Chapter 207

[USSR. Yakut ASSR. Hotel "Chaika".]

In one of the best rooms of the hotel, on a small veranda, watching the bustle happening outside, while leaning against the railing with a glass of wine and in a bathrobe, stood Arnold, the leader of the "Black Star", whose face did not express anything except fatigue.

After all, although they helped him "finish" all the business in China, the man did not give up and immediately switched to another country, on the territory of which their organization already had two branches: in Khabarovsk Krai and the Kazakh SSR, where their people in the power structure occupied the highest positions and gradually immersed their roots deeper, sending their people, under the guise of transfers or exchange, to other regions, in one of which, one member of the "Diamond" branch took the post of deputy manager of the Yakut ASSR.

The wizard chose this autonomous republic only to control everything and calculate further ways of expansion to other regions, and the main goal of all this was the banal capture of the magical world of the USSR. Having finished his wine, he watched the wizards outside for a few more seconds, and then went back into the room and just at that moment, the mirror standing on the nightstand lit up red.

"Damn ... and why so late, couldn't he have contacted me in the morning ...?" the blond grumbled discontentedly, in his hand a mask appeared, exactly like the previous one, which the Prince had taken earlier and putting it on, the reflection in the mirror trembled and after a few seconds, it was replaced by the image of a man, slightly older than the leader himself.

He had short gray hair and a small beard, but what first attracted attention to this wizardand caused a feeling of discomfort were his eyes: white irises without pupils and gray sclera, but in addition to this, he also had a long scar, from his forehead to his chin.

"How are you Sandro?" In response, the named wizardonly grinned.

"I'm Okay, leader, I'm on a rather important matter, this concerns the order you gave this morning to search for one person ..."

'Hm? Do you know him?" interestedly raising an eyebrow behind the mask, he asked the commander of the "Diamond" squad, as well as the second most powerful person in the organization.

"I would first like to clarify why you need him?" unlike other members of the Black Star, Sandro had much more influence and power, which is why he could be a little impudent, although in moderation, because he, like the leader, understood well that the loss of a combat unit like him would be a serious blow to the entire organization, and many members of the Diamond squad would follow him, which is why Arnold also had to take him into account, which of course was a little annoying, but in this case he simply had no choice.

"He managed to really piss off someone ..." moving a chair towards himself, falling into it, and then pouring a little more wine, he remembered the chilling look of the Prince, from which he involuntarily shuddered, "....with whom I would like to quarrel last of all, even with the risk of losing you, after all , my own life is more important, although it will take ten years to restore the squad."

This answer made the necromancer frown deeply, and his thick eyebrows came together in a "V", and if someone from his department saw this, they would definitely clutch their hearts, because among his own he was known as the "Emotionless Reaper".

No one in the organization had ever seen him change his face even a little, constantly maintaining his mask of indifference, and even his own student was only able to achieve an almost imperceptible approving nod in his direction when he defeated the leader of the "Gold" department.

"He is that strong?"

"My magic had no effect on him," this simple answer caused shock on Sandro's face, and Arnold continued, "And in order to leave alive, I had to sign a magical contract, and also take an oath that I would fulfill three of his requests, and you know the first one ..." his glass,calmly passed through the mask and after taking a sip, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

"And if there are two of us…?"

[A/N: sorry for interrupting, but this sentence here means that will the guy still be able to defeat them if both of them fight him together.]

"If you want to provoke the one behind him, then go ahead, although I wouldn't really like to lose you, after all I doubt that I'll be able to find a worthy replacement for you later," taking another sip and leaning his elbow on the armrest, he slightly tilted his head to the side and asked: "Since you're defending him like that, it means…"

"He only recently officially joined our community and has incredible talent in the field of necromancy, and you yourself know how hard it is to develop in our direction, he's only thirty-five, and he's already reached the same heights as I did at ninety…" sighing sadly, he ran his hand over his face, and then began thoughtfully stroking his chin, "I wouldn't want to lose such a young talent, and others won't understand me, which will threaten us with the loss of support from the Necromancer Community…"

"So that's how it is… and really… it will be a heavy loss…"

"And how could he have offended that person, for the last ten years, he did not even leave the community and spent almost all his time in the library studying books?"

"I have no idea."

"Maybe... this person specifically wants to weaken our organization, and then take over?" the man suggested, based on the actions of the unknown, which was a logical conclusion, but Arnold only shook his head. "If he wanted this, then he would've already did it, he has a "means" to achieve this goal,"

Arnold didn't exactly tell him the "means" he was talking about and Sandro himself did not ask anything, realizing from a short pause that the leader would not explain anything.

"Let me think for a while ..." he sighed deeply and gloomily said, to which in response he only received a weak nod and after a few seconds, his own reflection appeared in the mirror.

