42 Chapter 42: Welcome Home

The moment Harry's teleportation circle stopped glowing, he found himself standing in the spacious Entrance Hall of the Gremory Mansion in the Underworld. Not a minute later, Rias, Akeno, and Koneko arrived in the hall, followed by a boy.

"Welcome home, Harry!" greeted Rias, pulling him into a hug. Her crimson hair tickled his nose as he enjoyed her warmth. Shortly after, Koneko and even Akeno also hugged him in welcome.

"Thank you, it's good to be home," nodded Harry with a bright smile before turning to the unfamiliar boy. He was quite handsome, even though his face still had a boyish look. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and a mole below his left eye. He appeared to be around their age, maybe a year younger or a bit older than Koneko. "Hello, I am Harry Potter, the Pawn of Rias' Peerage. But you can call me Harry. You must be Kiba; it's nice to meet you."

Seeing the outstretched hand, Kiba hesitated for a moment before grabbing and shaking it, as the deaths of his friends were still fresh in his mind. "Hello, Harry. It's nice to finally meet you. I am Kiba Yuto, the new Knight of Rias. With you, I have finally met all the current members of the Peerage."

Harry noticed that Kiba was still quite uncomfortable and had his own issues, just like any other member of the Peerage. So he shifted the attention from Kiba and began asking them what they did while he was away, and shared his own experiences during the year, this time in person instead of through text messages.

He also met the other members of the Gremory Family during dinner, who welcomed him back, including little Milicas, the son of Sirzechs and Grayfia, who was still a toddler. He had a nice first day of the summer holidays, chatting and hanging out with the others, recovering from the stress of the school year.

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After bidding goodnight to the others, Harry entered his room and summoned an Invigoration Draught from inside his Sacred Gear. He gulped it down, boosting his energy level so he could spend part of the night doing something useful. He also stocked up on some useful potions for the summer in Diagon Alley before teleporting to the Underworld.

During his nightly visits to the Library of Hogwarts, he realized that he had no problem with mental fatigue as a devil, for some reason. The time he could spend awake was only limited by his body's stamina. Discovering this made him realize that if he could boost his stamina, he could spend more time doing something useful. So, after looking for a suitable potion, he found the Invigoration Draught, a fifth-year potion. Since he hadn't tried brewing it yet, and potions weren't his greatest talent (although he was more advanced than most others), he decided to buy enough for the summer in Diagon Alley.

He also made sure to buy a stock of the necessary ingredients so he could attempt to brew the draught himself. Whether he would succeed was something he wasn't sure about yet. In potions, he was advanced in theory, but in the practical part, he had only followed the first-year curriculum as he experimented with other magic.

He also bought all the necessary seeds for the plants that were part of the ingredients for these draughts. Unfortunately, it was quite hard to get living magical animals in Diagon Alley, so he couldn't buy any Billywig stings, which were an ingredient of the draught. Since they were native to Australia, capturing some would be quite the detour for now and not fitting for his summer plans. So he had to stock up on dried Billywig stings.

Refreshed and filled with energy, Harry entered the universe inside Innovate Clear for the first time since the Battle for the Philosopher's Stone. The instant he stepped onto the ground floor of his tower, he could feel the change in the atmosphere. It felt chaotic and energized—a strange feeling. Even though he wasn't outside, he could sense the energy pulsating through the space.

Walking toward one of the windows and looking outside, he could now clearly see the change. The sky was no longer the calm natural blue he had decided on, as he wasn't powerful enough yet to create a natural weather cycle. Instead, it was a strange, pulsating red and white. Millions of white wisps, like shades, flowed chaotically through the sky around his entire planet, radiating red energy waves and tinting the sky red.

It looked very different from the red beam of pure energy that the stone had released, but it was far calmer and no longer destructive. At the same time, it didn't feel like pure energy anymore—it was something else. And no, that energy didn't vanish; it changed.

"Is this the natural state of the energy that was crystallized in the Philosopher's Stone? Where did Flamel find this?" wondered Harry as he left the safety of his tower and observed the light show in the sky. Stretching the palm of his hand out, Harry guided one of the flying wisps into the palm of his hand with the natural control and authority he had inside his Sacred Gear. "What are you?"

Observing the warm glowing orb in his hand, he closed his eyes and focused on it. With his natural authority, he began to feel what exactly made up this thing. He could feel that it was made of some form of energy, but there was more. The deeper he forced his will into the red glowing orb, the more he could feel something like emotions—strong emotions like hate, resentment, pain, anger, agony, and sorrow. "This is a soul! All of them are souls. I have millions of souls inside my Sacred Gear now—resentful souls full of pain and regret. What did Nicholas Flamel do? Did he kill all of them to create the Philosopher's Stone?"

After confirming that each of the orbs flying through the sky was a soul filled with negative emotions, he made an approximate calculation of how many there were. He counted over 20 million souls—far, far more people than most dark lords killed in the history of the Wizarding World. The only dark lord who actually surpassed this headcount was Grindelwald, who played a major part in causing the Second World War from the shadows. The headcounts of other dark lords were maybe in the thousands to hundreds of thousands.

Now the only question swirling through Harry's head was, "Is Nicholas Flamel the greatest dark lord in the history of the Wizarding World?" Of course, Harry didn't care whether he was truly evil or something. He was a devil, after all, and his moral compass turned gray the moment he became one. He was strongly affected by his own sins, like pride, wrath, lust, greed, gluttony, envy, and sloth. He may be interested in keeping the people close to him safe and neutralizing his enemies before they could harm him, but he wasn't a hero.

The only thing he cared about regarding Flamel was how he did it, how he remained undetected, and what Harry could gain from it. The knowledge behind it was definitely worth pursuing. Dumbledore didn't seem evil or like a fool who would fall for a dark lord, so maybe there was a way to harvest souls before a Death God did. But for that, he had to do some research first. And most importantly, did he just get spoiled about Fullmetal Alchemist?

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