Conqueror of the Sky (Two Chapters Combined)

Thestrals were extraordinarily sensitive to death.

Like sharks in the sea, which could smell blood from several miles away, Thestrals could sense death from more than ten miles away.

They ate grass, meat, and carrion, making them very easy magical creatures to feed. And in the Forbidden Forest, where they had no natural enemies and no one would go out of their way to hurt them, Thestrals were highly curious.

Ezio clumsily skinned the deer. He rarely did this sort of thing, only helping Giovanni when they occasionally roasted a whole lamb at home. Luckily, his knife work was quick and steady, and he soon finished.

Thestrals loved skinned prey. They preferred meat and organs, and they were also fond of the smell of blood.

They were only two or three hundred meters from the Thestrals' camp, and there were no other dangerous predators nearby.

A series of very soft footsteps approached. Ezio looked up and saw more than a dozen pairs of eyes, deep and black even in the night.

"Come on over. This is a gift for you."

Ezio beckoned toward the Thestrals, and the clever Winged Horses quickened their steps as they approached.

Every Thestral was skin and bones, almost like a horse's skeleton covered in black skin. Their heads, however, resembled dragon heads, making them look especially vicious—like some sort of fusion between a small undead dragon and an undead horse. But this world had no necromancers, and the only toys Dark Wizards could play with were little things like Inferi. Dark Magic needed work; Dark Wizards were too lazy.

The Thestrals came over without hesitation. They sniffed Ezio's clothes, then lowered their heads and began to eat. If someone who had never witnessed death were there, they would have seen a rather chilling sight.

Fresh venison was torn apart by some invisible presence, then easily wrenched away. It was as though a dozen greedy mouths were devouring it in the air, silently and swiftly dividing up the carcass.

Even the scraps clinging to the bones were not spared. The Thestrals' bristle-covered tongues were like sharp files, scraping the bones clean until their faintly pink, deathly-white surfaces were exposed.

The Thestrals devoured the whole deer in less than ten minutes. After such a satisfying meal, the black Winged Horses felt much more warmly toward Ezio.

Ezio reached out and stroked their smooth, taut skin, which felt like fine leather. Their wings were membranous, like a bat's, and their wingspan was even greater than a Hippogriff's.

"Could you take me somewhere?" Ezio asked a Thestral that was relatively sturdy and larger than the others. The clever Winged Horse, which seemed to understand people, rubbed its head against Ezio's arm, as if inviting him to climb onto its back.

"I don't know exactly where it is. All I know is that it's 'the place where Twelve Moons rise.' Someone very important to me died there. I want to find him."

The Thestral stared at Ezio with its dark eyes. It seemed to understand what he had said, but it didn't seem to know what "the place where Twelve Moons rise" meant.

Ezio swung onto the Thestral's back. The Winged Horse beneath him silently spread its wings. With a single beat, it shot into the air, leaving Neil, who had been circling above, far behind. It was incredibly fast, climbing at four or five times the speed of a Nimbus 2000.

Neil gaped as something black flashed past him. Then he quickly changed direction and pursued it. The Thestral flew through the sky as if strolling, and it wasn't moving especially fast, but it still took Neil a while to catch up. Magical creatures didn't follow the laws of physics when they flew. Magic provided them with extraordinary lift, allowing enormous Dragons weighing several or even dozens of tons to take to the sky with ease—and at considerable speed.

The Thestral glanced back at the little creature flapping hard to catch up. It caught the same scent on Neil as on Ezio, so it slowed down a little, allowing Neil to land on it and hitch a ride.

Once the second passenger was settled, the Thestral, which had been flying lazily through the sky, suddenly sped up. It was faster than Neil's top speed in a dive. In just a few breaths, Hogwarts Castle had shrunk to a tiny speck. The Thestral carried Ezio rapidly upward, spiraling through the clouds above and letting the moon hanging in the night sky cast its reflected light over him.

"You don't know where Twelve Moons rise, either?"

