Chapter 152 - 152 Black Gas and Silence in the Secret World
Chapter 152: Black Gas and Silence in the Secret World
Newt sighed in pity, then turned his gaze to Dracula at his side.
"Professor Dracula, can you show me inside those buildings?" He opened his mouth and asked, "I vaguely sense something familiar from inside here, I'm not sure what it is yet, I need to get up close and personal."
"Sure no problem." Dracula glanced at Newt with some curiosity and casually agreed, "But how could a place like this that has been closed for thousands of years have an aura that makes you feel familiar?"
"I'm curious too." Newt said softly, but his expression looked a bit grave.
Dracula led Newt inside a randomly selected ancient Greek style temple and stood on a flat plane of stacked marble.
The two made their way past a square hall to the inner sanctum of the temple, where they could look up and see a tall, gold-encrusted apotheosis standing directly in front of the sanctum.
Dracula couldn't tell which statue it was, only that the apothecary was quite good at apothecizing.
"Well, Mr. Scamander, did you find any scent that struck you as familiar?" Dracula asked as he looked at Newt.
"There is indeed a familiar scent, I can feel it around here." Newt paced the marble paved floor and closed his eyes to feel it.
In the midst of this temple, a wisp if black aura quietly wrapped around towards his body, seemingly trying to consume it ...
Newt suddenly opened his eyes wide and looked towards the black aura that was attached to the thick erosive aura around him.
"Or maybe it's not just near us, but everywhere around, all that familiar aura." He lifted his voice and said to Dracula, "I know, Murmuran is that scent!"
"Isn't that the power of the Dementors that Helpo absorbed? What does it have to do with Merman?" Dracula frowned.
He opened his slender fingers and tugged on a black aura, wrapping both hands around several times like a flipping rope, twisting the black aura cascading around him into a ball and pulling it to his eyes to scrutinize it.
"Is this power much like that of the Silmarillion?" Dracula asked curiously, "It's been a not so short time since I've seen something as rare as Merman, and I'm not quite sure what its power form looks like."
Newt was silent for a moment and suddenly placed his old suitcase that he had shaped on the ground and pressed the two snap buttons open.
No sooner had he opened the case's snap buttons than a small yellow paw peeled itself out of the case.
"No, Teddy, hurry back. I'm not here for you!" Newt rushed to pick up Sniff by the scruff of the neck and lift him up, "I'm not sure there's any other dangers here, so don't you go anywhere!"
Dracula watched with interest as Newt painstakingly stuffed Sniffy Teddy back into the case before waving his wand and removing a transparent magic bubble from the suitcase.
A black fluid-like substance existed in this transparent bubble, occasionally bobbing in the air.
"Is this ... a Murmur?" Dracula looked at the black fluid-like substance wrapped in the transparent bubble and asked in surprise, "Where did you retain it from? I remember that when the host of the Silent Ranch dies, it's only right that the Silent Ranch dissipates with it."
"This would have been more than sixty years ago." A strong sense of remembrance surfaced in Newt's eyes as he softly explained, "At that time, I met a Silent Ranger in the Sudan, and she trusted me."
"I still remember the way she looked at me with encouraging eyes and told me to let go of my power when I used all my strength to separate the Silent One from that girl's body."
"But I failed her in the end, and didn't save her in the end ..."
"You've been amazing, Mr. Scamander." Dracula opened his mouth to console him, "Murmuran is supposed to be an extremely unstable and uncontrollable dark force that often erupts into attacks and subsequently disappears into thin air ..."
"As far as I know, it's rare for a Silencer to be willing to trust others, even their closest loved ones. The fact that that little Sudanese girl was able to put her trust in you, and was even willing to allow you to help separate the Silent Ranges within her, would have said a lot about her attitude towards you."
"That is all long past, Mr. Scamander." Dracula said.
"Yeah, those things are long gone." Newt sighed softly and shook his head, "The most important thing now is still this matter at hand."
