What Rhys saw was a pair of bewildered eyes. A thousand years ago, those bronze eyes had been as sharp as a hawk's, but now they had lost their former sharpness, looking almost dazed.
Ravenclaw seemed as if she had just woken up from a deep sleep, suddenly shaken awake, her mind momentarily blank. However, she recovered quickly, and within a minute, a spark of clarity returned to her eyes.
She remembered her identity, her location right now, and the duties she bore.
Recalling all this, Ravenclaw's gaze naturally fell upon the young Rhys standing before her.
'A child? Why would there be a child in the dungeon seal?'
"This place is dangerous, not somewhere you should be. You should leave quickly," she said instinctively to Rhys.
Rhys: :??"
Seeing his old friend regain her clarity, Rhys had a thousand words stuck in his chest, but Ravenclaw's first words shattered the atmosphere—did Rowena mistake him for a student of the castle?
Seriously, she might not recognize him since she never saw him when he was this young, but could she not notice the unique mud domain? This was his signature move!
Rhys thought for a moment, then stomped his foot. Instantly, the ground rippled as if a stone had been thrown into a pond.
The change in the ground caught Rowena's attention. She looked at the floor, which was now surging like the surface of the sea, and a flash of realization crossed her face.
"You are Salazar's—"
Rhys nodded, satisfied.
"—descendant, right? Not bad, this domain shows you've inherited some of his true skills. Are you here to atone for his sins?"
Rhys: "..."
'What the..'
He felt like he was about to lose control of his blood pressure.
Not to mention "inherited some skills," what was this talk of atonement? Was he the one supposed to be guilty?
He decided not to keep up the charade any longer—who knew what else Ravenclaw might say if this continued. Taking a deep breath, he said in the calmest tone he could manage, "Rowena, it really has been a long time."
Ravenclaw was taken aback.
Those words, that tone, that expression... She squinted, carefully examining the young man standing before her, and her eyebrows gradually arched higher.
"It's you, Salazar?!"
Rhys nodded.
The next second, a massive wind blade sliced right over Rhys's head.
Rhys: "!"
He immediately submerged himself into the swamp, and the spot where he had been standing was instantly bombarded by dozens of wind blades.
Rhys popped up at the edge of the swamp and shouted at Rowena, "Rowena, what on earth are you doing?!"
"You—still—have the nerve to come back?!" Rowena shouted through gritted teeth. With each word she uttered, she summoned another barrage of wind blades aimed at Rhys.
However, with the protection of the swamp domain, these spells couldn't really harm Rhys, and Rowena knew this well—these moves were useless against someone submerged in the swamp.
She was merely venting her anger.
In an instant, the small space felt as if it were caught in a violent storm.
After about five minutes, the storm subsided. Rhys emerged from the now thoroughly ravaged swamp, looking at Rowena with a face full of helplessness.
"Have you calmed down?"
Rowena had already returned to her composed, elegant demeanor.
She didn't respond to his question, but instead, with a faint smile on her lips, said, "It really has been a long time, Salazar."
"Haah" Rhys resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
What a madwoman! he cursed inwardly. After all these years, Rowena had only grown more neurotic.
"Can you tell me what era it is outside?" Rowena asked, her tone rather casual, as if she were merely chatting with an old friend about the weather.
"The twentieth century. It's been a full thousand years since we founded Hogwarts." As Rhys said this, he suddenly felt a wave of nostalgia: Time really is a strange thing.
"A thousand years," Rowena closed her eyes, as if savoring the weight of that number.
When she reopened them, she scrutinized Rhys, a flicker of surprise in her gaze. It seemed that her old friend had progressed further on the path of immortality than she and the other two had.
However, there might be some drawbacks to his method, and she might be able to test that.
"Words alone aren't proof. Do you have any evidence that you're really Salazar?" Though she could easily confirm his identity, she deliberately asked this tricky question.
Rhys immediately frowned: How was he supposed to prove that he was himself?
'Rowena, are you just looking for trouble?'
He stirred the swamp beneath his feet.
Rowena shook her head. "A domain like that can be inherited, it can be learned. It doesn't count—besides, this domain differs significantly from what I remember."
"Hmm..." Rhys nodded, pulling out the shard of the crystal ball from his pocket.
Rowena's eyelid twitched, and she coldly shook her head.
"This only proves that you are not Salazar. Salazar would never have shattered this."
Rhys felt his blood boiling, rising up in a surge. He immediately drew his wand and pressed the tip against his temple.
'Rowena Ravenclaw, you're forcing me to do this!!!'
"You're right. I have a memory, Lady Ravenclaw, that you might want to see—there was this witch who asked me for a potent Dreamless Sleep Potion and then mixed it with a stimulant. Here's what she looked like a quarter of an hour after taking the potion." As he spoke, a silvery wisp of smoke began to wind around the tip of his wand, about to be pulled from Rhys's mind.
A sense of foreboding flashed through Rowena's heart.
{Oh~~~ I am—}
A faintly female voice could be heard singing from within the silvery smoke.
Then a female silhouette came in view, it seemed she was nake—"Ok! Alright!"
"Stop!" Ravenclaw interrupted Rhys's spellcasting. "I believe you are indeed Salazar."
"Heh~" Rhys's lips curled into a slight smile: Wouldn't it have been easier if you'd just agreed earlier?
Through their brief exchange, Ravenclaw had gleaned the information she sought: her old friend's method of achieving immortality seemed flawless on the surface, but his personality had subtly shifted over time, likely due to his physical transformation into a child.
After confirming each other's identities, the two fell into silence. After a while, Rhys finally spoke, "You've really had a hard time all these years."
Ravenclaw remained silent.
Her last days had indeed been incredibly difficult.
In those final moments, she had often fantasized about what she would do if she ever saw her old friends again. At the very least, the idea of beating Salazar up had now been realized.
After a long pause, she finally began to speak slowly, recounting what had happened after Rhys left the school in a calm tone.
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12 Advance Chapters—Patreon.com/HornyFBI