Chapter 19: Old Honeybee, what are you panicking about?
Albus Dumbledore raised his glowing wand and rushed out of the corridor corner.
The dazzling white light dispelled the darkness.
It also illuminated this hellish scene in the corridor.
Professor McGonagall followed behind.
She walked too hastily, her heel stepping on a piece of brittle, hard black charcoal.
The soles of her feet suddenly slipped.
She let out a half-exclamation, reaching out to steady herself against the stone wall beside her.
Her palm pressed directly onto the scorching red bricks.
"Hisss——"
McGonagall gasped sharply and pulled back her hand as if stung by a wasp.
The wall was hot enough to fry raw meat.
She opened her mouth, unable to even piece together a complete sentence.
Snape walked at the very back.
Just as he rounded the corner, his body stiffened.
His left hand instinctively grabbed his injured right wrist, and a sharp phantom pain came from the wound beneath the gauze.
He smelled that overbearing and familiar scent of sulfur in the air.
Dumbledore stopped behind Harry and Ron.
The old man's gaze crossed over the red-haired boy still sobbing on the ground.
He locked his eyes tightly onto the huge pile of black ashes ahead.
The light of Lumos was severely distorted near the pile of ashes.
That was the residual, violent magic of Fiendfyreinterfering with the laws of reality.
The knuckles of Dumbledore's hand holding the Elder Wand turned pale white.
The wand shaft hummed softly in his palm.
It sensed a magic of the same origin but far more brutal.
This legendary wand was instinctively resisting this area.
Dumbledore's expression sank completely.
The kind smile usually hanging on his face vanished completely.
In the blue eyes behind the half-moon spectacles, heavy scrutiny and vigilance leaked out.
He looked at Arthur standing before the pile of ashes.
"Mr. Grindelwald."
Dumbledore's voice was very deep.
Carrying a superior's pressure accumulated over many years, he attempted to suppress this newcomer with the identity of Hogwarts's Principal.
"Can you explain to me..."
He paused for half a second.
"Why use this forbidden Dark Arts in the corridor?"
He spoke at a very slow pace.
Every single word carried a heavy weight of magic.
Arthur slowly turned around.
The black robes made a slight frictional sound in the sultry air.
Meeting Dumbledore's gaze, he didn't even blink an extra time.
In his heterochromatic pupils, there was only unmelting indifference.
"Explanation?"
Arthur's voice was flat, with no emotional fluctuations audible.
"I thought Principal should be more concerned about another matter right now."
He raised his hand and pointed at the pool of smoking black ash on the ground.
"Why an adult mountain Troll without even a brain could swagger into the first-floor girls' bathroom."
The muscles on Dumbledore's face tightened.
"This is not your reason for abusing Fiendfyre."
He took half a step forward, his leather shoes stepping on the stone bricks.
"This kind of fire has no reason; it will burn down this school!"
Arthur looked at the white-haired old man before him.
Feeling utterly bored.
"You are getting old, Albus."
Arthur directly called the Principal by his name.
Professor McGonagall beside him gasped and opened her mouth to scold.
But her throat was too dry to make a sound.
"Back then, the person who dared to use a blood pact to gamble on tomorrow can now only hide in a high tower in Scotland."
Arthur's words were like a rusty knife.
Piercing directly into the ulcer hidden deep at the bottom of Dumbledore's heart.
The old man's breathing skipped a beat.
A fine layer of sweat quickly seeped from his forehead and temples.
Shining under the wand's light.
This dust-laden past was ripped open to his face by an eleven-year-old boy, causing cracks to appear in his pride-worthy composure.
"You paralyze yourself by telling those ridiculous fairy tales to this group of little Wizards."
Arthur's gaze swept over Ron, who was shivering in a puddle of urine.
A trace of contempt pulled at the corner of his mouth.
"Is this the savior team you carefully selected?"
"Lacking even the ability to control a bladder."
Harry lowered his head even further.
His fingernails dug deep into the flesh of his thighs.
Dumbledore's hand holding the wand was trembling slightly.
He felt that the intricate chessboard he had spent ten years weaving...
...was torn to shreds by this boy in just a few words.
"You want to cultivate the savior, want him to experience hardships."
Arthur took a step forward.
His leather boots stepped on a piece of shattered bone fragment, grinding it to dust.
"But your methods are too crude."
"Letting a stinking Troll in as a test? Do you think Lord Voldemort will play games with you like this stupid creature?"
Dumbledore's lips moved.
"I will not allow you in the school..."
He wanted to say some polite generalities, wanting to reclaim the Principal's majesty.
Arthur directly interrupted him.
"Put away that hypocritical majesty of yours."
"The rules of magic have always only been effective against the weak."
Arthur looked at that drop of sweat sliding down Dumbledore's forehead.
His voice echoed in the baked-dry corridor.
"You should be glad that I didn't let this fire keep burning just now."
"Otherwise, the one smoking right now would be the entire Castle."
Clearly, the temperature in the corridor was very high.
But Dumbledore felt a chill oozing out from the cracks of his bones.
He was speechless.
Because he clearly perceived the abyss-like magic inside Arthur that could detonate at any moment.
If they fought here, the entire first floor would be reduced to ashes.
Harry and Ron definitely wouldn't survive.
This was not a negotiation at all, but rather a higher-dimensional life's disdain for lower-dimensional rules.
Snape stood at the back.
Using his intact left hand to tightly pinch the edge of his robes.
Not daring to make the slightest noise.
He knew Dumbledore too well.
This calculating old man had his psychological defense lines completely shattered in this recent round of confrontation.
Arthur felt that staying any longer was a sheer waste of time.
These people were even more boring than that Troll.
He turned around, no longer paying attention to these highest authorities of Hogwarts.
The hem of his robe stirred up a light breeze.
Arthur walked along the corridor towards the direction of the Castle gates.
The three adult Wizards stood frozen in place.
Not a single person dared to step forward to stop him, nor did anyone dare to utter a single word of punishment.
The sound of leather boots stepping on stone slabs gradually faded away.
Arthur walked out of the Castle's side door.
The cold night wind blew across his face, taking away the scorched, foul smell stained on his body.
He lowered his head and looked at his hands.
The actual combat just now was too short.
The Troll didn't even count as an appetizer; it burned to ashes in a second.
The Demon King's blood in this body was only just beginning to heat up.
He hadn't had enough fun at all.
Arthur raised his head.
His gaze crossed the long lawn and Hagrid's hut.
Looking towards that pitch-black forest in the distance.
That was the Forbidden Forest.
He heard that many dangerous magical creatures were hidden inside there.
Arthur felt that tonight's midnight snack was settled.
He strode with his long legs, vanishing into the darkness, walking towards the depths of the Forbidden Forest.
Chapter 20: Roasting Spiders in the Forbidden Forest at Midnight
Hogwarts was as still as stagnant water in the dead of night.
Arthur walked across the damp lawn.
The cold wind whipped his black robes against his calves.
The air carried the peculiar fishy stench of waterweeds from the Black Lake.
In the distance, a window glowing with a faint orange light belonged to Hagrid's hut.
From inside came the muffled barks of the hound Fang, mingled with the loud, heavy snores of the half-Giant.
Arthur did not linger.
He walked directly around the vegetable patch planted with Giant pumpkins.
His leather boots snapped a few fallen, dead branches.
The crisp cracking sound carried far into the night.
Ahead was a black wall formed by towering trees, blocking out all light.
The Forbidden Forest.
The tree crowns were so dense that not even moonlight could penetrate them.
The air in the forest was extremely foul.
It floated with the stagnant stench of rotting leaves, dead mice, and fermenting slime mold.
Arthur walked very slowly.
He raised his hand and unbuttoned the silver button at his collar.
Letting the living body temperature and scent radiate out without reservation.
Normally, when Wizards entered this forest, they wished they could douse themselves in deodorizer.
He did the exact opposite.
He reined in all the tyrannical aura belonging to the Dark Lord, hiding it deep within his bones.
Now he smelled like a completely defenseless, succulent piece of fatty meat.
Enticing.
Deep within the silent woods, faint rustling movements soon appeared.
At first, it was the rustling sound of dead leaves rubbing together.
Then it turned into the click-clack sound of hard shells striking tree trunks.
The sounds grew denser and closer.
Surrounding from all directions like a tide.
The smell of rot in the forest was overwritten by a strong, fishy stench.
That was the smell of raw meat regurgitated after fermenting in stomach acid.
Arthur stopped in a relatively spacious clearing in the woods.
In the darkness around him, pairs of turbid compound eyes lit up one after another.
Acromantulas.
These monsters lurking in the dark year-round were shockingly massive in size.
