The chamber was silent as Morpheus opened his eyes.
Blood streamed slowly from both nostrils, his lips parted in shallow breaths. His face was pale with exhaustion, but his eyes still burned—not just with power, but with clarity. He looked past the others, into the broken heart of the temple, and then said the words that broke the silence.
"Where is Nicholas Flamel?"
The question struck like a gong through the room. Tenzin's brow furrowed. "We've sent scouts to search for him a while ago but he is hard to find, Albus I know you where his student do you perhaps know where the great alchemist is?"
"You misunderstand Tenzin I wasn't asking you, Nicholas and I go a ways back.," Morpheus interrupted, voice low but unyielding. "Negary why are you back without Nicholas?"
Negary appeared from Morpheus's shadow, "Caw, caw? CAW!"
"I see, he will be here soon then." Morpheus stood stretching his bones as they audibly popped
Ahmed, kneeling beside Bjorn, exchanged a glance with the centaur at the edge of the circle. The survivors slowly gathered around Morpheus, eyes searching his ruined face.
"What did you see?" Albus asked quietly. "Do we have a chance?"
Morpheus nodded once, a slow, grave motion.
"A sliver," he said. "A single thread of possibility. But it exists. And we must act quickly. We will not survive another full assault not like this. If this fails… the anchor will fall."
"What needs to happen?" Tenzin asked, stepping closer. "Tell us the plan."
Morpheus stood slowly, wobbling once before regaining his balance. "We need Flamel. He is the one who can work with me on this. While we wait for him, I want every wards-master, every runesmith, every practitioner who has even touched illusion magic assembled. Now."
"Merlin could have helped." Herpo said softly
Morpheus glared at him, "I see you two became fast friends in purgatory."
A beat of silence, then voices rose in agreement, orders shouted down corridors.
"But before we do anything," Morpheus added, "we make sure we're not building atop a rotting foundation."
He reached into the folds of his robes and produced a small, oblong device. Black metal ringed with red veins of etched enchantments, humming faintly with internal light. He held it up for the others to see.
"Nicholas and I made this as you all know," he said. "It detects possession any form of divine influence. If we're harboring anything touched by their will, it will glow and screech. We need to root them out now before we begin anything."
Morpheus handed the device to Herpo. "Take this and sweep the camp. Room by room. If even one rat is hiding in our ranks, we need to root it out now, luckily the radius is large on this thing you should be able to get a good lock."
Herpo caught the device, his eyes narrowing as it vibrated softly in his palm. He turned to leave without a word, already muttering spells under his breath.
Morpheus looked around at the remaining leaders. "We don't have the numbers. We don't have the strength. All we have is this sliver of a thread. But if we pull it right…"
He took a breath.
"…we might just cut the gods' throat with it."
Then he turned and walked away, his bloodstained robes trailing behind him like ash in the wind.
***
The wind had turned sharp, slicing through the battered remnants of tents and wards like invisible knives. Smoke drifted in thin wisps across the camp, carrying with it the stench of blood, fear, and something worse—distrust.
Herpo stood still in the center of the command pavilion, the strange device cradled in his hand. It looked like a malformed compass, etched in silvery runes that glowed faintly when his fingers brushed the surface. A glass lens shimmered at its center, and beneath it, black sand swirled in slow, deliberate spirals.
"A sliver of a chance," Morpheus had said, handing it to him. "But only if we're clean."
Herpo turned the device's dial.
A thin click echoed in the silence.
The black sand inside reacted immediately—rising, whirling faster. Herpo's mouth curled in grim satisfaction. It was working.
He stepped outside.
The camp stretched in broken lines ahead of him, some tents half-collapsed, others patched with desperate magic. Soldiers limped through the mud, some too wounded to speak, others silent from sheer mental exhaustion. They watched him as he passed, the reputation of the Basilisk trailing behind like a shadow.
Herpo's wand was tucked inside his sleeve, but everyone knew he didn't need it. Not for this.
"Gather them," he told the nearest officer an older woman with a jagged scar across her neck. "Line by line."
She hesitated. "You think they're—"
"There are rats among us," Herpo said coldly. "And I'll find every last one."
The first line was made to kneel just outside the shattered infirmary tent. Herpo walked slowly down the line, the device held steady before him.
The sand inside the lens began to pulse.
He stopped.
A young man, maybe twenty, face pale beneath dried blood. He looked up with shaking eyes.
"Name," Herpo said.
"L-Lucian. I was in the third west line. I—"
The device spun violently. The sand blackened further, vibrating.
Herpo raised a hand.
Two guards stepped forward without a word. Lucian's scream echoed through the camp as he was held and switchftly beheaded. Herpo didn't flinch. He moved to the next soldier.
It was endless. The possessed were subtle many didn't twitch, didn't sweat. Some smiled too easily, some prayed under their breath. The device never lied. It howled with rage when it neared a true vessel.
By nightfall, thirteen had been found.
The last one was the worst.
She'd been part of the outer warding circle an illusionist named Seraphina, her magic praised by both Tenzin and Dumbledore. Herpo had walked past her twice before the sand inside the lens suddenly exploded upward, flaring red for a moment. The device screamed an inhuman, high-pitched screech like a thing alive.
Seraphina's eyes snapped wide and turned black.
She didn't scream. She struck.
Wards burst in jagged runes around her as she tore through the soldiers beside her, two dying before anyone could react. Herpo was already moving his form blurring, serpent-like.
"Exsilio!"
A coil of violet flame blasted from his palm, striking Seraphina mid-air. She twisted, bones cracking in unnatural angles, and snarled something in a language no human should know.
More spells followed fire, frost, binding magic from six different casters but she was fast, inhumanly fast. Herpo had to cut her leg off at the knee with a wordless curse before the others could drag her down and finish it.
Afterward, Herpo stood over her smoldering corpse, chest heaving, the device still humming in his hand.
"Burn her," he said. "And the rest. No graves for those taken."
No one argued.
By dawn, Herpo was back in the command tent. He dropped the now-darkened device onto the war table where Morpheus waited, surrounded by newly arrived ward-masters and rune scholars. His hand was still slick with Seraphina's blood.
"We're clean," Herpo said. "For now."
Morpheus nodded. "Then let's begin."