#811 - Fear, Escape, Death

Given his extraordinary senses, Anduin could clearly hear the amorous whispers coming from the stone house, causing him a massive headache and a churning feeling in his stomach. He was thoroughly disgusted.

Anduin knew he couldn't wait any longer. Who knew how long it would take for this young couple to finish their business and leave?

So he slowly moved to the window of the stone house and silently cast a spell on the two inside. Before long, the young wizards had fallen asleep.

"Finally some peace..." Anduin shook his head helplessly. He finally understood why Snape was so strict with students wandering around at night. These young couples were really annoying.

After clearing away any potential witnesses, Anduin immediately took action. First, he placed several jamming devices around the square to ensure that the sounds and sights here wouldn't be transmitted.

Then he went to the Serpentwood Tree and gently stroked its trunk. Soon, he sensed the magic surging within the tree's body like blood.

This magic was much more powerful than he had imagined, far beyond what ordinary magical trees could possess. Clearly, this Serpentwood Tree had benefited greatly over the centuries.

This discovery excited Anduin. This Serpentwood Tree was indeed extraordinary. It seemed the legends were true, and with sufficient magical support, it would be very beneficial to awaken it.

"Awaken!"

Anduin leaned close to the trunk, softly muttering in a slightly hoarse Parseltongue, while focusing all his attention on sensing the changes in the Serpentwood Tree's magic.

In the entire Parseltongue language system, the vocabulary wasn't extensive, and most words were simple and direct. This gave Parseltongue a mysterious power, but after understanding it, it didn't seem to hold many secrets.

That's why anyone who used Parseltongue could easily open the Chamber of Secrets.

But after this one word, the entire Serpentwood Tree remained like any ordinary tree, without any changes.

Within Anduin's perception, the magic within it was still as powerful as before, moving in a very regular pattern.

Could it be that I used the wrong word?

But there's only one word with the meaning of awakening...

Anduin frowned in confusion, then, as if he had thought of something, immediately changed his tone and murmured.

"Gormlaith Gaunt!"

"Isolt Sayre!"

"Salazar Slytherin!"

Anduin thought that perhaps he should start from the tree's memories, first touching on the Serpentwood Tree's most profound memories, similar to calling out to a comatose person.

So he kept repeating the names of the Serpentwood wand's former owners, testing its reaction.

And this did produce results. Although nothing could be seen on the outside, when Anduin called out Slytherin's name, the magic within the Serpentwood Tree clearly paused slightly.

Discovering this anomaly, Anduin's spirits lifted, and he immediately began to call out repeatedly.

"Salazar Slytherin! Salazar Slytherin! Salazar Slytherin!"

"Awaken! Awaken! Awaken!"

Under the continuous calls, the Serpentwood Tree seemed to be stimulated by something, the flow of magic within it suddenly accelerated, and even the tree itself trembled slightly.

"Awaken! Awaken! Awaken!"

After several minutes of this, finally, as if reaching a critical point, the branches of the Serpentwood Tree suddenly stretched out, like someone stretching after waking up.

And the magic within it suddenly returned to a calm state from the previous rapid acceleration.

Anduin knew that this was a sign that the Serpentwood Tree was truly awake, so he stopped calling out and instead murmured in Parseltongue, "Hello!"

"?"

Neither the Serpentwood Tree in front of him nor the wand before could actually speak, but that didn't mean they didn't have a simple consciousness.

But obviously, it couldn't make a particularly clear response, only sending out a signal that seemed like a question or an expression of doubt.

Anduin guessed that it was asking who he was and what he wanted to do, so he quickly added in Parseltongue, "I am a student of Salazar Slytherin. I have come from my homeland to seek the past after Salazar left Hogwarts."

He estimated that the Serpentwood Tree's intelligence hadn't reached the level of the Sorting Hat and its understanding ability was probably limited, so he tried to explain his identity and purpose as concisely as possible.

"Heir?"

Seemingly fully awake, the Serpentwood Tree responded in a very organized manner after hearing Anduin's words.

Anduin couldn't help but fall silent when he heard this. The tree was clearly asking him if he was Slytherin's heir.

Anduin hesitated about this.

Although he was a wizard from Slytherin House, he didn't have a direct blood relationship with Salazar.

But based on Anduin's understanding of Salazar, he wasn't the pure-blood supremacist that people imagined, so the definition of heir didn't require a complete blood tie.

Anduin examined himself and found that he was very compatible with Salazar in terms of ideals and character, so there was nothing wrong with saying he was an heir.

"Yes, and no!"

After thinking it over, Anduin could only give an ambiguous answer. In this pure mental communication, it was very difficult to deceive the other party with lies.

Therefore, he could only give the most sincere answer based on his self-awareness.

"Fellow traveler?"

The Serpentwood Tree sensed the changes in Anduin's emotions, and after a short period of thought, seemed to understand what he meant, so it gave its own definition of Anduin.

"You could understand it that way."

Anduin found that the Serpentwood Tree in front of him was more... intelligent than he had imagined. It could even express such complex concepts clearly.

"Good!"

After confirming Anduin's identity, the Serpentwood Tree sent a brief message.

Anduin was a little confused about this. What did 'good' mean? Did it mean it agreed to help him? Or was it just a casual reply?

But after thinking carefully, he felt that the other party's thoughts shouldn't be complicated. Good should mean agreement.

After figuring this out, Anduin went straight to the point, "So what exactly happened to Salazar after he left school?"

"Master..."

Upon hearing Anduin's question, the Serpentwood Tree first murmured, then fell silent, as if it was recalling something.

But it seemed that due to the long passage of time, it was silent for a very long time, but during this time Anduin was very patient and didn't urge it.