A spider the size of a car crawled down from a thick oak tree.
Its furry, thick limbs stepped on dead branches, making a teeth-gritting snapping sound.
Its abdomen was bloated and covered in hard black spikes.
Two large, black-haired chelicerae constantly clashed.
Dripping large globs of sticky green venom.
The venom hit the grass leaves, directly burning out a sour white smoke.
The weeds instantly withered and blackened.
More and more Acromantulas crawled out from the tree crowns, burrows, and bushes.
Densely packed.
Hundreds and thousands of them.
Those turbid eyeballs flickered greedily in the dark.
Surrounding Arthur impenetrably.
They hadn't encountered a human who dared to swagger in like this for a long time.
The Acromantulas crowded together restlessly.
The encirclement grew smaller and smaller.
The front row of chelicerae made a life-claiming click-clack sound, as if discussing where to take a bite.
A slightly smaller spider could not suppress its craving for fresh blood.
It lunged forward fiercely.
Its eight thick long legs spread out in mid-air, carrying an overwhelming stench, and it opened its big mouth to bite Arthur's neck.
Arthur looked at this pile of stinky arthropods.
His pale right eye revealed a bone-chilling coldness.
He did not draw his wand, nor did he take half a step back.
"There isn't even a decent trace of magic fluctuations."
His voice was extremely clear amidst the dense click-clacking.
Without a trace of panic heard.
"Purely low-level bugs."
Arthur raised his right hand.
His slender thumb rested against his middle finger, rubbing casually.
"Snap."
A crisp snap of his fingers.
When that spider lunging in mid-air was still half a meter away from his face.
Fiendfyre exploded.
There was completely no process of flames spreading.
A purely black sea of fire, like a breached tsunami, burst forth in all directions with Arthur as the center.
The night sky of half the Forbidden Forest was illuminated into an eerie backdrop by this black fire.
The spider lunging in mid-air was directly vaporized.
It didn't even have time to let out a scream before turning directly into fine white ash in mid-air.
The violent wave of Fiendfyre instantly engulfed the hundreds of Acromantulas in the front row.
Their proud, hard shells were more fragile than thin paper in front of Fiendfyre.
"Squeak—!"
The tragic insect cries tore apart the night sky of the Forbidden Forest.
The spiders went mad.
Their simple nervous systems simply couldn't understand what this black thing was.
They only knew that if they touched even a tiny bit, even their souls would be burned through.
The spiders in the front row rolled violently in the sea of fire.
The black-haired limbs were burned away instantly.
Their abdomens burst, flowing with green bodily fluids, which were completely evaporated within a thousandth of a second.
The spiders in the back row fled desperately backward.
Their eight legs trampled over each other.
To escape with their lives, they even waved their chelicerae to bite apart members of their own kind blocking the way.
But the expansion speed of Fiendfyre was too fast.
The wall of fire, like a huge black insect net, inverted directly from all directions.
Enclosing the entire spider group tightly within it.
The charred stench soared straight into the clouds.
The trunks of the towering trees were roasted into charcoal, and the huge tree crowns turned to flying ash in the fire.
The entire spider group fell into a one-sided massacre.
Thousands of Acromantulas struggled and wailed in the black sea of fire.
The oxygen in the air was sucked dry.
Breathing became impossible.
Arthur stood right in the center of the sea of fire.
The muddy ground under his feet was vitrified by the terrifying high temperature, forming a layer of glass-like hard shell.
But even the temperature of the robes on his body didn't change.
Not even a single strand of hair was curled.
In his mind, the system prompt tones sounded like a pot of boiling porridge.
All of them were fear values contributed by these dark creatures right before death.
Animal fear was more direct than human fear.
And purer.
When such lower-level creatures faced irresistible laws of destruction.
The large-scale despair they erupted made the numbers on the system panel jump wildly.
Arthur took a deep breath of the hot, dry air carrying the smell of sulfur.
Feeling that tonight's midnight snack was barely passing.
Meanwhile.
The outskirts of the Forbidden Forest.
The soaring flames illuminated the windows of Hagrid's hut glowing red.
The hound Fang pissed on the floor out of fear in its kennel.
It tucked its tail and cowered in the corner, making a trembling whimpering sound in its throat.
Hagrid was startled awake from that huge wooden board bed.
He got up too fiercely, his head slamming straight into the thick wooden post at the head of the bed.
It hurt him so much that he gave a muffled grunt.
But he had no time at all to rub his head.
He heard the screams coming from deep within the Forbidden Forest.
That was the sound the Acromantula colony would only make when facing a devastating disaster.
Aragog's descendants were in big trouble.
Hagrid casually grabbed a heavy beast-skin coat and draped it over himself.
His rough, large hand picked up the heavy crossbow in the corner of the room.
His other hand held a windproof kerosene lantern.
He raised his big foot and kicked open the small wooden door with one kick.
His massive body rushed into the dark night like an out-of-control bear.
His heavy panting sound was especially distinct in the cold wind.
Hagrid snapped who knows how many bushes, rushing all the way deep into the Forbidden Forest.
Still hundreds of meters away, a terrifying wave of heat directly slapped against his bearded face.
His beard was scorched and curled.
He couldn't even open his eyes.
Hagrid raised his thick arm to block in front of his eyes, squinting as he ran forward.
When he broke through the final scorched wall of trees.
The scene before him made him completely stunned.
The entire forest ahead was gone.
There was only ground covered in smoking broken bones and spider ashes.
Piled up like a small mountain.
That blond boy wearing Slytherin robes stood in the center of the ash.
The black flames danced like docile pets around his feet.
Hagrid opened his mouth wide.
All the air in his lungs ran out, yet he forgot to inhale.
The muscles of his thick arms completely lost their strength amidst extreme shock and fear.
"Snap."
That heavy crossbow slipped from his hand.
Slamming heavily onto the scorching muddy ground.
Chapter 21: Hagrid Was Shocked Beyond Belief
The great crossbow dropped to the ground with a crisp "snap".
The heavy metal bow limbs smashed against the vitrified soil surface.
Producing a muffled, brittle sound.
Hagrid froze in place.
His eyes, hidden behind matted hair and a beard, widened immensely.
His gaze was glued tightly to the smoking ruins ahead.
The wind in the forest stopped.
The air was so hot it couldn't be drawn into the lungs.
Ash was everywhere.
It wasn't the white ash left from burning firewood.
It was black bone ash carrying a pungent, fishy stench and the smell of sulfur.
Mixed within it were some incomplete carapaces that hadn't been completely burned away.
Thousands of Acromantulas.
Those were Aragog's descendants.
The "little cuties" he had watched multiply for decades.
Now they had all turned into a pile of smoking debris on the ground.
Not even a single intact spider leg could be found.
"You..."
Hagrid squeezed out a distorted syllable from his throat.
He felt as if a handful of scalding sand had been shoved into his throat.
His rough, massive hands began to tremble.
The half-Giant's bloodline carried a volatile temper.
Seeing his beloved animals slaughtered, this anger should have instantly ignited his sanity.
Hagrid took a step forward.
His large foot stepped onto the brittle scorched earth, crushing a charred spider mandible.
"What on earth have you done?!"
Hagrid roared at the top of his lungs.
But his usually deep and booming voice sounded somewhat hollow now.
He wanted to rush up.
He wanted to pick up this audacious first-year student and throw him out of the Forbidden Forest.
Hearing the roar, Arthur slowly turned around.
His black robe remained completely motionless in the heat wave.
He raised his head.
That pair of heterochromatic eyes, intertwined with pallidness and pitch-blackness, looked over.
It was just this single glance.
The burst of anger Hagrid had just mustered was doused over his head like a basin of icy water mixed with ice shards.
Not even a single spark was left.
Replacing it was a beastly instinct originating from the deepest depths of his bloodline.
The half-Giant was closer to the animals of the natural world than ordinary Wizards.
An animal's perception of danger was fatal.
In Hagrid's intuition, standing there was fundamentally not an eleven-year-old human.
But rather an ancient abyss draped in human skin.
That brutal oppressive aura of a devil viewing all things as mere straw.
Following Arthur's gaze, it slammed directly onto Hagrid's spine.
Hagrid felt that what he was facing was not a student violating rules.
But a natural disaster that could chew him up skin and bones at any moment.
"Thud."
Hagrid's legs went soft for a moment.
His knees could no longer bear the weight of his massive body, and he dropped directly to his knees on the scorching muddy ground.
His thick moleskin trousers were scorched by the high temperature, emitting a burnt smell.
But he couldn't feel the pain at all.
