The Prisoners of Hogwarts

Chapter 12 Venom

Lin Qi took one step forward, his foot firmly planted on the air, and then moved his other foot forward, standing in mid-air.

He continued walking, steadily and gracefully stepping through the air.

"It feels like walking on the ground," Ferenc said to himself.

Ferenze stood there for a while longer after Lynch's figure disappeared behind the trees before leaving.

As Lynch got closer to the giant spider's lair, the stench of decay in the air grew stronger, and the light grew dimmer.

Soon, a dense and loud "click-clack" sound rang out from all directions, and countless long legs moved with a rustling sound. Countless huge black shadows surged out like a tide from the ground, tree trunks, and even the leaves overhead.

A group of giant eight-eyed spiders surrounded Lin Qi. Each of them was the size of a horse, with countless compound eyes staring intently at him, their mouthparts opening and closing, making a clicking sound.

"Humans," a spider murmured, its two large pincers twitching incessantly.

"Catch him!" another spider shouted excitedly.

"Kill him!" several spiders shouted excitedly.

The leaves rustled in the forest, and the spiders drew closer.

Lin Qi frowned. He stretched out his right hand, and the Spider Dispel Spell he was about to cast disappeared from the tip of his tongue.

The eerie blue flames that the centaurs had seen before reappeared from his fingertips.

"The flames are raging."

A dark blue fire dragon erupted from his hand and pounced on the surrounding eight-eyed giant spiders.

The spiders screamed, and towering flames illuminated the Forbidden Forest. Spiders rained down, their countless long legs waving in the air.

Lynch lifted his foot and walked through the raging inferno.

As he moved forward, like the sea parted by a giant ship, invisible tides surged in the air, extinguishing all the flames that brushed past.

His control was extremely precise; the flames burned away the dark, stiff hairs on the surface of the eight-eyed giant spiders, yet not a single one of them was burned to death.

The injured spiders lay or reclined, their massive bodies twitching slightly.

After the fire burned briefly, the air in the forest was filled with a pungent smell of smoke and a foul, musty odor.

Lin Qi waved his hand, and a gust of wind suddenly appeared, sweeping through the forest and bringing with it the fresh scent of grass and trees.

He continued walking until he came to the edge of a wide depression, which was devoid of trees and teeming with spiders.

Many of the spiders, bearing burn marks, made clicking sounds upon seeing him and fearfully retreated behind the swarm.

Many spiders also waved their large claws at Lynch, shouting defiantly at him.

Lin Qi stepped onto invisible steps and walked towards the bottom of the depression.

Wherever it passed, the spiders retreated like a tide, leaving a large circular open space.

A massive, invisible force pressed down on the heads of each of the eight-eyed giant spiders, gradually increasing in intensity with each step Lin Qi took, slowly lowering their bodies, and the clicking sounds from their mouthparts grew fainter and fainter.

Until his feet landed on the sunken ground, the entire swarm of eight-eyed giant spiders pressed tightly against the ground, and not a sound was made.

In the middle of the depression, amidst a gigantic, hemispherical spider web, a giant eight-eyed spider, as large as a small elephant, struggled to emerge.

Its body and legs are not black like other eight-eyed giant spiders, but have some gray in color, and each eye on its ugly head is covered with a layer of white film.

Lynch knew that the giant blind spider was Aragog.

"You must be Aragog. You're incredibly large, far exceeding the limits of the Octopod species. What exactly did Hagrid feed you?"

Lynch was somewhat amazed.

"You know Hagrid?" Aragog's massive body trembled slightly, his eight white-tinted eyes turning in vain, his ugly head clumsily tilting towards Lynch. "Hagrid... and I... have been friends for a very, very long time."

Lynch glanced at the swarm of spiders lying silently on the ground. "Yes, I know Hagrid, a kind-hearted fool."

The crow folded its wings and landed on a branch, turning its head to reveal the bones buried under layers of spider webs in a clear view of the entire area.

"He watched with glee as you multiplied and expanded your race in the Forbidden Forest, but he ignored the price behind that expansion."

"But that's none of my business." He changed the subject, opened his right hand, and a Galleon floated in his palm. The next moment, the Galleon spun around, and a huge glass bottle took its place.

Holding the glass bottle, Lynch commanded without room for argument, "Fill it with your venom."

The glass bottle flew to the base of Aragog's giant claw, and with a pop, the cork came off the bottle.

Aragog's massive body trembled slightly, but he dared not disobey in the slightest and could only slowly inject his precious venom into the bottle.

The cork snapped shut, and Lin Qi retrieved the glass bottle, raised his hand to hold it up, and flicked a glimmer of light from his other hand to his front.

By the light of the fireflies, he examined the viscous venom in the bottle.

"Excellent quality," he commented casually, the glow at his fingertips extinguishing as he flipped his hand, and the glass bottle vanished with it.

He said calmly to Aragog, "As compensation for taking the venom, I'll bring some meat next time."

He then turned and left.

Just as Aragog was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he heard Lynch's footsteps receding into the distance.

But then Lynch's voice rang out again: "Remember, wipe humans off your diet, or... when I come again, wipe you off this world."

As the footsteps faded into the distance, Aragog's massive body went limp, and only then did the spider swarm in the hollow dare to rustle and begin to move again.

The cracking sound of the giant claws colliding echoed in the hollow. Aragog suddenly remembered the final warning and roared at his descendants, "Forbidden to eat humans! From this moment on, no human is allowed to touch you!!"

"Don't touch humans!" a spider responded, waving its massive pincers and clicking its claws.

"Human flesh is delicious!" A few spiders disagreed, their small brains having forgotten the horror they had just experienced, and shouted their opposition.

Aragog roared, "Kill those who disagree!"

"Kill them!"

The clicking sounds echoed throughout the depression, and a bloody battle erupted within the species.

......

Leaving the nest of the eight-eyed giant spider, Lynch continued walking through the Forbidden Forest, with crows soaring over the treetops above him.

This time, however, he consciously moved closer to the boundary of Hogwarts. The binding force of the Unbreakable Oath on his arm was sometimes strong and sometimes weak, like an invisible line that he used to precisely outline the magical boundary of Hogwarts in his mind.

As he walked, he reflected on what he had done in the eight-eyed giant spider's nest.

"I was too forceful. In the end... I was still swayed by this special day..."

Suddenly, he stopped.

He opened his palm, and a Galleon vibrated violently in his hand.

Lin Qi frowned slightly and lightly tapped the restless gold coin with his fingertip.

A hoarse, flat voice rang out in the silent forest: "We've run into trouble."