The lights flickered again.
Tarhan Özdemir, who had been about to activate the two-way mirror, hesitated. His wrinkled fingers grabbed the artifact, but after a mont, he slowly set it down and furrowed his brows.
Sothing was not right.
anwhile, across the room, his student scowled at the dimming chandeliers. His frustration had not faded in the slightest, and now it had found another target. "Rubbish. These so-called luxury gadgets from Caesar's Magitech are worthless. It has not even been a month since they were installed..."
Tarhan paid the fool no mind and quickly spread his Magical Sense, searching for anything out of place. His intuition had never failed him before, and right now, every fiber of his being told him that sothing dangerous was about to descend upon him.
Another flicker. The light pulsed unnaturally, as if the very air itself had beco unstable.
Then suddenly, the old wizard's pupils contracted. His first instinct was to Apparate away, but he dismissed the thought just as quickly. Trying to escape by using space magic against a being that could tear space itself would be a foolish decision.
And right now, that was exactly what he was seeing.
A jagged crack split the space before him. This was no trick of the light, no re illusion. The very fabric of reality had been torn open.
Step.
Step.
A shiver tore through his spine. He knew this power. Only the most powerful of his kind wielded it.
It ant one thing.
A king had arrived.
The young wizard, still oblivious to the danger, turned to voice another complaint but stopped mid-sentence.
Step.
Step.
From the fractured gap in space, a figure stepped through. His movents were unhurried, his hands resting casually in the pockets of a long, dark coat. He did not announce himself, nor did he need to. His presence alone was enough. It filled the room like an immovable force, pressing down on everything and everyone within it.
Gulp.
The young wizard's breath hitched as he felt the oppressive weight in the air. But then, recognition dawned when he glanced at the figure's face, and realized this was no stranger at all.
His impulsive character got the better of him.
"You—"
But Before he could mutter anything, an agonizing scream tore from his throat.
Arrh.
His body jerked, and his eyes rolled back as his mind was torn open with brutal force. It was not a slow unraveling but a violent assault that left no room for resistance.
Every barrier in his consciousness shattered as Maverick tore through his mories without hesitation or warning. His thoughts, secrets, and fears were laid bare in an instant.
The brutal assault on his mind was nothing more than payback for daring to harbor vile thoughts about Isabella. But what ca next—what Maverick had just uncovered in this young scumbag's mind—demanded sothing far worse.
It took only a mont for him to decide.
The screaming stopped, cut off as if a switch had been flipped, and the young man collapsed to his knees.
Mind arts could inflict damage far worse than any physical injury, capable of tearing apart a person's very spirit. The brutal intrusion had not only left him with a grueso headache but had also drained his stamina almost completely.
For a brief mont, there was silence.
And then, all of a sudden, under Tarhan's disbelieving eyes, black flas surged from beneath the young man, slithering up his legs and torso like a serpent in the most unnatural manner.
Only a strangled gasp escaped the young man's lips as the flas visibly devoured him from the inside out. His skin blackened, cracked, and then crumbled, leaving not even a trace of flesh or bone except only dust.
Tarhan stood frozen, his breath caught in his throat as the ash then just spiraled upward and vanished. There was no body left. No sign that the young man had ever existed. Only the lingering heat in the air and the oppressive weight of the one who had wielded such rciless power.
Silence.
Words failed the century old wizard, or perhaps, he was too afraid to speak them.
And yet, there was no grief in his expression. No outrage. Only a quiet, layered contemplation—thoughts twisting and turning behind his unreadable gaze.
Maverick finally turned to him. He tilted his head slightly, studying the old wizard with detached interest. Then, in a voice as calm as ever, he said, "Turns out you didn't care for him as much as I thought."
The old wizard exhaled slowly. "It was my mistake," he admitted. His voice held no sorrow, only acceptance. "I failed to discipline him. The boy did not realize who he had offended, and paid the price."
Maverick raised an eyebrow. "You don't seem particularly concerned."
Tarhan t his gaze for the first ti.
He saw indifference. There was no malice, no arrogance—only the quiet certainty of soone who stood above.
This was not the first ti he, a Great-Magus, had been looked down upon. And there were only seven people—no, it should be eight now—who had the qualification to do so.
He gathered his thoughts and took a steady inhale, trying to calm his mind. "He was just a student," he finally said. "Talented, but replaceable. I was using him."
Maverick gave a small nod, as if unsurprised.
He snapped his fingers, and a high-backed chair materialized behind him. He lowered himself into it effortlessly, crossing one leg over the other. There was no need for words, and it was clear who was in control.
Tarhan remained standing.
"I hear you have so very rare materials," Maverick said, glancing at the man standing as still as a statue. "I'm interested."
"Whatever you need, I can get," the old wizard responded without hesitation. "Na it."
Maverick tilted his head. He brought his hands together and interlocked his fingers with deliberate ease.
"What I want... is everything you have."