The storm lantern he was holding in his hand struck a stone, shattering the glass shade all over the ground.
The lantern oil spilled out, only to be quickly vaporized by the high temperature of the ground.
Turning into a plume of pungent black smoke.
"They... they don't hurt people..."
Hagrid lay on the ground, his lips trembling.
He didn't even have the courage to raise his head and look straight at Arthur.
He could only mutter incoherently.
"Aragog promised me... they would just stay in the forest..."
"Not hurt people?"
Arthur's voice rang out across the desolate scorched earth.
It was very calm, devoid of emotional fluctuation, possessing only the coldness of stating facts.
"That's because they haven't been starved to the extreme yet."
The sound of leather boots stepping on charcoal rang out.
Clack.
Clack.
Arthur took two steps forward and stopped in front of Hagrid.
Hagrid looked at that pair of spotless black leather boots.
Cold sweat on his forehead dripped down his messy eyebrows.
Slamming onto the scorched earth, it instantly turned into a wisp of white vapor.
"You treat this forest as your sanctuary."
Arthur looked down condescendingly at the half-Giantwho resembled a mountain of flesh.
"You think that by feeding monsters a few pieces of scrap meat, you can be friends with them."
"A foolish fairy-tale disease."
Hagrid opened his mouth, wanting to retort.
He wanted to say that love and patience could reform these magical creatures.
But he found that he couldn't spit out even a single word.
The small mountain around him piled from the bone ash of thousands of spiders was the most cruel reality.
The ecological concepts of the Forbidden Forest he had built over decades.
That ridiculous idea of sheltering monsters as if they were vulnerable groups.
Shattered into powder at this very moment.
The monsters here were not his friends.
They were simply too weak, which was why they cowered in dark corners barely clinging to life.
And now, the true monster had arrived.
The laws of the Dark Arts trampled over all gentle and affectionate disguises.
"Listen well, half-Giant."
Arthur's voice was not loud, but it carried the power of rules that brooks no defiance.
Drilling directly into Hagrid's roaring eardrums.
"Starting tonight, forget all those ridiculous rules you set in the Forbidden Forest."
Arthur raised his hand, his fingertips tapping casually in mid-air.
A tiny black spark flashed in the air and quickly extinguished.
But just this single flick.
Some animals in the surrounding woods that were originally watching from afar.
Bowtruckles, Unicorns, even the distant wolf pack.
All emitted whimpers of extreme terror.
Fleeing like madmen toward the deepest depths of the Forbidden Forest.
The entire outer forest area instantly turned into a dead zone.
Even the cries of insects died out completely.
"In this forest."
Arthur put his hand down, looking at the trembling Hagridon the ground.
"I am the only predator."
"Whether it's the eight-legged bugs or those self-proclaimed clever centaurs."
"Whoever dares to bare their teeth at me will end up just like this pile of ash."
Arthur's tone was as cold as ice blades in the bitter depths of winter.
Directly slicing open Hagrid's final psychological defense line.
Hagrid clenched his teeth tightly.
He didn't want to submit, but his body wouldn't obey.
The half-Giant's instincts were screaming frantically.
Warning him that if he didn't bow his head, in a few seconds he would also become a puddle of ash on the ground.
His rough hands clawed tightly into the scorching soil.
His fingernails were jammed full of black charcoal.
His palms were rubbed raw and bleeding, turning dark red mixed with mud.
"I... I understand..."
Hagrid's voice was terribly hoarse.
Carrying a heavy crying tone and an unresolvable despair.
He thoroughly recognized reality.
Dumbledore couldn't protect this forest, and the Ministry of Magic even less so.
This blonde youth truly possessed the domineering strength to destroy everything.
The master of this forest had changed.
Deep within his mind.
A cold mechanical voice rang out one after another.
[Ding!]
[Target individual Hagrid's ecological concepts have completely collapsed.]
[Beast instinct generates extreme physiological panic.]
[Fear value overflows significantly.]
Listening to the system's broadcast, Arthur felt that tonight's harvest was quite decent.
The quality of the half-Giant's fear value was very high.
Much stronger than ordinary students who grew up in greenhouses.
This despairing emotion intertwined with the collapse of belief was the purest energy currency.
The system prompt tones rang out continuously.
Arthur was just about to open the panel to calculate the fear value contributed by Hagrid.
Right at this moment, from the dark bushes not far away.
A flurry of messy and heavy hoofbeats suddenly sounded.
Chapter 22: Plundering Magical Creature Affinity!
System notification sounds echoed in his mind.
Like a pile of rusted gears grinding frantically.
Arthur didn't pay immediate attention to Hagrid on the ground.
He was just about to tap the dim blue system panel in front of him.
From the dark thicket ahead, a burst of extremely chaotic crashing sounds suddenly came out.
Heavy hooves trampled and snapped the charred dead wood.
The dry branches emitted crisp snapping sounds.
The sound was rushed, carrying an undisguised panic and hostility.
More than a dozen tall dark figures broke through the surrounding lingering smoke.
They were Centaurs.
Their upper bodies were bare human torsos, and their lower bodies were strong horse bodies.
The hooves stepped on the mud that had just been vitrified by Fiendfyre, making a dull clatter.
The Centaurs carried a heavy, sour smell of sweat on them.
Mixed with the earthy stench of tree bark and soil.
A dozen crude wooden longbows were instantly drawn to their limits.
The bowstrings creaked as they were pulled.
The sharp stone arrowheads gleamed with a cold light in the night.
Uniformly aiming at the blond youth standing in the center of the ashes.
The leading Centaur was Firenze.
He had long platinum-blonde hair, and his muscular chest was heaving violently.
The Centaur tribe usually never interfered in the disputes of Wizards.
They only believed in the guidance of the stars.
But tonight the firelight of the Forbidden Forest was too dazzling, and even the deepest habitats were affected by the heat wave.
The stellar phenomena were even more chaotic like a boiling pot of porridge.
They came to check the source of the destruction with the determination to die.
In the end, they only saw a ground full of spider ashes.
And Hagrid, who was kneeling beside them shaking like a puddle of mud and whom they had always regarded as half of their own kind.
As well as a young human wearing Slytherin robes.
"Back off... Wizard."
A young Centaur couldn't help it, roaring with a trembling voice.
The palm of his hand holding the bow was full of horse sweat, dripping down the back of his hand.
The arrowhead bobbed up and down due to the shaking of his arm.
It could misfire at any moment.
Arthur didn't even glance at those arrowheads.
They were just a few broken sticks.
Right in front of this group of half-man, half-beast beings, he directly opened the system panel in the void.
The dim blue light reflected on his pale cheeks.
[Ding.]
[Hagrid's fear value calculation is complete.]
[Special talent detected available for extraction.]
[Do you wish to extract the max-level Magical Creature Affinity talent?]
Arthur silently thought confirmation in his heart.
A strange energy appeared out of thin air, pouring directly down his spine from the top of his head.
This was the trump card that allowed Hagrid to walk sideways in the Forbidden Forest.
This affinity was originally a gentle law of nature.
Exuding a stupidly benign goodwill that could make all magical creatures lower their guard.
But the moment this energy burrowed into Arthur's body.
The pure Dark Lord blood within him directly boiled.
The brutal instinct of the Dark Arts was like a starved wolf woken up, biting fiercely onto this gentle law.
The energy was forcibly torn apart in his blood vessels.
His bones emitted slight cracking sounds.
That goodwill was brutally stripped away by Arthur's will, thrown into the magic pool of Fiendfyre to be burned into ashes.
What remained was only the most primitive law of the jungle.
Survival of the fittest.
Absolute obedience.
[Talent has mutated.]
[Max-level Magical Creature Affinity has been forcibly twisted into: Top-tier Bloodline Suppression.]
Arthur closed his eyes.
Feeling the magic power that had quieted down again in his meridians.
He slowly exhaled a breath of foul air.
The gas actually condensed into a small patch of cold white frost in the scorching air.
When he opened his eyes again, the darkness in his heterochromatic pupils was bottomless.
The coercion belonging to a top predator exploded directly along his gaze.
There was no light of any spell.
This was a pure biological crushing.
The Centaurs surrounding him bore the brunt.
Their upper bodies were rational humans, but their lower bodies were animals.
Now, their animal instincts completely betrayed human reason.
A sense of terror that froze the soul directly drove like a rusted steel nail straight into the spines of the Centaurs.
That young Centaur who had shouted just now.
His front leg knees made a crisp snap.
The cartilage of the horse legs directly lost the ability to support his body.
His massive body plunged forward abruptly, heavily kneeling onto the scorching scorched earth.
The skin and flesh of his knees sizzled from the scalding ground.
