Sagres and Nightingale left the first leader's cave and headed straight for the dwelling of the second leader.
The entrance to the second cave was more heavily guarded. In addition to the heavy stone door, several vines from magical plants had been stretched across the entrance as tripwires.
But such measures posed no problem for Sagres.
With a light tap of his wand, he cast several subtle counter-charms and a Confundus Charm, causing the faint glow on the vines to dim, as though they had fallen asleep.
Immediately afterward, he repeated the previous method. A silent unlocking spell landed precisely on the stone door, and with an almost inaudible scraping sound, the two slipped inside once again.
The goblin within was clearly more vigilant.
Rather than resting, he was carefully cleaning and maintaining the obsidian-inlaid brass wand under the light of a fluorite crystal.
Although the door opened soundlessly, something instantly alerted him.
He sharply turned around.
But all he saw was a sudden wave of darkness.
A powerful, silent Stunning Spell struck him head-on, instantly robbing him of consciousness.
Sagres gave him no opportunity to react or raise the alarm.
The rest of the process was much the same as before.
First, subdue the target.
Then, search his memories.
This leader's mental defenses were equally robust, and the alterations ran even deeper and were more intricately woven.
This time, Sagres changed his approach, employing several more destructive techniques to reach the truth more quickly.
Even so, the process still felt like forcing his way through a maze of thorns.
Fragmentary memories flickered past.
He saw more details concerning those strange alchemical items.
The obsidian came from a valley thick with the smell of sulphur.
The robes they wore had actually been altered and refashioned from old robes belonging to human wizards.
He also caught a vague message from the mysterious leader:
"...this power is not a gift, but a price... but only by abandoning weakness can one embrace a new life..."
There was a cold and unwavering determination in the voice.
Eventually, in a fleeting memory fragment, Sagres saw the nine departing goblins dividing themselves into three groups and setting out in different directions, apparently assigned to separate missions.
Although he still failed to uncover the identity of the mysterious leader, these scattered fragments of information were valuable in themselves.
He calmly dealt with the second target.
Now only one leader remained.
The tall goblin with the wand they had encountered earlier in the rainforest.
They soon located his cave.
Ironically, the defenses here were the weakest.
Perhaps because of excessive confidence in the concealment of the stronghold, very little warning magic had been placed around the entrance, making their infiltration unusually smooth.
The elderly goblin was asleep, his brass wand resting beside his pillow.
Sagres's Stunning Spell merely sent him into an even deeper slumber.
Once more, the wand touched his temple.
This time, however, the experience of searching his memories felt entirely different.
The old goblin's mind was far more weathered and chaotic than those of the other two.
His memories resembled a constantly shifting fog, filled with painful and tormented afterimages.
Sagres carefully ventured deeper.
He could sense that this mind had suffered the most severe alterations, almost to the point of completely reshaping the goblin's personality.
Yet at the deepest level, certain instinctive and powerful emotions had left even stronger traces precisely because they had been suppressed so thoroughly.
He saw scenes of confusion and fear during the early migrations.
He witnessed the moment when the mysterious leader displayed overwhelming power, inspiring both awe and obedience.
He also saw the brutal agony caused by countless failed bloodline grafting and purification rituals.
Finally, after stripping away layer upon layer of deeply implanted hatred, he caught a brief but distinct image hidden within a memory that had been almost entirely erased.
It was from the earliest days of the volcanic outpost.
Under the cover of darkness, the faceless leader stood alone on the edge of the volcano.
Looking down at the newly established camp below, he murmured softly into the wind.
"I must find a way to kill him. No matter how terrible the consequences, they cannot be worse than before..."
"Since he can use it, then so can I..."
Before he could finish speaking, he seemed to sense some distant gaze.
His hood tightened abruptly, all emotion vanished, and he once again became that cold, powerful, and mysterious leader.
Then the scene ended abruptly, forcibly cut off by some powerful external force.
Sagres slowly withdrew his wand, his brows tightly furrowed. He stood in silence, sorting through the chaotic information.
"The 'he' in those memories... must refer to me."
He murmured quietly.
"But what was it that I used that he could also use? The knowledge of Bloodline Grafting and Purification? Or... something else?"
Nightingale watched his increasingly grave expression but did not interrupt.
After a long moment, Sagres's gaze fell upon the unconscious goblin. There was no longer any uncertainty in his eyes, only a bottomless calm.
He raised his wand once more.
"Any clues?" Nightingale asked softly after he had dealt with the goblin.
"Only some guesses," Sagres replied in a low voice. "They're rather unrealistic, but not entirely impossible."
He casually picked up the thick, coverless book lying on the stone table and flipped through its pages.
Its contents were highly similar to Bloodline Grafting and Purification, but it was clearly a handwritten copy. Many sections contained errors, and numerous diagrams appeared crude and distorted.
"Like the one we encountered on Derry Island, these leader-level goblins have all undergone some degree of bloodline grafting and purification."
He pointed at the corpse lying on the floor.
"For example, this one has incorporated a trace of giant blood. The increase in size isn't obvious yet, but its resistance to magic already far surpasses that of an ordinary wizard."
Nightingale interrupted him directly.
"So you still have no clue where they came from?"
"As I said, only guesses," Sagres answered truthfully.
"What kind of guesses?"
"It may sound absurd..."
Nightingale's eyes sharpened.
She understood the implication behind his words, and an almost impossible possibility surfaced in her mind.
"You think... it didn't originally belong to this world?"
Sagres slowly shook his head.
"I think it didn't originally belong to this time."
His expression remained perfectly calm.
"That so-called leader most likely arrived here from another timeline, using a Time-Turner."
After briefly skimming through the book in his hand, Sagres casually tossed it back onto the stone table.
"Let's search a few more goblins. Perhaps we'll uncover something else of value."
The two once again moved carefully through the labyrinthine cave system, searching for anything that might prove valuable or dangerous.
In the leaders' chambers and several workshop-like areas, they discovered many items.
There were crude manuscripts recording distorted bloodline knowledge, along with various rare materials radiating different magical fluctuations, most of them consumables required for the dangerous rituals.
Sagres calmly swept away everything of value, but despite searching the minds of more goblins, he failed to uncover any additional useful information.
Eventually, they returned to the cavern containing the bloody magic circle.
The six Diricawls were still confined within cages placed around the edge of the circle, letting out soft and frightened coos.
With a light tap of his wand, the locks sprang open.
After removing the anti-Apparition enchantments on the cages, he gently took a tuft of feathers from each bird.
"Go," he whispered softly. "Leave this place."
The Diricawls froze for a moment, instinctively sensing that the spatial restrictions had vanished.
Their bodies blurred and flickered one after another.
In an instant, all six disappeared without a trace.
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