Chapter 579: The Ritual
Chapter 579: The Ritual
After hearing Liam's instructions, Hermione obediently walked to the other side of the emporium and sat down, watching Liam. Liam, in turn, nodded earnestly, turned around, and faced the Alchemical Array. He took a deep breath and began tossing the soul-condensed gray balls into the array.
At this moment, the four light orbs within the Alchemical Array were spinning at a speed beyond human perception, forming a floating white halo. As the gray balls entered the white halo, they began to spin rapidly, like they were caught in a centrifuge, emitting thin wisps of gray mist.
This mist was continuously drawn into the white halo, eventually becoming part of it, while the gray balls gradually shrank. Each time a gray ball disappeared, Liam would immediately throw in the next one.
During this process, Liam felt himself transported to a barren land. The sky was filled with dark clouds, and through the gaps, a rust-red sky occasionally peeked through. The ground shared the same color as the sky, a desolate and lifeless expanse. The earth was riddled with cracks, ranging from the width of a thumb to the thinness of a hair, and in some of these cracks, dark red lava bubbled. Only a few stunted shrubs stood sparsely, their branches reaching out like hands of despair toward the sky.
Liam wandered through this landscape, feeling his real body moving mechanically, perfectly synchronized as it continued to toss the gray balls into the center of the Alchemical Array.
This dual-body sensation was novel to Liam, but he quickly realized he had no control over his physical body.
"This must be the key to soul transformation", Liam thought, recalling Teacher Luo Zhen's instructions and the fragments of Nicolas Flamel's records he had seen at Dumbledore's. As Teacher Luo Zhen had warned, the experience of soul transformation varies for each person, so Liam had to rely on himself.
After a few steps, Liam suddenly felt a pain in his foot. He looked down and saw a group of ant-sized gray mist men trying to pierce him with hair-thin spikes. He simply moved his foot slightly, and these gray mist men were obliterated, turning into a cloud of gray smoke. Tiny specks of light from the smoke entered his body, while the rest quickly dissipated into the landscape.
Liam sensed that this change established a faint connection between himself and this dimension. He immediately understood that this was a necessary process of transformation, a change from his physical body to his soul. This dimension, which might be an illusion, was a visualization of his understanding of the rules of Alchemy.
"The essence of the rules of Alchemy must be change. I should start from this aspect", Liam thought, confirming his direction. "But my illusion shows a world, even if it's a small one. This indicates that these rules are very powerful, and mastering them will be extremely difficult."
As he began to walk across the land, Liam realized that the stunted shrubs he had seen were actually miniature versions of tall trees. The tiny cracks in the ground and the even smaller gray mist men suggested that he might have transformed into a giant, or perhaps he had entered a world akin to Lilliput.
For the next while, Liam followed his inner guidance, walking around and destroying every gray mist man he encountered. Fortunately, these creatures always appeared in the same place, so he didn't need to search for them. Through this process, he discovered that these small men were actually the souls he had thrown into the Alchemical Array. Each soul that merged with this dimension also brought a sense of suppression from the landscape.
As these souls were continuously destroyed, their power gradually seeped into the surrounding dimension. Slowly, Liam felt his connection to the dimension growing stronger. He began to analyze the surrounding dimension and even started to manipulate some of its forces to reshape it.
As the small spheres were continuously fed into the Alchemical Array, Liam saw an increasing number of mystic runes flashing in the desolate world. Some appeared complete, while others were fragmented. However, as time passed, the fragmented patterns gradually filled out, and more new patterns emerged.
Finally, when the 100 small spheres were fully integrated into the halo of the Alchemical Array, Liam heard a voice that seemed to originate from the deepest part of his soul, much like the first sound of ice cracking when a frozen river thaws in spring.
Everything before him changed in an instant. Liam found that no matter where he directed his gaze—whether at the ground, the trees, or the clouds—everything turned into pure mystic patterns and runes. At the same time, the suppression from the world reached its peak.
"This is the most difficult step", Liam thought, after confirming his current state. Having integrated knowledge from several worlds, he did not want to merely master the rules like Dumbledore or Grindelwald. Instead, he aimed to go further, to break through the power limitations of the Harry Potter world and reach higher realms.
This was why he chose to complete this ritual in the Multiverse General Store. For Liam, this place was truly his own world, and this connection to the Multiverse was the world with the highest known power ceiling. It would provide the best foundation for his future development and the mastery of greater power. Of course, others wouldn't have this concern, as they wouldn't know about other worlds, and thus the choice of worlds would not be an issue for them.
Liam began to communicate with the surrounding world, gradually merging his energy with the environment while reinforcing his soul to maintain his sense of self. As the energy flowed, his resonance with the surrounding world grew stronger. Finally, his body suddenly disintegrated into a cloud of golden dust, which spread out, turning everything it touched into a metallic gray mist.
At that moment, Hermione, who was in the Multiverse General Store, abruptly put down her book and stood up. She sensed that Liam's life force had become faint and intermittent. Fortunately, their soul connection remained unchanged, which allowed her to observe Liam closely for a long time, finally breathing a sigh of relief when she confirmed he was not in danger.
As Hermione returned to her seat and quietly continued reading, waiting for Liam, the wondrous world had completely transformed into a gray mist. At the center of the mist, a blood-red sphere pulsed with countless flowing runes.
"Now comes the final step, truly mastering my own path", Liam thought, recalling the mystic runes he had seen. "Transformation, change, and then—the birth of a new world."
With this thought, a faint light began to glow within the endless gray mist, like the first ray of dawn. However, this light was blood-red, and countless rays of light radiated from the blood-red sphere at the center of the mist, piercing through it and bathing everything in a blood-red glow.
As time passed, the blood-red sphere with flowing runes slowly transformed into a door. The door grew larger as more gray mist flowed into it, eventually standing tall and blood-red in the void. At the same time, the blood-red sphere floating in Liam's mind also transformed, drawing on his mental energy and magic power to become a matching blood-red door.
When both doors were fully formed, the blood-red door in the void emerged from the darkness and merged with the door in Liam's mind.
Instantly, Liam felt his soul return to his body, along with a surge of powerful energy. His entire body felt lighter than ever before.
At that moment, Liam's eyes opened. The first thing he saw was a small, pinkish-red gem, the size of a newborn's fist, appearing on the Alchemical Array: the Rose Madonna had been born.
(End of Chapter)
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