Emitting a wisp of white smoke.
But he completely couldn't care about the pain.
He desperately tried to raise the bow on his body, wanting to aim at the youth.
But his two arms were as soft as cooked noodles, completely unable to exert any strength.
The tightened bowstring instantly slipped from his hand and rebounded.
The crude ox-tendon string cut fiercely into the web of his right hand.
Slashing open the flesh and directly straining to the white finger bones.
Fresh blood gushed out instantly, dripping onto the blackened muddy ground.
But he couldn't even emit a scream, only opening his mouth to gasp heavily for air.
A sobbing sound similar to a broken bellows came from his throat.
The situation of the other Centaurs was no better.
The air became as heavy as a piece of lead.
Every breath of air sucked into the lungs carried a stabbing pain like blade fragments.
The feral instincts that the Centaurs were proud of became the most fatal poison in front of this youth.
The more sensitive the animal, the clearer the pressure of death felt.
One heavy thud after another sounded all around.
The Centaurs fell in batches.
Bows and arrows were scattered all over the ground.
Some Centaurs tried to forcibly turn around and run away.
But as soon as their hind legs exerted force, their muscles cramped and spasmed.
The entire horse body collapsed on the ground, all four legs twitching unconsciously like crushed bugs.
Spitting out large chunks of white foam from their mouths.
The sour stench of horse sweat grew stronger and stronger, mixed with the smell of blood, making one nauseous.
Arthur stood in place.
He dropped his hands, sweeping across this group of Centaurs with the gaze of looking at low-class livestock.
He didn't even need to pull out a wand.
Just by relying on his aura, he could crush these native inhabitants of the Forbidden Forest into a puddle of mud.
"Holding a few broken sticks, you dare to point at me."
Arthur's voice resounded in the dead silent forest clearing.
There was no hysterical shouting.
Only the coldness of stating facts, even more piercing than the autumn wind outside.
"Who gave you the guts."
Firenze was the only Centaur who was still barely standing.
But his current appearance was wretched to the extreme.
His platinum-blonde hair was completely soaked through with cold sweat, sticking in strands to his forehead.
His robust human chest heaved violently like a bellows.
His four horse legs were shaking frantically.
His muscles kept twitching and could snap at any moment.
Firenze grabbed tightly onto that longbow with both hands, trying to maintain a shred of dignity in standing.
His fingernails had split and rolled back due to excessive force.
Fresh blood streamed down the back of the bow, staining the wood grain red.
He wanted to resist, wanted to speak up to defend the pride of the Centaur tribe.
But he found his soul screaming for mercy.
This suppression force was too domineering.
The aura on Arthur's body was even more profound than the night itself.
This was by no means a conventional disaster that they could interpret in the stellar phenomena.
This was the incarnation of the pure law of destruction.
It was absolute power capable of uprooting the Forbidden Forest.
Firenze fiercely bit the tip of his tongue.
The strong bloody smell and severe pain allowed him to regain control of his body for a single second.
He released the fully drawn bowstring.
The bowstring snapped back, grazing the flesh on his arm and leaving a bloody groove deep enough to see the meat.
The longbow dropped to the ground with a snap.
He gave up all hostility and resistance.
Animal instinct overcame reason.
Submission was the only way to survive.
Firenze raised his head with difficulty.
The night sky was right overhead.
The previous Fiendfyre directly evaporated the tree canopy of this area, revealing the stars outside.
The high temperature of the ground was still surging upward, and the heat wave twisted the starlight out of shape.
Firenze looked at that Mars representing war and disaster.
The star body that usually only glowed slightly red was now as bright as a drop of fresh blood about to drip down.
The stellar phenomena were completely in disarray.
The trajectory of destruction that should have only appeared decades later was forcibly dragged before his eyes by someone and stepped underfoot.
Two lines of clear tears slid down Firenze's dust-covered cheeks.
These were tears of despair from the collapse of faith.
He knew that the forest guarded by the Centaur clan completely changed its master starting from tonight.
Firenze's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper rubbing against each other.
He looked at the night sky distorted by the lingering warmth of Fiendfyre, his eyes filled with despair.
Afterwards, he uttered a sentence that made the entire clan tremble.
Chapter 23 Centaur True Prophecy: The Dark Lord's Arrival
Firenze's voice was as dry as sandpaper rubbing together.
He tilted his head back, the veins on his neck bulging from the strain.
His gaze was glued tightly to the glowing red star in the sky.
"Mars is blindingly bright…"
A breathy, wheezing murmur squeezed from his throat.
The surrounding air was scorching hot, but his entire body was freezing cold.
"The trajectory of fate has snapped."
Firenze lowered his head, looking at the black-robed, blonde-haired youth in front of him.
The trace of despair deep within his eyes thoroughly overflowed.
"The true Dark Lord… has arrived."
This sentence was like a vicious curse.
Slamming onto the nerves of every Centaur present.
The Centaur race had lived for thousands of years; they did not believe in the authority of the Ministry of Magic, nor did they believe in the wands of a Wizard.
They only regarded the stars as the sole truth.
Now, their truth was telling them that the end of the world was standing right in front of them.
A panicked commotion broke out among the Centaurcrowd.
Hooves anxiously trampled the charred muddy ground.
Several young Centaurs even took several steps backward, crashing into their companions.
"Shut up! Firenze!"
A rough roar came from the back of the herd.
Bane shoved aside the companions in front of him, striding to the front.
This bad-tempered black Centaur's face was covered in a furious flush.
He tightly clutched a thick spear in his hand, the tip pointing directly at Arthur.
"He is nothing more than a Wizard cub!"
Bane breathed heavily, his nostrils flared, exhaling white mist.
The pride of the Centaur made him unable to endure the entire tribe kneeling to a human child.
"We have hundreds of warriors! We can stomp him into mincemeat with our hooves alone!"
Prompted by his roar.
Out of the shadows in the surrounding woods, more and more Centaurs walked out.
A vast, dark expanse.
Easily two or three hundred strong, half-human, half-horse creatures.
They gathered together, forming an airtight wall of muscle.
Heavy hooves began to rhythmically trample the ground.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The muffled sounds merged into one, causing even the ground to vibrate along with them.
They attempted to use this massive numerical advantage and physical strength.
To deter and force this intruder to get out of the Forbidden Forest.
The thick smell of horse sweat and the sour stench typical of livestock instantly filled this clearing.
So pungent that people felt sick just breathing.
Arthur stood in place.
He didn't even spare a proper look at the clamoring Bane.
He merely frowned in disgust.
"Too noisy."
Arthur's voice was not loud.
But amidst the roaring sound of hundreds of Centaurs trampling the ground, it eerily drilled into everyone's ears.
Carrying the cold texture of metal scraping against glass.
He was too lazy to even raise his hand.
Only the black vortex deep within his eyes spun abruptly.
"Boom!"
A cluster of pure black flames burst directly from the charred earth beneath Arthur's feet.
Giving the Centaurs no time to react.
Fiendfyre, like a breached black torrent, crazily spread outward hugging the ground.
At a place less than half a meter away from the Centaurcrowd, the fire abruptly soared.
A circular black wall of fire over ten meters high rose from the ground.
Directly trapping these hundreds of Centaurs tightly inside.
The wall of fire did not emit the crackling sound of normal flames.
Only a muffled roar that made one's soul creep.
It sounded like countless evil ghosts were biting and tearing within the black fire.
The temperature soared to a terrifying extreme within a thousandth of a second.
The oxygen in the air was instantly sucked dry.
The hair in front of the foreheads of the few Centaurs in the very front turned scorched yellow and curled within seconds.
A strong smell of burning hair emanated out.
So pungent that people couldn't open their eyes.
Bane's roar became stuck in his throat.
His arm holding the spear stopped mid-air, his muscles as stiff as a rock.
He felt a heavy pressure.
That was the top-tier bloodline suppression from Arthur's recent mutation.
Mixed with Fiendfyre's destructive laws that could burn straight through the soul.
Like an invisible iron mountain crashing directly onto Bane's shoulders.
"Urgh…"
A painful, muffled grunt came from Bane's throat.
His strong horse body began to tremble violently and uncontrollably.
The joints of his front legs emitted an unbearable cracking sound.
He wanted to stand straight.
Wanting to maintain the Centaur's dignity of never bowing their heads to humans.
But physical instinct completely deprived him of control.
Large drops of cold sweat rolled down his face, and before they even hit the ground, they were evaporated into salt grains by the heat wave.
White foam spilled from the cracks of his clenched teeth.
"Crack."
A teeth-aching crisp sound.
Bane's left front leg cartilage was directly snapped by this coercion.
