The wind sweeping across the lakeside underwent a sudden and nauseating transformation, shifting from the clean, crisp evening breeze to something far more sinister and sickening.

Above them, the crimson moon casted its light down upon the rippling surface of the lake, causing the water itself to appear as if it were literally rising with a bloody glow.

In the countless gunfight movies that Louise had watched during lazy afternoons at the local cinema, she had become familiar with the classic scenes of rival gangs facing off with their submachine guns and pistols.

Even in the reality of her professional life, she had unfortunately witnessed the aftermath of genuine violence—ordinary people whose lives had been cut short by bullets fired in anger, desperation, or under scheming. Those experiences had taught her that real violence was nothing like the choreographed sequences of Hollywood films, but rather something brutal, sudden, and utterly concluding.

Now, however, she found herself thrust into the central role of such a confrontation, with more than a dozen wands pointing at her, Bryan, and Kingsley.

Compared to the dark muzzles of guns being threatened by what appeared to be nothing more than small wooden sticks might initially seem almost comical, perhaps even absurd. However, these were not ordinary little sticks, but wands possessing all kind of incredible abilities!

Moreover, the cold eyes and murderous aura radiating from the tense faces of those holding the wands were anything but ridiculous.

Unconsciously, as the reality of their desperate situation finally penetrated her shocked mind, Louise began to tremble as she seemed powerless to take the situation and staggered backward.

“There won’t be any danger—” Bryan said, turning his head to glance at Louis and said humorously, “If you feel afraid, you can close your eyes and cover your ears like a child hiding from a thunderstorm.”

The suggestion, delivered with such matter-of-fact humor in the face of their desperate looking situation, was simultaneously insulting and oddly comforting.

“I’m no coward!” Louise muttered defiantly, her voice carrying more conviction than she actually felt at the moment. The words were as much an attempt to convince herself as they were a response to Bryan’s teasing suggestion.

Despite her declaration of courage, she had to admit that the fear that had been beginning to overwhelm her rational thought processes did indeed dissipate considerably under the influence of Bryan’s casual confidence and gentle mockery.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look toward the opposing force of wizards. They were a diverse group in terms of age, appearance and attire.

Finally, Louise’s gaze settled on the tall, strikingly beautiful woman who clearly served as the leader of this group. Either she or Angus Aeschylus—one of them was the person who had killed her brother.

To Jasna’s question about the origins of the pocket watch, Bryan turned a deaf ear. He swept his gaze once more over the group of fierce-looking but inwardly timid people. When he finally spoke, his tone carried a note of slight disappointment: “Only these people?”

“How much do you know about us, Watson—” Jasna said with barely controlled anger at being so casually dismissed. The fact that Bryan had completely ignored her previous question had clearly struck a nerve in her.

Receiving no response beyond Bryan’s continued examination of her group, a flash of anger fury crosse Jasna’s face. She visibly struggled to maintain her composure. When she finally managed to speak again, her voice was filled with coldness: “Answer me, you arrogant fool.”

“In my opinion,” Bryan responded with the same calm, reasonable tone that he might have used to discuss the weather or comment on the evening’s dinner menu, “why don’t you put down your wands like sensible adults, come back to London with me voluntarily, and confess the crimes you’ve committed?”

The suggestion was so absurdly reasonable, delivered with such genuine-sounding sincerity, that for a moment it almost seemed as if Bryan actually expected them to obey with his request.

“Attack!” Jasna’s response was as decisive as it was inevitable. In fact, she had never intended to say much to Watson.

BOOM!

In an instant, an incredibly dazzling explosion of magical energy erupted in front of Louise’s startled eyes, creating a firework display that was both beautiful and terrifying in its intensity. The blazing light was so intense that it seemed to illuminate the entire surrounding landscape as bright as day.

The sheer volume of magical power contained within the spells that surged forth from more than a dozen wands simultaneously was unlike anything Louise could have imagined.

The combined attack created a roaring torrent of destructive energy that resembled a seawater during a hurricane, with waves of raw magical force crashing against each other and amplifying their combined destructive potential.

Every inch of air within Louise’s field of vision appeared to be vibrating creating a shimmering effect that reminded her of heat mirages rising from roads in summer.

Rain-like dense curse lights swept rapidly across the earth, the green lawn was being quickly stripped away under the fierce howling wind, revealing the black soil beneath. The instantaneous eruption of such massive magical power ionized the surrounding air, and the rushing curse lights carried crackling blue-white lightning as they surged forward!

