those Purifying Fire bastards, strung together with a bunch of Muggles."

The witch named Isabella clenched her fists suddenly, her knuckles turning white.

"We must get him out!" Her voice was resolute, but more so, it was filled with helplessness.

Morgan sneered, shook his head, and his wrinkles deepened: "Save us? Just the two of us? Isabella, you need to see reality. The leader is at least a high priest, and there are at least two other priests. His knights are all battle-crazed warriors in full armor. If we rush in recklessly, we'll just be buried with Omar, adding a couple more entries to their list of achievements."

"What can we do? Are we just going to watch Omar get burned at the stake?" Isabella roared excitedly.

A glint flashed in Morgen's cloudy eyes. He lowered his voice and said with a sinister smile, "A head-on confrontation is foolish. But the Church relies on its numbers and its absolute control over those Muggles... We can take that 'advantage' away from them."

He paused before continuing, "We can use scarlet fever, mixed with some cemetery moss, to turn living people into mindless, guided... corpses in a very short time."

Isabella's breathing quickened, her face growing even paler: "You mean...all the villagers nearby..."

"It's not 'all,' it's selective."

Morgan interrupted her, his tone icy, "Along the route the witch hunters took south, there are three more villages of similar size nearby. We don't need to convert them all, just a portion, enough to form a sufficient number..."

"The undead know no pain, nor fear death. If there are enough of them, they'll overwhelm that witch-hunting party. The Church's lackeys ultimately have limited magic; at that point..."

He stared at Isabella: "We not only have a chance to rescue Omar, but we can even kill the entire witch hunt team. We can use the flesh and blood of those ignorant, cowardly villagers, who might still be cheering for the church, to tear through the church's defenses and rescue our comrades. Isn't it ironic?"

Isabella fell silent. The scene of Omar being engulfed in flames, the cold face of the church knight, the villagers reporting the wizard's ugly behavior... all these images kept flashing through her mind.

Ultimately, hatred prevailed over hesitation.

She looked up, her gloom turning into madness: "What do we need to prepare? Time is running out."

Morgan's withered lips twisted into a sinister grin: "We have some materials, and if we need more, we can scavenge them from the graveyards and abandoned houses along the way. The key is speed. We must finish before the witch hunt team reaches the village. Let the scent of death pave their 'glorious' return."

Without saying another word, the two quickly packed up the few belongings left in the tent and prepared to leave.

"So you're members of that dark wizarding organization called the 'School of Wither'?"

A voice suddenly rang out, startling the two wizards who had just finished packing their belongings.

Chapter 395 A Familiar Name

"So you're members of that dark wizarding organization called the 'School of Wither'?"

A calm voice suddenly rang out in the woods, as if it had been waiting for a long time.

Morgan and Isabella whirled around like startled birds, their wands instantly sliding from their sleeves into their palms and pointing at the speaker.

A man dressed in a simple black robe had silently appeared a few steps away from them, his presence almost blending into the surrounding forest.

"Who are you?!"

Isabella shouted sharply, the tip of her wand flashing with an unstable, dangerous light.

Morgan's cloudy eyes were filled with surprise and vigilance. He could sense that the other party's unfathomable magic power far surpassed that of the two of them.

“Answer my question.”

Sagles's expression was calm, but his tone carried a strong sense of pressure.

“This has nothing to do with you!” Morgan hissed, giving Isabella a wink at the same time, and the two were about to swing their wands almost simultaneously—

However, Sagles was faster, or rather, he didn't move at all.

Just as the two were about to unleash their magic, the surrounding trees seemed to come alive. Their supple branches shot out like giant pythons, instantly wrapping around their wrists, ankles, and torsos, before tightening abruptly!

The powerful force made their bones crack, and the wands flew out of their hands.

Several slender branches, as if alive, precisely wrapped around their mouths, tightly constricting them and silencing their screams and curses.

"Ugh! Ugh—!"

The two struggled desperately, their eyes filled with unbelievable terror and pain.

These trees that bound them were not magical creations, but real forest trees, yet they had become deadly prisons under the silent control of their adversaries.

Sagrass slowly walked over to the two men who were almost unable to move, his gaze calmly sweeping over their faces, which were contorted with suffocation.