Dark Soul

Hoffa looked up and saw a small figure flickering unsteadily through the air. Each flicker placed it somewhere else, crashing about like a headless fly.

It was a young dodo. It was not dead.

It was a creature that could not fly but could teleport.

The bird hid in the bushes, trembling. Noticing Hoffa's gaze, it let out a mournful cry.

Joey and Hoffa both stood up, but that only terrified it further. It flickered several times in rapid succession, then slammed headfirst into a tree and fell to the ground.

"There's another one alive."

Joey immediately tried to catch the bird. Unexpectedly, the dodo struggled with a pop and teleported into the tree, where it trembled and refused to come down. It had been badly frightened.

Joey hurriedly said to Hoffa, "You're young, so it'll be less wary of you. Help me get it down. It's the last one of this flock of dodos, maybe even the last one on Earth. We absolutely can't let it run off."

The last one on Earth. Hoffa instantly felt the pressure mounting. He clapped his hands amiably at the chick in the canopy, hoping to lure it down.

But the bird neither came down nor trusted Hoffa.

An idea struck Hoffa. He took out the two chicken legs he had swiped from the Great Hall that evening.

Catching the scent of food, the chick slowly turned its head. It was starving, but it was also afraid of Hoffa and did not dare come down.

So, under its conflicted gaze, Hoffa placed the chicken legs on the ground, raised his hands, and slowly backed away.

It still refused to come down.

Gritting his teeth, Hoffa even disarmed himself and placed his wand on the ground. The dodo turned around and looked at Joey beside him.

Joey immediately removed all his weapons.

Pop!

The chick vanished from the canopy. It then appeared before the chicken legs on the ground and began wolfing them down. It must have been a long time since any adult bird had fed it; it was starving.

After it finished eating, Hoffa took out another chicken leg and slowly approached. This time, the dodo did not dodge. It ate from Hoffa's palm.

Having earned its trust, Hoffa breathed a sigh of relief. Once it finished eating, he quickly gathered the little dodo into his arms. Its body was warm and trembling, like a pitiful ball of fluff.

"Shh. It's all right now."

Feeling Hoffa's calm spiritual strength, the fluffy little bird gradually settled down as well.

Hoffa noticed a wound on the dodo's leg, from which strange blue blood was seeping.

"Joey, this bird is hurt."

"Who did this? Why kill the dodos?" Joey took a roll of gauze from his waist and bandaged the bird's leg as he muttered grimly to himself.

"Could it have been some predator?" Hoffa asked quietly.

"No. If it were a predator, why kill without eating? Nature rarely wipes out an entire species. Besides, these birds have little ability to fight, but they are first-rate at escaping. Anyone who could kill dodos must possess very powerful magic."

Someone did it? Hoffa looked at the bird corpses scattered across the ground, unable to understand why anyone would slaughter them all. Was it some psychopath, or was there an unknown purpose?

After roughly dressing the wound, Joey said to Hoffa, "Let's go back and treat this bird first. We absolutely can't let anything happen to it again. There's still one bird and several eggs left. This population still has—"

Before he could finish, a faint whistling sound suddenly cut through the woods.

Whoosh!

A sharp arrow emerged from the darkness and shot toward Hoffa like lightning.

Hoffa sensed it, but he had no time to react. At that critical instant, the Thunderbird shoved Hoffa with its wing, pushing him against a tree trunk.

The arrow grazed past Hoffa's ear and struck the Thunderbird's wing. It did not pierce its feathers, but it made the bird cry out in pain.

A flicker of electricity flashed through the air.

That fright broke Hoffa out in a cold sweat.

He ducked down like lightning, drew his wand, and prepared to activate Ghostwalk at any moment.

Joey swiftly nocked an arrow and aimed it steadily at the darkness among the trees. "Who's there?"

The archer emerged.

To the sound of clopping hooves, a half-human, half-horse creature slowly appeared from the darkness, stepping into the Forbidden Forest.

It was a tall centaur, an old one, with a long gray beard and well-developed muscles.

Behind him, a group of centaurs slowly closed in from the edge of the woods. Every one of them had a bow drawn and an arrow nocked, their expressions exceptionally wary.

Joey slowly lowered his bow and placed a hand on Hoffa's wrist, signaling for him to stay calm.

The gray-bearded centaur looked slightly surprised. "It's you, Joey?"

Joey asked coldly, "Do you want to die, Nannu? Why attack a student?"

The old centaur's gaze rested on Hoffa for a moment.

"You have mistaken me for someone else," the centaur said in an ethereal voice. "You are not the only ones who have come to the forest now. Several people have arrived, each bearing a different mission, yet all seeking the same darkness."

As he spoke, the surrounding centaurs slowly lowered their bows.

Joey immediately asked, "Not just us? You saw the intruder? Who killed these dodos?"

"The heavenly eye is deceived by appearances. The unseen future has countless forks, and we have already reached the end of fate."

The long-bearded centaur appeared melancholy and sorrowful.

"Damn it, what exactly are you talking about?"

The centaur shook his head.

"Judgment Day is coming. I have already seen the shadow beneath the night and the lightning flashing high in the sky."

Hoffa frowned. Why did this centaur speak in such disjointed riddles? Joey asked him direct questions, yet he always responded with irrelevant words.

Clearly, Joey felt the same way. His face darkened as he took a deep breath, grabbed Hoffa by the shoulder, and said irritably, "Nothing else? Then we're leaving. I have important things to do."

With that, he turned to leave.

"Wait."

Nannu called out to Joey.

Hoffa turned around, only to find that the centaur's gaze was fixed firmly on him.

"There is a shadow over your future. Beware the dark soul, young man," the centaur said.

Hoffa's eyes widened, but Joey had already lost patience.

"I really hope you lot learn how to speak normally someday."