Kingsley’s face changed dramatically. Within the magical barrier he had set up, the concealment charms and privacy wards were instantly shattered under the overwhelming assault of so many powerful spells being cast simultaneously.

Louise’s scream of terror and disbelief was immediately swallowed and rendered inaudible by the almost simultaneous roar of magical energy being unleashed on a scale that made thunder seem like a whisper.

As if the frontal attacks were not overwhelming enough, the tactical situation suddenly became even more desperate as several additional wizards suddenly emerged from their concealment behind the weeping willow trees by the lakeshore.

These reinforcements had clearly been positioned in advance to create a devastating crossfire that would eliminate any possibility of escape or effective defense.

The newly revealed attackers raised their wands high above their heads, channeling their magical energy into one of the most dangerous and uncontrollable spells.

Fiendfyre began to take shape at the tips of their wands like flowers of destruction blooming in the darkness.

The raging flames shot up toward the star-filled sky with the speed and power of supernatural rockets, obscuring the skies and transforming the peaceful night into something that resembled the end of the world.

As the fires reached their peak height, they began to undergo a horrifying metamorphosis, reshaping themselves into fierce fire dragons with wings that could block out the moon, erklings with claws that could tear through solid stone, and other magical creatures born from nightmare and given form through the power of corrupted flame.

These burning monstrosities circled overhead like vultures waiting for flesh, their forms were constantly shifting and changing as the Fiendfyre that composed their bodies responded to the violent emotions of their creators.

When the aerial monsters finally began their dive toward the three below, they moved with the terrible beauty of falling stars, their fiery forms were leaving trails of flame like the signatures of gods writing messages of destruction across the night sky.

In this tsunami-like assault that combined ground-based curse work with aerial bombardment from creatures of living flame, Bryan, Kingsley, and Louise at the center of the storm seemed extremely small and fragile, like three people standing on a beach as a hurricane-driven tide wave arrived.

The scale of the magical attacks thrown at them was so crushing that it seemed as if a single wave of the combined attack could make them disappear completely.

Kingsley’s face turned pale. The sheer volume of magical energy being thrown at their position was beyond anything he had ever witnessed, even during the darkest days of the previous wizarding war.

He couldn’t handle such a powerful attack at all and could only turn his gaze to Bryan. At the same time, he was puzzled—each of these attackers could be called Masters in the European magical community. How had this organization managed to gather so many powerful wizards?

But dwelling on these was ultimately meaningless in their current situation. The most important and immediate question was whether they had any means of surviving the next few seconds.

Bryan, however, displayed absolutely no visible reaction to the overwhelming display of magical force that was about to engulf them.

Facing the roaring sea of supernatural fire and the unstoppable tide of destructive curses that was approaching like an avalanche, Bryan didn’t even bother to raise his wand in a gesture of defense or preparation for counterattack.

Most critically, Bryan appeared to be completely “stunned with fear”—his expression had been replaced by something that seemed slightly bewildered and unfocused, as if his mind had wandered to some completely unrelated matter at the worst possible moment.

Only in his eyes, which caught and reflected the brilliant firelight of the approaching Fiendfyre creatures, did something indefinable seem to be brewing.

‘This is a completely desperate situation!’ The thought arose in Kingsley’s mind. He gritted his teeth with determination born of desperation and then abruptly raised his own wand with the intention of facing the incoming catastrophic attack using whatever defensive spells he could muster.

However—

The oncoming tide of spells of magical destruction finally approached to within twenty feet of the small area where the three stood. Kingsley’s wand had not yet completed the wand movements necessary to form the Shield Charm—

But then, without any visible cause or explanation, those advancing curse lights simply disappeared.

They didn’t dissipate gradually like normal spells reaching the end of their effective range, nor were they deflected or absorbed by any visible magical barrier. Instead, they truly and completely vanished, as if they had rushed into an invisible black hole and been devoured without leaving the slightest trace of their previous existence.

Before Kingsley’s mind could even begin to process what had happened to the ground-based attack, the fire dragon circling over their head spread its magnificent ten-foot wings and executed a perfect dive, leading the charge of all the various Fiendfyre manifestations that had been circling like vultures.

The surging, irresistible heat radiating from the diving fire dragon was so intense that it had touched Kingsley’s cheek when it was still several feet away from actual contact.

But then, as suddenly and inexplicably as the ground-based curses had vanished, the oppressive feeling of imminent incineration simply disappeared. The fire dragon, along with all the various erklings, serpents, and other creatures that had been following in its trails, vanished entirely from existence, leaving the night sky clear, serene, and filled once again with the peaceful light of stars and the blood-red moon.

