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No matter how one looked at it, just as the Western world knew very little about the African magical world, Ian himself knew very little about this land.
Now, standing upon this land during the era when Voldemort was active, Ian had begun to realize that Africa might be hiding secrets that had remained undiscovered even in his own time.
"Perhaps this is also why the African Ministry of Magic and its wizards have always kept such a low profile internationally. They don't want wizards from other parts of the world uncovering the secrets hidden here."
"But just how mysterious are these secrets?"
A multitude of thoughts surged through Ian's mind. For the moment, he suppressed his worries about the Fallen God pursuing him and focused his attention on the ruins before him. A pale light shone from the tip of his wand like a searchlight, sweeping across the rough rock walls and massive stone pillars.
The murals on the walls had suffered severe erosion over the ages, becoming blurred and fragmented, yet certain patterns could still be made out.
They did not resemble the artistic style of any known civilization. Neither the solemn grandeur of ancient Egypt, the cuneiform narratives of Mesopotamia, nor the mysterious totems of the Maya bore any resemblance to what lay before him.
The creatures depicted in the murals were bizarre in form. Some resembled crystalline lifeforms with multiple segmented limbs; others seemed to be composed of flowing liquid metal. They appeared to be performing some incomprehensible ritual, surrounding not the usual sun, moon, or stars, but grotesquely distorted geometric symbols that seemed to represent concepts such as force fields or dimensions.
Besides that, scattered across the ground were fragments of artifacts. Most were made from a dark material that was neither metal nor stone. It felt cold to the touch and bore natural spiral patterns across its surface.
"An alchemical artifact?"
Ian picked up a fragment and attempted to analyze its composition and age with magic. The results only left him more confused. The information returned by the analytical spell was extraordinarily chaotic, as though the atomic structure of the material itself differed from that of any substance recognized by modern understanding.
The age of its existence was so ancient that even the most precise dating magic could provide only a vague conclusion:
The margin of error is enormous, but it likely predates the era of the oldest known Titans.
"Older than the Titans?"
Even such a tentative discovery was enough to shock Ian, and his expression grew more serious.
Looking to the side, he found the silent stone sculptures even stranger.
They were neither human-shaped nor representations of any known legendary creature. Instead, they possessed structures that completely defied common sense, spiraling columns that extended endlessly upward only to loop back upon themselves at the top; polyhedrons that seemed to exist simultaneously in multiple dimensions; and forms composed entirely of lines and shadows.
They looked less like statues and more like "shadows" cast by some vast, incomprehensible entity.
"Seriously, what kind of Picasso-style creations are these?"
As Ian walked through the silent and ancient ruins, he felt like an ant that had accidentally wandered into a giant's toy room.
Every scale, every framework of understanding, was overturned here.
"These murals... these artifacts... and this depth..."
Ian frowned deeply as a startling hypothesis began to take shape in his mind.
"If these were created before the age of the Titans, then perhaps this was also an extraterrestrial civilization that came to Earth, just like the Titans... except far older. This is a civilization that even mythology never recorded, a lost alien civilization that vanished completely before the tides of time itself!"
The shock brought by this discovery was so overwhelming that it temporarily eclipsed his awareness of the danger he was in.
It was easy to understand how Ian felt.
It was as though an archaeologist, believing he had uncovered the mysteries of Sanxingdui, suddenly stumbled upon traces of a civilization that was ten thousand years older and entirely unrelated to it.
Just imagine it, the impact would be utterly revolutionary.
Of course, it was only a hypothesis. Yet Ian felt that it explained many things.
Yes, it also explained why he had been unable to identify the origin of the Fallen God outside.
That being very likely was not a deity from any known mythological system. Instead, it probably originated from this long-forgotten civilization, one so ancient that not even its name had survived in any ancient text.
The divine authority it represented and the nature of its power were founded upon a set of ancient laws completely different from modern magic systems and from all later mythological traditions, a system that had long since been lost.
"Just how many alien civilizations have visited Earth?"
Unsure whether he was living in a science-fiction world or a magical one, Ian could not help but complain and just as he was immersed in this astonishing discovery…
BOOM!!!!!!
An explosion far more violent than any before suddenly erupted from the direction he had come from.
The entire ruins shook violently. More dust and fragments of stone rained down from above.
The millions of restrictions Ian had set up had only ever been able to delay the inevitable. Under the Fallen God's relentless, berserk assault, they were finally shattered by brute force. The enemy had broken through.
As a result, an incomparably dense and nauseating tide of defiled Divine Power surged into this relatively "pure" ancient space like a flood bursting through a dam.
"I told you not to come in! You didn't listen! This is nothing less than contempt for my Divine Oracle!"
The twisted humanoid, or rather, quasi-humanoid, figure stepped through the breach in the shattered restrictions, carrying overwhelming fury and even more intense greed. Its crimson eyes immediately locked onto Ian, who stood beside a strange spiral-shaped stone sculpture.