His massive body lost balance, plunging forward abruptly.
His knees slammed heavily onto the scorching stones, smashing into a bloody mess.
As soon as the fresh blood flowed out, it was scorched into black scabs by the high temperature.
Bane's spear dropped into the edge of the fire wall.
Without even a single spark splashing up, it instantly turned into white ash.
Bane's kneeling was like knocking down the first domino.
The hundreds of Centaurs behind him could no longer hold on.
The bows, arrows, and spears in their hands clattered all over the ground.
Collapsing onto the ground one after another.
Some Centaurs couldn't even withstand this high-dimensional soul intimidation.
Foam directly appeared at their mouths, rolling their eyes as they passed out.
The remaining ones who were still conscious all buried their heads deep between their front legs.
The proud tribe that the second before was still trying to resist with numbers.
Now, like a group of pigs and sheep waiting to be slaughtered, lay shivering on the charred earth.
Arthur stepped over the wood chips and gravel all over the floor, walking forward.
He walked in front of Bane.
His black leather boots directly stepped on the broken half-shaft of the spear that Bane dropped.
"Snap."
The rough wooden stick snapped into two sections.
"The stars told you I was coming."
Arthur looked down at the shivering black Centaur lying on the ground, his voice cold to the extreme.
"But it didn't teach you how to shut up."
"A bunch of crossbred livestock, you have no right to speak of dignity in front of me."
Bane convulsed all over.
He didn't even have the strength to raise his head to refute.
Humiliation and despair flowed through his entire body like poison.
But he could only press his face tightly against the scorching soil, praying for this Dark Lord to leave quickly.
Arthur did not kill them.
Because the system prompt tones had already chimed incessantly in his mind.
This kind of mass-scale collapse of faith and extreme panic.
Provided an extremely massive amount of high-tier fear points.
Killing them all would actually be a bit of a waste.
He snapped his fingers.
The surrounding black wall of fire over ten meters high instantly collapsed.
Transforming into specks of black sparks, dissipating in the sultry night wind.
Arthur did not look at this group of mud-like Centaurs again.
He turned around, stepping on the ashes and debris all over the ground.
Striding with his long legs, walking toward the outside of the Forbidden Forest.
Until that black figure completely vanished at the edge of the woods.
The Centaurs lying on the ground dared to emit suppressed pants.
Firenze struggled to prop up his body.
He looked at the devastated Forbidden Forest and the pile of ash belonging to the Acromantula.
Painfully closing his eyes.
Hogwarts's peace was completely torn to shreds tonight.
On the lawn outside the Forbidden Forest, the night wind was very cold.
Forming an extreme contrast with the temperature in the sea of fire just now.
Arthur's black robes swayed slightly in the wind.
When he walked past Hagrid's hut, that Half-Giant was still kneeling on the ground like a wooden stake.
Blankly looking at the mud on the ground, his soul hadn't even returned to his body yet.
Arthur walked into the Castle gates.
The heavy oak doors slowly closed behind him.
Making a muffled roar.
Hogwarts Castle in the dead of night was dead silent.
Most of the torches in the corridor had already gone out.
Leaving only a few still flickering with a weak orange light on the walls.
In the portraits on the wall, those medieval Wizards and knights all hid at the very edge of the canvas.
Not even the slightest snoring sound could be heard.
Arthur walked down the marble stairs.
He originally planned to return to Slytherin's underground dormitory.
To tally up the bountiful earnings in the system tonight.
But just as he walked to the corner on the first floor leading to the dungeons.
His footsteps suddenly stopped.
A trace of weak magical fluctuation came through the air.
Like an invisible cold silk thread gently hooking the magical circuit inside his body.
That fluctuation was very ancient.
Carrying a sense of covert temptation.
Not the aura of a living person, but a dead magical item that had been stored for a very long time.
Things capable of emitting this kind of attraction in front of Arthur were not many in Hogwarts.
Arthur turned around, abandoning the plan to return to his dormitory.
Following that trace of weak traction, he stepped back onto the stairs.
Leather boots stepped on the stone steps, making a clear echo.
He walked through the deserted second-floor corridor.
Bypassing an abandoned girls' bathroom.
Walking all the way toward the more secluded wing of the Castle.
That magical fluctuation became clearer and clearer, carrying a gloomy and cold sense capable of peeping into human hearts.
Arthur stopped in front of the door of an abandoned classroom.
The wooden door was covered in dust and cobwebs.
The brass on the doorknob was already covered in green rust.
It was unknown how many years it had been since anyone had come here.
Arthur raised his hand, his palm pushing against the door panel.
Using only very gentle force.
"Screeech—"
The rusted door hinge emitted a harsh, long sound.
The wooden door slowly swung open inward.
The dust accumulated on the door frame fell down in rustles.
Arthur frowned, waving his sleeve to dispel the floating dust in front of him.
The classroom was not lit.
The windows were tightly blocked by thick, tattered curtains.
The air was full of the smell of moldy old newspapers and rotting wood.
Arthur crossed the threshold, walking into this dark room.
The room was very spacious.
Those dilapidated desks and chairs were piled in the corner, like a pile of unwanted garbage.
And right in the center of the room.
Stood a huge object completely out of place here.
That was a gorgeous mirror whose height reached straight up to the ceiling.
Complex patterns were carved on the golden frame.
The bottom was supported by two stout claws.
At the top of the mirror, a row of strange inscriptions was engraved.
The Mirror of Erised.
Chapter 24: The Mirror of Erised Directly Shatters
The wooden door of the abandoned classroom emitted a teeth-setting squeak.
Arthur stopped right in the center of the room.
This was an ornate mirror that reached all the way up to the ceiling.
Its base consisted of two thick metal beast claws, gripping tightly onto the moldy wooden floor.
The golden frame was engraved with a long string of bizarre backward-written inscriptions.
The musty smell in the air was heavy.
Mixed with the fishy stench of rat droppings and the sour smell of rotting wood.
Arthur raised his head and looked at the smooth surface of the mirror.
The mirror reflected his black robes, as well as that pair of indifferent, heterochromatic pupils.
In the shadows of the classroom corner, a person was actually standing.
Albus Dumbledore was draped in an Invisibility Cloak, his back pressed tightly against the cold stone wall.
He suppressed even his breathing to the lowest possible level.
A few minutes ago, he had just set up the final barrier here to protect the Philosopher's Stone.
He hadn't expected this headache-inducing youth to suddenly barge in.
Dumbledore's palms holding the Elder Wand were covered in cold sweat.
The sweat greased the wood grain, making it somewhat slippery.
He did not make a sound to stop him.
The old Principal stared fixedly at Arthur's back.
He wanted to know what this monster, possessing the bloodline of the first Dark Lord and acting brutally, desired most in the depths of his heart.
Was it supreme power?
Or was it the pursuit of illusory immortality like Lord Voldemort?
As long as one is human, they will have desires.
As long as there are desires, one will be trapped by the Mirror of Erised.
Dumbledore held his breath, his heartbeat drumming dully in his chest.
Arthur stood quietly in front of the mirror.
The mercury luster on the surface of the magic mirror began to ripple like water waves.
An ancient law of probing silently spread out along the mirror's surface.
It was like countless invisible tentacles, trying to drill into Arthur's brain.
To unearth the most hidden greed in the depths of his soul.
Arthur did not resist.
He even found it somewhat amusing, simply letting go of his conscious defenses.
Those probing tentacles successfully drilled inside.
But the magic mirror's originally smooth-running magical circuit suddenly jammed in this very second.
What the mirror usually reflected was nothing more than an ordinary person's money, fame, or dead relatives.
But now it collided with a boundless abyss of destruction.
What Arthur wanted was not to rule Hogwarts.
Nor was it to rule this tiny magical world on Earth.
His ambition was to devour the entire multiverse.
It was to trample all rules and gods underfoot and establish an absolute dictatorial rule.
This dimension of darkness and arrogance directly exceeded the mirror's carrying limit.
The ancient laws of alchemy simply could not parse this level of concept.
The water ripples in the mirror surface began to twist crazily.
Arthur's figure, which was originally reflected, was crudely torn into a blurry black shadow.
The black shadow rapidly expanded inside the mirror.
Almost filling the entire frame.
The magic mirror tried to materialize the scene of the multiverse's destruction.
But it couldn't do it.
Under overload operation, the ancient magic circle emitted a harsh, mournful cry.
"Hum—"
The thick glass mirror surface began to vibrate at a high frequency.
The golden outer metal frame emitted an ugly twisting sound.
It was as if some massive beast inside the mirror was about to burst through its cage.
Dumbledore in the corner widened his eyes.
