The deafening, roaring rumbles of the descending thunder beast had already faded into the distance, leaving behind only the residual electrical charges in the air to prove it had once existed.
Hermione stood upon the scorched earth, tears streaming uncontrollably from her eyes, tracing down her pale cheeks to her chin, where they condensed into a crystal-clear teardrop.
Under the impact of the next tear, the droplet left her chin and fell to the ground, slowly blending into the earth, leaving only a small damp patch on the scorched surface that was slightly darker than the surrounding soil.
In her memory, images of that blonde youth with the warm smile kept flashing through her mind.
Quite abruptly, a hand patted the shoulder of the heartbroken young witch.
This gave her a massive fright, making her think that there were still enemies around.
But when she turned around, she never expected to see a person she thought had already died.
Kyle was still alive!
Throwing herself violently into Kyle's embrace, Hermione held him using almost every ounce of strength in her body, as if the moment she let go, Kyle would slip away from her side.
"Cough cough... let go quickly," Kyle patted Hermione, "you're going to choke me to death."
Hearing Kyle's words, Hermione finally loosened her hands that were tightly clamping Kyle's body, though her nose was still sniffing.
She was crying tears of joy.
After drawing back a little distance, the young witch finally discovered that Kyle's originally crimson right eye had already turned into an ashen white.
From that ruined color, it seemed as if this eye had permanently lost its sight.
"Your eye..." Hermione reached out her hand to gently brush over Kyle's right eye, her eyes filled with heartache.
Kyle caught her hand in one movement, placing it gently against his cheek, and smiled. "It's nothing. An eye is just a thing—you can gouge it out and swap in a new one."
His right eye had long ceased to be the original factory issue.
A while back, following the massive news that Alicia Spinnet had stirred up in the Great Hall, as soon as Grindelwald arrived at Hogwarts, Kyle had his two fathers step in to engrave the Hour-Reversal Charm into his right eye.
Magic involving time was never something that could be easily handled.
Wanting to engrave the Hour-Reversal Charm into Kyle's eye in the form of an ocular jutsu, even with Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald—two ceiling-level wizards—taking action, it was only sorted out after ruining five eyeballs.
Fortunately, Kyle had been psychologically prepared and had cloned enough eyeballs to withstand such squandering.
It was just that the magical energy consumed by activating Izanagi was far, far more than Kyle had imagined.
Energy could not be generated out of thin air, so it could not restore Kyle to his pre-battle state.
Otherwise, as long as he carried enough eyeballs engraved with the Hour-Reversal Charm—or rather, Izanagi—he could just hit himself with an Avada Kedavra whenever his magic ran dry, instantly transforming into a battlefield perpetual motion machine.
If he could truly become such a cheating existence, let alone a mere unknown wizard, even if Voldemort in his peak period arrived in person, Kyle could grind him to death through sheer attrition.
His magic was completely depleted; his body felt hollowed out, without a single drop left.
Kyle sighed helplessly, reaching his hand into his ninja tool pouch to grope around, finding a bottle of magic restoration potion.
An anomaly occurred once more.
A spell flying out from somewhere shattered the bottle in Kyle's hand.
Before he could react, another Stunning Spell flew over, blasting Kyle away dozens of meters.
Also blasted away was Hermione.
Although she had already activated the Shield Charm the exact moment Kyle was ambushed, under that powerful concussive force, the hastily activated Shield Charm only blocked for a split second before being shattered.
The air suddenly rippled, and a figure materialized in front of Kyle, looking down at him from above.
"It's about time to take you away."
Kyle, who was already at the end of his tether, suffered yet another heavy blow, and his vision grew highly blurred for a time.
Amidst the blurriness, Kyle only felt that the build of the person in front of him was extremely familiar.
Now was not the time to ponder this; what mattered more was how to break the deadlock.
But the magic in his body had already been completely consumed in the previous battle; it was highly difficult for him to even stand up right now.
As for the Six Paths of Pain, their situation was even more wretched, having been severely wounded directly during the ambush just now.
Even if they weren't severely wounded, they wouldn't be able to continue fighting anyway; their magic was already completely drained.
The Six Paths of Pain, who hadn't had the time to undergo Dark Arts modification, didn't even have a physical strength level sufficient to open the Second Gate; sending them up with such weakling taijutsu would just be going to their deaths.
The only thing he could pin his hopes on was Grindelwald and Dumbledore, who should be rushing here after receiving the notice from the Preta Path and the Animal Path.
But just now, when Kyle summoned the other four Paths, Grindelwald and Dumbledore had both been intercepted by unknown enemies as well.
