Chapter 393: Cause of Death

Rushed into battle, plus attention being distracted, no one present remembered very clearly, so the matter of Karkaroff's belt finally became an unknown mystery, and I'm afraid it will be difficult to have any answer.

On the way back, Harry thought silently. He discovered that what he was facing was a very troublesome problem: he didn't know who he could discuss these things with.

The answer given by the professor was to research new spells; judging from last night's class, this spell was clearly not that easy to research either. Ron wouldn't hide things from Harry, but in order to guide his emotions, Harry didn't dare to reveal the whole truth. Zhang Qiu could be discussed with, but Harry always felt that, just like he was hiding things from Ron, Zhang Qiu seemed to have something she was hiding from him too.

Perhaps, Draco, who was also in the game and confused, would be a not-bad communication object, but Harry resisted this point emotionally.

After returning to school, they separated at the porch. Pansy helped Draco to the school hospital, while Harry and Ron looked at each other, and finally, they chose to go to the library to wait for Zhang Qiu.

When seeing the girl he had kissed sitting in that familiar position, Harry's chaotic thoughts slid into a familiar pattern he was used to: he decided to listen to Zhang Qiu's take; he felt Zhang Qiu wouldn't harm him.

"Oh, this might involve a bit of principle-based stuff." After listening to the narrative, Zhang Qiu said slowly, "Strictly speaking, the role of the belt is not to help you transform, but to protect you when you transform."

"The principle of Rider transformation is to use spirit to integrate into magic power, and then shape the magic power into armor. We used the belt plus energy bottle method to separate these two steps. And if you don't use a belt, these two steps will act simultaneously. For example, Professor Jinshang Xiangyi, his transformation method is to use sufficiently intense emotions to directly trigger his own magic power to form armor. However, the disadvantage of doing this is that the emotions integrated into the magic power will be relatively mixed."

"You said before that negative emotions are not recognized by the belt?" Harry still remembered the theory Zhang Qiu had said, "Is this also the 'power limit' theory of the belt?"

"That's right, the more intense the emotion, the greater the spell power; this is the basic principle." Zhang Qiu explained, "The belt limits that only positive emotions can fuse with magic power; this is the embodiment of its protective role. Because when you deactivate the transformation, both magic power and emotions will return to your body, and the fusion of magic power and different emotions will present different properties. If you are not careful, it will trigger a conflict—you all know that Dark Wizards can't cast the Patronus Charm, right?"

"Yes, you mean, the Patronus Charm will guide the change in the properties of magic power?" Harry tried hard to understand.

"Hmm, but this doesn't affect it; what really has an impact is negative emotions and Dark Magic. Negative emotions are harmful to the human body; similarly, Dark Magic triggered by negative emotions will also hurt oneself. We can all notice that those Dark Wizards are mostly gaunt and have ashen faces, right?"

"But there are also many long-lived Dark Wizards." Harry immediately thought of many historical figures.

"This is because their constitution has adapted to Dark Magic. Such a constitution, from medicine—I mean Muggle medicine—from a medical perspective, indeed belongs to an unhealthy state. But for wizards, this is also a healthy, reasonable way of magic existence, let's call it Dark Magic constitution for now. This constitution can carry Dark Magic and neutral magic smoothly without any hindrance, but it will conflict with White Magic and even endanger life."

"This black and white saying is a bit novel." Ron praised curiously.

"Ah, this is a term I just coined," Zhang Qiu said embarrassedly, "In China, this is called the Demonic Path and the Righteous Path; I don't know how you like to say it, anyway, it's probably that meaning."

"That is to say, after understanding clearly why Dark Wizards change their constitution because of using Dark Magic and eventually cannot use White Magic, we can understand the protective role of the belt on the body." Harry straightened out this logic quickly, "If we don't use a belt and transform directly, then negative emotions will also participate in it. When deactivating the transformation, those magic powers combined with negative emotions will surge into the body, as if we had released a lot of Dark Magic. After many times, this will cause our constitution to gradually transform toward a Dark Magic constitution."

"And after the Dark Magic constitution is formed, transforming again will be dangerous, because the magic power of transformation will contain positive emotions. Once this magic power combined with positive emotions surges into the Dark Magic constitution, it will be like a Dark Wizard releasing a Patronus Charm, suffering from magic backlash and dying suddenly." Harry felt he had roughly understood this theory, "And Professor Jinshang Xiangyi said his body is riddled with holes, just because this crude transformation method has already modified his constitution to be very close to a Dark Magic constitution, is that how it is?"

"But Professor Jinshang Xiangyi doesn't look like a Dark Wizard at all?" Ron asked suspiciously.

"Because his mentality is different from other Dark Wizards." Zhang Qiu explained, "As the saying goes, appearance comes from the heart, meaning magic power will shape your temperament according to your thoughts. Although his body has been modified by dark magic, because his psychology is still a normal person, he will look relatively normal."

Harry was noncommittal about this statement; he felt a more likely factor was that Professor Jinshang Xiangyi was still far from the point of being completely unable to transform.

"Of course, another reason is that Chinese people care more about 'face'; we have many spells that can make ourselves look very healthy—whether you are really that healthy." Zhang Qiu sighed lightly, "It can also be said to be 'holding on'."

"Then the real reason for Karkaroff's death is," Harry brought the topic back, "he himself was a Dark Wizard with a fully formed constitution, unable to cast even a bit of White Magic, so as long as he used that method of transforming without a belt, he would die from magic backlash when the transformation was deactivated?"

"Yes, but I want to add one point: even if he transformed with a belt, he would still die from magic backlash." Zhang Qiu said proudly, "This is also one of the important reasons why my uncle dared to sell the Rider system: malicious Dark Wizards cannot transform in any way, because they will die as soon as they transform."

"And the real murderer who killed Karkaroff is," Harry followed this logic and reached a conclusion that could let Ron set his mind at ease, "the mastermind behind the scenes who forced him to transform; from now on, it seems very likely to be the real Crimson Rider."

"But usually, there are no identical Riders; everyone's Rider form is different." Zhang Qiu shook her head, "I actually think it's possible that Karkaroff was forced to transform by someone and sent to test you. Yesterday was the first test, and today was the second; during this time, he hadn't deactivated the transformation."

"Could it be like this?" Ron said suspiciously, "The feeling he gave me for two days is completely unlike the same person."

"I actually think this is not impossible." Harry had already started to imagine, "On the first day, Karkaroff was sent by someone to test us. He was forced to complete the transformation before setting off. At this moment, he didn't know the principle and consequences of the transformation, just treating it as a kind of enhancement. And after he completed the test and went back, he was told that he would die once he deactivated the transformation, so he didn't dare to deactivate the transformation for a whole day."

"Afterward, Karkaroff might, um... had a fight with the mastermind and found he was no match, so he had to turn on acceleration to escape. Knowing that survival was hopeless after escaping, he came to find us to vent his anger, just that kind of mentality of dragging someone down with him before dying?" Harry proposed a conjecture that looked very likely.

"But he didn't attack us; he attacked Malfoy." Ron corrected.

"Oh right, this shows," Harry said a conjecture he didn't even believe himself, "that the person who forced Karkaroff to transform might be someone related to Malfoy; it shouldn't be Lucius, right?"

"It could also be, Death Eaters?" Zhang Qiu guessed, "Karkaroff didn't know the changes inside the Death Eaters; he might have targeted Malfoy and Snape at the same time, just that he didn't expect Draco to have a belt himself."

"Rodolphus, he is the current Headmaster of Durmstrang, and also the person who least wants Karkaroff to live." Harry said thoughtfully, "But you shouldn't have sold the technology to Rodolphus, right? I actually think it's a force that wants to test Hogwarts, calculated every step of Karkaroff, and then disguised as Rodolphus to set him up."

"Yes, then the person behind Karkaroff is very likely the Soviet Union; I know he had secretly contacted Vaskov. Conversely, Night Rogue is most likely a person from the White House." Harry said while secretly watching Zhang Qiu's eyes, but he didn't see anything, "But Karkaroff seemed to be preparing to run to the US later; if he was caught there, then our guess about the identity of the outsider might have to be swapped."

"In any case, they are all enemies," Ron seemed to have become much more confident after confirming he hadn't killed anyone, "It doesn't matter; I just need to defeat both of them the same way."

"But you didn't beat him the first time." Zhang Qiu poured a basin of cold water on him unceremoniously, "You couldn't beat Karkaroff; you just took advantage of the second day, when his magic power was exhausted and his mindset was on the verge of collapse, to defeat him."

"Ah... that is to say, I have to seriously consider how to become stronger." Ron scratched his head with toothache, "But actually, I feel I have made progress today, right, Harry?"

"A little bit." Harry didn't look at his battle in detail either, just encouraged him ambiguously at this moment.

"Yes, I feel what you said to me before setting off was very useful; maybe the ritual magic Donald once taught me played a role." Ron pondered, "Should we say that medieval knights and Kamen Riders also have many things in common? Perhaps, the recognition of the lord is also beneficial to the battle of Kamen Riders?"

"Rarely can you say such cultural words." Zhang Qiu muttered, "But looking at it this way, I think I have an idea." ===== CHAPTER 394 =====