"Eh... why did I even decide to get involved with this little bastard..." throwing the mask on the table, he drained the glass in one gulp and went out onto the veranda again, hoping that the fresh air would at least a little help him find a way out of this situation...

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[Zhangjiajie County. Hunan Province. Tianzi Mountains.]

Severus and Nagini had been falling for five minutes already, but the ground was in no hurry to show itself, and Nagini had just finished expressing her opinion about how crazy Severus was two minutes ago, and in the next two, she had finally calmed down, because she was no longer accustomed to such reckless actions on his part.

But the Prince himself was a little surprised by this, because according to his rough calculations, they had already flown at least eleven and a half kilometers and at the same time there were no side effects, no pressure on the body and other accompanying factors of a sharp descent deep underground, there was even air and he could breathe calmly.

Besides this, the Prince also examined the walls themselves, occasionally picking up various crystals hanging on them, as well as herbs growing directly from the rock, the names of some of them were unknown even to him, although he had studied all the books in the Hogwarts library and those found in Diagon Alley, as well as some purchased in Dark Alley, on the territory of Brazil, although he still had not touched the scrolls bought in China, perhaps they would contain answers to these questions.

Thus, they flew for another minute, until finally, Snape noticed something, it was a yellow dot and the lower they descended, the larger it became.

"Severus...."

"I see, apparently, we are already close." he nodded, smiling, although there was something pleasant in free fall, but the monotonous "landscapes" had already become a little boring, and for someone who already knew how to fly, this was not something surprising.

"And I beg you! Don't do that again! If I had hair on my head now, I would definitely have a few gray strands!" the snake muttered with a hint of discontent, wrapping itself tighter around him.

The Slytherin did not answer, concentrating on the yellow dot, until in an instant, his gaze wavered and sharply waving his hand upward, he created a barrier that completely surrounded them, but even it, right before their eyes, slowly began to dissipate.

"Now it is clear why no one survived ..." Without the former joy, the Prince muttered, no longer feeling magic in the air and as if something was absorbing his own, drop by drop.

"This ... magic ... it disappeared ..." Nagini immediately felt the same, because the animals were many times more sensitive to it, especially those like her.

"I noticed," with a crooked smile, he answered, running his palm through the air and slowly, they were engulfed by a stream of air, which, like the barrier, began to dissipate, turning into red particles and plunging into the walls.

In these short ten seconds, they covered another three hundred meters and finally reached the bottom of the gorge, which met them with an unpleasant crunch and darkness.

Any other wizard, in their place, if he managed to survive after such a fall, would hardly be able to see anything at all, but the Prince was ready for this, therefore, during the flight, he drank the potion of "Night Vision" and now could see perfectly in the darkness and the picture that opened up to him was hard to call something attractive.

What he stepped on, were bones, completely clean, human bones, which lay along his entire path, to the very horizon. And compared to how wide the gorge was from above, below, it was twice as wide, about thirty meters, while in some places it could reach forty or, conversely, narrow to ten. But the bones were everywhere, both human and animal.

Besides them, there were: time-worn clothes, bags, ropes, potions, although almost all were smashed to pieces, artifacts, but without magic they were completely useless and among them was what emanated light, a simple Muggle flashlight covered in runes, which had landed successfully on one of the bags and was still working only thanks to the Muggle battery inside it, which the wizard who threw it down had not thought to take out.

But these things, for the most part, did not particularly interest the Prince, he was much more attracted by the colorless, dull crystals, up to a meter high, hanging on the walls, from which barely perceptible magic emanated.

"I don't like this place." examining the almost shiny bones, Nagini hissed cautiously, raising her gaze and looking around.

"I agree, but it seems I found something that can greatly help me in the future strengthening of the core...." approaching one of the crystals, he touched it and began to absorb the magic, which flowed into his body without any resistance.

'If this entire path is strewn with them, then they will be enough for me, not only for the fusion of the soul, body and core, but also for further growth, perhaps with their help, in a couple of decades I will be able to reach the middle of the rank of "Archmage", and for my project they are simply an ideal source of magic ... ' Severus thought while examining them a burning gaze, and then touching an empty place on the stone wall, he gradually began to release magic to understand at what speed it will absorb it.

Nagini herself only watched this with curiosity, until a few seconds later, one of the largest crystals, surrounded by the same, but smaller ones, simply flew out of the wall and the wizard quickly caught them and threw them into the spatial artifact.

"But I'm unlikely to be able to take everything with me..." Severus muttered, frowning slightly, until his gaze stopped on the bag of some very unlucky wizard lying nearby and a smile formed on his face, "Here's another place found..."

The snake itself, seeing this, sighed tiredly, laying her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes, understanding that this would most likely drag on for a long time...

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