"You... have nowhere left to run... insect!" The Fallen God's voice became even more distorted, both from rage and from a peculiar excitement brought on by entering this place.
"Here... it isn't only your Legendary Status that can extend my life! Your soul... will also be the finest sacrifice!"
Without another word, battle erupted instantly.
The Fallen God seemed somewhat different after entering the ancient ruins. Beyond its usual aura of decay and berserk madness, there was now an additional trace of something akin to... vitality? As though it had returned to its nest.
With a casual lift of its hand, it unleashed a concentrated Annihilation Divine Ray.
It was no longer the gray-black beam from before.
Instead, it carried a deeper hue of Void itself, a darkness that seemed capable of devouring all color. Like a serpent from the end of the universe, it shot silently toward Ian.
"I haven't finished studying this place yet! Damn it!"
Ian dared not be careless. His wand moved rapidly, and a composite defensive spell instantly took shape, a fusion of Order Stabilization, Spatial Deflection, and Elemental Neutralization.
Myriad Return-to-Origin Shield.
Streams of multicolored magical light revolved across the shield's surface, attempting to dismantle and redirect the terrifying divine ray.
Hiss…!
The Annihilation Divine Ray collided with the Myriad Return-to-Origin Shield.
There was no thunderous explosion. Only the unsettling sound of energy annihilating energy.
The divine ray cut into the shield like a red-hot blade through butter. Though its speed was reduced and its power weakened, it still stubbornly pierced layer after layer of defense before finally striking the hastily erected Protego Ian had cast afterward.
"Damn it, my Eastern Divine Arts!"
In the world of Hogwarts, the East had its own practitioners of magic, though they were known by different names. Recently, Ian had been studying the magical traditions of his true homeland.
Yet this was his first time employing them in battle. The effects almost seemed to belong in a xianxia fantasy novel, but they still failed to achieve the results he wanted.
Bang!
The immense force sent Ian sliding backward more than a dozen meters. His feet carved two deep grooves into the ancient stone floor. A metallic sweetness rose in his throat once again as his internal organs shook from the impact.
At that moment, Ian was deeply alarmed.
After entering the ruins, the Fallen God's attacks had become noticeably more condensed and far more penetrating.
The ruins are strengthening it?
"Realm of Decay, unfold!"
The Fallen God pressed its advantage. Spreading its arms, it unleashed an even greater torrent of foul Divine Power, attempting to drag this ancient ruin into its law-domain of universal extinction.
Gray-black ripples spread outward at astonishing speed.
Wherever they passed, even the patches of moss glowing with faint blue light withered instantly and crumbled into ash.
"Not a chance! Paradox Law: Reject Decay!"
Forcing more magic through his exhausted body, Ian combined his Paradox Divine Authority with his preliminary understanding of the structure of this ancient space and issued a law-like command spell, as though reality itself were obeying his words.
He sought to use the ruins' own ancient rules, rules fundamentally different from those of the outside world, to resist the Fallen God's decaying domain.
Then something miraculous happened.
As the spreading gray-black ripples touched certain ancient stone pillars and strange runes carved into the walls, they were visibly hindered.
The runes seemed to awaken.
A faint, immeasurably ancient radiance emerged from them, a power utterly different in nature from the Fallen God's corrupted divinity.
The light formed numerous localized safe zones.
Ian's command spell had acted as a catalyst, temporarily activating a residual defensive mechanism left within the ruins themselves.
"Hmm?!"
A flash of surprise appeared in the Fallen God's crimson eyes, quickly replaced by even greater fury.
"You dare... invoke the power of the Primordial Ones?! Blasphemy! This is blasphemy against the Sanctuary!"
It appeared genuinely shocked, and enraged, that Ian had managed to draw upon the ruins' power.
Abandoning its domain suppression entirely, its body suddenly expanded, transforming into a Dark Cyclone composed of countless anguished faces and masses of decaying matter.
It lunged at Ian.
Its speed surpassed the limits of visual perception.
"Swift Wind: Super Thigh!"
Channeling magic into his legs, Ian instantly split into dozens of afterimages, impossible to distinguish between real and fake. He darted between towering stone pillars and bizarre sculptures, evading the Dark Cyclone's pursuit.
At the same time, his wand never stopped moving.
Powerful attack spells poured forth like a raging storm toward the cyclone's core.
"Spear of Thunder!"
"Extreme Cold Freeze!"
"Dimensional Cut!"
"Psychic Blast!"
Brilliant magical lights continuously collided and exploded against the Dark Cyclone, illuminating the ancient space, silent for untold tens of thousands of years, in flickering bursts of light and shadow.
Shockwaves of energy raged in every direction, sweeping up dust and shattered stone.
