Chapter 23
"There aren't many."
Li Mu looked at the scouting results and said regretfully.
The giants in this world were not only unintelligent, but also short-tempered and quick to anger.
They had gone to war with human wizards many times, and every time they had been utterly defeated. On top of that, infighting among the giants was fierce. Now, fewer than a hundred remained in the entire world, all of them hidden in this remote mountain range—the last tribe.
Their small numbers were a foregone conclusion. He could only hope the fireseed source power they gave him wouldn't be too little.
After casting the Illusionary Body Curse three times in a row, all three of them vanished from sight.
They Apparated again, appearing at the top of a mountain. Giants about twenty feet tall roamed the slopes and foothills. Some were fighting each other, some were tearing into prey they had caught, and others were making little giants.
Giants had a high resistance to magic. Few spells could kill them quickly, aside from the most evil Killing Curse.
But casting the Killing Curse on a large scale would inevitably fill him with murderous intent for a long time, leaving him gloomy and deeply uncomfortable.
After considering it, Li Mu decided to use another method to deal with the giants.
He summoned five Dementors under the Illusionary Body Curse. Taking advantage of their invisibility, they immediately flew around the giant tribe. One by one, the giants' happiness was sucked away. Without happiness, they were easily displeased, and when displeased, they became even more quick-tempered and irritable.
In less than half an hour, the nearly hundred giants in the tribe had turned on one another in a chaotic brawl.
Once most of the giants had nearly exhausted themselves, several Dementors immediately targeted individual giants and kissed them. The Dementors' Kiss drew the giants' souls out, and the act also broke the Illusionary Body Curse, ending their invisibility.
They could cast some spells while invisible, but powerful spells released too much magic power, which in turn interfered with the Illusionary Body Curse.
Li Mu stopped hiding, too. Hundreds of birds made from Sulfuric Acid circled around him. They darted through the air, diving straight into the giants' mouths or nostrils. Some reverted to their original form right inside the giants' mouths; others burrowed into their stomachs before changing back.
The giants' vitality was so strong that the acid wouldn't kill them, but swallowing it was enough to make them writhe in agony.
Some giants roared and charged at Li Mu. The Sulfuric Acid birds waited for them, corroding their eyes until they were blind.
The giants went berserk, smashing everything around them. Fiendfyre bloomed at the tip of Li Mu's wand, each flame taking the shape of a small black Phoenix. As they swept past, they wrapped around the giants' heads, and soon each giant's head was burned away.
The black Phoenixes of Fiendfyre moved on to new targets. One by one, the giants became headless corpses.
Even so, by the time the last giant had been burned to death, the Fiendfyre had consumed so much magic power from burning the bodies that it had grown to the brink of going out of control. Fortunately, this time Li Mu was confident he could disperse it before that happened.
Fiendfyre was a satisfying way to kill, but it could be troublesome if not handled properly.
He didn't want anyone to know yet that someone was targeting Alien Races for extermination. Otherwise, he could have gathered the giants together and burned them all with a single Fiendfyre. But then it would have spiraled out of control, turning into a forest fire that would consume everything flammable before finally dying out.
The commotion would have been too great, and the Wizarding Worlds of various countries would have launched an investigation.
This world had Prophecy magic, after all. It wasn't time for him to go to war with the Wizarding Worlds of the various countries.
Destroying the giant tribe had produced no fireseeds.
As expected, the reward for Azkaban had been for the first kill. Fortunately, the giants' average fireseed source power reward was higher than the Dementors'. The nearly hundred giants had given him a total of 261 Kcal of fireseed source power, enough for him to deal with Dumbledore.
After Apparating several times in succession, Li Mu returned to London with Snape and the Werewolf Wizard.
Throughout the whole journey, Snape had been both happy and worried.
He was happy that Lily would soon be resurrected, but distressed because he and Lily would probably have a hard time ever being free again.
Li Mu had taken him along today to wipe out the giant tribe, clearly to show off his power.
Li Mu hadn't said anything about his ambitions, but they were surely extraordinary.
So Snape was deeply worried that Lily might come into conflict with Li Mu after she was resurrected. The thought left him anxious and uneasy.
In the hotel room, Li Mu waited impatiently on the side, stifling a yawn.
They had agreed that he would resurrect Lily as soon as they returned.
But when the moment finally came, Snape had actually asked for time to clean himself up properly.
Clearly, he wanted Lily to have a good impression of him when she woke. Snape, who usually lived like a slob, had made the unprecedented decision to clean up. For an ordinary person, hair that greasy could double as hair wax, and it wouldn't be easy to wash out. But for a wizard, none of that was a problem.
In less than half an hour, Snape had returned.
His long hair had been cut into a neat, short style, and his cumbersome black robes had been replaced with a smart black suit.
He looked like a completely different person. Truly, a man dressed to please the woman he loved.
"Can we begin?"
Li Mu smiled.
"I'm counting on you."
Snape carefully took out Lily's bones, which he had already dug up.
Li Mu activated the power of the Resurrection Ring, enveloping the bones. In moments, they had become a lifelike, living person. The only problem was that the clothes on the bones had been in tatters and discarded long ago, so Lily had nothing on when she was resurrected.
Snape hurriedly took out his robes and draped them over Lily to keep her from being exposed any longer.
He had only just covered her when Lily woke up.
Seeing Snape holding her and weeping, Lily's first thought was that Snape must have died too, and that they were now in the afterlife. But even in the afterlife, why would Snape be there beside her instead of her husband, James?
Then she looked more closely and saw that Snape had clearly aged a great deal since she remembered him.
And there were two strangers nearby?
"Don't bother guessing..." Li Mu explained to her. "You've been dead for ten years. Snape spent those ten years searching for a way to resurrect you, and eventually came to me. In exchange for your resurrection, he agreed to serve me for the rest of his life."
"How can that be possible?"
Lily objected instinctively.
But she pinched herself and felt her heartbeat. Her body was warm. She was alive, not dead. And Snape really did look much older than she remembered. So what the man before her had said must be true: Snape really had resurrected her.
Her first thought was: If she could be resurrected, could her husband, James, be brought back too?
Li Mu shook his head. That was how feelings worked. Just because you loved someone and gave everything for them didn't mean you would be repaid.
He could see Lily's thoughts clearly through Legilimency, the magic that let him read his target's memories.
But she was dreaming too much. She wasn't important enough for him to value her the way he valued Snape.
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