As Voldemort spoke, the statue suddenly began to vibrate and then cracked open.
A massive crevice spread from the midpoint of the statue, turning the stone it was made of into a fine powder under some force, causing it to collapse continuously. In just a moment, the statue was split in two.
And amidst the dust, something in the center of the statue's chest was revealed.
It was a sarcophagus, resembling that of a mummy.
Suddenly, dense white fog began to spread out from the sarcophagus at an extraordinary speed, as if space meant nothing in front of it. In an instant, the entire underground space was enveloped in fog.
Now there was no need to deliberately close their eyes because even if they were open, it was impossible to see where the Basilisk was.
At that moment, something different appeared in the air.
It seemed to be cocoons, and upon closer inspection, they were hundreds of students floating in the dense fog, unconscious as if in deep sleep, their bodies tightly wrapped by serpents and hanging in mid-air like cocoons on tree branches.
No wonder there were hardly any students seen around the school; they had all been brought here.
But why hadn't these students been seen just now?
"Albus, this seems to be a ritual of human sacrifice," Grindelwald noticed the students. "Such arrangements were hidden in Hogwarts?"
"Salazar Slytherin," Dumbledore frowned.
He was beginning to understand.
Legend had it that one of the four founders of Hogwarts, Salazar Slytherin, dissatisfied with the school's policy of teaching students of all backgrounds, left the school. He also created a Chamber to eliminate "unworthy" Muggle-born students from the school.
Dumbledore had never quite believed this legend.
Caring about whether Hogwarts was tainted by Muggle-borns after his death?
Slytherin's sense of responsibility was indeed a bit too strong.
But if the so-called "elimination of Muggle-borns" was a misinterpretation, and Slytherin's true intent was to use the lives of these students as sacrifices in a ritual to resurrect himself, that made some sense.
However, Slytherin had been dead for a thousand years. What kind of mechanism had he left behind that could resurrect him?
...
"The Spirit World..." Murphy looked at the students and had a realization. "They were pulled into the Spirit World."
"The Spirit World has overlapped with the school."
Behind the Door to the Afterlife in Arkaim, Murphy had reached the Spirit World. The feeling of a different scene with every step was somewhat similar to their experiences in the school.
The rules of time and space there seemed different from the material world. Thus, when it overlapped with the real world, strange temporal and spatial disturbances occurred.
These students had previously been taken to the Spirit World, hence disappearing from the material world. Now, as the Chamber overlapped with the Spirit World, they reappeared.
At this moment, the Basilisk, Voldemort, Lucas, Dumbledore, and others were all isolated in the fog, unknowable where.
The mental network between Murphy and Lucas was also blocked by the fog, intermittent.
In the dense fog, he could only see those students hanging from the void and something near the bottom of the students — the sarcophagus.
The hissing sound still faintly came through; Voldemort seemed to be reciting some spell.
The ritual was not yet complete.
Murphy shot several spells towards the sarcophagus, but they were deflected by the fog to nowhere.
Just then, a figure silently appeared behind him, and a green light shot towards him, "Avada Kedavra!"
Murphy stepped aside to dodge, turning back to see a figure escaping into the mist.
An eighteen-year-old Tom.
According to Murphy's understanding of Voldemort's timeline for making Horcruxes, this Tom must have been resurrected through the Horcrux in the cup or the locket, as those were created when Tom was around eighteen.
Just then, a burst of static came through the mental network, followed by a painful scream from Lucas.
Lucas, had she been attacked?
Murphy was worried and immediately expanded a defensive shield, pushing the fog to a ten-meter distance, then took a step forward.
Suddenly, a massive body blocked Murphy's path, a black wall of scales as large as shields covering the serpent's body.
The Basilisk!
It was moving but hadn't noticed Murphy.
The fog wasn't friendly to it either, almost completely blocking its olfactory and visual capabilities, to the point where it couldn't even see its own tail due to its massive body.
Murphy hesitated for a moment and didn't attack the Basilisk. With its incredible defense, he didn't have a good strategy for it at the moment.
He walked past the Basilisk for a few steps, then suddenly, he was next to Dumbledore again, "Professor!"
The latter seemed very pleased to see him, "Murphy, we must unite. Voldemort is using the students' life force to resurrect Slytherin. We must stop him."
Murphy nodded, coming to his side, "You're right, Professor. But where is Grindelwald?"
"We got separated..." Dumbledore said, suddenly noticing Murphy pulling out a dark object from his pocket, "Murphy, what are you doing?"
"Oh, let me show you some fireworks." With that, Murphy pulled the trigger of the shotgun in his hand.
"Boom!"
"Dumbledore" blocked the attack with an armor spell, glaring at Murphy, "How did you find out?"
In Murphy's magical vision, the Dumbledore in front of him shared the same magical aura as the previous Voldemorts and was also covered in a layer of spell power.
"Such exquisite transformation ability, able to achieve such disguise without Polyjuice Potion, is astonishing," Murphy said.
But this transformation couldn't replicate the target's magical attributes, so in his vision, it was utterly visible.
"Dumbledore" turned to run, but Murphy lunged at him, suddenly producing a fireman's axe, swinging it down with a round chop.
"Bang!" The axe hit the ground, but "Dumbledore" disappeared, leaving behind only a pool of blood where he seemed to have been transported elsewhere.
Murphy frowned; the spatial disturbances were troublesome.
He looked up, eyeing the floating sarcophagus. His position had shifted several times, but the sarcophagus remained suspended, seemingly fixed.
But trying to get there was uncertain where he'd end up.
However, since he could see it, at least there was nothing blocking the light between his eyes and the sarcophagus.
He thought for a moment, transformed into lightning, and shot out. The next instant, he appeared in another space, the fog gone, seemingly standing on a transparent glass platform above the fog-filled Chamber. He could even see the Basilisk moving below, but a different scene appeared before him.
He was in a hall, a complex network of pipes on the ground forming a hexagram magic circle. The students were fixed in serpent-shaped containers on the walls, with magic converging from the containers' bottom into the magic circle through the pipes.
Harry stood in the center of the circle, "Welcome to the real Chamber of Secrets, Professor."
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