Chapter 218: Dementor Research
Chapter 218: Dementor Research
When Liam returned to the dormitory, everyone was asleep, except for Scabbers, who was feigning sleep. Liam didn’t mind if Scabbers knew about his nocturnal wanderings. After all, it wasn’t unusual for Gryffindor students to explore at night.
However, with Scabbers around, Liam didn’t dare go to the Multiverse General Store right away. He waited until the next afternoon, after classes, and then slipped into a bathroom to enter the store.
As soon as he entered the emporium, Liam noticed that the Dementor, which had been bound in a web of enchanted cotton soaked in Rune Water and rooster blood, had become much less smoky and appeared listless, a far cry from its lively state when it was first captured.
It was clear that the web, with its magical properties, was highly effective against dark creatures. If left unchecked, the Dementor might eventually disappear entirely.
With this in mind, Liam quickly set up his portable altar. He surrounded it with talismans made from the same enchanted cotton, forming a protective circle. He then carefully extracted a Dementor from the web and placed it on the altar.
As soon as the Dementor was on the altar, a milky white protective layer rose around it. Runes then appeared, immobilizing the Dementor in mid-air.
Everything was ready. Liam first tried to use Life Magic to detect the Dementor’s condition, but the runes he sent out disappeared upon contact with the Dementor’s cloak, which emitted a cloud of gray smoke. Clearly, the cloak was resistant to magical detection.
The cloak, it seemed, had anti-magic detection properties. Liam, recalling a fan novel he had read in his previous life, suspected that the Dementor’s cloak might be a valuable magical material. His observations seemed to confirm this.
To protect himself, Liam summoned his Blue Crab Patronus and activated his Core Techniques to shield his spirit. His first move was to use the obsidian ceremonial dagger, which he had obtained from the Pyramid Temple, to cut a piece of the Dementor’s cloak.
Unfortunately, the piece of cloak turned to black smoke as soon as it was separated from the Dementor, and the cloak quickly regrew to replace the missing section.
This behavior was similar to how Metamorphmagi’s clothes changed with their transformations, suggesting that the cloak was an integral part of the Dementor. This realization led Liam to a crucial insight: if the cloak and the Dementor were one, then the Dementor must be an energy-based creature. And most energy-based creatures could be depleted of their energy.
With this in mind, Liam directed his Blue Crab Patronus to repeatedly cut away pieces of the Dementor’s cloak, using its energy to erase the cut sections. As the Patronus continued this process, the Dementor grew weaker. Eventually, it could no longer regenerate its cloak, revealing a pale, gray, and decaying body.
“This is one ugly sight,” Liam muttered as he wielded the obsidian dagger to try and collect some samples from the Dementor.
The blade met with noticeable resistance as it cut into the Dementor’s body, confirming that it was not a spirit but a creature with a physical form. The process of collecting samples went smoothly, but like the cloak, the samples quickly turned to black smoke. The Dementor then slowly regrew the missing parts.
However, perhaps due to the significant previous expenditure, Liam noticed that Dementor seemed to become even more ethereal after regrowing the cut section. The subsequent cuts with the obsidian blade confirmed this; if the original cuts felt like slicing through roast meat, now it felt like cutting through a pile of cotton wadding.
"Now I can only study it as a whole." Liam sighed, giving up on slicing, and began chanting Life Magic. Soon, runes once again surged toward the Dementor. Without the cloak's interference, this time the runes successfully merged into the Dementor's body, transmitting various data to Liam.
"It's not alive, but it's not dead either. What a strange creature." Liam frowned as he received the data from the Dementor. However, there seemed to be a strange mist blocking further information from reaching him.
"I'll have to try this." Liam thought, pulling out a Clay Orb from his spatial bag. This orb was made by sweeping the dust off tombstones in Uncle Kiu's world, typically used for communication between the living and the dead. After discovering that the Dementor existed between the two realms, he had come up with a new method.
Liam dissolved the Clay Orb with Rune Water and then took out a writing brush, dipping it in the muddy water to prepare to draw talismans on the Dementor. For safety, Liam first drew several runes on his right arm using a magic ink he had mixed himself.
As expected, the moment his hand entered the barrier, the Dementor launched an attack. A powerful suction force erupted from its mouth, as if trying to pull Liam's soul out through his arm.
At that moment, the runes on his right arm emitted a golden light, pinning the Dementor in place.
"Alright, let's see what secrets you're hiding." Liam muttered, beginning to draw runes on the Dementor.
After drawing a dozen runes, Liam heard a sound like shattering glass from within the Dementor, followed by a flood of chaotic information and black smoke transmitted through the runes into Liam's Mind Sea.
"A soul attack, are you making a last desperate move?" Liam calmly formed a barrier with his Righteous Power to block the black mist, filtering out the information mixed within it.
With the final attack, the Dementor's body was completely drained and turned into black smoke. Liam ignored the state of the altar and closed his eyes to organize the information he had just received.
Over half an hour later, Liam opened his eyes. He finally understood what the Dementor was all about.
This creature was actually composed of soul energy scattered throughout the world and various negative emotions. The Dementor used negative emotions to bind these disparate soul energies together, forming a being that existed between life and death.
The reason Dementors absorbed positive emotions from humans was that negative emotions alone could only keep them alive by instinct, like a beast. Only by absorbing sufficient positive emotions to balance the negative could the Dementor significantly enhance its consciousness and evolve.
In addition to positive emotions, Dementors also required the souls of intelligent beings to strengthen and evolve their Soul Body. Simply absorbing the free-floating soul energy in nature was too slow, requiring a vast amount of time for evolution. This is why Dementors desired to lower their hoods and directly suck out complete souls.
Only after satisfying these two conditions could a Dementor truly evolve into an intelligent life form. An evolved Dementor would automatically become the leader of its community. According to the information Liam read from this Dementor, Azkaban had over a dozen leaders, and two of them were among the Dementors that came to Hogwarts.
"Today has been quite enlightening. I've learned about a life form I've never seen before." Liam thought to himself as he sat on the chair behind the counter.
(End of Chapter)
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