Next, Caesar reached out. He didn't touch the mirror itself, but pressed several specific runes on its frame in sequence.
His movements were slow. Magic flowed through his fingertips, and with each press, the corresponding rune briefly flared with a ghastly white light.
Then it dimmed again, as if forcibly roused for a moment before sinking swiftly into an even deeper slumber.
An almost imperceptible groan sounded inside the chamber, as though it came from deep underground. The air seemed to grow several degrees colder.
Quirrell held his breath as he watched Caesar perform a series of maneuvers he couldn't begin to understand.
He could only feel the surrounding magical field growing abnormally chaotic. The luminous mist on the mirror's surface began to churn violently, like a calm lake struck by a boulder.
At last, Caesar's index finger hovered over an inconspicuous rune at the top of the frame, shaped like an ouroboros.
He paused for about three seconds, then gently tapped it.
There was no brilliant flash of light, no earth-shaking sound.
The luminous mist roiling inside the mirror abruptly stilled, turning as clear as the purest obsidian.
Then, at the center of the mirror, a point of red light appeared like a drop of blood falling into water. It slowly spread, gradually gathering and taking shape.
A gemstone the size of a pigeon's egg, deep red all over like a burning flame, "floated" out from the depths of the mirror.
As if passing through an invisible water's surface, it hovered quietly in the air a foot in front of the mirror.
It seemed to contain liquid fire, slowly swirling within. It radiated an ancient, boundless magical power that made the heart tremble.
The Philosopher's Stone.
Quirrell's breathing turned ragged. His eyes widened until they nearly bulged from their sockets, his face a mixture of wild joy and disbelief.
He instinctively stepped forward and reached out with a trembling hand.
But another hand was quicker.
Caesar casually snatched the floating gemstone, brimming with incredible power, and closed his palm around it.
The ruby's light shone through the gaps between his fingers, turning the skin on his hand a translucent red. The ghostly blue cracks looked even more sinister beneath its glow.
He didn't inspect it right away, or even give it another glance. He simply weighed it in his hand, feeling the dense, heavy magic that seemed powerful enough to burn through his soul.
There was no excitement or greed on his face at having obtained something he had long desired.
Only a calm bordering on indifference, as if he held not the Philosopher's Stone but an ordinary rock that was a little warm.
It was only a simulation. He truly didn't care much.
His real target lay elsewhere.
Quirrell's hand froze in midair. The wild joy on his face instantly congealed into shock, then flared into fury, with a trace of shame at having been fooled.
He whipped around, his neck creaking unnaturally. The flat face on the back of his head emerged fully, twisted and contorted.
Where his nostrils should have been were two black holes, and his gaze locked on the ruby in Caesar's hand.
"G-Give... give it to me!" Quirrell's voice broke, mingling with Voldemort's distinctive, snake-like hiss. "Give it... to the Master!"
Caesar finally shifted his gaze from the fist holding the stone and slowly raised his head.
First he looked at Quirrell, whose face was twitching as his eyes gradually fell completely under another will's control.
Then his gaze slid sideways, seeming to pierce Quirrell's skull and meet the evil soul parasitizing the back of his head.
His brow lifted slightly, and the corner of his mouth curved in a faint, almost amused smile.
That wasn't the anger or panic of someone betrayed by an ally.
It was more like an "I knew it" sort of expectation, even tinged with amusement that his opponent had "finally shown his hand."
Quirrell—or rather, Quirrell under Voldemort's control—was clearly enraged by this reaction.
Perhaps the temptation of the Philosopher's Stone, so close at hand, had also shattered the last vestige of their false alliance.
"Caesar Habs..." The hoarse voice came from Quirrell's throat and the back of his head at once, overlapping in a way that sent chills down the spine. "Your task is complete.
"Now... give it to me. Since you helped clear the way, I might let you die quickly."
The atmosphere in the chamber abruptly plunged to freezing. Killing intent spread from Quirrell like a tangible tide.
Caesar gave a soft "heh," his voice betraying no particular emotion.
His right hand, holding the Philosopher's Stone, dropped naturally to his side. Yet his left hand had somehow risen, a wisp of mist darker than darkness curling around his fingertips.
"You really are..." He shook his head, his tone as casual as if commenting on the weather. "So mercenary, Tom."
Beneath the familiar depth and composure in his eyes,
something cold and sharp finally emerged without restraint, something of the same origin as the ghostly blue cracks on his body.
It wasn't righteous fury, nor despair born of grief.
It was a darkness born of darkness, yet deeper and more inscrutable, as if it came from the end of time or the bottom of an abyss... pure "blackness."
"How arrogant,"
Caesar's voice remained steady, but had the texture of metal scraping against metal. "You think you can deal with me using nothing but a possessed servant? You should at least come yourself."
The tangible darkness of the magic Voldemort unleashed through Quirrell's body broke the standoff first.
Without an incantation, or even an obvious gesture, dozens of black tentacles made of pure negative energy abruptly condensed in the air.
Like leeches that had scented blood, they shot silently and swiftly toward Caesar. Their passage left scorched, corroded marks on the stone walls, and even the light seemed to be swallowed.
Caesar didn't even take half a step back.
His right hand, still holding the Philosopher's Stone, hung at his side, as if that weighty temptation or burden no longer had anything to do with him.
The five fingers of his raised left hand swept lightly through the air before him, as if playing invisible strings.
There was no dazzling spell-light, no deafening explosion.
Countless fine silver-blue lines abruptly burst forth from the cracks between the ancient stones of the chamber's floor, walls, and even ceiling.
The lines weren't straight. They twisted and wound like living things, like icy, razor-sharp vines that had sprouted in an instant.
They interlaced with precision in front of Caesar, forming a loose but inescapable net.
The dark tentacles struck the net. There was no fierce clash or annihilation, only a series of teeth-grinding "sizzles," as if a hot knife were slicing through solidified grease.
The tentacles were easily sliced apart, broken down, and absorbed by the silver-blue lines, dissolving into wisps of black smoke.
The net itself glimmered faintly, its color growing deeper, as though it had just feasted.
"This is..." Voldemort's uncertain hiss rolled from Quirrell's throat. "An ancient protection spell? No... no, that's not it!"
"Good eye, but too late." Caesar's voice remained steady, even carrying a hint of a teacher's patience. "This isn't protection. It's 'Absorption.'"
The five fingers of his left hand clenched sharply!
The great net of silver-blue lines instantly contracted. No longer a defense, it transformed into dozens of nimble light-serpents that counterattacked Quirrell.
The light-serpents moved faster than imaginable, their trajectories even more devious and unpredictable, as if they could anticipate the gaps in the flow of Quirrell's magic.
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