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Serena Snape: Love of Magic - chapter 53
🕑 Added 2024-12-14 01:27:57 +0000 UTCAuthor's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
Marking Lucius's father was so easy it was almost disappointing. A portal to Lucius's room, Aria covering me with her invisibility, Coppercloud to avoid magical detection, and my pocket watch strapped to my shorts to eliminate any other traces I might leave behind.
Now I just had to wait three days to sell him directly, just a few days before the New Year's party.
Lucius was much better in the morning, calmer, more collected. So we had a conversation about when to sell Abraxas. In the end, it was decided that it should be in a public place, and the Ministry is one of the places that Abraxas frequents very often due to his position as Lord Malfoy.
On the other hand, I started working on my Schiavo. Narcissa was right, I could have UBW and as a faker. Someone capable of creating projections, and my Schiavos were the solution. I could start building them en masse for my Schiavo to use, but there was only the problem that my Schiavo, while not weak, could not compare to, for example, Bellatrix's familiars.
So, I had to improve them, creating them on the spot with alchemy and using my tail to help and distract them. During our training, they sometimes managed to catch Bellatrix off guard, but in the last training against her familiars, they really didn't stand a chance.
So, I'd been thinking about how to improve them, and having some… pre-built bodies or forms to pull out of inventory and animate on the fly could significantly improve efficiency. I'd specifically been thinking in terms of a mannequin or doll.
Now, there were many ways to make them. With alchemy, I could easily create and mold them into any shape I wanted, and then I would animate them with Schiavo before giving them a Noble Phantasm. The first thing that came to mind was regular mannequins. White and grey, the shape was based on Viktor’s army from Arcane, but... looking at a dozen of them, completely still, terrified me. Even reposing them into a ballet-style dancing position was still unsettling, so I immediately dismissed the idea. Just thinking about seeing them move gave me a shiver of intense chill.
I really shouldn't have spent that many hours playing horror games with mannequins in them; they just ruined me.
The next thing I thought of was creating dolls or mannequins with a more human shape and less creepy appearance. Thinking of The Doll from Bloodborne didn't help, but my thoughts immediately went to Ranni the Witch.
I really had to use all my willpower not to transmute a semi-real Ranni doll.
However, the idea of human dolls was implanted in my mind, and I began to explore different characters/dolls. Herta from Honkai Star Rail was the easiest, but Rozen Maiden, Chobits, Sora no Otoshimono, or Unbreakable Machine Doll also came to mind. However, none of them fit together as they should.
Until I fell into the right one, and apparently, all my willpower had run out with Ranni, so now I found myself in the following situation.
"You're a pervert." Bellatrix said with a grimace. I moaned in embarrassment with a deep blush as I covered my face with both hands.
"I know!" I moaned in embarrassment.
"You will not have sex with them," Bellatrix said dryly.
"I wasn't going to do that!!" I waited, embarrassed, feeling Bellatrix's gaze on me.
"Are you sure? One of them has a blindfold on and fetish clothing; she's practically a living representation of your fetishes." Bellatrix snorted.
"That's your design!" I squealed in embarrassment as I finally uncovered my face from my hands before seeing my creations.
YoRHa No.2 Type B and YoRHa Type A No.2, better known as 2B and A2, respectively. Nier: Automata was where I finally got to, while thinking about dolls and mannequins, and I really couldn't resist the temptation. I now had two life-sized dolls with the appearance of 2B and A2 in all their glory. Luckily for me, Bellatrix had interrupted me before I could continue creating other Nier androids; 10H, Commander Whiter, or Devola and Popola would really have been too much.
"What are they made of?" Bellatrix asked as she walked over to inspect it, touching the arm of one with her fingers. "They look and feel real."
"They have a layer of skin, it's real, or, well, almost real." I said honestly as I approached her. "Roy Mustang was good with biological alchemy too, so transmuting skin or tissue really wasn't hard." I clarified before grimacing. "But since it's… the closest thing to real skin I could transmute, it really needs something to hold onto or it'll start to necrosis in no time."
"Was there no other material to use?" Bellatrix asked. I grimaced.
"Several, but I just… before I knew it, I had already created them like that." I said, embarrassed, and Bellatrix rolled her eyes.
"Of course you did," she snorted mockingly. I sighed tiredly.
"The inside is made of stupidly dense tungsten with a layer of tough graphene, so it's, in theory, very durable." I said as I looked at the dolls. "And they're completely made of those materials, like, besides their joints, there's nothing else inside. It's just a lot of metal, you don't need anything else before I use my Schiavo, they're practically statues." Bellatrix seemed mildly impressed.
"Interesting, but more importantly… if you do go through with this project, did you figure out how to keep your personality out of them? We really don't need them killing every mannequin or doll in the world, or destroying each other," Bellatrix snorted mockingly. I groaned in embarrassment.
"Yeah... I was thinking about that." I sighed tiredly, "and my solution was hemalurgy." I said honestly. Bellatrix looked at me incredulously.
"I didn't think you'd be willing to use hemalurgy," Bellatrix said, impressed. I grimaced.
"It's not that I was against it; I just really didn't see the need for it until now. Even after having gotten the necessary defenses to avoid setbacks, there wasn't much advantage in this world to using it." I said honestly. "I was planning on placing a couple of hemalurgic spikes on them with different charges, one made of copper for mental strength, memory, and intelligence. This will give them a remarkably high level of sensitivity, and another, made of duralumin, will be a small one, allowing them to establish a sense of identity and generate a sense of themselves. This will make them not really be a copy of my personality," I explained. Bellatrix hummed lightly as she nodded.
