Chapter 138: The Sound of Silence

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Ophis' Resting Room, Unknown Location

October 1880

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"It's a nice room. A little bare to my tastes, but it has a nice size."

Erik comments and walks to a nearby wall. As he gets to it, he starts to inspect the inscriptions on the wall.

"Interesting…"

Erik's murmur while still inspecting the inscriptions. While he was at it, Ophis stood in the same place that they had arrived at with the teleportation without moving at all, observing Erik's every move.

Ten minutes later, after inspecting every corner and surface of the room, Erik walked back to where Ophis was standing and stopped by its side.

"I got a good idea of how the inscriptions on the walls are working and need to do some more tests, but I think that I have something to work with."

He said while smiling.

"Can you bring us back to where we were before?"

Erik asked Ophis, who nodded its head in confirmation. And, without waiting for Erik to say anything, teleported both of them back to the place where Ophis found Erik.

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Salvador, Brazil

October 1880

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When Erik's vision came back, Ophis and he were standing at the same place that they were before. The teleportation had been very fast. As fast as Erik's emergency one. He looked around the place and nodded his head at it. Erik then turned to Ophis and crouched in front of the Dragon of Infinity to put his eyes at the same height as the Dragon's one.

"I want to do some experiments to clarify some points about this noise that you are constantly hearing. Can you help me with them? If everything goes right, we will have a way to stop you from hearing them."

Erik said and asked Ophis, who nodded its head immediately, agreeing instantly to help with something that could potentially bring back the silence. Erik smiled at the 'little girl' eagerness to help.

"I will teleport us to a place that I own. I want to test the effect that some of the wards there have on the noise that you are hearing."

Erik said to Ophis, who nodded its head in agreement. The question was so Ophis would not resist the teleportation magic that he would cast. A being with the power that it had would not simply be forced to go to a place that it didn't want to go, causing a backslash to the caster. At Ophis's agreement, Erik started to cast his teleportation spell, making the familiar blue magic circle appear just above the ground where they were standing.

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Hogwarts Castle's Surroundings, Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands

October 1880

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Between motes of blue light, Erik appeared together with Ophis in the middle of a thick forest. They were just outside the wards of Hogwarts' castle and inside the Black Forest. The late was now being called the Forbidden Forest by the wizarding community. Generation after generation grew up having the forest as a forbidden place to go, making the name stick.

"No wait here a little, I have to adjust the wards so they will not go crazy when you pass through them."

Erik said to Ophis and walked where the borders of the castle's wards reached. As Erik passed by the borders, he closed his eyes and started to mess with the current configuration, turning off the alarm system first, to not warn the people in the castle that he was there, and allowing Ophis entrance without raising a ruckus. The last time that Erik was in the school when he revamped the wards' system he added a special alarm in them that would directly warn him or Selena if a being above a predetermined threshold entered the wards. Erik was very proud of his wards but he was realistic too. If someone like Ophis would force their way through the wards, they would not manage to hold it back. With his temporary configurations done, Erik walked to the very border of the wards and made a line in the ground with a wave of his hand, demarking the exact borders of them.

"Ophis, if you could walk to my side here and cross the line on the ground. Tell me if there is any difference in the noise that you are hearing."

Erik said to the Dragon of Infinity, who nodded its head in confirmation. Ophis then slowly walked to where Erik was standing and crossed the line that he had carved. The moment it happened, Erik saw for the first time the expression on the Dragon's face change. It was just a minuscule change, but it happened nonetheless.

"It diminished. The noise diminished by a lot."

Ophis said while turning to look at Erik. The man had a big smile on his face. It appeared that his thoughts were correct about the 'noise'.

"Good! Now step out for a moment, I have to put the wards back in their original configuration. Then, we will try to solve your problem."

Erik said to Ophis, who after hearing the part about solving its problem, eagerly walked back to where it was standing before. With that, Erik started to put back online the things that he had taken out. When he finished doing, Erik walked back to Ophis' side.

"I will teleport us to another place now, ok?"

Erik asked the Dragon of Infinity, who nodded its head in agreement. He then cast his teleportation spell, making a blue magic circle appear above the place where they were standing. Seconds later, Erik and Ophis had disappeared in motes of blue light.

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Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands

October 1880

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As the duo reappeared on a big and open green field, Erik walked away from Ophis a little and raised both of his hands in front of him in a form that resembled him holding a basketball. Erik then looked back at Ophis.

"Ophis, I will need to ask you to not tell anyone about the power that I am going to use, okay? And, if you can, shield the place around so no one can notice us."

