When Ian stepped into the first level.
A cold, gloomy aura washed over him.
Eerie green magical lamps hung overhead, while the walls were built from obsidian and carved with Magic Inhibition Runes. Iron cages lined both sides of the corridor. The prisoners inside wore vacant expressions and stared with hollow eyes, as though their souls had been sucked away.
Amid that dead silence, Dementors floated slowly through the air.
They wore tattered black robes, their hunched bodies faceless beneath their hoods, with nothing but bottomless Black Holes where their faces should have been. They were meant to be terrifying beings—the devourers of souls, the enders of happiness.
Yet the instant Ian appeared, their movements came to an abrupt halt.
They did not attack at once.
Ian had expected this.
That was right.
Ian was the Dementor Lord, the one with the highest authority over Dementors.
These beings, which had originally escaped from the Misty Illusion before humans "reassigned" them as guards through various means, had once been nothing more than laborers serving the Raven.
Ian possessed an innate suppressive presence over them. Whether they were diligently patrolling or lazily floating in corners as they were now, they were practically defenseless before him. More than that, as their higher sovereign, they could even be considered extremely useful "helpers" to him at the moment.
With a thought,
Ian dispelled Raven Form and returned to human shape, standing in the dim, damp prison passageway.
"Come here." Without the slightest hesitation, he casually beckoned to the nearest Dementor, which was curled up in the shadows as though dozing.
Ian's voice was calm and not loud, yet it carried an indescribable pressure that seemed to come from the level of the soul itself. More precisely, an extremely subtle yet utterly pure aura spread from