"Can they use hemalurgic spikes when they don't have… souls? What would they hold on to? " Bellatrix asked curiously. I grimaced.
"Yes, I'm just hoping that my Schiavos aren't an extension of my soul and just… work. I can… sense my magic through them; both Aria and Cia can access my magic without permission, so we're connected in some way. I doubt my ability generates souls; it just… livens things up." I sighed tiredly before smiling awkwardly at Bellatrix, who was giving me a flat look. "If that doesn't work, I was thinking of asking for your help; you… can manipulate souls to a certain extent, I would ask you to try and place some, preferably an animal, into one of the bodies." Bellatrix snorted.
"That sounds ridiculous," Bellatrix said dryly. I grimaced, "But if you think it would work, we could always try it." She shrugged, and I sighed in relief.
"Good, because I need some of your souls." I smiled awkwardly at her once more. She raised an eyebrow. "I never created a Hemalurgic Spike, and I wanted to try it out with other options first. I wanted to try creating a Koloss." I told her honestly, and Bellatrix's eyes widened before she smiled widely. She waved her arms, and five people came out of her body.
Sigh, I guess there was no time like now.
Koloss, a creature made from hemalurgic spikes. To create a Koloss, four humans are stabbed through the heart with individual iron spikes, these are hemalurgically charged with stolen physical strength and strategically placed on a fifth person.
Once placed, the spikes transform the recipient into a koloss very quickly. The person, now a koloss, begins to grow continuously with no sign of stopping, eventually growing enormous over time, gaining extraordinary superhuman physical strength, and reducing their sensitivity to pain.
But with those gains came side effects, yes, the koloss could grow without stopping, but there came a point where their bodies were so large that their hearts and lungs would collapse because they couldn't support them, and they would die when they gave out. It also damaged their cognitive ability, their mental and emotional capacity, making them more animalistic and less sensitive. And most notably, their skin would turn blue, and their eyes would turn red, corrupting their skin's ability to grow and heal, making them a horrible sight. An old koloss could be full of scars and have little original skin on its body, with half-healed wounds.
However, that didn't matter when they were Bellatrix's familiars; most of those drawbacks didn't matter, so if they worked, it was a nice power boost. The only downside was that it cost four souls to enhance a fifth.
I got into position, beginning to transmute everything I needed, guided by Rashek's memories. The Lord Ruler had created countless koloss; it was just another procedure. The bodies and souls Bellatrix had donated didn't fight under my manipulation. Really, I didn't want to think about who they had been. Bellatrix had very specific 'orders' on who she could drain the blood from, even though I couldn't force her to comply; she had stayed within limits, so surely, they were rapists or cold-blooded murderers.
Once everyone was in place, I grabbed the iron spikes I had prepared and held Cia inside my clothes. I looked at Bellatrix, who was utterly fascinated by the whole process. I made a face and, with determination, I grabbed the spike with one hand and pierced the heart of the first soul.
Hemalurgy was based on intention; there was nothing special to prepare, just have the intention to create a hemalurgy spike, but I felt my magic working on the spike. It was felt that I could sense the moment the spike pierced the person's heart and stole a piece of their soul, along with the corresponding attribute. I used my free hand to create a blood bubble from the person I had just stabbed. The moment I removed the spike, I threw it into the blood bubble.
Hemalurgic Disintegration Law, even after the initial theft, the spike could not completely steal all the desired attributes, but there was some level of power loss. Also, the longer a spike is outside of a body, the weaker and weaker it becomes, and it will lose most of its power if it spends a day outside of someone's body. It can certainly never completely lose its charge, but there came a point where it was so marginal that it was no longer worth using.
Still, blood could be used to reduce hemolymphatic decomposition; this tricks the spike into thinking it is buried in a body by leaving the bubble aside.
"Okay, I felt that." I glanced at Bellatrix, who was shuddering.
"Everything okay?" I asked worriedly. The souls were inside Bellatrix, so it was very plausible that something could go wrong.
"Everything's okay-" Bellatrix interrupted my thoughts. I let out a sigh of relief. "-I just... felt whatever you did to her. I felt her soul tear apart when you stole a portion of it before she died, but once she died, she simply disappeared. There's nothing to worry about; it's just an inconvenience of being connected to them." Bellatrix assured, even so, I looked at her doubtfully, and she rolled her eyes. "Seriously, it's okay, don't worry, I'll tell you if there's something wrong, it's not really my soul that's being used, I can't feel anything wrong with it. I just feel what you do to other souls secondhand, without any complications." She added, and I nodded after a few seconds.
"Make sure you keep monitoring them. The moment you say there's something wrong, we stop everything," I told her firmly. She nodded.
"I promise, now continue, I want to see a koloss." She said excitedly, I sighed tiredly before grabbing a second hemalurgic spike and piercing the second person. I felt again how I stole a piece of her soul and threw it into another blood bubble.
I repeated the same with the last two people before looking at Bellatrix. She seemed calm, without a hint of discomfort. I sighed in relief before approaching the fifth person. Once again guided by Rashek's memories, I used magic to stick the four hemalurgic spikes in the corresponding places at the same time.
For a few seconds, nothing happened, and I thought I had made a mistake somehow. Still, the person began to tremble quickly, and their body began to swell. Tearing the clothes it was wearing, not only its clothes, but also its skin was slightly torn in some places, turning somewhat blue; its entire body was undergoing a transformation.
I couldn't help but smile slightly at the horrible sight; it worked - I was able to create a Koloss.
