Humanoid Puppets
"What's going on?" Voldemort frowned, his nonexistent eyebrows furrowing. "Barbarossa, your wave magic didn't work?"
"That's impossible! In ancient times, the Raging Tides could almost destroy the defenses of a small town with a population of a hundred. How could it not even eliminate a few illusory clones?" Barbarossa retorted immediately, unwilling to be looked down upon.
"Hmph, what if the opponent uses 'Protego Horribilis'?" Voldemort said disdainfully.
"The Protego Horribilis Spell is touted as the ultimate defensive spell in the world, so of course it can block it. But does he have the time? Even if Merlin were to be resurrected, the prerequisite spell for Protego Horribilis would take at least three minutes... From the moment I cast the spell to the moment he retaliated with that bird, it didn't even take a minute, right?" Barbarossa said coldly, not giving an inch.
"Enough! Stop talking!" Morgan's pretty face turned cold as she said in a low voice, "Stop talking and look more, and you'll find... his clones are different from before..."
Although the three were roughly equal in strength, Voldemort and Barbarossa had both suffered at Skylar's hands before, so they both followed Morgan's lead. Hearing Morgan speak, the two immediately stopped arguing and looked in Skylar's direction. Barbarossa observed intently for a long time and finally realized that although these clones were now lifelike, their eyes were extremely dull, completely different from their previous liveliness; they were more like... Inferius.
"Hahaha..." Voldemort laughed triumphantly. "Skylar Malfoy, you really are one of me. No wonder you're Dumbledore's good disciple. You always talk about love and justice, but you know just as much Dark Arts as I do—those so-called clones behind you are actually Inferius, aren't they? Humanoid weapons made from the corpses of the people you've killed. But you really have a twisted sense of humor, turning them all into your own likeness..."
Before Skylar could speak, Morgan spoke first, her eyes fixed intently on the Skylar, and she whispered, "Not Inferius."
"How could it not be? Look at those lifeless eyes, that sickly pale skin, Ms. Lefève, don't forget, the one in front of you is a master of Inferius!" Voldemort said decisively, "I've created at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, Inferius. There's no way I could be mistaken."
Morgan ignored Voldemort's boasting and said directly to Skylar, "Necromancy is actually derived from alchemy. I smell a strong scent of alchemy... If I'm not mistaken... this is Human Alchemy, isn't it?"
Standing at the forefront, Skylar suddenly regained his usual expression and smiled, "As expected of the Dark Empress, your knowledge is indeed vast, far superior to those two incompetent lackeys beside you..."
"You bastard!" Barbarossa roared, "Are you looking for death?"
"Kid... I admit you're strong, but don't forget you still have parents and siblings. They'd better not fall into my hands..." Voldemort said coldly, his pupils burning with angry green flames.
"Human Alchemy..." Morgan murmured to himself, "Unbelievable, truly unbelievable... Even in my time, Human Alchemy was considered one of the highest taboos in the wizarding world; only a madman would study it... I never imagined that after I've been asleep for a thousand years, someone would actually have researched Human Alchemy to this extent..."
"Although I have been asleep, the intelligence network of the Shadow of the Magic Dragon has never been interrupted for a thousand years. I can clearly sense the breathing at the noses and mouths of your puppets, the smooth flow of blood in their veins, and the strong beating of their hearts in their chests... They are almost equivalent to real human bodies! Perhaps only the Hohenheim Family of Germany alchemy could have researched Human Alchemy to this level."
"If I'm not mistaken," Morgan said, "It was that little girl from the Hohenheim Family who gave it to you, wasn't it?"
A shrewd glint flashed in Skylar's eyes. "It seems you know quite a bit about the people around me, as if you were also a member of Hogwarts. This makes me suspect... that you might have a mole within Hogwarts?"
"Hmph, with so many students at Hogwarts, why would I need any inside help to find out about you Hogwarts? You're overthinking it..." Morgan raised his chin slightly and said coldly.
"Hehehe," Skylar chuckled slyly, "Your quick denial only makes me more suspicious—how could an ordinary student possibly track my movements? Your mole is Irma Pines, isn't he?"
Morgan's face stiffened for a moment, but she remained unmoved, maintaining her icy expression and tone as she said, "How you speculate is your business, it's none of my concern."
Skylar neither confirmed nor denied it, only chuckled.
He Divine Insight of Amaterasu and was also skilled in mind-reading techniques like Legilimency. Although Morgan's movements were subtle, they couldn't escape Skylar's notice. Moreover, back in Skylar's first year at Hogwarts, he had sensed something amiss about Madam Pince. Now it seemed there was a clue to Madam Pince's true identity.
Skylar didn't dwell on that topic, but instead changed the subject, returning to the alchemical golems behind him. "But speaking of which, you guessed right, these are alchemical golems that Eleanor gave me—one of the tokens of our two families' eternal alliance," Skylar said with a smile.
Hearing Skylar affectionately address the young girl from the Hohenheim Family as "Eleanor," Morgan felt a sudden pang of sadness and blurted out, "Although I've never dealt with the Hohenheim Family, as descendants of Paracelsus, they naturally have the pride their family should have—as far as I know, Human Alchemy is a closely guarded secret within their family, practically their most prized possession, a closely guarded secret. And you're telling me they would entrust such an important thing to you for the sake of a mere alliance? Do you think I'd believe that?"
"It seems your relationship with the Hohenheim Family is even closer than I knew... Rather than calling this a gift from the Hohenheim Family, it's more like a token of love from that little girl," Morgan blurted out, almost as if possessed. "You, you're certainly quite the ladies' man..."
Suddenly she frowned, clutched her chest, and looked as if she had suddenly experienced a sharp pain in her heart.
Morgan was a shrewd woman, and in a split second she understood what was going on. Although she was in control of this body, Meredith's personality had not been completely dissolved, but was only being strongly suppressed.
The conversation just now seemed to have awakened Meredith's personality power, and she herself was unconsciously influenced by Meredith's personality consciousness. She also realized that this was very likely a conversation that Skylar had intentionally led, wanting to use a woman's natural jealousy to trigger her latent personality.
She forced herself to stay alert and said coldly, "Boy, don't think you can distract me with words—I got tired of these tricks a thousand years ago!"
"Just a bunch of mindless, soulless puppets—" Morgan said coldly. "To ordinary wizards, these humanoid weapons that are not afraid of death may be terrifying, but in front of us—let alone a hundred, even a thousand or ten thousand, what is there to fear?"
After forcibly calming himself down, Morgan suppressed the jumbled thoughts surging in his mind and tried his best to clear his head—these puppets only created a strong visual impact because they looked so much like Skylar, which temporarily intimidated the three of them.
To put it bluntly, these puppets are no different from the Inferius, except that they are not afraid of fire, thus eliminating this obvious weakness. For wizards of their level, there are plenty of ways to deal with them.
"Oh, really?" Skylar looked somewhat disappointed. He shook his head before slowly saying, "It seems I overestimated you... Your way of thinking is narrower than I imagined..."
"If it's really as you say, then what's the difference between these puppets—these 'human puppets' hailed as the greatest masterpiece of Human Alchemy this century—and those crudely made metal puppets? Why don't I just use ordinary alchemy to make metal puppets with copper skin and iron bones? Wouldn't that have higher defensive capabilities, be easier to make, and cheaper?"