Erik asked the Dragon of Infinity, who, after some seconds, nodded its head signaling its agreement to Erik's request. Seeing it, Erik turned back to look at the space between his hands and closed his eyes in concentration. Seconds later, the atmosphere around him turned heavy due to the concentration of magic energy emanating from his body. Some of the more weak stones on the field around him even started to show signs of cracking and the green grass got flattened to the ground. Erik was releasing, for the first time in a while, his full power. The job ahead of him would ask for all of him and nothing less.

Some more seconds later, Erik activated the Balance Breaker of his Annihilation Maker, concentrating on what he wanted to create while using the power granted by it. It was then that a small ball of white light appeared between Erik's hands. The small ball of light pulsed with power like it was a beating heart. With time, the small ball of light started to grow in size slowly. Ten minutes after its creation, the pulsating ball of light was of the size of a basketball, completely filling the space between Erik's hands. The man itself was sweating like crazy. He had done before some big creations while using the Balance Breaker mainly to get used to its power, but nothing that he had created before reached the complexity of what Erik was creating right now. It was then that the ball of light started to shrink in size. With it, its shape was slowly changing too. Another ten minutes later, a very tired Erik took in his hand its newest creation and promptly collapse to the ground. On his very tired face was a very big smile, while on his hand was a pair of brand-new headphones.

Yes. Headphones. If one had to isolate the sound of something or muffle it, he would use headphones for it, right? At least that was the excuse that Erik was giving to himself. It had nothing to do with the fact that he wanted to see the 'little' Dragon of Infinity using Chobits-like headphones. Yeah, definitely, not because of that.

Erik's train of thought was interrupted when Ophis's face appeared over him. Even with her apathetic look, she seemed to care a little. Or maybe was because Erik had said that would try and help it.

"Hey, Ophis."

Erik said and got up from the ground after having taken a breath. His magic energy was returning at a fast pace as always but he was still a little winded from the effort. He sat on the ground and turned to Ophis.

"Your snakes have a connection with you, right?"

Erik asked Ophis, who nodded its head in confirmation.

"Can you create one? It's not for me, it's to power up my creation."

Erik asked Ophis, adding the last bit after. The Dragon of Infinity didn't answer Erik but raised its hand and created one of its Infinity Snakes. Ophis then looked at Erik, as if asking what had to be done now. Erik then showed the elegant black and white chobits-like headphones to Ophis.

"Make it merge with this."

Erik said to Ophis, who let the little snake fly to the object, merging with it like the surface was made of some sort of liquid. As the merge happened, some dark-purple lights came into life through the body of the headphones, resembling a lot some LED effects that could be seen in Erik's past life gaming gear. The dark-purple light pulsed for some seconds until it stabilized and stood always one. Seeing that it was done, Erik signaled for Ophis to come near him. As it did it, Erik took the Chobits-like headphones with both hands and held them in front of Ophis.

"Now, stay put for an instant, Ophis, while I put this on you."

Erik said to the Dragon of Infinity, who didn't move at all. He then slowly put the headphones on Ophis, taking a lot of care to not 'hurt' the 'little girl's ears. As he did it, Erik took a step back and looked at the cute Dragon in front of him but he was not ready for what happened after. A tear. A single tear escaped from Ophis's eyes.

"Did it work?"

Erik asked with some concern. Ophis, shaken by Erik's question, looked at the man and slowly nodded. The silence was finally back!

"Good!"

Erik said while sporting a big smile on his face. His theory about the noises that Ophis was hearing was right, after all. Due to Ophis's concept being Infinity, it had a strong connection with space too. And that was exactly what it was hearing. The noise was the space around Ophis constantly expanding, contracting, tearing itself. But it was not exactly around Ophis that it was happening. It would be crazy if it was. It was the noise of the expansion of space in the dimension that it was right now. Since the Universe was in constant expansion, every dimension was expanding together with it. The only place where Ophis would not hear that noise would be in the Dimensional Gap, her home because that place was exactly what its name indicated: the gap between dimensions.

Erik observed as Ophis closed its eyes and seemed just to enjoy her silence. And while it was doing that, he took the time to relax and finish his recovery while going over everything that he had learned while helping the Dragon of Infinity.

After a while, Erik got up from the ground and waved his hand to take care of the dirt on it with a little magic.

"Well, I don't know about you, Ophis, but all this effort made me hungry. So I will go and eat something."

Erik said to Ophis, who opened its eyes and looked at the man that helped it get back its silence.

"Do you wanna come with me?"

Erik asked Ophis, who didn't answer him with words and just walked and stopped by his side. Taking that as a 'yes', Erik quickly cast a teleportation spell, making both of them disappear in the middle of blue motes of light.

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