Ezio looked up at the moon hanging high overhead, his voice tinged with faint disappointment. The Thestral's wayfinding magic wasn't infallible. That vague description wasn't enough to activate Global Magic Network navigation. After all, this was an unknown place that had never been recorded on any map.

In the Wizarding World, names held magic. The magic everywhere wove itself into an invisible web, passively recording everything, including people's names and place names. When a creature with access to this web, like a Thestral or an owl, needed directions, the web returned precise coordinates. That was the secret behind how owls could deliver letters to their recipients with perfect accuracy. Wizards had long studied this phenomenon, but their understanding barely scratched the surface.

Wizards lived by the principle of "good enough." They rarely got to the bottom of anything. Perhaps it was magic's mysterious nature; perhaps the research was too complicated and offered no clear reward. Wizards only ever dipped their toes into many subjects. They couldn't even explain, step by step, why magic worked.

The Thestral glanced back at Ezio, its big eyes full of innocence, as if to say, "I can only bring you up here to look at the moon. I really don't know where Twelve Moons is."

"Then could you fly a little higher? Higher still, as high as you can. Could you do that?"

The Thestral understood. It shook itself, sending Neil tumbling off. Confused, Neil flapped his wings to steady himself in the air, then watched the wicked black horse shoot skyward, charging at a perfect ninety-degree angle toward the full moon.

Ezio clung tightly to the Thestral's neck. It felt as though his soul had been left behind in an instant. As the Thestral entered supersonic flight, a transparent barrier seemed to form around its body, held up by magic, blocking the wind. Pressed against its back, Ezio heard the howling wind fade from a piercing roar to a faint murmur. After they passed some threshold, he entered a world of silence.

The sound barrier that troubled aircraft was broken without a sound, with no piercing sonic boom. Magic made the Thestral seem to merge with the air, freeing it from the resistance that came with it.

But gradually, Ezio began to feel the thin air choking him. He tried the Bubble-Head Charm, but the spell that let people breathe underwater couldn't keep him breathing normally in the oxygen-poor stratosphere. The Bubble-Head Charm could filter the air, but it couldn't create oxygen from nothing.

"Stop... stop for a moment."

Ezio patted the Thestral's neck. The sudden bursts of supersonic flight were, to be honest, a little too much for him. It wasn't the G-force from acceleration; riding the Thestral, he barely felt any discomfort from that. It was simply the lack of oxygen as its concentration rapidly dropped.

The wind rushed back in all at once. Once the Thestral slowed down, the silent world vanished.

Looking out into the distance, Ezio could make out a gentle curve, though it was slight. He was probably in the middle of the stratosphere, about fifteen thousand meters above the ground.

"You're incredible. Next time I bring an oxygen tank, you can take me as high as you like."

Ezio gasped for air. He was in much better shape than an ordinary person—after all, ordinary people couldn't grab some poor soul by the ankle and swing them around like a human flail. Ezio suspected he had Isu blood from Assassin's Creed; after all, he could use Isu artifacts as soon as he picked them up.

"Even though we didn't find where Twelve Moons is, I can't say I'm surprised. Thank you."

"But since we're here..."

Ezio looked down at the dark world below and activated Eagle Vision, synchronizing with Neil's vision. Neil, who was still dissatisfied, struggled to climb higher, but the little creature couldn't manage more than three thousand meters. The highest-flying bird in the world was the black-and-white vulture, which could reach about eleven thousand meters, but even that was nothing compared to a Thestral. After all, Thestrals relied mostly on magic to fly; their bodies weren't built for aerodynamics.

After sharing his vision with Ezio, Neil stopped trying to climb higher. He folded his wings and dived, streaking past at extraordinary speed, three hundred meters above the Forbidden Forest canopy. His eyes shone as he surveyed everything below.

After searching for about ten minutes, Neil luckily found what he was looking for in a gap between the dense treetops: a filthy nest of Trolls, reeking from head to toe.