He looked deeply into Dracula's eyes, "Professor Dracula, through this Murmur, can you discern the similarity between the two energies?"
Dracula gently beckoned, and the transparent bubble in front of Newt flew over lightly.
However, when the Murmuran in the middle of the bubble gradually approached Dracula, it seemed to feel a strong pressure faintly coming from Dracula's body, and the Murmuran fluctuated fiercely as if it was suddenly touched.
"Professor Dracula, wait!" Newt shouted in a panic under great alarm.
If he let Murmuran erupt at such a time, it would likely consume the little power that was already left in it after decades of experience.
Newt was unwilling to let that Sudanese girl from back then just dissipate the last trace of her existence in the world!
Just then, Dracula raised his hand and pressed downward against the transparent bubble.
It was as if Murmuran in the middle of the bubble was immediately suppressed, and immediately stayed peacefully within the bubble he was in.
"Don't worry, Mr. Scamander, I have my measure." Dracula hooked his mouth at Newt.
He then placed the sphere made of entangled black gas in his hand and the transparent bubble that contained Murmuran together, carefully comparing the similarities between the two.
"There does seem to be a lot of similarities." Dracula furrowed his brows, "Whether it's the energy properties, colors, or traits, there's an extremely similar flavor ..."
"But this shouldn't be ah ... one of them is caused by a riot of magic power within the sorcerer's body, and the other is a remnant of the Dementor's power absorbed by Helbo, how should there not be such a strong similarity between the two?... ..."
"If the two powers are really similar to this extent, that means that the magic power of a sorcerer and the power of a dementor are on the same path?"
Dracula pondered with a puzzled expression, his eyes drifting as he looked at the two different power systems placed side by side in the air.
"Professor Dracula, could it be that when the vile Helbo absorbed the Dementor's power, he changed the Dementor's power form in the process-" Newt spoke up and asked, "Helbo caused it to change into a power form that was more readily absorbed power form, hence the similarity to the power of the Silmarillion?"
"I suppose not." Dracula shook his head and said, "Because this kind of black aura is not a suitable power for sorcerers to absorb either, purposely transferring the Dementor's power into this kind of form before absorbing it is a bit superfluous."
"Of course, there is no way for us to completely rule out this possibility, we can do some more observation."
Saying that, Dracula took out a mirror with an apocryphal engraving of the Phoenix Floating Apocalypse from his coat pocket and pressed a button on it.
Nicole LeMay's face emerged on the mirror.
"Say, what is it that you old thing needs my help again?" Seeing Dracula's face, LeMay seemed to be in a good mood and said in a light tone, "I'm enjoying the theater! What is it that you have that you can say a little faster, I'll see how I can help you."
"How did you know I was coming to you for help?" Dracula raised an eyebrow, "Couldn't I just be suddenly wanting to talk to you?"
"Don't I know you old thing?" LeMay said confidently, "Whenever you wanted to talk to me you didn't just parachute right up to me? A while ago, in order to be wary of you running around and scaring others, I almost didn't dare to go out and watch a drama."
"Ahem... it turn out to be so obvious?" Dracula coughed a bit awkwardly, "Like this, help me check this energy with those instruments of yours ..."
He tossed the black gas balled up into a sphere in his hand in front of the mirror.
"Focus on analyzing the similarities and differences between it and the Silence." Dracula said into the mirror, "Mr. Scamander and I are not quite equipped right now to look for specific energy differences between the two."
"No problem, just drop it off at my workroom on the second floor." LeMay smiled softly, "So ... Newt is with you too?"
Dracula tilted the mirror a bit in Newt's direction.
Newt saw the gray-haired figure in the middle of the mirror, a hint of surprise spread across his face, followed by a surprised smile.
"Nicole, it's been a long time." He waved at the mirror.
"Newt, Perenal asked me about it a while ago! She asked what took Newt and Tina so long to visit us two old bones in Paris." Nicole LeMay said to Newt with a slight grumble, "Have we known each other long enough to be emotionally tantalizing?"
