18 Municipal Square Street, the White Ancestral Home.
In a cramped, dim basement room, the decor was brutally simple. A flickering oil lamp provided the only source of light. Several long tables were cluttered with jars and vials, their contents holding gruesome, stomach-churning "experimental materials."
In the center of the room sat a massive metal operating table. Lying strapped to it was a mangled humanoid creature with its eyes squeezed shut. Head-sized lumps grew all over its body, pulsing rhythmically like exposed hearts and constantly oozing thick, dark red blood.
Beneath the swollen, unrecognizable features, one could vaguely make out a horrifying truth: this was Old White, the patriarch of the family who was supposed to have died months ago!
A man in a sharp purple tailcoat stood before the metal table, holding a large syringe filled with a viscous red potion. It was Old White's eldest son, Jack.
Jack held the syringe up to the dim oil lamp, his expression twisted into an intoxicated sneer. "Simply wonderful..."
He plunged the thick needle into Old White's neck. As the dark red liquid was slowly injected, something seemed to writhe frantically beneath the corpse's skin.
The lumps on the beast's body began to pulse violently. A hideous, gurgling roar escaped Old White's mouth as dark red pus and blood overflowed from his jaw. His face contorted, covered in thick, bulging black veins, looking entirely demonic.
Gradually, the rapid pulsing of the lumps slowed, but the fleshy sacks were now covered in deep, weeping cracks. A moment later, several of the lumps ruptured, bursting open like smashed melons.
As the flesh peeled back, human faces were revealed inside the tumors!
The faces had their eyes tightly shut, looking disturbingly peaceful in contrast to the monster housing them. Had Damian been present , he would have instantly recognized one of the faces: it belonged to the missing Night Watchman.
Unfazed by the horror, Jack injected a second dose of the dark red potion into his father's veins.
A moment later, Old White's eyes snapped open, blazing with a bloodthirsty, crimson light.
"Go kill my dear brother, Ryan ," Jack whispered into the monster's ear. "When you're finished, go to 56 Riverside Street and clean out the people there."
56 Riverside Street was Chris's home—and currently, Damian's residence.
Jack's grudge stemmed from Madam Alsha's recent gathering. When the powerful Madam Alsha had invited Damian for the opening dance, Jack had been consumed by petty, burning jealousy. He had quietly hired two rogue Dark Wizards to assassinate the newcomer outside the manor.
To Jack's absolute shock, the supposed "wild wizard" was exceptionally dangerous. Damian had slaughtered the two Dark Wizards without breaking a sweat.
Jack considered himself lucky that Old White had still been in the early experimental stages back then, unable to move freely. If he had sent his father after Damian that night, the incomplete monster likely would have been destroyed.
Jack knew he had caused too many disappearances in town. Link was already sniffing around the Iron-Tooth Brotherhood, and it wouldn't be long before Link traced the breadcrumbs back to the White Ancestral Home.
But Jack had a plan. Old White was just one of his many experimental subjects. He intended to unleash the beast to take the fall for everything; the stolen faces grafted to its body would be the perfect, undeniable evidence of the "culprit."
Jack just needed to retreat into the shadows and stall for time. He had other subjects hidden away—creatures with far greater magical potential than his father.
Once his dark army was fully grown, he would eliminate these meddlesome Syndicate operatives one by one. And when the dust settled, everything belonging to Madam Alsha would be his!
"To think the corpse of an old, useless noble could be weaponized to this extent..." Jack muttered, a fanatical smile stretching across his face as he watched the beast rise. "It's an absolute miracle!"
After leaving Ryan's house, Damian maintained his Disillusionment Charm and headed straight for Municipal Square Street. It was time to investigate the White Ancestral Home.
Municipal Square Street was the historical center of White Stone Town. The estates here had been built centuries ago, and the noble White family was one of the town's founding pillars. Despite the street's age, the manors were impeccably maintained, aided by centuries of preservation charms.
The White Ancestral Home was four stories high, occupying a massive plot of land with walled courtyards in the front and back.
Damian didn't just walk up to the front door. Stopping across the street, he raised his wand and cast an advanced, non-verbal Revelio charm layered with Ancient Runes.
An invisible, magical ripple emanated from his wand, washing over the entire estate.
This specific detection method drastically enhanced a wizard's perception. An average wizard casting Revelio would only sense faint magical signatures in their immediate vicinity. But combined with Damian's raw magical talent, it painted a crystal-clear picture of the manor's defenses.
Damian had recently traded a batch of potions with Link for a few localized common spells, and this sensory charm was one of them.
The spell revealed heavy trap formations layered across the front gates and the perimeter walls. However, the airspace directly above the roof was completely unguarded.
Damian scanned the area, moving to an adjacent, un-warded townhouse. With a flick of his wand, he cast a Feather-Light Charm on himself, followed quickly by Ascendio.
With a slight push off his toes, he vaulted silently up the side of the neighboring house. Reaching the roof, he leaped across the gap toward the White Ancestral Home, gliding effortlessly through the air.
He landed without a sound on the top-floor balcony and slipped through the glass doors into the manor.
Thanks to his detection spell, Damian already knew the layout. He had sensed a secret basement harboring a solitary wizard—which had to be Jack. More concerning, however, was the massive, twisted magical signature of a dark creature down there with him.
Is Jack White keeping some sort of dark beast in his basement? Damian wondered.
He looked around the room he had entered. It was a grand master bedroom. A magical portrait hung on the wall, depicting a family of four: a wealthy couple and two young boys. Damian easily recognized the youngest boy as Ryan. The others had to be the late patriarch, his wife, and the eldest son, Jack.
The bedroom felt abandoned. A thick layer of dust blanketed the floor, the mahogany cabinets, and the armchairs.
Realizing his footprints were glaringly obvious in the dust, Damian quickly waved his wand. "Scourgify." The floor was instantly swept clean.
He opened the bedside drawer but found only mundane clutter. Moving to the massive wardrobe, he found several sets of expensive, oversized robes that clearly belonged to the heavy-set man in the portrait.
This must be Old White's room, Damian concluded. Based on the information he had gathered before, the man had been dead for months.
Damian began patting down the pockets of the heavy coats, knowing from experience that a wardrobe was a classic hiding spot for paranoid wizards.
His hand brushed against something solid inside a velvet formal cloak. Pulling it out, he found a thick notebook bound in dragon-hide parchment.
He had hit the jackpot; it was Old White's personal diary.
Damian flipped through the pages, skimming the ink. Judging by the dates, it chronicled the final year leading up to Old White's supposed death.
Just as he found a particularly interesting entry, Damian's face fell.
He could feel a sudden, sharp tug in his magical core. The protection spell he had set up back at Chris's house on Riverside Street had just been violently breached!
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