Good or bad, does it matter?{HP}

After more than an hour, a painful groan escaped the Vampire's lips. His face twisted in agony as he instinctively tried to touch his temple. However, something strange on his hands prevented him from completing the motion. Slowly, he opened his eyes…

"What the…" he began, but the undead didn't get to finish his sentence. His gaze fell on the black shackles adorning his wrists, and in an instant, memories of what had happened before he was knocked out flooded back. "I... I was defeated… by a pathetic man," he muttered bitterly, biting his lower lip. Pressing the back of his head against the cold wall, he closed his eyes in frustration.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," Severus's cheerful voice interrupted his brooding, drawing the bloodsucker's reluctant attention.

"How was your sleep?" the prince asked. There was no response, only the cold, piercing gaze of the Vampire fixed on him. "I'm sorry," Severus continued, undeterred, "I might've broken your bed a little."

The Vampire's eye twitched at the remark, his expression twisting with anger. The shackles on his wrists briefly reddened as he attempted to break free, but within seconds, they reverted to black. He glanced at them in mild surprise.

"Strong, aren't they?" Severus remarked with a sly smile.

"What do you want from me?" the Vampire growled.

"Straight to the point? I like that," Severus said, nodding approvingly as he crouched to meet the Vampire's eye level. "I want to know about your bed. After all, I doubt you made it yourself."

"And why would I tell you?" the Vampire scoffed, his contemptuous grin aimed directly at Severus.

The prince frowned slightly at the response but quickly replaced the expression with a calculated smile. "I see," he began. "You don't know either. When you arrived, this place was already deserted. Realizing how safe it was—especially with the fierce Vampire hunts beginning—you decided to stay. The food came to you easily." He patted the stunned bloodsucker on the shoulder, rising to his feet as he continued. "Thank you for confirming all of that for me. Still, it's a shame you don't know anything else."

"H-how…? I didn't say anything!" the Vampire stammered, his wide eyes betraying his shock.

"Hm?" Severus tilted his head, meeting the Vampire's gaze before shaking his head with feigned disappointment. "I see. You came here when you were barely twenty. Arrogant and vain, you didn't bother to study what humans are truly capable of…"

"Shut up! You're just food, nothing more!" the Vampire snapped, his voice trembling despite his attempt to sound confident. However, his bravado crumbled when he saw a red fireball form in Severus's hand, radiating an incredible heat that made him instinctively recoil. "Stop! Stop! Wait!" he blurted, panic evident in his tone.

"Hm? I've already learned everything I needed. I have no use for a parasitic creature like you." The fireball floated from Severus's hand, inching closer to the Vampire, who was now pressed against the wall with terror in his eyes.

"STOP!" the Vampire screamed as the shackles on his wrists and ankles glowed red-hot. Despite his desperate attempts, he couldn't break free.

Realizing his struggle was futile, he dropped to his stomach, crawling like a worm along the wall. The fireball trailed him, its scorching heat drawing closer. "Please! Stop! Don't kill me! I didn't do anything to you! You came here yourself!"

"Do you even hear yourself?" Severus asked, raising an eyebrow as he followed the crawling bloodsucker. "Or are you trying to play on my conscience?"

"I… I WILL TELL YOU WHERE THE CORE OF THIS PLACE IS!" the Vampire screamed, his voice hoarse as the fireball neared his feet. The unbearable heat felt like stepping on burning coals, causing him excruciating pain.

"Hm?" Severus allowed the flame to die out, his expression curious. The Vampire seized the moment to scramble forward by a meter, trembling as he turned to face his captor.

"Intrigued. I'm listening," Severus said coolly.

"F-first, swear you'll spare my life!" the Vampire demanded, his desperate eyes meeting Severus's.

The prince smirked, unable to hide his amusement at the creature's naivety. Did this fool truly not realize Severus could read his thoughts? "I almost feel bad for killing you… but I can't let you live either," Severus said, his voice laced with mock sympathy.

The fireball reignited, and the Vampire's face twisted in terror. "Thank you for the valuable information. At least I won't need to torture you," Severus added.

"I-I also know how to get out of here… Wait! W-what ARE…?!" The Vampire's words were cut off as the scarlet flames consumed him in an instant. Within seconds, not even ashes remained.

Of course, capturing the Vampire alive and interrogating him further could have been an option. However, it made little sense.

The bloodsucker had stumbled into the gorge as a youngling, barely twenty years old, with no title or significance. He was a lowly Vampire, fortunate enough to evade hunters by sheer luck. This place had been his sanctuary, but over the centuries, he'd forgotten almost everything of value.

He was useless—more a liability than an asset. While magical beasts could be bound and controlled, a sentient creature with human-level intelligence and an inherent hatred for its master was far riskier.

If the subjugation seal ever broke, the Vampire could escape, creating chaos in his wake. That would be the least of the problems he could cause.