Rumble!

Despite the mysterious disappearance of the magical attacks, the earth-shaking tremors continued with persistent intensity. The figures of them three became obscured by dreamy patterns of dust and shadow. The effect created in their surroundings made it impossible for Jasna and her subordinates to see clearly what was happening within the small area where their targets stood.

However, the attacking wizards’ inability to observe the results of their attack did not cause them to cease their persistent bombardment.

Wave after wave of spells continued to surge toward Bryan’s position. The fierce, continuous attack was so intense that it began to strip away layers of soil from the surrounding area, creating an expanding crater that grew deeper and wider with each passing moment.

Louise’s screaming gradually subsided as her shocked mind began to process the incredible reality of their situation. While she couldn’t begin to understand the mechanisms behind what she was witnessing, she could at least recognize that Bryan had somehow managed to block or neutralize the overwhelming attack that should have killed them all instantly.

Kingsley, meanwhile, had clearly done nothing—he remained standing exactly where he had been when the attack began, staring at Bryan with an expression of shocked amazement.

Within a precisely defined twenty-foot radius centered on Bryan’s position, the normal laws of magical physics appeared to have been suspended.

The area had become a magical void zone where the usual rules governing the interaction of magical forces no longer applied, preventing any hostile magical power from condensing into attacks or maintaining its destructive properties.

The continuous, high-intensity assault continued for about two minutes. The high-frequency spellcasting required to maintain such an intense rate of fire quickly began to take its toll on Jasna’s group, leaving many of her subordinates exhausted from the enormous magical energy expenditure required to fuel their relentless attack.

Their arms, which had been raised and extended in perfect casting position at the beginning of the attack, gradually began to droop as fatigue set in and their magical reserves approached depletion.

Despite their growing exhaustion, they continued to watch the rolling clouds of smoke and dust that their attack had generated with expressions of fierce satisfaction clearly visible on their faces.

However, their expressions of smug triumph froze and then slowly transformed into disbelief and growing horror as the dust and smoke gradually began to settle, allowing their vision to clear and reveal the true results of their sustained bombardment.

“Impossible,” Jasna whispered, her lips moving almost soundlessly as her mind struggled to process what her eyes were showing her.

The surrounding landscape bore all the expected signs of the devastating magical attack that had just concluded. The earth had been plowed and replowed by successive waves of destructive spells, creating furrows and craters that resembled the aftermath of intensive artillery bombardment.

Along the lakeshore, the incredible heat generated by the Fiendfyre attacks had been so intense that it had actually melted the soil into patches of crude glass that glittered eerily in the moonlight.

But the small area around the granite boulder where Bryan had been throughout the entire attack remained absolutely level and completely undisturbed. The grass in that protected zone was still the same vibrant emerald green that it had been before the battle began.

As for the two of his companions who had been standing in the center of what should have been total destruction—they were also completely unharmed.

The gentle evening breeze gradually returned to carry away the acrid smell in the air. However, that same cleansing breeze seemed powerless to dispel the expressions of shock, disbelief, and growing fear that had appeared on the faces of Jasna and her subordinates.

“Impossible—” Someone among the attacking wizards muttered again, their voice carrying the desperate denial.

Whoosh!

Without waiting for orders, one of the more impulsive members of Jasna’s force fired another green curse light at Bryan.

This time, however, Bryan finally showed some reaction to the attack sent against him. The bewildered expression on his face disappeared, his ethereal eyes were once again filled with depth. Suddenly, he flicked his wand and deflected the curse.

“Failed,” Bryan murmured quietly to himself, his voice carrying a note of mild disappointment, as if he had been attempting some kind of experimental procedure that hadn’t produced the expected results.

He shook his head lightly to dispel the slight displeasure caused by the failure then redirected his attention toward people beside Jasna and asked calmly.

“Who is Angus Aeschylus?”

Jasna’s expression shifted slightly as she pressed her lips together, while her subordinates could only stare blankly at Bryan Watson.

The silence stretched uncomfortably as no one among the attacking force seemed willing or able to respond to Bryan’s straightforward question.

“No one?” Bryan asked again, shaking his head with what might have been disappointment or perhaps mild amusement.

Bang, bang, bang.

One after another, without warning, Jasna’s subordinates were ignited by golden flames. First their clothes vanished in the fire, then their flesh, and finally only skeletons remained struggling and wailing in the flames. After their souls left their bodies, even the skeletons turned to ash.

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep