Chapter 226: Aragog's Realm

Chapter 226: Aragog's Realm

Felix Harp rarely employed a broomstick for travel, but this situation demanded it. He wasn't keen on spending hours wandering the labyrinthine lair of the Acromantulas.

From his pocket, he withdrew a glass vial and inquired of the eight-eyed giant within, "Can you ascertain the direction?"

"You're venturing into the spider's lair?" The eight-eyed giant asked incredulously.

"Yes, broadening my horizons," Felix responded dismissively.

The giant spider had long discerned this wizard's nature. If there were no benefits involved, it would have simply discarded him into the woods and moved on. This new attitude meant only one thing: Felix had intentions concerning the colony of eight-eyed giants.

Though the lair housed over three hundred Acromantulas, the spider remained unsure. It wisely held its tongue. Felix stowed it in his pocket and flew on his broom, guided by the direction indicated by the Centaur he'd encountered earlier. After half an hour's flight, he descended from the broom.

"Now," Felix waved his wand, "I remember marking three of you with sigils earlier. Let me see where you are."

Weeks ago, Felix had ventured deep into the Forbidden Forest to practice the Shrinking Charm, accidentally trespassing into the hunting territory of the Acromantulas. He had been attacked by a group of large spiders, which, as expected, he had taken down. He had even secretly cast tracking spells on some of them...

Felix swiftly sensed the magical marks' direction. He followed a winding path, where the ground became increasingly littered with stones, tree roots formed gnarled tangles, and sporadic spiderwebs appeared.

"The silk of Acromantulas is non-toxic," Felix remarked, flicking at the spider silk with his fingertip. The adhesive substance on it had dried, feeling like pliable rope.N0v3lRealm was the platform where this chapter was initially revealed on N0v3l.B1n.

"Perhaps it can be incorporated into the Bindweed; who knows what effect it might yield," Felix muttered, gathering some of the white spider silk as he went.

Soon, the whistling sound reached his ears, a series of "clattering" that merged into a collective cacophony. Felix turned to see three or four dozen Acromantulas, each the size of a small carriage, surrounding him.

A minute later.

From a ring, Felix retrieved a tall goblet and proceeded to stuff more than thirty shrunken Acromantulas into it.

After a brief contemplation, he pulled out a glass vial from his pocket and released the initial "prisoner," the first eight-eyed giant, into the wild. Following a burst of intense blue light, the creature finally regained its original form.

"There you go, your companions," Felix instructed, holding out the goblet. "Be careful not to crush them."

The eight-eyed giant stared intently at the tightly packed tiny spiders within the goblet's crevices, flanking its left pincer.

"Gok," the one called Gok shouted in anger, "I've never betrayed Aragog, not once!" Raising a large pincer, it bellowed towards the center of the clearing, "Aragog, Aragog!"

Emerging slowly from the mist-shrouded, semi-spherical spiderweb was a spider roughly the size of an African elephant. Its body and legs were a mix of black and gray, and each eye on its grotesque head was veiled by a milky film. It was blind.

"What's going on?" It said, and its two large pincers clattered restlessly.

"Gok returned," the big spider with white fur on its head replied, "and he brought a wizard."

"Who? Hagrid?" Aragog drew nearer, its eight milky-white eyes scanning aimlessly.

"No, a stranger wizard."

"Kill him, I'm trying to sleep..." Aragog grumbled irritably.

"Oh, I think not. I have a hostage," Felix chirped merrily.

"Hostage..." Aragog seemed puzzled. It stared at Felix's direction, and its dark gray pincers twitched. "Gok, what have you done?"

Gok, the eight-eyed giant, blurted out in a rough voice, "Old geezer, have you completely lost your mind? This wizard claims to have hostages in that goblet!" It continued with a touch of exasperation, "And they are our kin—more than a hundred of them, all shrunk down!"

Aragog fell silent for a prolonged moment. Just as Felix began to wonder if it had dozed off, it finally spoke, its words more measured, "Who is the formidable wizard intruding upon my domain? I am Aragog, founder of the Forbidden Forest Acromantula colony, and we have a non-aggression pact with Hogwarts."

Felix chuckled softly, "How amusing. I've always wondered about the root of Gok's indifference toward human lives, and I think I may have found it."

"You've come to the wrong place, wizard. We've never harmed any young wizards," Aragog said. Its dark gray pincers tapped the ground, and more and more giant spiders emerged, standing behind it.

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