As a wizard, Rhys naturally had no need to return by plane or train like a Muggle.
The only reason he had taken a plane before was because he had been interested in that particular piece of Muggle technology.
Now that he understood aircraft well enough, he no longer had any need to use one.
For the return journey, however, Rhys decided to take inspiration from the formation Yang Qingyue had used earlier.
After drawing a reasonably convincing magic array on the ground, Rhys stepped into it.
The light flickered, and his figure vanished.
The next moment, he dropped into freezing seawater.
For an ordinary person, this would undoubtedly have been a disaster.
For Rhys, it was hardly a serious problem.
After surfacing and floating above the sea, Rhys began determining his position.
He soon realized that he had missed his intended destination by several hundred kilometers and had somehow teleported himself into the Atlantic Ocean.
Fortunately, he was not far from land.
Rhys could even see the coastline with his naked eyes.
'I still need more practice.'
Rhys sighed inwardly.
An error of a few percent might not look like much under normal circumstances, but once the scale reached tens of thousands, even a small error became astonishing.
The Scottish Highlands and Penglai Island were nearly ten thousand kilometers apart.
That single "minor error" had put Rhys several hundred kilometers off course.
'Could Hogwarts' defensive magic be interfering with my new teleportation spell?'
Rhys seriously considered the possibility.
At that moment, an airplane flew through the sky above him.
Something caught Rhys's attention.
He looked up and immediately realized that the plane seemed to be in trouble.
An evil spirit that had escaped from the Underworld had set its sights on it.
Even from several thousand meters away, Rhys could sense the violent, malicious aura.
"Poor passengers."
Rhys did not particularly grieve over their situation.
Right now, he only wanted to return to Hogwarts.
"Hm?"
Just as Rhys was preparing to abandon his new teleportation method and switch to Apparition, he suddenly realized that he had overlooked something.
Modern society seemed to define "territory" somewhat differently from how people did in his era.
It did not include only land.
The sky and surrounding waters counted as territory as well.
According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, territorial waters could extend up to twelve nautical miles, while Britain defined its territorial waters as three nautical miles.
Rhys made a rough estimate.
If that was the standard, then the airplane above him was still within British territory.
Then he remembered that Dumbledore had publicly promised to guarantee safety within Britain.
Rhys felt that he should act.
An evil spirit causing trouble inside British territory was a challenge to Dumbledore's authority.
And Dumbledore was the current Headmaster of Hogwarts.
Was this merely slapping Dumbledore in the face?
No.
It was disrespecting Hogwarts itself!
Rhys considered himself someone who followed the rules.
So his figure blurred, and he shot straight into the sky.
At the same time, the enormous cabin of a Boeing 747 was completely silent apart from the roar of the engines.
The source of that silence stood at the partition between business class and economy class, excitedly staring at the terrified passengers.
It looked exactly like a demon carved into the statues of a church.
Pointed ears, bat-like wings, long sharp fingers, and protruding fangs.
The evil spirit walked toward the first row of economy-class seats and gave the people sitting there a "kind" smile.
"Come now. Give me a reason not to eat you."
It began counting.
"Let's see... there are ten of you. Then I'll only eat seven. Seven is the most magical number, after all!"
The passengers turned deathly pale.
Someone in the first row immediately burst into tears.
There had already been people who tried to resist.
But every one of them had been restrained by the evil spirit in ways beyond the passengers' understanding.
It had not killed them.
Simple slaughter did not entertain it.
Of course, a little punishment was still necessary.
So several blood-red things were writhing beneath its feet.
That was why every passenger in the cabin had fallen utterly silent.
The crying did not stop the evil spirit.
If anything, it only made it more excited.
It looked toward the three passengers sitting on the far left and waited for their answers.
"I... I'm getting married soon..."
"I have a whole family depending on me. My son is only six months old."
"Please let me go! I'll do anything!"
Some gave reasons.
Others tried to bargain with it.
At that moment, a voice suddenly came from behind the evil spirit.
"No one here is going to die today, demon."
Surprise flashed across the evil spirit's face.
It tried to turn around and see who had the nerve to say such a thing.
But before it could fully turn, its body suddenly flew through the air and slammed heavily into the wall at the rear of the cabin, leaving a deep dent.
Its mind had not even caught up with what was happening before a powerful force dragged it back.
Then a strong hand seized it by the throat.
"Something this weak dares cause trouble inside Britain?"
Rhys's eyes were filled with contempt.
The demon before him was weaker than Voldemort without a domain.
Even Ministry Aurors might have been able to defeat it.
Rhys simply could not understand how such a weak creature had qualified to enter the Underworld in the first place.
"I am the Nineteenth Great Demon under Abaddon, Lord of Destruction... You can't kill me! My master will avenge me!"
The evil spirit struggled to force the words out.
"Abaddon, Lord of Destruction?"
Rhys heard a name that sounded vaguely familiar.
"Yes! One of the Four Lords of the Underworld, the Lord of Destruction who represents war and death! A great demon who dominated the Underworld thousands of years ago!"
Seeing that revealing its master's identity seemed to have some effect, the evil spirit hurriedly began explaining who its master was to the terrifying stranger.
Something deep in Rhys's memory stirred.
He thought carefully for a moment and finally remembered who Abaddon was.
"Oh. That little insect who ran away a thousand years ago."
Rhys smiled.
"What, a coward who fled the battlefield now represents war and destruction?"
"Huh?"
The evil spirit froze.
Its mind could not even process what Rhys was saying.
Rhys could not be bothered wasting any more words on it.
He simply evaporated all the blood in its body.
A point of light emerged from the evil spirit's dried corpse.
This was its true form.
It immediately tried to flee.
As long as it could return to the Underworld, it would eventually be able to recover its strength.
But Rhys had already anticipated that.
His magic swept forward.
The point of light shattered into fragments and dissipated into the air.
The evil spirit was completely destroyed.
The passengers inside the cabin stared in stunned silence.
Only then did they finally realize what had happened.
They had been saved.
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12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI