Chapter 634: The Battle Between Bloodline and Curse

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"Astoria, drink the potion and go to sleep. When you wake up, everything will be over."

Tom’s voice echoed softly through the empty room.

Beside the girl’s bed sat a bottle of silver potion. It was thick and gelatinous, almost like liquid jelly.

Astoria obediently picked it up and drank it in one gulp.

A chilling sensation slid down her throat and settled deep in her stomach.

Still, that level of cold barely affected her anymore. After spending nearly half a semester living side by side with Yuki Onna, her resistance to freezing temperatures had long surpassed that of ordinary people.

After finishing the potion, Astoria even had the mood to comment on the taste.

"It’s a bit slippery going down... though it doesn’t really taste like much." She smiled playfully. "Maybe next time you could add some soda? Sugar works too."

"There won’t be a next time."

The confidence in Tom’s voice was absolute. "A potion like this only needs to be taken once in a lifetime."

"Okay~"

Astoria answered sweetly, then pulled Tom into chatting with her for a little longer.

Only after the potion finally took effect did drowsiness overtake her, and she slowly drifted to sleep.

Actually, sleep was unnecessary for what was about to come, but Tom didn’t want Astoria to feel any pain.

The fusion process of the potion itself was already agonizing enough. And once it clashed with the blood curse, the pain Astoria would suffer would likely become unimaginable.

The blood curse sounded simple enough, merely a magical affliction tied to bloodlines. But according to Tom’s research, it involved far more than blood alone.

True names.

Souls.

Even destiny itself seemed tangled within it.

That was why the potion also contained powerful anesthetic properties. It would force the soul into a deep slumber, ensuring Astoria would not feel even the slightest trace of what was about to happen.

...

Soon, the potion began reshaping her body.

An enormous surge of cold erupted from within her, spreading outward in waves. The room temperature plummeted rapidly, frost quickly coating every surface.

Tom monitored everything with magic, and as he watched the room gradually freeze over, he could not help thinking it resembled Elsa’s palace from Frozen.

Downstairs, Lady Greengrass could feel the terrifying cold as well.

Tom had already warned her this was normal, so she had prepared herself mentally, but...

Wasn’t this temperature a little too low?

Could Astoria’s body truly endure it?

Tom, however, remained completely calm. He knew everything was progressing normally.

He had already mastered bloodline fusion technology long ago. On Grindelwald’s side, an entire reward system had even been built around it.

Among the Acolytes, the most coveted reward was a bloodline fusion potion.

The higher the concentration, the better. Not only could it greatly increase magical strength, it could also dramatically improve lifespan and vitality.

But those had merely been crude, mass-produced versions Tom tossed out casually.

The potion Astoria was using now was a flawless masterpiece personally crafted by him.

So he had no concerns about the fusion stage itself. The real challenge would come afterward.

Once the fusion succeeded and the Ever-Pure Body of Yuki Onna began taking effect, it would inevitably clash with the blood curse.

That was the true key to everything.

...

Half an hour passed. The temperature continued dropping.

Cold air sank throughout the manor, and a thick layer of frost formed over the plants outside.

A faint blue glow leaked from the third-floor windows.

Using his enhanced vision spell, Tom could clearly see what was happening inside.

Astoria had been completely wrapped within a cocoon of blue ice, floating silently in midair. Over the past half hour, the cocoon’s color had faded from deep blue to pale blue, and it was continuing to grow lighter even now.

The girl was absorbing the power within it.

Though Astoria herself remained asleep, her body was constantly transforming.

No one knew how much time passed before the icy cocoon finally became completely transparent. Inside the crystal-clear ice, Astoria’s silver-white hair had grown wildly longer. What had once only reached her waist now magically trailed all the way across the floor.

"It’s about time..."

Tom’s expression sharpened slightly. The most critical stage was beginning.

A faint dark-red tint suddenly appeared within the pure ice.

The blood-red color spread rapidly, while streams of black mist seeped from Astoria’s body.

The Yuki Onna Pure Body had finally begun to show its effects. It had detected the curse buried deep within her bloodline and forcibly started purging it.

The two forces instantly tangled together, using Astoria’s body as their battlefield.

Before long, the once-transparent ice was completely overtaken by crimson veins and filthy black energy.

At first glance, the blood curse clearly held the upper hand.

The Pure Body could not purify the curse and was being forced backward step by step, causing the awakened curse energy to leak outward.

And honestly, this was normal.

A Yuki Onna (Snow Woman) was only an ordinary XXXX-level magical creature, while the blood curse had rooted itself within the Greengrass bloodline for untold generations. Every family member who died from the curse only strengthened it further.

And over the years, Tom had fed Astoria countless strengthening potions, even mixing in Elixir of Life.

Her body had indeed improved tremendously. But the blood curse had grown stronger alongside her.

Every gift fate offers already has its price marked in secret.

Today, those words had proven true once again.

Still...

Tom’s true trump card had never been the Yuki Onna bloodline alone. Otherwise, there would have been no reason to wait this long before letting Astoria undergo fusion.

The true weapon was divine power. A fragment of the Golden Apple had been one of the ingredients in the potion Astoria had used.

And so... Tom watched in silence.

He was waiting.

Waiting for that divine power to finally become intolerant of such "humiliation" and reveal its true might.

And just as expected... when cracks spread across the frozen cocoon, making it seem ready to shatter at any moment, a sacred golden radiance suddenly flashed across Astoria’s body.

The purification power within the Yuki Onna bloodline received an unprecedented boost, erupting with dozens, perhaps even hundreds of times more power than before.

The blood curse seemed enraged in return.

Crimson markings surfaced across Astoria’s skin.

Fortunately, she remained trapped in deep sleep. Otherwise, the agony would have been unimaginable.

Dark storm clouds gathered overhead.

Mournful winds shrieked through the sky while violent gusts roared across the manor grounds, turning the entire estate into something ghostly and sinister.

Lady Greengrass clenched her fists tightly.

There was nothing she could do now except silently pray for her daughter.

At the same time, as the current head of the Greengrass family, she also served as one of the formation’s backup anchors.

THUUM—

The black clouds churned violently, dense as a mountain pressing down upon the manor.

As they twisted and rolled, they gradually formed an enormous human face in the sky.

Its gaze swept the ground below before immediately locking onto the "culprit" responsible for everything.

Tom slowly raised his head.

His eyes met the face in the clouds. And in that instant, he felt an oddly familiar sensation.

A moment later, with his near-perfect memory, he finally realized where that familiarity came from.

Those eyes.

That expression.

They looked astonishingly similar to someone.

Voldemort.

.

.

.