"Of course not, Nicole!" Newt explained coyly, "It's just that I've been busy traveling around the world gathering material for writing a new version of Where the Fantastic Beasts Are; and Tina and her good friend Lali have been busy preparing new textbooks for the Imperatori."
"Don't worry, we'll be sure to bring Rolf to visit you and Perenal when this bout of busyness is over."
"Then we have a deal! Perenal and I are waiting for you in Paris!" Nicole LeMay said cheerfully.
He then turned his attention to Dracula, who was watching from the sidelines, "Brad, and you! Don't just look around for fun, remember to visit us two old bones more often!"
"Okay, okay, no problem!" Dracula shrugged his shoulders in disbelief.
At the same time, he casually snapped his fingers and threw a ball of black gas in his hand within a sliver of dark moonlight, teleporting it to LeMay's safe house on the Rue de Morancy in Paris.
"That cloud of black gas was dropped off at the house for you, don't forget about that in the middle of your drama!" Dracula laughed softly.
"Of course, I don't need you to remind me!" LeMay waved his hand in a good-natured manner, "Go about your business, don't delay me from watching this play."
Saying that, he took the initiative to disconnect the contact between the mirrors, not forgetting to add one more sentence before completely disconnecting:
"Don't forget to visit us two old bones often, both of you!"
Dracula and Newt were both smiling as they looked at the hale and hearty old man, watching his figure disappear from among the mirrors.
"Nic looks like he's still in good spirits." Newt revealed a pleased smile.
"Isn't he? He's filled with renewed motivation to live once he thinks about how I'm still trying to have fun after living such a boring life." Dracula laughed softly and shook his head.
"After all, the fact that he loves theater is something that never changes, and the Muggle world is constantly coming up with brand new plays. The joy of his life never went away."
Who would have thought that this old man would have been talking to another old man this time last year about using the magic stone as bait to lure Voldemort in, and then be ready to use it as an opportunity to pass away?
'If we really let Nicole die a long time ago, it will be very difficult to find an expert who can analyze magical energy now, right ...' Dracula thought to himself.
"Come on, let's go see how those two guys outside are doing." He laughed softly and shook his head, taking the lead to walk towards the outskirts of the temple.
A sliver of silver light representing the daemons shone into the middle of the temple's square hall, tantalizing and refreshing.
Side by side, Dracula and Newt walked towards the low wall where Abbottel and Andros were, and looked towards the Minister of Magic, who was balding for the Greek magical community.
"How's it going, Minister Abbottel?" Dracula asked, first glancing at Andros, then hooking his mouth.
Andros looked up at Dracula and Newt, who were coming from the distance, and showed his hands to the two, meaning that Abbottel was still in the midst of a tangle, with no sign that he was going to recover.
Dracula raised an eyebrow in surprise at the sight and looked over at Abner.
"I would have thought that as a Minister of Magic, your ability to resist stress shouldn't be so weak, right?" He asked with interest.
Abattoir raised his head with a numb expression, glanced at the silver-haired figure in front of him, and lowered his eyes again with a dull expression.
"What can I do?" He said in a heavy tone, "When I realized that no matter how hard I tried, the Greek magic community would inevitably go into decline ... could I have any other emotion in my heart besides despair?"
"What other emotion could there be? Letting go, of course ..." Dracula's exuberant words were interrupted by Newt before he could finish them.
Newt tugged a little grudgingly at Dracula's sleeve and crouched down to look levelly into Abner's eyes.
"Albertur, I can see that you are a very responsible Minister of Magic." He said softly, "But some things are not beyond our ability to handle. The despair that no amount of effort is of any use, I can understand that!"
"I never had that same feeling of powerlessness when I faced Grindelwald back then."
"So how did you face this emotion then, Mr. Scamander?" Abattoir's eyes wavered slightly.
Newt pursed his lips.
"I chose to trust my other companions!" He said.