His blue eyes were filled with shock.
He had lived for over a hundred years and had never seen the Mirror of Erised exhibit this kind of reaction.
The mirror was afraid.
It couldn't withstand the ambition of that eleven-year-old youth.
Web-like cracks suddenly burst open on the mirror surface.
After the first crack appeared, the entire mirror surface was instantly covered with densely packed cracks.
The harsh glass friction sound made one's eardrums ache.
Arthur frowned in disgust.
He felt this commotion was simply too noisy.
He took half a step back, his black leather boots stepping on the brittle wooden floor.
At the same time he stepped back, the mirror reached its limit.
"Bang!"
A deafening roar exploded in the classroom.
The Mirror of Erised, which reached up to the ceiling, shattered directly.
Countless sharp glass fragments, like razor blades, shot out crazily in all directions.
The fragments cut through the thick old curtains.
They plunged into the surrounding dilapidated wooden tables and chairs, making dull thudding sounds.
Countless deep white marks were scratched onto the walls.
Arthur didn't even draw his wand.
He merely tilted his head slightly.
Those glass shards flying toward his face, when they approached within half a foot of him,
collided with an invisible magic wall.
instantly turned into fine glass powder, falling in a rustle by his feet.
He patted away a bit of dust clinging to his sleeve.
His movement was very casual.
It was as if what had been shattered was not a supreme treasure of the magical world, but a cheap glass cup.
In the corner, Dumbledore gritted his teeth hard.
He used a silent Shield Charm to block the splashing fragments.
The old Principal's back was completely soaked in cold sweat.
His robes clung to his back, sticky and extremely uncomfortable.
Right now, he didn't even dare to breathe heavily, fearing it would attract the attention of that youth.
Dust filled the air.
After the mirror was blown up, it revealed the empty metal frame behind it.
"Clack."
A stone the size of a baby's fist fell out from the crevice of the shattered base.
The stone smashed onto the dusty floor.
It rolled twice and stopped right in front of Arthur's toes.
The stone was blood-red all over, its surface pitted and bumpy.
Under the dim light, it exuded a rich magic of life.
Philosopher's Stone.
Nicolas Flamel's greatest masterpiece refined over hundreds of years.
The key to immortality that countless Dark Wizards dreamed of obtaining.
It had originally been hidden by Dumbledore within the core laws of the magic mirror.
Now that the laws were shattered, it just rolled out like trash.
Arthur lowered his head to look at this blood-red stone.
In his heterochromatic pupils, there was only pure disdain.
Relying on such external objects refined by draining others' life force to barely survive,
was simply a disgrace to magic,
and a pathetic toy of the weak.
He raised his right foot.
His black leather boot hovered directly above the Philosopher's Stone.
He prepared to stomp this broken stone into useless powder with one kick.
The sole of his boot, carrying an unmasked destructive force, slammed down fiercely.
Just at the instant when the sole of the boot was about to touch the red stone,
in the heavy shadows outside the door of the abandoned classroom,
a heavy and greedy panting sound suddenly came,
accompanied by sticky sounds of swallowing saliva, a pair of feet crushed the glass shards on the ground.
Chapter 25: The Philosopher's Stone Deserves to Catch My Eye?
The leather boot hovered mid-air.
Arthur did not step down.
In the shadows of the corridor, that heavy breathing grew closer, carrying a wheezing sound like a leaky lung.
"Creak, creak."
The soles of the shoes stepped on the broken glass all over the floor, producing a teeth-gritting friction sound.
Quirrell stumbled out from the darkness.
His once decent robes were now covered in dirt and stains, and the hem was torn with a long slit.
His right hand was wrapped in thick bandages, with a layer of dark red blood seeping through the outside.
Even yellow pus was dripping down the edge of the gauze, falling into the dust.
An unpleasant medicinal smell mixed with the stench of rotting flesh slowly dispersed in the classroom.
Quirrell did not look at Arthur at all.
His bloodshot eyes were glued tightly to the red stone in front of Arthur's toes.
His Adam's apple rolled violently up and down, swallowing sticky saliva.
"Get... get it..."
A hoarse voice sounded from beneath the turban on the back of Quirrell's head.
The voice was very low, yet it carried a kind of madness like a starving dog seeing a bone.
In the shadows of the corner, Dumbledore pressed closely against the wall.
Through the Invisibility Cloak, the old Principal's breathing instantly stagnated.
He smelled that putrid scent and heard that hoarse voice that did not belong to Quirrell.
Tom.
Dumbledore's finger joints pinching the Elder Wand turned white from exerting force.
He had guessed that Lord Voldemort was not dead, but he did not expect this lingering soul to have been hiding in Hogwarts all along.
Right under his nose.
Lord Voldemort had originally been scared out of his wits by Arthur's Fiendfyre.
These past few days, he had been hiding in a dark office like a rat, trembling even in his sleep, fearing that the blond youth would come looking for him.
But the magic fluctuation from the shattering of the Mirror of Erised just now was too intense.
The aura of the Philosopher's Stone was completely exposed.
The temptation of eternal life was like a fire, directly burning away the last remaining sanity of Lord Voldemort.
As long as he got the Philosopher's Stone, he could reshape his physical body and get rid of this disgusting parasite-like life.
The greed to return to his peak firmly overwhelmed his fear of Fiendfyre.
Quirrell took a large step forward.
His left foot tripped on the shattered wooden strips of the picture frame, and his whole body staggered heavily forward.
He could not care about stabilizing his body, and his remaining left hand thrust violently forward.
His withered fingers spread open, the gaps in his nails filled with black mud.
He desperately tried to reach for that blood-red stone radiating the magic of life.
Arthur looked coldly at the man lunging over like a zombie.
There was not a shred of fluctuation in his eyes, only pure disgust.
The tip of his foot flicked slightly.
The side of his leather boot casually kicked the edge of the Philosopher's Stone.
"Clatter."
This supreme alchemical treasure, Nicolas Flamel's painstaking effort, for which countless Dark Wizards fought tooth and nail.
Was kicked away like the most ordinary broken brick on the roadside.
The Philosopher's Stone rolled a dozen times on the dusty floor, knocking aside a pile of broken glass.
Finally hitting the corner with a snap, covered in black dust.
Quirrell lunged into empty space.
His knees slammed heavily onto the wooden floor, producing a dull sound of flesh colliding.
Several sharp shards of broken glass stabbed directly into his trouser legs, piercing his skin and flesh, seeping out tiny beads of blood.
But he could not even cry out in pain.
He simply lay on the ground, scratching at the wooden boards with both hands.
Watching despairingly at that stone rolling far away.
"Is this the Dark Lord who once made the magical world tremble?"
Arthur looked at Quirrell lying on the ground like mud, his tone very flat.
The voice carried an unresolvable mockery, scraping across Quirrell's eardrums like cold blades.
"Depending on a dead object refined by sucking away other people's life force, lingering on like an old dog."
Arthur kept his hands in the pockets of his black robes, his body standing straight.
"You regard this inferior handout as eternal life?"
"Cutting your soul into pieces, hiding under someone else's scalp like a parasite in a ditch."
"What a nauseating trick."
As soon as these words were spoken, the air in the abandoned classroom suddenly froze.
The soul in the back of Quirrell's head convulsed violently, like a venomous snake stepped on its vital spot.
What Lord Voldemort was most proud of in his life was that he had walked farther than anyone else on the path of eternal life.
To escape death, he even did not hesitate to turn himself into a monster.
That was the highest masterpiece of his lifelong pursuit.
And it was also his last trump card to maintain the dignity of a Dark Lord.
Now, this ultimate goal for which he had paid every price.
In the mouth of this eleven-year-old youth, had turned into an inferior handout and ridiculous garbage.
This humiliation originating from the deepest part of his soul drove him madder than directly burning him with Fiendfyre.
The last shred of self-esteem of the second Dark Lord was directly trampled into the mud by these few words, crushed to pieces.
"Kill... kill him!"
The voice beneath the turban instantly raised in pitch.
No longer a weak murmur, it turned into a piercing and vicious roar.
His vocal cords tore from excessive exertion, and the sound was as harsh as a rusted saw sawing wood.
Quirrell trembled violently all over, completely losing control of his own body.
He hurriedly raised his uninjured left hand and grabbed the large purple turban on his head.
Yanking it hard downwards.
Several circles of smelly fabric fell onto the floor.
An extreme stench of decay surged straight up into the air, making people's stomachs churn with acid water.
Like rotting meat baked under the sun for three days.
Quirrell's body turned half a circle like a puppet, with his back to Arthur.
On the back of his head grew a distorted human face.