Trolls were accustomed to living in caves, but it was summer. Their already filthy caves gave off a smell a million times more disgusting than a cesspit. Even Trolls could hardly stand those poisonous fumes, so they slept out in the open instead.

Still, no magical creature would go after these disgusting things, which stood over three meters tall, had powerful bodies, and wore layers of thick mud like armor. There was no need to wonder why: Troll flesh reeked and was completely inedible.

In the Forbidden Forest, they had no natural enemies besides Hagrid. Giants sometimes grabbed Trolls that wandered mindlessly into their territory and beat them like rag dolls. Giants were several orders of magnitude stronger than Trolls. In the Wizarding World, some powerful Giants were among the few creatures capable of hunting top-tier beasts like Dragons. They could hurl stones weighing hundreds of kilograms at nearly the speed of sound, sending them flying hundreds of meters to break the bones of Dragons in the sky. Then they would charge over and tear them limb from limb.

Neil had found his target, and the Thestral had brought Ezio to a spot above it.

"Thanks. I'll come find you again sometime."

Ezio steadied himself on the Thestral's back, then spread his arms and leaped off. The howling wind made his cloak snap, but Ezio kept his eyes fixed on a point in the forest below. He severed his visual link with Neil and switched Eagle Vision from shared vision to enhanced sight. In this state, he could see the targets marked through Neil's vision. The Trolls' bodies seemed to glow brightly, standing out against the pitch-black night. Even with obstacles in the way, Ezio could lock onto them precisely.

Leonidas's Broken Spear was in his right hand. The Thunderbird Wand in his left, serving as a backup weapon and wand, sprang into action. It cast spells faster than the Elder and Phoenix Feather Wand, though its power was slightly weaker. It was still a fine wand.

The Trolls, deep in sleep, had no idea that a threat was falling on them from above.

Three thousand meters... one thousand... five hundred... one hundred...

Just as Ezio was about to reach the treetops of the Forbidden Forest, the sleeping Trolls suddenly opened their eyes. Their keen instincts sensed the threat and the approach of death, but it was already too late.

Ezio plunged down without slowing, like a meteor falling from the sky. Just before he could smell the stench coming off the Trolls, he hurled the Broken Spear with all his might. In the blink of an eye, it covered the last few dozen meters. Ezio's figure abruptly vanished in midair. When he reappeared, he was gripping the spear as he fell at terrifying speed, driving its sharp blade into the back of a Troll's head and cleaving through its skull and spine in a vicious strike.

Just before Ezio hit the ground, the earth beneath his landing spot changed into a mound of soft soil. With a muffled thump, Ezio landed lightly on the mound, holding his breath. He sprang away, then leaped again and slashed horizontally with the spear, severing the Troll's head from its neck. Its potato-shaped head flew high into the air and landed several meters away.

[Milestone (Region-Limited): Conqueror of the Sky (Unlocked)]

[Conqueror of the Sky: No matter what height you fall from, your landing point is treated as if there were a conceptual haystack there. You make no sound when falling through the air.]

Ezio glanced at the prompt that had just appeared and quickly withdrew. Trolls were social creatures. When he killed the first one, the nearby Trolls had already woken up and grabbed crude clubs made from tree trunks.

Without a word, Ezio pulled up his hood and vanished in the blink of an eye into the Forbidden Forest's dark night.

The Trolls' smooth, wrinkle-free, potato-like brains struggled to process what had just happened before them. Several of the awake Trolls let out confused grunts, but then they were distracted by the corpse of their fallen companion.

A string of happy grunts followed. One Troll grabbed its companion's corpse and, with the warm blood still on it, opened its stinking mouth and began tearing into it happily.

The smell of blood and the sounds of eating drew the other Trolls over. They swarmed the body, the sounds of muscles and bones being torn apart echoing through the Forbidden Forest night. Nothing made Trolls happier than waking up at night to find an extra meal. What they were eating didn't matter; as long as it was meat, it was fine.