The Vanished Basilisk

Riddle opened his mouth and hissed, "Speak to me, Slytherin —the greatest of the Four Founders of Hogwarts."

Crackling sounds filled the air as the ground began to tremble—it was a statue!

Dumbledore looked up at the statue, and Slytherin's huge stone face came to life.

The statue's mouth was wide open, almost forming an "O" shape, an expression that most people couldn't make. Combined with its monkey-like face and long beard, it looked particularly comical.

Dumbledore also understood why Riddle had that strange smile.

"It seems the Basilisk has indeed disappeared," Riddle sighed.

If the Basilisk were still alive, you would now hear the Basilisk sounds of it crawling deep within the statue.

"If we calculate from the time you realized something was wrong to when we got to the girls' restroom on the second floor, that person probably only took ten minutes, or even less." Riddle frowned.

Even the comical appearance of his ancestors couldn't ease his furrowed brow.

"Isn't this something we already guessed?"

"By the way, Tom, how did you figure out this password?" Dumbledore a smile.

He waved his wand, and a recliner appeared behind him, which he then lay down on.

"Such masterful Transfiguration, so natural and unpretentious," Riddle exclaimed in admiration.

He also conjured a chair, but it looked more like a sofa.

He sat on the sofa and remained silent for a long time.

"You might not believe it, but Slytherin was still alive, at least when I arrived."

"I was almost 17 years old then, and I arrived at the Chamber of Secrets of Secrets, a place undiscovered for a thousand years, full of pride. But when I got there, I simply thought of Slytherin, Slytherin spoke to me. The name Slytherin contained a part of his life, and the manuscript Wizard Spellification. After I began to learn that magic, he disappeared."

"I also learned the password to release the Basilisk from Slytherin —before, the Basilisk could leave, but it could only go through those enchanted pipes and could not actually enter Hogwarts or this room." Riddle's eyes shone with reminiscence.

"Those so-called magical pipes must be used to deal with ghosts. This room also contains that kind of magic; I can sense it."

"This is the same principle behind why the ghosts can't enter the student dormitories or the lounges of the various colleges."

"Otherwise, this Chamber of Secrets would have been discovered long ago—by asking the ghosts to find it." Dumbledore a sip of the wine that materialized from the air.

"Of course, Slytherin has gone much further than me in terms of Wizard Spellification. He can hide life and objects in his name and even sense my thoughts."

"My ability is to sense when someone actually calls out my name. It can absorb other people's fear of me and only slightly amplifies the power of the spell."

"Perhaps my inability to complete this magic is indeed related to my incomplete soul."

"After all, my 'information' isn't even complete, so how can I upload it?" Riddle sighed and took the glass of wine that Dumbledore had brought him, which was floating beside him.

"That's amazing magic."

"Like Ravenclaw's Ghostification, Slytherin also has its own unique magic," Dumbledore couldn't help but exclaim in admiration.

"But you didn't seem to mention before that magic can also enhance the power of your spells," Dumbledore said.

"Why is it Butterbeer?!"

"I'm not a brat." Seeing that Dumbledore didn't react, he continued, "It's just that the amplification was too small. I could hardly feel it, and for a while I even thought it was an illusion."

"By the way, would you like to see that spell? I can recite it to you." Riddle said in a casual tone.

"Forget it. Ravenclaw's magic alone almost made me want to modify myself to extend my lifespan, let alone—"

"Tom, don't think I don't understand what you really mean." Dumbledore narrowed his eyes.

"You'll change eventually, just like you're now daring to embrace power."

"Potter can't replace you." Riddle didn't say much more. He stood up, and the sofa behind him vanished into thin air again.

Dumbledore did the same; he waved his wand, and the two began to float up, drifting towards the O-shaped mouth of the Slytherin Statue.

This was also a pipe, a dark, sticky slug.

Dumbledore's pale blue eyes began to glow with a warm light.

"This place seems no different from the previous places." Dumbledore looked around intently.

"There's no way this place can connect to the underground world either," Riddle said, reaching out and touching the pipes while chanting a difficult rhyme.

"Most importantly, the wizard didn't leave a single trace."

"That shouldn't be the case; we've clearly witnessed magic here before." Dumbledore frowned.

No matter how skilled the wizard or how advanced the magic, no matter how thoroughly the cleanup is done afterward, the traces of the magic can never be erased.

Because magical magnetic fields remember everything.

This is why those gods, those who were deliberately forgotten and whose stories were not passed down, are still 'alive'.

Everything about them is engraved in their names, and their names are also engraved in the magical field like a spell.

"This wizard may be closer to the gods than we are."

"That is, the First Generation wizards," Riddle said excitedly.

Although he had sensed it long ago and anticipated the wizard's power.

But he only confirmed this now.

This means that there is still room for improvement in the long, seemingly endless future.

His perception of no progress in his studies and training may be an illusion.

Perhaps the progress was too small for him to notice.

In a castle in Nottingham Forest, there was a garden where a bright green giant snake with big yellow eyes like light bulbs, a long mouth, and hissing was coiled around a pool.

Beside this giant serpent stood a handsome young man who seemed to have stepped out of a painting. He had jet-black hair and eyes as bright as the moon.

Behind him, a snake that was incredibly small compared to the giant snake was occasionally nuzzling the boy with its head.

"Stop messing around, Nagini."

"You might as well turn into human form. Hmm, unfortunately, you've already used up your time to turn into human form for today."

"Let me take another look at the Basilisk. It's a pity that its intelligence seems to have been erased—before it was born. Interesting eyes, this is another kind of Killing Curse, using the eyes," the boy muttered to himself.

A spider crawling among the flowers suddenly took flight. The boy looked at it and exclaimed, "Behold my Stunning Gaze!"

The spider twitched once, then remained motionless.

Clearly, this boy is Ryan.