"Damn it!" Avery, standing at the edge of the clearing and seeing Alan instantly neutralize half of his team, barked at the men remaining beside him.
"Hurry up and attack! He just used several area-of-effect spells at once; he must be low on magic. It would be a catastrophe to lose this simply. Move!"
The four wizards in the back row finally snapped into action. Slacking off was no longer an option; the flashbulbs from the surrounding reporters were incessant, and the whispers of the onlookers had grown into a dull roar.
"Scourgify!" "Expelliarmus!" "Stupefy!"
The reinforcements reacted quickly, using the Cleaning Charm to vanish the standing water from the floor to prevent further electrical conduction, while the others unleashed a barrage aimed directly at Alan. They no longer looked down on him. Their spells came in a frantic, overlapping stream, less concerned with precision and more intent on drowning the boy in sheer volume.
"Heh. Finally getting serious, are we? A bit late for that, don't you think? If you had launched a saturated attack with ten people from the start, you might have posed a threat. But now..." Alan sneered, his body blurring into motion.
Alan's figure shifted suddenly, jumping left and right with agile, rhythmic steps. He moved like a shadow, dodging the incoming curses through pure footwork and timing. Dozens of spells hissed past him, the closest missing by mere centimeters. To anyone else, such a close-shave situation would be paralyzing, but Alan remained unnervingly composed. He watched the battlefield with the detached air of an observer controlling a puppet, tilting his head, twisting his torso, or dipping at the waist to let the magic whistle harmlessly by.
The curses he evaded slammed into the heavy stone walls behind him, emitting a dense, rhythmic series of cracks and booms that served as a grim reminder of the power he was dodging. The reporters and wizards watching were stunned. It was outrageous—could a wizard truly bypass the majority of magical attacks through movement alone?
"No, he's too fast! We can't just aim where he is. I'll track his current position; the rest of you, bracket him with area-effect spells!" Avery shouted, his surprise turning into tactical desperation.
The four men beside him nodded grimly. This young man could no longer be measured by the standards of a normal student. Only total escalation would work now.
*Only now realizing you need to lead your shots?* Alan thought. *You really are slow. Well, the warm-up is over anyway.*
Avery's group didn't know what Alan was thinking. They followed the command instantly.
"Confringo!" "Oppugno!" "Incendio!"
They unleashed a wall of fire and explosions. If he was fast and agile, they would simply remove the space he had to move in. The crowd gasped at the scale of the magic. Using such destructive spells in a public duel was borderline contemptible, but their eyes widened even further at Alan's response.
Alan leaped into the air. With each mid-air step, a transparent, solid platform generated by a Shield Charm appeared beneath his boots. He ascended as if climbing an invisible staircase, soaring five or six meters above the floor. The banquet hall was fortunately grand enough to accommodate the height; in any other building, he would have hit the ceiling in two strides.
"Merlin's beard, can you actually use the Shield Charm like that?" a reporter exclaimed.
"Tch, that's nothing special," Vivian boasted from the sidelines, her voice filled with pride. "You haven't seen the three-meter-high obstacle courses he makes us run every day."
"You're his classmate?" the reporter asked, scribbling furiously. "What is an obstacle course? Why do you run on it?"
"We're in the same House. He shapes tracks out of Shield Charms and makes us sprint through them. If we don't finish the laps on time, the charms fail and we fall. It hurts quite a bit," Vivian complained, though her eyes were fixed on the fight.
The reporter marveled at the training regimen of the modern Hogwarts student, but his attention was jerked back to the arena as Alan made his move.
Suspended seven meters in the air, Alan watched as the heavy spells meant to trap him passed harmlessly below, erupting against the far wall in a deafening series of blasts.
"I imagine you're tired of casting. It's my turn now," Alan said, his voice echoing.
"Knock him down! Use explosion spells!" Avery screamed, his chest heaving as he struggled for breath.
"Phew... using that much power... we're exhausted, Avery," one of the wizards gasped.
The high-frequency casting had taken its toll. Several were already regretting ever stepping onto the floor. They had come for a banquet, not a war. But Alan, hanging in the air, had no interest in their regrets. If they dared to stand against him, they would leave on stretchers.
Alan launched his counterattack. His wand hand moved in a blur, leaving faint afterimages as he rained spells down from his aerial vantage point. The wizards on the ground scrambled to raise their Protego shields, bracing for the impact.
But the spells were not what they expected. From the defenders' perspective, only five red bolts were flying down—one for each man—but when the magic collided with their shields, the impact was staggering. Heavy, muffled thuds rang out. Even though they were only Stupefying Charms, the sheer physical force behind them was absurd. It felt like being hit by a charging centaur.