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「90%」
A very calm Quinn horizontally floated at the near bottom of Hadal Encumbrance and gazed at the triangular entrance in front of him.
「Leviathan's Underpass」
'This time it's a monster,' noticed Quinn as he stared at the words written above the dark entrance. He had read that after keeping his eyes open at 70% and had, consequently, done some research on the Leviathan.
The Leviathan. A mythical creature with the form of a sea serpent. Known originally as a 'great sea monster' in the first chapter of Genesis, the Leviathan has become synonymous with any enormous monster or creature. It was occasionally invoked to accept blame for tsunamis.
According to legends, the Leviathan was a fire-breathing creature with such immense size that the sea boiled when it swam on the surface. It ruthlessly and fearlessly rules over all the creatures of the sea. The Leviathan's skin is like a double coat of mail with overlapping scales as large as shields on its back and as sharp and tough as broken pottery on its under-parts. Swords and harpoons would simply bounce off such protection. It breathed smoke from its nostrils and expelled flames from its mouth, which was rimmed with teeth. Its fins radiated a brilliant light, and its eyes were like the glimmerings of dawn.
In the magical world, the Leviathan was a type of dragon that lived in the deep oceans. The non-magical legends had gotten the description right; it was an enormous, long, thick serpent-type dragon and, according to the records, it weighed five tonnes (five thousand kilograms), clocking at just one tonne less than the largest dragon species in the world, The Ukrainian Ironbelly.
Even though the Leviathan was an aquatic species, they were just like any other dragon species; it was magic-resistant, had resilient scales and had fire-breath. On a side note, every part of its body had magical properties.
Quinn had thought about the upcoming trial, and one of his worries was to come across an actual Leviathan. If a Basilisk could be kept alive for a thousand years through deep hibernation, then there was no reason a Leviathan couldn't be kept alive the same way.
After thinking it thoroughly, Quinn was ninety percent sure that a Leviathan wouldn't be in there because of the trials he had been through. It didn't make sense to put a Leviathan inside because of the prevailing water concept themes.
'Well, the Leviathan is a predator species in the ocean. It might be a guardian-type trial,' thought Quinn, followed by another curious line of thought: 'Who would win between a Kraken and Leviathan, I wonder?'
Quinn flexed his muscles, and immediately arctic blue magic flashed. The magic originated from his body and went towards the triangular entrance, which created a glowing arctic blue tunnel of water.
'Let's go in there with the hope that there's no Leviathan,' wished Quinn, but there was a sharp glint in his eyes. He was prepared to do what must be done, even if it meant killing a dragon.
He floated down. His hands touched the edges of the entrance, and though he was at 100% depth, Quinn wasn't feeling an iota of it. The 100% of the pressure intensity was being thwarted by Quinn's magic, where he was applying an equal and opposite force to cancel the weight bearing down on him.
Pulling his feet to his front, Quinn went in the entrance to Leviathan's Underpass.
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- (Scene Break) -
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Quinn found himself teleported to the trial, and like in most Tehom's Delight, he was directly transported underwater. However, unlike Tehom's Delight, this room was lit brightly.
Quinn looked down and saw that his feet were touching a white marble floor. When he advanced, the white floor extended ahead for around fifty meters. The entire passage was covered with a circular wall of water. It was a tunnel with a white marble straight path as the floor. The space outside the water tunnel was an expanse of blue, and Quinn couldn't see an end to the expanse.
"Ah, so this is the underpass, huh. A tunnel through the water. Though I am still underwater," noted Quinn as he took in the surrounding scene.
He looked straight ahead to the other end of the tunnel and saw another triangular entrance, but this one without a title above it. This entrance was like the one in Tehom's Delight; although it had another patch of water with a different flow than the surrounding water, there was nothing solid at the end of the tunnel and a wall of water sealed off the end.
Noticing that, Quinn looked back and saw the same wall of water. He raised his hand to touch the water wall. He found that the water wall was solid, and his hand didn't cross through the water wall.
"Now, what is the deal here? I can see that I have to walk to the other end of the tunnel and enter that entrance," observed Quinn and thought about what this trial was composed of, but nothing popped out to him from the get-go. "No way, this is a simple path. What is the catch here?"
Quinn raised his hand, and some of the surrounding water 5 to form a long ice spear in front of him. "Let's see how this does." Saying that Quinn shot the ice lance straight ahead towards the other end.
The ice lance raced through the water, and contrary to Quinn's expectation, the ice lance didn't face any obstructions, didn't trigger anything before it entered the triangular entrance, and disappeared.
'Hmm, unexpected, really unexpected,' thought Quinn before turning his eyes to the floor. Another seven ice lances manifested from the water and shot towards seven different parts of the path, but every one of them bounced off without scratching the marble. 'Nothing at that, too? Ah, I need to go in myself. Don't want to do that, really don't.'
Quinn sighed and took a step forward on the whiter marble, one more, and then another. As he moved forward, a very faint blue line shone on the marble floor. That delicate line on the floor went unnoticed by the boy as he walked ahead.
