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As soon as I brought the werewolves to their senses, a stream of curses and obscenities poured into my ears, promising me such things that I even decided to remember some options - what if I have to kill someone with a very sophisticated method?

Having moved the resulting organism by levitation to the center of the ritual scheme, I activated it with one gesture, paralyzing the losers. Along the way, I decided to conduct another experiment, the essence of which was to use on this organism not only the ritual but also the method by which I increased the power and resources of the werewolf organisms to the maximum before absorbing it. Then, in Knockturn Alley.

Pointing my hand at the resulting organic creature swearing in three voices, I threw a Resonance spell at them, imbuing it with a small amount of hemomancy energy and directing this energy itself into their bodies. Along with this, the ritual was finally launched, the scheme of which glowed blue, immersing the ritual hall in a mystical blue light.

The three fused bodies immediately screamed wildly, absorbed in the agony of torment similar to Cruciatus. At the same time, my method of pumping up their resources, wearing out the body, began its work, which, apparently, is also very painful.

Occlumency helped to detach consciousness from the heartbreaking screams of the trio of murderers and calmly do my job, controlling the process. The change of the hue of the glow of the ritual scheme to red marked the end of the first stage and the beginning of the second. The three voices instantly died away — died. Their flesh began to shrink, fall off, crumple. It's time to cast a spell.

The hand with the wand, like a real conductor-fencer, drew incredible pretzels in the air, but I myself was silent — having recognized and determined the constructs of spells, and with the help of Rowena, I could conjure them without words, directing the magic in the right way by will. It's not the coolest achievement, and it still requires a lot of concentration, but it's still better than reading thirty-nine words in Latin and hoping that the saliva that suddenly formed in your mouth will not distort the sound of some word.

The bodies of the three unfortunates had long since been transformed into a bloody, incomprehensible sphere hanging above the floor, glowing red, which, as the wand moved, became more and more dense, becoming blacker. With the last outline of the spell complex, the sphere finally formed to the size of a football, the ritual scheme faded, and the walls of the ritual hall began to glow softly yellow again.

I walked quickly toward the sphere, stretching out my hand in front of it.

"Rowena, materialize the sword and give it a clear setting to absorb essence, abilities, and... I don't know, improvise, but you need to confidently absorb it, retaining all functionality while connecting it to the soul and body, as if...

It seemed as if the sword materialized by itself, with a pleasant weightless weight, no matter how paradoxical it may be, lying in hand.

"Pierce it."

Without a swing, I poked the sphere with the tip of my sword, and it literally sucked into its blade, spreading over it like a black blot, disappearing.

"Done. Analyzing the result."

I dispelled the sword with my will, and there was a very slight weakness in my body. Sitting on the floor right here, without moving from my place, I waited for an answer from Rowena, staring blankly at the floor.

Rowena's voice echoed in my head after just a moment.

Can you demonstrate?

Concentrating quite a bit on the desire to call the Architect, I noticed how shadows floated under me, vibrated, as if in a child's nightmare, and a thin layer of black smoke appeared from under my clothes and on the exposed areas of my body. Just a moment and a black, impenetrable female figure in a dress seemed to separate from me. Just a contour, but black as the abyss.

"Interesting," she spoke in an altered feminine voice, muffled, with metallic and hissing notes, raising her hand in front of her. "It feels strange. Not like a body at all."

"The strange thing here," I said, rising to my feet, "is that your voice is not in my head."

"I can sound in your head, too, but it's more interesting. It's like I'm in transgression. The body is held at will, and the sensations are emulation. I got used to feeling everything like that."

"Try more voluminous and large-scale manipulations."

"Yes, sir!" a completely black female figure in a long dress suddenly saluted.

A wave of black shadow literally spread across the floor from the black figure with tremendous speed, enveloping the floor and walls of the hall in strange ornate images and figures, and in the next instant long and sharp coal-black spikes grew out of them almost instantly, surrounding us. I felt the magic in my body seem to strain a little, wasting a tangible but far from the critical amount of energy on these manipulations.

"Your knowledge," Rowena spoke in her new voice, "of physics, light, and other things, along with your vision of the concept of the universe, quite amusingly formed into a mental cast for the Architect."

"What's funny?"

The thorns have grown into the walls, and the black shadows that have nowhere to come from have dissipated. Rowena's figure itself fell, like an empty garment, immediately disappearing.

"With a mental block like that, this ability doesn't even care if there's a shadow around in the usual sense. You can use the shadow of atoms on others, just the absence of light, or simulate understanding depending on one's point of view. For example, there is a bright hall with omnidirectional lighting. However, if you look at it from the other side, here, the shadow is from the ceiling, and the light source for it is lighting from outside. Or the shadow from the Earth on the Earth itself when the Sun does not shine on it. The point of view is everything. It's a simple mental block. The wizard's vision is decisive."

I was hoping for such a result.