As for those Acolytes Grindelwald had stationed around him, although Kyle hadn't summoned them, he didn't believe they wouldn't know about such a massive commotion.
The reason they hadn't rushed over by now could only be that they were also intercepted by the enemy.
There was no other way. Kyle sighed helplessly, only hoping that the wizard in front of him wouldn't hurt Hermione.
Just as Snape's hand was about to touch Kyle's body, a flurry of hurried footsteps suddenly sounded from the side.
"Ha!"
A figure charged out from the side, a pale and petite fist slamming directly toward the opponent's body.
In an instant, shattered rocks splattered everywhere, and the ground was collapsed into a deep crater by the massive force of the punch.
Centering on the impact point of the fist, a radiating shattering extended outward in all directions.
"Hermione! Don't worry about me! Go!" After seeing that figure clearly, Kyle roared furiously at the first opportunity.
"I'm not leaving!" Hermione didn't turn her head. "It has always been you protecting me! Now it's my turn to protect you!"
Kyle felt somewhat helpless; this really was a stupid, hopelessly foolish girl. Don't act like those TV dramas where you're told to go but won't, and as a result, both of us end up biting the dust together at the end, alright?
The opponent's strength was hard to judge, but to be able to appear as the final boss to take the stage, his strength would absolutely not be weaker than the previous pale, dead-faced wizard.
"You can't beat him! You will die!" Kyle roared, "Go! Don't worry about me!"
"If it's to protect you, I won't even fear death."
Turning her head, Hermione took a deep look at Kyle, as if wanting to engrave his face firmly into her heart.
"Because I... like Kyle the most..."
Hermione's voice was very soft, yet it carried an incomparable decisiveness and fortitude.
Like an indestructible line of defense, Hermione resolutely stood in front of Kyle, adopting a martial arts stance.
Her wand had been struck by a Disarming Charm during that wave of ambushes just now, and she didn't know where it had dropped off to.
Since that was the case, she would use the close-quarters combat Kyle had taught her!
Clenching both fists, magic surged continuously from her hands, creating an airflow that whipped Hermione's long hair.
With the gathering of magic, it gradually condensed into two eerie blue lions' heads upon her pale fists.
Gentle Step: Twin Lion Fists!
Although she usually only treated it as a set of fist techniques for physical exercise and had never used it in actual combat, this was the only means Hermione could think of right now.
As long as she could stall the opponent—even if it was just for half a minute—the hope of Kyle being rescued would be greater.
Because it might just be this critical half a minute that would allow reinforcements to arrive and save Kyle!
Her feet slammed hard against the ground. Leveraging the counterforce that came back, Hermione approached the enemy at extreme speed.
Beneath the mask, Snape's brow furrowed tightly, his gaze gradually turning icy cold.
With a casual flick of a spell, he sent Hermione, who was lunging fiercely toward him, flying backward.
Landing with a backflip, Hermione's stance staggered slightly, yet she still charged up toward the enemy with firm steps.
The fists enveloped by the eerie blue lions' heads left streaks of light in the air one after another.
Yet she failed to even graze a corner of the opponent's clothes before being sent flying backward once again.
Driven back time and again, rising again time and again to fight.
Blood welled up and flowed down from Hermione's temple, leaving several dark red marks on her pale face.
Kyle closed his eyes, unable to bear looking.
When Hermione was knocked down yet again, the accumulated injuries on her body already left her unable to stand up anymore.
But even so, she was still struggling, refusing to give up, crawling bit by bit toward the enemy's direction.
Yet she ultimately had no strength left.
The magic gathered on her hands had also completely dissipated.
Struggling to crawl to Kyle's side, Hermione tightly grasped Kyle's hand.
"If you want to take Kyle away, you'll have to step over my corpse!"
Hermione's stubbornness caused Snape to frown heavily. He picked up Fengqiuhuang, which Kyle had dropped to the side just now.
"Hermione!!!"
Amidst Kyle's lung-bursting, furious roar, Snape violently drove the blade straight into Hermione's back.
Looking at the point where that sword landed, it seemed to be Hermione's...
Heart?
Dead just like that?
Seeing that pool of blood gradually gathering beneath Hermione, Kyle's heart pounded violently, and threads of black aura materialized over his body surface.
With the continuous pouring out of the black aura, Kyle felt as though every single cell in his body was being ripped apart. This unbearable, excruciating pain caused his body to tremble violently.
Having dealt with Hermione, Snape only then turned his head to look at Kyle.
And at this moment, Kyle's body had already been completely swallowed by the black aura. A black aura that could be described as blotting out the sky swept toward Snape with absolute fury...
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