*Fwipp.*
Ten strides in the walk towards the other end of the white floor, Quinn felt something on his body, the feeling was confusing and sudden, and it was only after two additional steps that he abruptly stopped and looked down on his shoulder.
There he saw red coming out of his shoulder. He couldn't see his shoulder because of the red staining the water, but Quinn could feel a deep gash above his collarbone.
As the realization hit and the pain set in, Quinn felt two more parts of his body rip; more blood spurted out from his calf and waist as deep gashes marred his body. One of Quinn's transfigured gills also got cut, creating further complications.
'W-What the hell-l!!' Alarms blared inside Quinn's head as his eyes showed panic and alertness muddled with pain and onsetting heaviness because of the continuous blood loss.
His mind was slowing down because of his condition: it took Quinn a few moments to focus through the pain and channel his magic into the safety insignia.
And as he did that, Quinn's darkening vision saw a swirl of water fissure come into existence ten meters in front of him, and from the center of that swirl a pressurized jet of water appeared, ripping through the water towards Quinn.
In defense, Quinn was only able to raise his hand; it didn't help much because the jet of water had cut through the muscles of his arm and pierced his body below his chest, just out of the heart's vicinity.
He activated the teleportation, and before disappearing from the Leviathan's Underpass, Quinn saw four more swirls forming in the water, ready to shoot lethal, cutting jets of water.
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- (Scene Break) -
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The water from the triangular entrance set Quinn down on the floor of the stone cave. For a moment, Quinn's eyes remained close as he leaked red blood on the floor. Then his eyes snapped open, and no emotion could be seen in his eyes or on his face.
Pain.
Pain was something Quinn was familiar with; it was something that he had constantly felt during the time he was trying to get his magic back. Every time he loosened the hold on magic, his magic would rush out, and that would cause pain.
With the volume of magic inside Quinn's magical core, the rampant magic had enough juice to cause pain for hours before it drained the core of magic. When Quinn finally decided to confront his magic, that pain followed him for hours every day, and Quinn had to bear with it for a good chunk of the day, every day, till he was able to get his magic back under his control.
But in those unpleasant days, the pain was Quinn's primary motivator. It was something that Quinn didn't want to feel; as such, Quinn focused on his emotions to ignore the pain.
And now, the pain had returned because of injuries. And with those injuries came back panic, a rush of urgency, and fear among multitudes of emotions.
Negative emotions were absent from Quinn's regular, peaceful life, but under the current circumstances, they surfaced and came back to his life.
Occlumency detached Quinn's emotions to the second level so that they were all but a buzz at the back of his head, but his magic remained firmly connected to his emotions.
'Five points of injury: shoulder, flank, calf, upper abdomen, and forearm.' Quinn's mind sunk into an analytical mode as he analysed his body.
Quinn slightly moved his shoulder and felt the first point of injury. 'Shoulder: deep cut in the Trapezius muscle. Left shoulder disabled. The clavicle bone is safe and unharmed.'
His attention moved down his body to his waist, and Quinn slightly flexed his abdominal muscles. 'F-Flank muscles: External oblique, internal oblique, transversus abdominis; three-layer of muscle penetration.' Quinn groaned in pain because of the injury. 'I-Internal injury: large intestine injury possible, degree of injury unknown.'
Then came Quinn's analysis of his mobility, and that was dependent on his legs. 'Severe calf tear; diagonal tear. Conclusion: right leg mobility severely restricted.' Another critical injury had sharply reduced Quinn's ability to move. He had practically lost his right leg.
After that was the turn of the injury Quinn was most worried about. 'Upper abdomen wound: no exit wound confirmed with severe blood loss. Punctured lung hindering breathing.' Quinn was relieved that his heart wasn't injured. The closeness of the injury had been very stressful to him.
The last injury was to his forearm and had slightly fractured his bone and had a flexor tendon, which had rendered his left hand's finger useless.
Finally, Quinn closed his eyes, and his study and practice of Healing magic came to use. A mix of blue and green light flashed inside and across his wounds and slowed down his blood loss. But the blood work wasn't over as Quinn's skill with Blood Magic came into play, and he mitigated the blood flow to the uninjured veins and arteries.
'The injuries are too serious for me to heal right now. I need to get out of here,' decided Quinn thinking about his physical situation.
His injuries were severe, and Quinn wasn't sure if he would be able to heal them on his own. He wanted to get out of the Aquatic Vault because apparition was disabled in here, meaning that if he failed to stabilize himself in here, Quinn wouldn't be able to call Polly to pop him to the Hospital wing where Poppy could take him.
While inside Hogwarts grounds, house-elves could elf-apparate inside or outside on their own. But if they had another being with them, they couldn't bring them out or in with them. Meaning that if Polly came to Hogwarts, she wouldn't be able to bring Quinn out of the castle grounds, but she was allowed to apparate him to any part of the castle that wasn't warded off to the house-elves.
Quinn wanted to get out of there before his condition degraded so that if he did fail to heal himself, he would have Polly pop him to the Hospital wing.