Severus had decided to eliminate the potential threat at its root. While the Vampire might have evolved over decades, potentially reaching a rank comparable to lower Devils, the risk far outweighed any benefits.

A few moments later, Nagini slithered into view, settling comfortably around Severus's neck. She had witnessed the entire confrontation from her vantage point.

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When I saw that he was able to hurt you, I was very scared…" she shared her feelings, looking at the healing scratch on his cheek. The snake then clung to the wizard's neck, exuding a strange mixture of joy, relief, and a bit of anxiety. "But still, we need to properly treat the wound, and check if his claws were covered in poison…"

"Don't worry, everything is fine. I already checked, and the scratch will heal anyway. But I am very pleased that my Lamia was so worried about me," stroking her head with a warm smile, he nodded to her until a gust of wind engulfed them. "But enough tenderness. Let's move on. We should finish all the business here tonight and return to the room."

"Are you sure? Maybe you should sit for a while; the battle wasn't easy."

"Everything is fine. He didn't even make me sweat. Now let's fly, there's no need to linger here." The next moment, at great speed, he took off and rushed forward, no longer paying much attention to the crystals. Further ahead, a richer catch awaited him.

They didn't have to fly very long—only ten minutes—during which they covered about thirty kilometers before stopping.

This place was nearly at the very end of the gorge, just three kilometers away from it. It was generally no different from the rest of the crevice, except that the walls were slowly beginning to narrow.

The Prince almost immediately noticed a peculiar spot in the wall, behind which magic circulated. Even if the Vampire hadn't "told" him anything, Severus could have found it himself. For other wizards who didn't know a particular magic, though, this would have been an impossible task.

The bloodsucker had climbed the gorge from end to end, checking every stone, so he had accidentally found this place.

Severus already knew what awaited him behind that wall, so he approached it without fear. He touched one of the crystals, pressing it, and it easily gave way, moving downward. Almost immediately after that, the wall trembled and slowly began to descend, revealing a small branch of the gorge. At the end of it was a massive red crystal, with the floor and walls around it also covered in it, right up to the entrance.

This sight would not leave anyone indifferent, and Snape was no exception. He wasn't particularly surprised by the dark silhouette without arms and legs, with huge horns and a hole in the chest, encased within the largest crystal. He had seen something like this many times in his world.

This method was often used to prevent a wizard from dying and to prolong life, granting a kind of "pseudo-immortality," much like Horcruxes.

In one case, the soul and body froze in time, although the former was still destroyed. In the other, only the soul was torn to pieces.

What surprised him more was the colossal amount of magic within the crystals—hundreds of times more than in those he had collected earlier. This immediately indicated how powerful a wizard was imprisoned inside.

Severus wasn't worried about the man(?) "waking up" because, until the spell was dispelled, it was simply impossible. The crystal itself was incredibly hard, which explained why the Vampire in his youth couldn't leave a scratch on it, after which he simply left.

Severus understood why the bloodsucker thought this was the core of the ravine: nearly all the magic and life force flowed into this place, with only a small part going to the Vampire, who, like other creatures, had an incredible sensitivity to it.

But in addition to this, the undead had also become a kind of guardian and slave of the place, finishing off long-awaited guests who miraculously survived.

Why did Severus think this? There were three reasons for this. First, the creature's thoughts—he hadn't even considered leaving, despite spending more than a thousand years here. He also knew where the exit was, but anyone else in his place would have gone mad from such "monotony." Strangely, he understood that something was wrong, but couldn't develop the thought as if something was hindering him. The coffin was to blame.

Upon examining it, Severus discovered, in addition to the binding runes responsible for transferring life force and magic, another set responsible for subjugating and weakening the mind's defenses—right under where the Vampire's head had lain.

The third reason was the magic and life force itself. If all of it had gone to one bloodsucker, he would have already reached the rank of "Archmage" in seven hundred years, regardless of how poor his talent was. Such creatures found it much harder to develop their core due to their nature.

Yet, this Vampire had spent nearly one thousand three hundred years in this place, only reaching the top of the "Master" rank. From this, it was easy to guess that all the magic and life force had gone to feed the man(?) in front of Severus. It was quite possible that he was still alive.

But Severus wasn't in a hurry to "wake him up." Only a fool would do that, and Severus was no fool. He still wanted to live.

Perhaps in the future, when he could develop the core to the rank of "Archmage," he would reconsider, but for now, that would be pure suicide.

Thus, Severus simply turned around and headed toward the exit.

"Severus, there's such a big crystal there; it definitely has a lot of magic. Why don't you take it?" Nagini asked in confusion, unable to see the silhouette due to the illusion covering it.

"No need. I've already collected enough," he answered with a calm smile as he left the place. The passage behind him slowly began to close, and only at the last moment did a couple of red dots light up in the crystal, leading to his back. But the wizard no longer saw them.

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Please vote with power stones and please tell me one thing, do you guys think that the phrasing and the structure in this chapter is better than the other chapters? Not counting the last chapter.

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