Near the coast of Quseir, a young man with curly brown hair and deep-set eyes embraced his girlfriend beneath the night sky.
"Did you know that Moses once led the Israelites from here, parting the Red Sea and reaching Canaan?"
The man showed off his knowledge, hoping to charm the woman.
But when he spoke of the Red Sea being parted, the woman smiled brightly and said, "Like the legend of the Flying Dutchman."
"No, no, no," the man immediately refuted firmly. "That's just a vague legend, but Moses truly existed."
As an Israeli, he firmly believed in the legend of the prophet Moses.
This annoyed his girlfriend a little, because she had grown up listening to stories of the sea.
The lovers began arguing over the matter.
Neither would yield.
Just as their quarrel grew heated, the girlfriend suddenly fell silent. Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth while pointing toward the sea.
The man was still feeling proud, thinking he had won the argument.
"Don't worry, baby. I won't despise you just because you're short-sighted."
The confident man was about to continue their unfinished moment, but the woman suddenly slapped him across the face and pointed toward the sea in terror.
"Look over there!"
The man looked confused as he turned his head.
On the surface of the sea, a faint blue glow appeared.
Then, a broken mast rose from the water.
Next came the tattered sails, reduced to strips of cloth, and then the hull itself.
A black ship slowly rose from the seabed and surfaced on the water.
The faint blue glow came from a container lit at the bow.
A young man stood on the deck, running a hand through his wet hair. A puff of steam from magic dried it instantly.
He brushed the white salt crystals from his clothes.
The couple on the shore were already stunned, their mouths hanging open.
The man stammered, "The… the Flying Dutchman?"
John noticed the two people on the shore as the ghost ship drifted closer to land. With a wave of his hand, the copper snake from the helm slithered down and crawled into his palm.
He removed the soul lantern, and the ship returned to being nothing more than a broken vessel.
The ghost ship sank beneath the water, and John walked across the deck and stepped onto the shore.
Facing the two people who had been frightened senseless, he gave a graceful bow.
"Excuse me, where is this place?"
"Q-Quseir."
"Looks like I still have some distance to go."
John raised his left hand, and the copper snake pointed toward a direction.
This was a week after he had set out from Azkaban. Guided by the copper snake, he had traveled all the way to Quseir, a place in Egypt.
The copper snake coiled around his wrist as John handed the soul lantern to the man and said, "Hold this for me."
The man stiffly accepted the lantern. In his eyes, John was like the legendary Captain Davy Jones, a ferryman of the dead.
But why would a foreign ferryman appear in Egypt?
John took his wand from his pocket. Before the unfortunate couple could react, a flash of white light flickered from its tip.
Their fear slowly turned into confusion.
John took the soul lantern back and said, "Thank you for your cooperation."
The man nodded blankly. When he came to his senses, he looked at his girlfriend and asked, "Were you just talking to me?"
His girlfriend looked puzzled. "What are you talking about?"
"Alright then. But the Flying Dutchman is just a legend, while Moses is real history."
His girlfriend protested, "Parting the Red Sea? I'd sooner believe my toes could bite people."
The couple resumed their earlier argument.
John had already waved his wand and disappeared.
...
Quseir was a port in Egypt.
Guided by the copper snake, John moved forward along a road filled with windblown sand and cold air.
The faint blue flame of the soul lantern flickered in the dark.
At night, it looked especially eerie.
This was something John used to store souls.
Inside were thirty-two Dementor souls.
With his alchemy having reached the seventh level, John could now create various tools with ease.
Something like the soul lantern could temporarily grant objects special functions, and it could also be regarded as a kind of soul vessel.
For example, the ghost ship used it to travel along the seabed.
Taking a bottle of soul potion from his small pouch, John drank it. His eyesight had now recovered considerably.
At least it was no longer like before, when he couldn't tell man from beast beyond a meter.
The copper snake's tail rattled like that of a rattlesnake, and John continued forward.
At this time, many places in Egypt were still in a primitive state.
And another empire, waging war everywhere, had also brought disaster to this land.
He walked through the night. Even if someone saw him, the flame of the soul lantern would frighten them away.
"Perhaps I should try another method."
After walking for some distance, John realized that relying on his legs alone was not the smartest approach.
The copper snake coiled from his wrist onto his wand. John closed his eyes, searching for the faint guidance hidden within the copper snake.
