Blocked.

Loki saw Sunny reverberate the air with his spirituality and a melodious poem flowed out.

'Of all that is Horror! May you seek out all that is here!'

'Of all that is eternal! May you break all that is here!'

'Of all depths of darkness! May you take all that is here!'

'Of all the silence! May you make yours all that is here!'

'Of all the concealed! May you bring down your kingdom here!'

As soon as Sunny's words formed, the crowd began to stop.

It was as if an animation wheel had been frozen and stopped mid-way through. As if the lives of dozens of people were suddenly put on pause.

Everyone, the rich or the poor, the fearful or the excited, the sick or the lively, everyone, was stopped without any bias. 

Sunny vanished after everyone stopped, slipping into the spirit world so he wouldn't be targeted because he was low on spirituality.

'There are no robed people among them.' Loki noticed with a frown.

'Are they lying in wait outside the camp? At the gate?'

As soon as all the people stopped moving, Loki lay the girl he had rescued on the roof of a random safe tent and moved around by teleporting around, checking to see if there was something that would explain the situation a little better.

But he couldn't find anything different, something that wouldn't belong where they were.

There were no obviously wrong things that would point him in the right direction to reveal what the robed people wanted to do.

'Was it just to cause chaos?'

Loki looked around himself with a frown, Nicholas was working to keep the robed people locked away on the other side of the camp so Loki decided to visit the Sefirah Castle.

Entering the castle after taking four steps counterclockwise, Loki immediately pulled out the Topaz Pendulum and wrote down the following words on a goat skin parchment.

'The robed people's aim is only to cause chaos.'

Entering cogitation, Loki's eyes blackened and with his topaz pendulum extended he started his divination.

"The robed people just want to cause chaos and do nothing more."

"The robed people just want to cause chaos and do nothing more."

"The robed people just want to cause chaos and do nothing more."

…

"The robed people just want to cause chaos and do nothing more."

Opening his eyes Loki looked at the pendulum with relief, it was spinning clockwise.

'So I was worrying for nothing.'

Loki dismissed everything near him and stood up to go back but stopped before he could exit the Sefirah Castle.

A frown formed on his face and he sat back down, pulled out his topaz pendulum again and entered cogitation.

"Someone else wants to use the chaos for their own purposes."

"Someone else wants to use the chaos for their own purposes."

"Someone else wants to use the chaos for their own purposes."

…

"Someone else wants to use the chaos for their own purposes."

Loki opened his eyes and became a little shocked.

The pendulum was turning clockwise.

His heart started to beat faster again and his breathing quickened as sweat began to form on his palms.

'Someone else is using the chaos the robed people are causing?'

'Are they under someone's orders to cause chaos?'

'But how will this be used?'

'Do they want to collect the pain, fear and sadness that is being caused by all the chaos for something? Like the plague of Backlund?'

Loki's hands trembled.

'So Nicholas was right. There is something else going on.'

Calming himself using cogitation Loki closed his eyes and used dream divination.

'The reason for all the chaos that is being caused.'

'The reason for all the chaos that is being caused.'

'The reason for all the chaos that is being caused.'

…

'The reason for all the chaos that is being caused.'

Loki's eyes swam as a few images flickered past him.

The first was the back view of an armchair in an abandoned house, near the chair was a large snake that was coiled up into a pile.

The image shifted and another one flashed past Loki.

It was of a large black cube-like building where dementors swarmed all around floating freely and snaking on the happiness of the people trapped there.

The image shifted and another one flashed past Loki.

It was of the camp Loki was currently in. It was a top view giving Loki a view of the entire camp at once along with all the people inside it.

Loki finally snapped out of his dream divination as he looked around the grey fog with a frown on his face.

'A person with a snake? You-Know-Who? Or Harry Potter?'

'The building was Azkaban?'

'And a high view of the camp we are in.'

'…how are all these related?'

Loki thought for a while and came up with a possible conclusion.

'Is the camp a distraction for you-know-who to break out his death eaters from Azkaban?'

'Possible…'

'But how did he plan to keep the Aurors distracted long enough for the breakout of Azkaban to go unnoticed?'

'Is there something more to what's going on inside the camp?'

Loki thought back to the image of the camp he was shown, dissecting every detail about it that he could see.

A frown formed on Loki's face as he discovered something suspicious, 'Why didn't I see any Aurors enter the camp once there was a disturbance inside?'

'Didn't Dominic say he was standing guard just outside at the entrance?'

'Why was the camp mostly empty from the top view? Filled only with panicking people?'

The frown on Loki's face deepened.

He immediately exited the Sefirah Castle and returned to his body.

Everything outside was the same as it had been when he'd left, the people were still frozen and no one was moving.

Loki took advantage of the situation and rushed to the entrance of the camp, where everyone had been moving toward before.

He teleported on the roof of tents and began to look around to see if he could spot any discrepancies but nothing particularly stood out to him.

Arriving at the entrance of the camp Loki pulled out his wand and carefully inspected everything around him by spreading his spirituality to sense and reveal any wards.

As soon as Loki's spirituality came in contact with the wards around the place they lit up, but Loki's face morphed into a frown and then slowly into confusion before being replaced by slight annoyance and anger.

'There is a barrier to stop people from leaving if I'm not wrong…'

'And there seems to be something missing from this entire formation…'

Loki walked closer to the entrance and pushed his hand outward, an ethereal almost invisible barrier stopped it from leaving the bounds of the camp.

Coming close to the barrier Loki quickly looked outside. The outside was normal, everything seemed pleasant and calm.

Loki even spotted Dominic standing guard while looking at his pocket watch and then back at the camp, possibly wondering if Loki would come outside.

Loki *sighed* audibly at this and knelt on the ground.

He quickly pulled out a few candles and lit them up with his spirituality and conducted a short ritual to call upon Dominic's spirit messenger.

The ritual didn't take long and almost immediately a dark bony hand poked through the void of the spirit realm, appearing right beside Loki.

With the hand in front of him, Loki pulled out a parchment from his pocket and scribbled a few words on it.

'This is not a joke. The camp is under siege by robed people suspected to be death eaters. There is a barrier around the camp preventing anyone from the inside from escaping outside. 

It is also the thing preventing you from realising if there's something wrong here since I suspect it has a large illusion cast over the camp.

And, this is just a guess, but I suspect this is a distraction since the illusion barrier is just there to keep you unaware of what's going on inside-

-but they wanted you to notice since spirit world travel isn't interrupted, so they are just delaying things-.

-If it was an actual attack that had a reason, the death eaters would have just taken people hostage and stated their demands.

Counting on you to handle the outside Dominic.

Yours truly,

Loki.'

Loki dropped the short letter in the bony hand and watched as it vanished and reappeared near Dominic.

There was a smile on Dominic's face initially which slowly turned into a frown and then into full-blown horror.

He quickly rushed up to Loki and tried stepping into the camp but the thin ethereal invisible barrier stopped him in his tracks.

Loki could see exactly where Dominic was, but Dominic couldn't, he tried banging on the barrier and even used several spells but it didn't budge.

Only a few minutes later, Dominic realised the gravity of the situation and immediately set up a ritual to summon the spirit for his supervisor.

Leaving Dominic to his devices, Loki left his spot and rushed back to investigate the wards further.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N : Join my Patreon (p@treon.com/hooin_kyoma_au) to read 20 chapters ahead for just $3.