This was the cataclysmic disturbance that the prisoners and Aurors outside had sensed, a battle so violent it seemed capable of destroying heaven and earth.
However, while such a spectacle might terrify ordinary people, it did not frighten Ian.
What truly astonished him was that despite the ferocity of his battle with the Fallen God, despite the collisions between magic and Divine Magic being powerful enough to tear apart the prison structures above them and perhaps even affect the Ministry of Magic on the surface, the destruction within these Abyssal Ruins remained surprisingly limited.
The enormous stone slabs, rough and weathered by countless ages, merely trembled slightly under the impact of the energy shockwaves and did not crack.
The rock walls covered with ancient murals shed only a few loose fragments that had already been on the verge of falling away; their main structures remained completely intact.
Most remarkable of all were the bizarre stone pillars and sculptures. They seemed fused with the very earth itself. No matter how violently the energy storm battered them, they did not move in the slightest. Not even a single scratch appeared on their surfaces.
Only some of the smaller artifact fragments scattered across the ground were reduced to dust by the shockwaves.
Their battle felt less like a clash capable of destroying worlds and more like a futile attempt to "clean" an enormous ancient room, incapable of affecting its foundations in any meaningful way.
One had to understand that the fighting outside had already reached a level comparable to the terrifying erasure of even the Great Laws themselves. A vacuum had been torn into existence beyond the ruins, and those outside might no longer be able to physically enter this place at all.
Yet, the ruins seemed to regard such chaos as nothing worth mentioning.
"????"
Ian realized that the materials composing the ruins, along with the structure of the complex itself, possessed a kind of durability completely beyond his comprehension and far beyond anything known to modern magical material science.
Or perhaps more accurately, the very rules of their existence were more stable, making them extraordinarily resistant to damage from energy impacts on this scale.
The Fallen God clearly understood this as well.
As a result, it no longer held back.
Its attacks became even more concentrated and focused entirely on Ian himself, seeking to suppress as quickly as possible this intruder who could invoke the power of the Primordials.
Afterward, it intended to use Ian's Status to slow the progression of its own corruption and, at the same time, sacrifice his soul in order to awaken some of its dormant companions.
The Fallen God's calculations were excellent.
The Dark Cyclone accelerated once more, clinging to Ian like an incurable curse and relentlessly pursuing his afterimages.
Then came a violent impact.
One of Ian's genuine bodies was grazed by the edge of the cyclone.
His protective magic shattered instantly.
His entire body was sent flying like a kite with its string cut, crashing toward a colossal stone sculpture shaped like the twisted hands of a clock.
Crash!
"Pfft…!"
A mouthful of blood erupted from Ian's lips. He felt as though several ribs had broken, and even the circulation of his magical power faltered for an instant.
Meanwhile, the Dark Cyclone that the Fallen God had transformed into had already closed the distance.
Countless agonized faces emerged within the whirlwind.
They roared soundlessly.
Their greedy mouths opened wide.
They were about to devour Ian completely.
The final confrontation between Divine Magic and mortal magic had entered its most brutal stage within this ancient land, a place seemingly forgotten even by time itself.
The Dark Cyclone carried with it the resentment of countless living beings as it surged toward Ian like a tidal wave.
Those innumerable distorted faces twisting within the wind were the corrupted remnants of Nature Spirits, the despair of sacrificial victims accumulated over millennia, and the silent lamentation of the land itself, wounded by the abuse of magic.
Their mouths produced no sound. Yet within the depths of Ian's soul, they raised monstrous waves.
"What a vile form of Divine Magic."
This was a devouring that operated on the spiritual level, and it was far deadlier than the destruction of the flesh.
Just as the cyclone was about to engulf him entirely, Ian suddenly opened his eyes.
His pupils were no longer human.
Instead, they resembled two collapsing nebulae.
Like black holes at the end of the universe, consuming all light and time.
He neither dodged nor defended.
Instead, he stepped forward to meet the torrent of darkness head-on.
"Anchor of Paradox, stand within the Void."
The instant the whisper left his lips, something strange happened.
At the moment his body came into contact with the cyclone, multiple overlapping images of him appeared.
These were not afterimages.
They were overlapping realities.
One Ian was torn apart by the cyclone.
Another Ian remained standing exactly where he was.
A third Ian had already appeared on the far side of the whirlwind, a silver-gray spike of light gathering at his fingertips.
This was the manifested manipulation of Status.
He was no longer confined to existence along a single timeline.
Using Paradox as his fulcrum, he had briefly achieved simultaneous existence across multiple possibilities.
Under such circumstances, the Fallen God's devouring power could destroy one "Ian," but it could not reach the core self, the true body serving as the Anchor of Existence.
Ordinary magic was clearly no longer sufficient.
Therefore, Ian could only continue relying on Divine Magic.
(End of Chapter)