After a long while, the Serpentwood Tree's trunk and magic trembled violently as if out of control, and a clear and excited mental wave was transmitted.

"Fear, escape, death!"

"Fear, escape, death?" Anduin repeated the other party's answer instinctively, and also fell into thought.

When he heard this answer, Anduin knew that he should have found the right target. Although the Serpentwood Tree's reply was very short, it contained a lot of information.

Fear, most likely corresponding to Herpo the Foul. He was a master at playing with mental magic and dark magic, and Nicolas Flamel had also said that the place where Herpo was located was shrouded in fear.

Although the specific content of the Serpentwood Tree's words was unclear, the general meaning was easy to guess.

Salazar should have discovered fear, or came to a place full of fear, and of course, it was also possible that Salazar was affected by fear.

But Salazar himself was also a master of Legilimency and Occlumency, so the possibility of being disturbed by fear was not high.

As for escape, it should refer to Salazar encountering fear, or facing Herpo head-on, having a conflict, and then escaping because he was no match.

A thousand years ago, Herpo's strength shouldn't have been as strong as when Nicolas encountered him hundreds of years later, and Salazar himself was also a strong man, so the possibility of encountering and successfully escaping was indeed very high.

As for death, it definitely didn't refer to Herpo. This guy met Nicolas a few hundred years later.

Then, the one who died may have been Salazar Slytherin himself.

Could it be that although he eventually escaped from the conflict with Herpo, he still died in the end? Was he seriously injured in the battle? Or was he infected with some curse or virus?

After pondering for a long time, he found that it was only more reasonable to explain it this way, but the details had different meanings.

If he died from serious injuries, it could only be said that Herpo might be more powerful than imagined, and even Salazar in his prime couldn't escape unscathed. It should be known that this was still Herpo a thousand years ago.

And if he died because of infection or a curse, it meant that the other party's main abilities should be concentrated on viruses and curses, then when contacting him, he would have to be very careful, otherwise he might be tricked if he was careless.

"Fear, where is it?"

After translating the Serpentwood Tree's answer after a period of brain补, Anduin asked his most concerned question, which was the location of Herpo.

Of course, asking them directly where they encountered Herpo back then, the Serpentwood Tree probably wouldn't be able to understand, so he could only ask where the fear was.

"Over there."

The Serpentwood Tree seemed to know what Anduin was asking, but its answer was confusing.

Where is over there?

To be honest, Anduin really wanted to ask this question, but he also knew that although the Serpentwood Tree seemed very intelligent, the communication was only concentrated in a very small range. It was probably unrealistic to get it to say a specific place name. Maybe it didn't even know where it was.

After understanding this, Anduin changed his train of thought and asked in a different way, "Fear, which direction is it from Hogwarts, east? north? south or west?"

"Over there..." The Serpentwood Tree didn't seem to understand why the other party had to ask so many times for such a simple question, so its emotions were no longer as excited as they were at the beginning when answering.

"Uh..."

Anduin fell silent again when he heard this. The other party's answer was really direct enough. Was it eager for him to understand? Where the hell is over there?

It seemed that this Serpentwood Tree not only couldn't express specific locations clearly, but also had no sense of direction at all.

Thinking of this, he couldn't wait to use Legilimency on the Serpentwood Tree, but Anduin's Legilimency wasn't strong enough to pry into the thoughts of non-living things, otherwise, there would be no need to be so troublesome and ask word by word.

"Fellow traveler!"

While Anduin was thinking wildly, a mental wave suddenly came from the Serpentwood Tree, calling out to him.

"What? Did you think of something again?" Anduin thought that the Serpentwood Tree had suddenly become enlightened and knew how to point out the direction, so he quickly responded.

"Get rid of fear, revenge!"

The mental wave emitted by the Serpentwood Tree at this time was full of indomitable momentum, making people feel that what was in front of them was not a tree, but a sharp weapon.

"This is also my purpose." Anduin replied seriously, "Don't worry, I will completely kill that guy, this is not just to avenge Salazar."

"Good, fellow traveler, avenge together!" It seemed that Anduin's answer was very satisfactory, and the Serpentwood Tree's spirit was full of joy.

"Don't worry, I promised you, you don't have to repeat it again." Anduin replied casually, but he quickly reacted and widened his eyes.

Together? What does this mean? You don't want to...

"Don't! Leaving here will cause big trouble..."

Anduin, who finally understood what the other party meant, was about to refuse, but the Serpentwood Tree had already begun its actions.

The Serpentwood Tree in front of him was stretching its branches wildly, like stretching after waking up, and the wavy patterns on the bark, as well as the slender leaves, lit up with bright dark green light.

Soon, this light gradually spread to the tree's entire body, and then, accompanied by a crisp crackling sound, the Serpentwood Tree's main body began to gradually shrink at a slow speed.

Of course, it might not be accurate to describe it as shrinking, it should be said that it was growing backward, slowly shrinking back from an adult tree!

And in the process of shrinking, the Serpentwood Tree began to emit dark green light spots outward, centered on it. These light spots, like light leaves, or feathers that had lost gravity, floated away into the distance.

These light spots were like ghosts, passing straight through inanimate objects such as houses and rocks, but when they collided with living things, they would be stained like raindrops and gradually integrated.

All lives that were penetrated by the light spots, whether humans, animals, or trees, flowers, and plants, felt a lightness all over their bodies, and the pain and scars on their bodies began to slowly recover and heal.

These lights were full of healing, and they were also the Serpentwood Tree's gift to Ilvermorny, which had accompanied it for hundreds of years.

Anduin, who was close at hand, stared at all of this in amazement. He wasn't surprised by the Serpentwood Tree's generosity, but because the essence of these light spots was actually the same as the Philosopher's Stone, extremely pure life energy.