There was no nose, only two slender, snake-like slits.
The pale skin clung tightly to the bones, without a trace of color.
In those bloodshot eyes were full of malice about to overflow and manic murderous intent.
"You arrogant pure-blood brat..."
Lord Voldemort's remaining face wriggled wildly on the back of Quirrell's head, his features squeezed together in anger.
"I will peel off your skin, pull out your soul, and throw it into the Black Lake to feed the worms!"
Driven by this furious will, Quirrell barely crawled up from the ground.
His left hand blindly fumbled in his robe pockets.
Grasping a spare short wand.
This was an inferior item he had casually found to cover his tracks.
Because his left hand was unaccustomed to it, plus his body was shaking too violently, the wand almost dropped to the ground.
He clenched his teeth tightly, his pale face turning livid from holding back.
Raising the wand with his left hand, the tip of the wand locked onto Arthur's chest.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Quirrell shouted until his voice cracked, spitting out a few drops of saliva mixed with blood threads from his throat.
A sickly green light burst out from the tip of the short wand.
The green light illuminated the dark and moldy abandoned classroom, reflecting green on the glass fragments all over the floor.
Carrying an aura of death so thick it could not be dissolved, it directly tore through the air.
Blasting fiercely toward Arthur's face.
In the corner.
Dumbledore almost cried out in surprise.
He subconsciously raised the Elder Wand, wanting to wave a spell to block this fatal green light.
But the blond youth ahead didn't even lift an eyelid.
Arthur did not dodge.
His hands didn't even come out of his robe pockets.
Facing this so-called Unforgivable Killing Curse.
He merely moved his fingers slightly in his pocket, a wisp of magic seeping through the fabric from his fingertips.
"Snap."
A wisp of pure black spark popped directly out from the air in front of him.
The moment the spark appeared, it ballooned against the wind.
The surrounding temperature surged within a thousandth of a second, burning the air to make a crackling explosion sound.
The black fire distorted violently in mid-air, transforming in the blink of an eye into an abyss giant mouth composed of black flames.
The giant mouth opened to its extreme, revealing the burning black fangs inside.
Directly biting down hard on the Killing Curse cast by Quirrell.
Chapter 26 Quirrell Did Not Even Have Ashes Left
That abyss-like giant maw formed by black flames.
Tightly clamped down on the ghastly green Killing Curse.
There was no earth-shattering explosion.
Nor was there any stalemate of two magical forces pushing against each other.
This was simply a one-sided devouring.
The upper and lower jaws of the black fire giant maw slammed shut abruptly.
Making a crisp snap, as if chewing to pieces a dry, brittle bone.
The thick aura of death from the Killing Curse became substandard nourishment in front of the Fiendfyre.
The ghastly green light did not even have room to struggle.
It was swallowed straight down.
The green light in the abandoned classroom instantly extinguished.
Replaced by surging black firelight, casting a dim glow on the shattered glass on the ground.
Although the spell was swallowed, the magical trajectory established by the casting was still there.
Fiendfyre was alive, after all.
Following that invisible magic wire in the air, it fiercely lunged back.
The speed was ten times faster than a Snitch.
Leaving only a black afterimage that distorted the air.
Quirrell was still holding that substandard short wand with his left hand.
He had not even seen clearly how the green light disappeared.
A cluster of black fire suddenly burst from the tip of the wooden stick in his hand.
"Hiss——"
When the dry wood encountered the Fiendfyre, it could not even put up half a second of resistance.
The wand began to vaporize directly from the tip.
Without even falling as ash, it directly turned into transparent air.
Quirrell was stunned for half a breath of time.
By the time he reacted and wanted to let go, it was too late.
The black flames had already licked onto his left-hand fingers along the remains of the wand.
"Ah ah——!"
A distorted scream tore out from Quirrell's throat.
The moment his left index and middle fingers came into contact with the black fire.
The flesh directly peeled off from the bones.
The nerve endings underneath, along with the white bones, were burned into flying ash.
The excruciating pain chopped straight into his brain along his arm.
Quirrell shook his left arm like he was electrocuted.
Trying to shake off the fire on his hand.
But the Fiendfyre was like a living viper, biting tightly onto the prey's flesh and blood.
Burning wildly all the way up along Quirrell's wrist.
Quirrell's knees went soft, and he fell heavily onto the floor.
His knees crashed onto the shattered glass, piercing them bloody.
But he could not feel the pain on his legs at all.
He rolled all over the floor in pain.
Quirrell used that right hand wrapped in gauze to frantically pat the flames on his left arm.
"Put out the fire... quickly put it out! Water!"
He roared wildly, the muscles on his face bunching together from pain.
Snot and tears mixed together and flowed down, immediately baked dry by the heat wave.
But patting was completely useless.
As soon as his right hand touched the black fire.
With a bang.
The antiseptic Potion inside the gauze instantly turned into an accelerant.
Both of Quirrell's arms completely turned into black torches.
The abandoned classroom was like a giant oven.
The temperature was abnormally high.
Large chunks of wall plaster fell off, crashing onto the dusty floor.
The air was filled with a thick, nauseating smell of scorched barbecued meat.
Mixed with the pungent stench of burnt hair.
Quirrell rolled frantically on the ground.
His back knocked over a broken desk, kicking up a burst of dust.
The robes on his body had long since burned away, the clothing fibers melting into his flesh and skin.
The flesh and blood rapidly shrank under the high temperature.
The burning fat made a sizzling sound.
A few drops of yellow grease dripped onto the floor.
Instantly burning black deep pits into the wooden boards.
Quirrell twisted into a bizarre posture on the ground.
He stretched out his two already carbonized arms toward Arthur's direction.
Fragmented pleading sounds spat out from his mouth.
His vocal cords were scalded by the inhaled hot air, and his voice sounded like torn rags.
Arthur stood two meters away.
His hands still tucked in his robe pockets.
The black firelight reflected on his expressionless face.
He did not take even half a step back.
Just watching coldly as Quirrell struggled in the sea of fire.
He even felt it was a bit noisy.
Such worthless ants always made an exceptionally large amount of noise before dying.
In the corner.
Dumbledore was hiding under the Invisibility Cloak.
The old Principal's breathing was completely disordered.
He felt as if he had inhaled a handful of crushed glass into his lungs, aching painfully.
Sweat on his forehead flowed down along his wrinkles, streaming into his eyes.
Dumbledore's right hand tightly gripped the Elder Wand.
The wooden wand body was covered in slippery cold sweat.
A battle of heaven and man was waging in his heart.
Save someone?
With this intensity of Fiendfyre, even the Elder Wand could not extinguish it instantly.
If he forcedly made a move now, he would be exposed.
By then, facing this unhinged Dark Lord's bloodline, Hogwarts might turn into ruins tonight.
Dumbledore clenched his teeth tightly.
His teeth chattered loudly.
He chose silence, shrinking his body deeper into the shadows.
That residual face on the back of Quirrell's head was now completely insane as well.
Lord Voldemort felt the approach of death.
He was parasitic on this shell, and now the shell was about to be burned away.
The high temperature of the Fiendfyre burned all the way to the root of the neck along Quirrell's blood.
Lord Voldemort's nose-less face was severely distorted.
His red eyes were filled with terror.
"Get away! Get out of this body!"
He was giving orders to Quirrell.
But he forgot that a large portion of Quirrell's nervous system had already been burned away.
This body could not move at all.
The black flames leaped onto Quirrell's chest.
The withered chest muscles instantly contracted under the high temperature.
The ribs made a crisp cracking sound in the black fire.
"Snap, snap."
The chest cavity collapsed directly.
The moisture in the internal organs was vaporized dry within a thousandth of a second.
Not a single drop of blood flowed onto the ground.
Because the blood had already vaporized into a red mist before flowing out of the blood vessels.
And was swallowed up in one gulp by the black fire.
Quirrell's struggle grew weaker.
His legs were also submerged by the sea of fire.
The body stopped rolling, leaving only unconscious twitching.
The limbs turned into black ash first.
Before the ashes could fall onto the floor, they were blown away by the backflowing hot wind.
Not even a complete bone was left behind.
The black fire surged upward fiercely.
Completely enveloping Quirrell's head that grew two faces.
The skull emitted a muffled explosion under the high temperature.
The entire head instantly caved in.
The flesh and skin were burned completely clean, and the exposed skull turned into fine powder in the next second.
Complete ashes?
Non-existent.
In front of Arthur's Fiendfyre, inferior life did not even have the qualification to leave a trace.
Within just a few seconds, Quirrell's physical body.
Directly turned into a wisp of blue smoke floating in the air.
The firelight slowly dimmed.
