The sound of waves crashing against the İçmeler Shipyard was interrupted by Efsun’s crackling, tense breaths coming from the radio. The interior of the rusty yacht was filled with the wet and dark aura of the CORE team that had just returned from the Underwater Museum. “Going on the hunt? Are you crazy?” Efsun’s voice cracked on the radio. “Darius, you don’t have the slightest clue as to where Nazir is. The Ministry is currently in a state of utter panic. They are trying to leak the destruction in Pedasa and those drowned corpses in the Underwater Museum to the press as a ‘gas compression’ and ‘accident’. They’ve sent official Auror hunters after you!” Darius took off his black robe, dripping with water, and tossed it onto the table. His eyes were locked onto those cursed bloodstains on the map. “Let them,” said Darius, his voice smooth and lethal. “As you said, Efsun, we don’t know where Nazir is. But I know very well where he wouldn’t hide. He lost his four masked assassins and his right-hand man. He expended a tremendous amount of magical energy to control Fiendfyre. Right now, he is vulnerable. And a vulnerable snake always returns to the darkest hole, to its roots.” In the corner, Meltem, who was cleaning her shock discs, looked up. “To his roots? Nazir isn’t from around here.” Lidya slipped out from among the shadows like a whisper. “Physically no, but magically yes. That dark magic he uses, the Sanguis Vinculum ritual... It’s a forbidden teaching belonging to the ancient inhabitants of these lands, the Carian wizards.” Darius nodded. “Nazir didn’t learn this ritual in a day. He must have a laboratory where he found it, where he translated those bloody texts, and where he conducted his first experiments on mortals. A place where he set up camp long before Pedasa or the Theatre.” Kuzey stopped polishing his wand’s runes and approached the map. “You entered Tariq’s mind. Did you see a place there?” “I didn’t see an exact place,” Darius said. He pressed his fingers to his temples, forcing himself to bring those bloody memories in Tariq’s mind back to the surface. “But a feeling... A dense smell of sulfur. Hot water seeping from the walls. And... a cavern ceiling woven from massive, black stones.” Alaz jumped in from the other end of the table. “Hot water and sulfur? Kara Ada (Black Island)!” Everyone’s gaze turned to that isolated, volcanic island on the map. “Kara Ada, off the coast of Bodrum,” Alaz continued, his eyes shining with excitement. “That’s a place tourists go for the hot water caves. But beneath the cave system, at the intersection of fault lines, there’s a volcanic void. Unmapped for centuries, a blind spot where even magical compasses don’t work due to the sulfur!” “A perfect hiding place,” Meltem said, putting on her gloves. “Both a blind spot where no one visits to conduct the first rituals, and a source where he can feed his magical core with volcanic energy after releasing Fiendfyre.” Darius gripped his wand. “Alaz, we need transport. Apparating is risky because of the island’s volcanic energy. We must go there by water, silently.” Alaz pulled back a thick tarpaulin in the corner of the yacht in one swift motion. Underneath it revealed a black, matte zodiac boat, completely covered in runes. “Ghost Boat,” Alaz said, grinning. “Invisible on radar, absorbs the sound of the water, and weaves a small curtain of fog around itself. It’ll take you silently all the way to the rocks on the backside of Kara Ada.” Half an hour later, in the pitch blackness of the night, the CORE team was advancing towards Kara Ada, cleaving through the foaming Aegean waters. The fog curtain had made them virtually a part of the sea. The island rose like a massive, black tooth in the darkness. The wind whipped the throat burning, rotten-egg smell of sulfur into their faces. When the boat silently approached the steep rocks on the back of the island, the team jumped onto the slippery stones one by one. Kuzey quickly scanned the area with his wand. “No guards in sight. But I sense a strong energy fluctuation from under the rocks. It’s hot inside. Very hot.” Lidya glided toward a narrow, natural crevice between the rocks. “The entrance is here,” she whispered. “The shadows inside... are writhing. There’s so much pain.” Darius moved to the very front of his team. “If Nazir is trying to open the Fourth Port while he’s inside, we will hunt him down right in the middle of the ritual. Expect no mercy.” Four ghosts began to silently descend into the volcanic veins of Kara Ada, into Nazir’s dark laboratory. A red, sickly light coming from the depths of the crevice made the cave walls look as if they were washed in blood. Meltem approached Darius as she activated her shock discs. “We don’t know what awaits us inside.” Darius raised his wand. Its tip glowed not with the dark-absorbing dull purple this time, but with a direct, lethal, cold gray. “I hope,” said Darius. “What awaits us is hell itself. Because tonight, I came to freeze hell.” 32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNpny5iis8l
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