"Soul lantern to guide the way, copper snake to track the trail."
John waved his wand, and his entire figure vanished.
When he reappeared, he had moved from one desert to another.
The copper snake froze completely still. John used the world's most universal repair method.
He slapped it twice, but the copper snake didn't react.
Sighing helplessly, he said, "Looks like Apparition scrambled it. It'll need some time to recover."
Looking around, he couldn't see any end in sight.
There was nothing but endless desert.
The desert at night was full of danger—not only because of the wind and sand, but also because of the cold.
Fortunately, John possessed the physique of a fire dragon and didn't fear the chill.
For now, with his sense of direction lost, John had to wait for the copper snake to recover.
"I still don't know what kind of magical creature those two were hunting to come all the way here."
John couldn't understand why poachers would come to a place like this.
He grabbed a rattlesnake that tried to bite him. As John released his draconic aura, the rattlesnake's tail stopped rattling and it slumped weakly into the sand.
Before the sky began to brighten, a vibration came from John's wrist.
The copper snake was working again.
Picking it up, John muttered, "One last test."
This time, if he still couldn't find the location, John decided he wouldn't use Apparition again.
Closing his eyes to seek the guidance, he waved his wand.
His entire body vanished, as if squeezed into a narrow pipe.
Relaxing completely, he grabbed the copper snake's tail and let it lead the way through that passage.
When he appeared again, John came out of the desert.
This time, he had arrived in a forest.
The copper snake fell silent again, but John felt that the pyramid was not far away now.
His magic had been significantly drained, so he looked around.
Heading in one direction, he passed through layers of trees and came upon a large river.
The copper snake's rattling sound started again, and this time it recovered much faster than before.
That meant they were getting closer to the pyramid.
The copper snake's eyes glowed red. Seeing this, John opened his palm, and the snake coiled itself there.
At the bottom of the river, a wooden raft that had been submerged for who knew how many years slowly rose to the surface.
It was as if an invisible rope held the raft in place, preventing the river's current from carrying it away.
"Why does this feel like that cave?"
John's expression turned strange. The raft reminded him of the boat in the cave.
Stepping onto the raft, it sank slightly under his weight.
The small snake coiled in his palm slithered to the bow. The raft broke free from the rope binding it and began moving along the river.
John held the soul lantern as the surrounding scenery rushed past.
Though the raft seemed slow, it was actually faster than a flying broom.
"The one who set this up wasn't just an outstanding wizard, but also an excellent alchemist."
The raft's speed continued to increase.
John rode on it for nearly an hour.
By then the sky had brightened, and the morning sunlight was dazzling.
The raft slowly came to a stop. John stepped off it as the copper snake slithered away from the bow.
The raft began to sink, and John picked up the copper snake.
The snake pointed in a direction, likely indicating the final stretch.
Following its guidance, John walked through the dense forest.
But as he continued walking, John suddenly stopped.
He finally understood why poachers would come to a place like this.
A three-headed serpent hissed, its massive body coiled around an ancient tree tangled with vines.
A Runespoor.
It was a rare magical creature.
It laid its eggs inside its mouth, and those eggs were extremely valuable—prized on the black market.
A creature like this with three heads was enough to make anyone shudder.
But John didn't, because he could understand what the three-headed creature was saying.
Left head: "Look at that, a lost lamb. Oh? It's that stiff fellow again, bringing someone into that place where no one ever comes out alive."
Middle head: "I am a slippery snake. I am a slippery snake~~ wee~ wee~~"
Right head: "Will you shut up already? That nonsense of yours really annoys me. Who are you even performing for? Stay in this dump long enough and you'll lose your mind. Keep babbling and I'll bite you to death in three days, scatter your bones and everything."
Hmm.
A creature like this was rather hard to find frightening.
Each of the Runespoor's three heads had a different personality.
The left head was the planner, responsible for deciding where the Runespoor would go next.
The middle head was a dreamer, prone to wandering thoughts and constant daydreaming.
The right head was a critic, sharp-tongued and constantly attacking the other heads with insults.
Because of these three conflicting minds, Runespoors rarely lived long enough to die naturally.
People often saw the right head hissing insults, only to be attacked and killed by the other two heads working together.
At first John had thought it couldn't be that bad, but after hearing the right head speak, he fell silent.
The right head really wouldn't be wronged if it got beaten up.
However, it seemed they recognized the copper snake.
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