On the ground, only a dilapidated wooden floorboard with deep pits burned into it remained.
At the very second when Quirrell's physical body completely collapsed and the last section of his cervical vertebrae turned into powder.
"Hiss ah——!"
A piercing, inhumanly shrill scream exploded fiercely in the classroom.
A ball of black mist carrying a malignant and terrified expression suddenly darted out from the lingering flames.
Chapter 27 Lord Voldemort Flees in Panic
Crash.
The stained glass window shattered under the immense impact.
Colorful glass fragments splashed out like sharp blades.
Refracting the pale moonlight outside.
A ball of black fog, thick as ink, squeezed frantically out through the broken hole.
Extremely fast.
It even stirred up a harsh, shrill whistling of airflow.
The cold wind immediately poured into this classroom on the fourth floor through the broken window.
Blowing away the stench of flesh being instantly vaporized in the room.
The black fog rolled and twisted violently in mid-air.
A pale green ghostly light flashed faintly inside.
That was Lord Voldemort's tattered main soul.
He did not look back, nor did he even have the thought of uttering harsh words.
Now there was only one instinctive command left in his mind.
Flee.
Flee as far as possible.
The October night wind was very cold.
Blowing on ghosts or ethereal bodies usually didn't cause much feeling.
But Lord Voldemort felt at this moment as if his entire soul was being subjected to death by a thousand cuts.
That was not the temperature of the wind.
It was the rule power left behind by Fiendfyre.
That overbearing black fire didn't need physical fuel at all.
It tightly bit onto the edge of Lord Voldemort's soul, burning his mental power bit by bit like dry firewood.
"Ah—"
Inhuman screams came from within the black fog.
The voice was hoarse and dragged out long, echoing in the night sky.
Lord Voldemort flew over the Black Lake.
Beneath the originally calm lake water, the giant squid dived directly into the deepest sludge.
It felt the extreme panic and brutality emitted by that ball of black fog in mid-air.
It didn't even have the courage to stretch out its tentacles.
Too painful.
Lord Voldemort's consciousness began to blur.
That burning pain of his soul being crushed and charred inch by inch made him almost unable to maintain the form of the mist.
Ten years ago in Godric's Hollow.
When the Killing Curse rebounded and hit him, his physical body collapsed instantly.
But back then he couldn't feel this kind of despairing pain.
Because he had Horcruxes.
He knew he wouldn't die; his soul was anchored to the mortal world.
But now, his proud trump card of immortality was ruthlessly crushed.
He could clearly feel it.
The black fire released by that blonde boy carried a rule that directly obliterated the origin.
If the main soul was burned to nothingness here.
Those Horcruxes hidden all over the world wouldn't even have a chance to revive.
They would be burned completely clean by this flame along the causal line of the soul.
This real and thorough threat of death.
Like a rusty saw, pulling back and forth on Lord Voldemort's fragile nerves.
The black fog crashed headfirst into the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
The speed was too fast, directly snapping a dozen rough pine branches.
Withered yellow pine needles mixed with bark chips fell down rustlingly.
Lord Voldemort couldn't care about avoiding obstacles.
He frantically shuttled through the damp and rotting pile of leaves like a venomous snake crawling close to the ground.
The dense canopy blocked the moonlight.
It was pitch black in the forest, you couldn't see your fingers in front of your eyes.
He needed magic.
He needed fresh vitality to fill the huge deficit burned into his soul by Fiendfyre.
The black fog rolled through the mud, crushing a cluster of moldy poisonous mushrooms.
A foraging goblin happened to poke its head out from a tree hole.
Lord Voldemort pounced directly.
The mist instantly wrapped around that dusty little monster.
The goblin didn't even have the strength to struggle.
Making only half a short scream, it turned into a withered skeleton.
Flesh, blood, and vitality were instantly drained dry.
But this wasn't enough.
The vitality of this lower creature wasn't even enough to plug the gaps between his teeth.
Lord Voldemort continued to wander in the muddy ground.
Toads, mice, or even fist-sized poisonous spiders.
As long as it was a living creature, he sucked them dry like a starved ghost.
Humiliation.
An unprecedented, ultimate humiliation, mixed with fear, fermented in Lord Voldemort's soul.
He was the great Dark Lord.
The supreme existence that once made the entire European magical world not even dare to mention his name.
Those haughty pure-blood family heads had to kneel on the ground and kiss the hem of his robe when they saw him.
But now.
He was like a stray dog whose spine had been broken by someone.
He could only hide in a stinking mud pit, surviving on eating insects under the tree bark.
And the one who drove him to this point.
Was an eleven-year-old first-year student.
A child who hadn't even drawn his wand.
Lord Voldemort stopped under a dead oak tree.
The wood here was completely decayed, exuding a strong fermented sour smell.
The black fog shrank into a ball only the size of a watermelon.
Hiding in a dark corner and shivering.
He risked the danger of his soul tearing.
Forcibly stripped away the outer layer of magiccontaminated by Fiendfyre.
Abandoning this part of the soul made him let out another wail.
The black fog became thin, almost blending into the darkness.
"Grindelwald..."
These four words hovered repeatedly in his mind.
Every time he thought of it, his soul would tremble uncontrollably.
He didn't even dare to recall that pure black flame.
Even just remembering it would cause his spiritual body to experience a burst of phantom pain.
Too overbearing.
How could the magical world breed such a completely unreasonable monster.
Lord Voldemort regarded Horcruxes as his greatest masterpiece.
He sliced his soul with slaughter, thinking he had transcended life and death.
But in front of Arthur, these proud Dark Arts attainments were like using a paper shield to block a dragon's breath.
Ridiculous to the extreme.
He decided to sleep in the forests of Albania.
Go to the swamps that Vampires wouldn't even want to go to.
As long as he could avoid the sight of that blonde boy, he could endure eating as many dead mice as he wanted.
Dignity was worthless in front of absolute destruction.
Shifting focus back to Hogwarts Castle.
The Defense Against the Dark Arts Class on the fourth floor.
Arthur stood before the broken window.
His black leather boots stepped on the glass fragments all over the floor, making a fine crunching sound.
The cold wind blew his dark silver-patterned robe billowing backward.
The floor of the classroom was covered with a thick layer of white ash.
That was everything Quirrell left behind in this world.
Not even bone fragments were left.
Thoroughly burned into powder by Fiendfyre.
When the wind blew, the white ash spun in mid-air.
A few grains of dust landed on Arthur's boot upper.
He didn't even have the interest to look down at it.
A former Professor of Hogwarts.
Now he only deserved to be the dust on his boot upper.
Arthur had his hands in his robe pockets, his posture very relaxed.
His heterochromatic pupils, intertwined with pale and pitch-black, quietly gazed in the direction of the Forbidden Forest.
The black fog had long since been invisible.
Even Lord Voldemort's faint magic fluctuation completely disappeared at the end of the sea of trees.
The edge of the windowsill was bare.
Just now Quirrell didn't even have a chance to shed a single drop of blood before being directly vaporized.
"Running quite fast indeed."
Arthur's voice was very soft, appearing exceptionally bland in the cold wind.
Without even a trace of urgency for pursuit.
He felt that Lord Voldemort's posture of escaping was extremely comical.
Like a mouse with a scalded tail running amok in the sewers.
A Dark Lord without a physical body didn't even qualify to make him move his fingers.
If he had directly burned that remaining soul clean just now, this high-quality leek would have been completely gone.
Leaving him behind, letting this fear ferment in Lord Voldemort's soul.
Was more valuable than killing him directly.
After all, a frightened bird with the name of the Dark Lord.
Could continuously provide the highest quality emotional currency.
This was the code of the predator.
The night wind grew stronger and stronger.
The dark clouds in the sky were blown apart a bit, and the pale moonlight shone into the classroom.
Illuminating the white ash and broken glass all over the floor.
Arthur unhurriedly took out a silk handkerchief.
Wiping away the speck of dust stained on his boot upper.
Then he let go, allowing the handkerchief to be blown out of the window by the wind.
Outside the corridor it was very quiet.
Even though magic fluctuations sufficient to destroy the entire floor had erupted here just now.
No one dared to come up to check now.
Professors and students had long been frightened out of their wits by his methods.
The smell of sulfur in the air gradually dissipated.
Arthur turned around, preparing to leave this ash-covered classroom.
Just at this moment.
The system that was originally quiet deep within his mind.
Suddenly erupted with an unprecedented, massive mechanical roar.
The sound was so loud it almost pierced through consciousness.
Shaking Arthur's eardrums to produce a slight resonance.
[Ding!]
The highest level of fear settlement officially began.