With that, he pulled Hoffa along and quickly walked out of the centaurs' encirclement, following their path back.

The centaurs did not follow. They merely turned their heads and watched the two leave.

As they traveled through the Forbidden Forest, Hoffa remained silent. A prophecy. He had actually encountered a prophecy.

Prophecy was perhaps Hoffa's most hated ability, and seers were the most boring and troublemaking profession in the world.

How many great figures and mighty heroes had inexplicably fallen into that trap? Voldemort and Harry, Xiong Ba and Feng Yun, Zeus and Kratos.

They all believed some prophecy, made extreme moves, and ultimately dug their own graves. They did not just ruin themselves—they also dragged down the protagonists, accomplishing nothing except establishing the seers' reputations for omniscience.

He remembered watching the World Cup in his previous life. There would always be people on forums predicting that some team would win the championship. Of course, they did not predict just one team—they predicted all thirty-two. Once the World Cup ended, they would use an alt account to bump the old post with the prediction that had come true.

See? I'm amazing, right? I'm the prophecy king, right?

Then everyone below would start worshipping them. Prophecy king, prophecy king.

It was especially boring.

If this were still that normal world, and someone suddenly told Hoffa, "Hey, kid, there's a shadow around you. Beware the dark soul."

Hoffa would have slapped them across the face. Dark soul my ass. Did your eighth-grader syndrome flare up or something?

But this was not a normal world. The wizarding world was exceptionally strange, and who knew whether prophecies were real or not? At the very least, the prophecies surrounding Harry Potter had mostly come true.

The centaur's words stuck in Hoffa's throat and made him feel uncomfortable all over.

When they returned to where they had first entered the Forbidden Forest, Hoffa could not help asking Joey, "What did those centaurs mean?"

"Don't mind those centaurs, and don't believe what they say," Joey said with considerable disdain. "They're all fools who live in the future. Their favorite thing to do is scare themselves."

Joey took the dodo from Hoffa's arms and said, "Come give me a hand. We'll be going back late tonight."

The old man's words made Hoffa feel slightly better. He was somewhat like Minerva McGonagall.

Joey stood beside an oak tree and whistled. A rope ladder then dropped down from the oak, and he climbed up it.

Hoffa looked up and saw a large cluster of treehouses above his head. It had been pitch-black when they came, so he had not seen them.

He followed Joey up into the treehouse. It was built in a huge oak with dense branches that were easy to traverse. Soon, Hoffa stood on a wooden platform amid the canopy. His footsteps made thumping sounds against it.

Hoffa could not help admiring the old man. Building treehouses in a place like the Forbidden Forest and living a solitary life away from everyone else—he really was someone who could endure loneliness.

The moment Joey pushed open the door, chittering cries filled the air. The place was covered in feathers and messy threads.

A group of chick-like creatures huddled in the corner, frightened by Hoffa's arrival. They had enormous eyes, smooth pale-gray skin, slender legs, and flat feet.

A group of Bowtruckles clung to the potted plants and watched him curiously. When he passed by, they seemed to think Hoffa was invading their territory and began squeaking as they hurled little clumps of dirt at his head. Hoffa had no idea what to do with them; he had not yet taken any classes on magical creatures. Fortunately, Joey arrived in time and whistled, and the Bowtruckles all quieted down.

After following Joey into the treehouse, the chick-like creatures lined up again and slipped out from the corner by the wall. They were extremely timid.

"Are you familiar with magical creatures?" Hoffa asked.

"Familiar? Of course. This is how I make my living," Joey said with his arms folded. "There isn't an animal in the world I don't know."

After saying that casually, he placed the chick on the table, fetched some herbs and a mortar, and began grinding them.

"Help me remove its bandage. I'll put some medicine on it," Joey said.

Hoffa did as instructed. By then, the chick had calmed down and was curiously watching the Bowtruckles above.

After removing the bandage, Hoffa asked again.

"Then do you know of a kind of monkey with a whole body that shines silver and very large eyes? It can always determine where its enemies are."

"A Phantom Monkey." Joey nodded. "Of course I know. It's an extremely rare and unique creature with some ability to foresee the future. Its fur can also be used to make Invisibility Cloaks. How do you know about it? Have you seen one?"

Hoffa quickly shook his head. "No. I only saw it in a book and got curious."

He did not want anyone to know about his fight with the dark wizard.

Old Joey did not doubt him. He handed the ground medicine to Hoffa.

"Clean the wound, then apply it evenly."

Hoffa did as instructed. He fetched some clean water and washed the wound on the dodo's leg.

His hands came away covered in blue.

Joey handed Hoffa a towel and sighed. "Dodo blood is blue. They possess a certain degree of spatial magic and can move by flickering. The school keeps them here for an important purpose. Now that something has happened to them, I'm afraid I'll have to take responsibility."

"What?" Hoffa had not expected that. "The school keeps them?"

"Of course."

"Why keep them?"

"To collect their blood at regular intervals," Joey said glumly.

"Why collect their blood?"

"Dodo blood is an important ingredient in many teleportation spells, even Floo Powder. Without it, many transportation spells cannot be cast."

Hoffa turned his head stiffly. "What did you say? What can this bird's blood do?"

"It's material for teleportation arrays. Dodos are magical creatures that can Apparate freely, something many wizards cannot do. Their blood contains wondrous spatial magic."

Joey said, "That is precisely why these birds have been extensively bred and hunted. There are not many left."

Hoffa's expression went blank. He immediately thought of the school's damaged teleportation array. Without question, the person who killed the dodos was the same person who had destroyed the school's teleportation array.

The teleportation array had been destroyed, causing Yinduo to come to the school looking for him. Now that Yinduo had just arrived, the saboteur had directly cut off the source as well. They were certainly decisive.