For the first ti, Tarhan showed reluctance in his deanor. His eyes narrowed slightly, but whether it was from fear or sheer audacity, Maverick could not tell—nor did he care.
The old wizard, after a mont of hesitation, asked in a voice laced with visible anger, "Are you threatening ?"
"Yes," Maverick answered bluntly, completely unbothered by his tone.
And his bluntness extinguished the flicker of boldness Tarhan had managed to muster.
A long pause. Then, Tarhan sighed. "I need ti."
Maverick's expression didn't change. "Show what you have."
Tarhan straightened his back, holding on to the last vestiges of his pride. "I need ti," he repeated, his tone steady but not without strain.
The room darkened.
A force unlike anything before pressed down on the space itself. It was not a gust of wind, nor a visible wave of power, but an unrelenting pressure that seed to bend reality around it.
Tarhan's breath hitched. His knees buckled, and before he even realized what was happening, they struck the floor with a jarring crack. Pain barely registered—his mind was too overwheld by the crushing force weighing on him.
It was not physical, yet it bore down on his very being. His bones groaned, his limbs trembled, and for the first ti in a long while, he felt truly powerless.
This was not re magic. This was the sheer force of a King's Spirit.
The old wizard clenched his fists and tried to resist, straining against the invisible weight pressing him down even as he knelt. But it was futile.
Then, Maverick raised a hand and pointed a single finger at him.
"Legilins."
This ti, he did not hold back. He focused. He invoked the spell with precision and intent. After all, this man was a Great-Magus, and his ntal defenses would not be as fragile as the scattered ash now dispersed in the air.
And he was right.
Tarhan's Occluncy was formidable, layers upon layers of ntal walls forged over decades of mastery. But against the overwhelming power that crashed into his mind, his defenses splintered and crumbled within monts.
mories were unraveled. He moved through the old wizard's thoughts with ruthless efficiency, extracting every detail of importance. Locations, wards, safeguards—everything.
Fortunately, most of Tarhan's valuables were not in Gringotts. They were hidden in secured locations, well-guarded, but it did not matter. Maverick now knew where they were.
For fifteen minutes, he scoured every corner of the old wizard's mind, seizing everything he needed.
Then, without a word, he released his hold. With that, the suffocating pressure was also lifted from the room like a passing storm.
Tarhan gasped for air, his body trembling as he attempted to rise.
"Stay down," Maverick ordered just as the old wizard tried to stumble back on his feet.
A muscle twitched in Tarhan's jaw, his fingers curling into fists, but he obeyed. He lifted his head and t the indifferent gaze of the monster who had reduced him to an animal.
Maverick felt no remorse under the glare that burned into him. From his earlier probing, he had already understood the depth of the twisted man before him. While Tarhan might not reach the levels of soone like Morvain, he was still high on the scale of how evil.
Without a second thought, Maverick turned his attention to his dinsional space and retrieved a ring. It wasn't just any ring. This was Victor Morvain's storage ring, a relic that he, with his vast knowledge of alchemy, had yet to unseal. The protective asures around it were so formidable that Maverick has no doubt that it was the work of a grandmaster alchemist.
And that was why he had bothered to mark Tarhan and take action tonight. It wasn't the rare materials this old wizard may or may not possess that interested him. No, it was Tarhan himself—the Great-Magus.
He had tried before—countless tis, in fact—to disarm its defenses, but each attempt had failed. The most troubleso part was the curse placed on it. A curse of demonological origin. As powerful as he was, he knew his limitations.
He could handle many things, but curses tied to demonology were beyond his expertise—sothing he had little knowledge of and sothing he dared not tread carelessly around.
The first ti he had tried to lift the curse, he had placed the ring on soone else. Evil wizards, witches—he didn't care who they were, as long as they were expendable. But every ti, the result was the sa.
The curse was so potent that it literally withered them away in re seconds, reducing them to lifeless husks. The curse didn't transfer to the person, when the person died, it reset and returned back to the ring.
Maverick had learned sothing crucial from those failures, that a typical Magus wouldn't work. The curse was too potent for that little power.
Any Magus would perish in just monts, leaving no ti to even attempt to deal with it using counter curse magic. He needed soone more powerful, soone whose resilience could hold for a while against it. Soone like a Great-Magus.
And Tarhan… Tarhan was exactly that. A Great-Magus, with a power that would withstand the curse long enough for Maverick to strike at it. The curse would latch onto Tarhan, poisoning him or whatever, but it would provide Maverick with the necessary window to launch his attack. And Tarhan's "sacrifice," would be the key to unlocking the ring.
The old wizard, his eyes filled with unrestrained loathing, glanced at the ring rotating slowly as it drifted toward him. Just from a single look, he knew it was no ordinary artifact. It was on par with the heirloom of an ancient family's main bloodline.
"Put it on," he heard the cold command.
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Author's Note:
Just a quick update — up to Chapter 148 is already available on P AT r30n!
PAT r30n [.] com / RyanFic
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