With grunts and groans of pain, Quinn conjured a stretcher to his side. After rolling onto the stretcher, Quinn stuck his body to the stretcher with magic.
The stretcher was levitated and brought Quinn to the tunnel, and after raising itself vertically, the stretcher with Quinn attached to it entered the tunnel. The bubblehead charm covered Quinn's face to provide him oxygen inside water.
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- (Scene Break) -
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The stretcher with Quinn came out of the tunnel into the Great Lake. Water magic took over and raised Quinn above as he controlled the direction he wanted to go.
Quinn strenuously looked to the side, hoping that the Kraken would notice him and carry him to the lakeshore so that he wouldn't have to use water magic to get out, but it seemed that the fates weren't with him today because the Kraken's eyes were closed and it seemed to be sleeping.
'Need to hurry,' thought Quinn. He didn't stop to lament his bad luck. He immediately ramped up the water magic, which would have been difficult because of his current condition. But the negative emotions were very potent when it came to magic, and Quinn was solely channeling them to provide that extra juice.
The water around him pushed him up, and Quinn zoomed to the lakeshore while a calm bubble of water protected him from any disturbance.
Working through the pain, which Quinn hadn't numbed because it was helping him with a stronger connection to magic and kept him awake, Quinn came out to a portion of the shore with trees. He didn't want to be disturbed and wanted to work in peace.
The stretcher laid itself on the ground, and immediately, Quinn started to heal himself. Very slowly, Healing Magic began to work on Quinn's body and started to knit the very inner portion of his injuries. Quinn knew that he wouldn't be able to completely heal himself and completely recover at the moment; he would need potions and multiple healing sessions for that.
So, currently, Quinn's focus was to stabilize himself so that his wounds weren't life-threatening and he could move without degrading his injuries.
With his eyes closed, Quinn worked Healing charms and spells to slowly and carefully heal his injuries.
But it seemed that fate and lady luck definitely weren't at his side because Quinn felt a chill descend on him. Something that sucked seemed to want all the joy out of everything.
Quinn opened his eyes, and through his tired eyes, saw half a dozen Dementors descend upon him, with more Dementors circling above in the distance. And from the looks of it, they too were coming down towards him.
"Ah, this is great. Just f**king great." Spat out a tired and busy Quinn and stared at the six Dementors.
A Patronus was out of the question because Quinn was working with negative emotions, and right now, he was amid fixing his body. If he tried to use a Patronus, the Healing magic would be interrupted and further complicate his injuries.
Panic increased, and even though he couldn't feel it, the annoying buzz in the back of his head got stronger.
Quinn heavily sighed and murmured to himself. "I didn't want to do this. I really don't want to do this. I don't want to dip into that." His eyes got a little sharper as he decided. "But it is the best of all the choices I have."
He didn't want Polly to come here and see him all injured with a horde of Dementors coming down to get him. If she saw this, Quinn was sure that his grandfather would pull him out of Hogwarts, and he wasn't ready for that. Not to mention there would be further consequences to his lifestyle.
Quinn closed his eyes and firmly declared to himself. "Do it! Ask for it. And, hurry! We don't have much time!"
Then Quinn waited, waited for the thing he wanted to happen as he continued to heal himself.
The chilling presence from the Dementors became colder, but just before the happiness-sucking demons sucked the joy out of him, warm and positive energy enveloped him, bringing a smile to Quinn's face.
"Excellent," smiled Quinn and opened his eyes to see a bright-silver, translucent Raven flying between him and the Dementors.
The Raven Patronus turned towards Quinn and stared at him for a second before turning back towards the Dementors.
Then Raven flapped its wings fiercely, and as it did, the Raven increased in size from a normal-sized small Raven to an eagle-sized bird, but the size increase didn't end, and the Raven continued to grow.
Within a span of seconds, the small Raven had grown to an elephant-sized behemoth of a bird.
The silver light from the Raven Patronus was so bright that Quinn had to close his eyes to protect his eyes, but a small smile graced his face. Feeling relieved, Quinn went back to concentrating on healing.
The elephant-sized Raven flew up and towards the horde of more than a hundred Dementors. The wraithlike Dark creatures ran away fastly in all directions, doing their best to avoid the Raven Patronus and even the slightest silver light coming from it. The creatures that made beings cower were now fleeing in fear because of the silver guardian.
After chasing away the Dementors, the Raven Patronus returned. It shrunk down to the size of a regular Raven and flew circles around Quinn.
Quinn opened his eyes as the Healing magic stopped working. He was stabilized, no longer in life-threatening danger, and was healed enough to move around slowly without moving.
"Off you go," said Quinn and dispelled the Raven Patronus but not before saying, "Thank you for protecting me."
The Patronus flapped its wing rapidly before it was dispelled by Quinn.
"Ugh, now I need to work this out," sighed Quinn as he got up from the ground with a grunt.
"This sucks."
Quinn conjured a robe over his body and walked towards the castle as the sky dark, onsetting the nighttime.
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Quinn West - MC - Low on HP (Hit Points). Status: Injured.
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