Deathly Hallows: Egypt Limited Edition

Jackal Head followed Adam and the others back to the platform above as if marching to its death, only to discover that Adam apparently had no intention of disemboweling it.

"Seal Release!"

Summoning the Twin Card, Adam took out Uther’s heart.

Seeing his own heart with his own eyes, Uther’s expression was hard to describe. When he saw it become two hearts, all that remained on his face was shock and confusion.

Adam removed the Feather of Truth, thought for a moment, then put it away. He placed the two hearts on either side of the scale. After swaying for a while, the balanced scale emitted a golden light, and Adam saw black, smoky wisps rising from both hearts.

At the same time, Uther seemed to sense something.

"I think I’m about to—"

Before he could finish, Uther vanished from where he stood.

"He returned to his body."

Seeing Adam turn toward him, Jackal Head answered on its own.

"How do I restore his heart to normal?"

Adam glanced at the heart in his hand.

"Uh, you just put it back in… probably?"

"Probably?"

"I-I-I really don’t know! Everyone I’ve ever judged was thrown into the Lake of Fire Prison. I’ve never seen what it looks like when a heart returns to its body!"

Seeing Jackal Head on the verge of tears, Adam knew he could not count on it. He put away Uther’s heart first, then fell silent as he looked at the other heart in his hand.

The Twin Card’s magic could be canceled within a day, but even if he did not cancel it, it would be fine. The parallel world affected by the Twin Card would be overwritten by the current timeline after one day anyway, so…

I’ll keep it for now.

After putting away the other heart as well, Adam walked before the scale. He remembered that Uther’s father had said to bring this back.

The instant Adam gripped the scale, the protective magic on his body activated. After a brief flicker of surprise, Adam ignored it and focused on pulling the scale, whose lower half was embedded in the platform, out of the ground.

Yet three seconds passed, and nothing happened.

"…Power Card, Seal Release!"

"Rumble—"

As he yanked the scale out of the ground in one motion, Adam felt the platform beneath his feet tremble continuously. At the same time, he noticed spiderweb-like cracks spreading across the platform, so he immediately activated the Fly’s magic.

"Save me—"

Jackal Head felt a sharp pain in its ears. As its feet left the ground, a tearing agony surged from the point where its ears connected to its head.

"Ahhh—"

Glancing at Jackal Head’s condition, Adam mercifully switched to grabbing it by the shoulders. Fortunately, the Power Card was still in effect, so lifting Jackal Head remained effortless.

The shattered platform fell into the fire lake below, but the rumbling did not stop. Instead, increasingly loud explosions erupted from beneath the fire lake—

"Roar—!!!"

Amid the roar, an abyssal maw that occupied nearly two-thirds of the fire lake burst from its surface and lunged toward Adam in midair!

"This is… Ammit?"

The mouth was strikingly similar in shape to a crocodile’s, and combined with that entrance, Adam naturally guessed its identity. He then looked at Jackal Head with a subtle hint of disdain, which Jackal Head keenly noticed.

"I wasn’t that much smaller than it before I got shrunk, okay?!"

Though… it really had been a little smaller…

Looking down at Ammit, Jackal Head felt a storm of mixed emotions.

Adam swung the Wand of Darkness. Under the Power Card’s effect, the falling fragments of the platform transformed into countless massive boulders as wide as the giant maw, smashing it apart as lava gushed from the wound.

"Hm? It’s not a real creature…"

Jackal Head did not know whether it was imagining things, but it felt that the brat’s tone carried a subtle trace of disappointment.

Then, in the next moment, it saw a sword aura fall like a meteor toward the ground. It rapidly expanded in midair, cleaving the abyssal maw below cleanly in two.

Jackal Head: "!!!"

"An inedible piece of trash."

When Adam’s gaze fell on Jackal Head again, its body stiffened uncontrollably, as though its blood were about to stop flowing.

The good news was that it seemed like it would survive.

The bad news was that it seemed to know why it would survive.

As it was shrunk and stuffed into a glass jar, Jackal Head silently wiped away its tears and thought to itself.

On the way back, Adam packed up several Runespoors and Scorpiontails. Unable to bear the desert heat any longer, he used the Transfer Card to return directly to Uther’s home. There was no one on the first floor. When Adam went upstairs, he saw Uther, whose eyes were open but who was still lying in bed.

"Are you home alone?"

"Isn’t your magic here?"

Uther leaned against his pillow and gave a weak smile, his voice somewhat hoarse.

"Someone was interfering behind the scenes during our operation. My mother has gone to catch them."

"…Isn’t Auntie trusting me a little too much?"

"You saved my life. You’re the one she trusts most now."

Adam was momentarily at a loss for words. He pulled over the chair beside Uther and sat down.

"Let’s put your heart back first. The way you look right now is a little scary… Do you know how to do it?"

"Just put it back in… probably?"

Uther’s tone carried some uncertainty as well.

"Then I’ll begin?"

"Uh… ah…"

"…"

"…"

"How about you do it yourself?"

His hand hovered above Uther’s chest for a long while, but Adam simply could not bring himself to do it.

He had to reach into Uther’s chest cavity, take out the scarab amulet, and put the heart inside. It sounded roughly like gutting a fish, but in reality, the two were far too different.

"I do it myself?!"

Having the heart forcibly shoved into his hand, Uther stared in astonishment before giving a helpless bitter smile.

"Bro, my soul was burned by fire for half a day, and I just returned to my body. I can’t even lift my hand right now. How am I supposed to do it myself?"

"Fine, then…"

Adam sighed, resigned himself to it, picked up the heart, and gestured over Uther’s chest.

"…Which side is the front again?"

Uther: "…"

Fortunately, the magic that had removed the heart did not test Adam’s knowledge of biology. Once the scarab amulet was taken out, the heart floated back into Uther’s chest on its own, and the separated flesh closed itself up.

According to Uther, his heart had floated onto the scale by itself back then as well.

"So what exactly is this thing?"

Adam took out the shrunken scale.

"This is one of the divine artifacts left behind by Anubis in Egyptian legend. It can judge lies and sins. Anyone who has ever lied cannot pass the artifact’s trial."

Adam drew in a sharp breath. No wonder even Uther had failed. Did anyone in the world truly exist who had never told a lie?

Eh? Wait…

"Don’t you understand this thing quite well? Then why did you get caught in the trap?"

"I told you just now, someone was meddling. A group that has long been dissatisfied with my family ruling Egypt. We originally thought that what was inside was another artifact of Anubis, the Book of Death. As long as someone was descended from the Pharaoh, they could safely retrieve it… By the time we realized something was wrong, it was too late to turn back."

Anubis left behind so many artifacts…

Adam could not help thinking to himself.

Anubis was Egypt’s god of death, so didn’t these things count as… Deathly Hallows: Egypt Limited Edition?