0825 Solving the Problem

After fighting to this point, the Nundu had come to deeply understand just how formidable Bryan actually was.

It knew that all those other wizards’ abilities depended on the ‘little wooden sticks’ they clutched in their hands. But the gray-haired fellow standing in front of it with such infuriating calmness had been grappling with it empty-handed until now and yet he had not fallen behind by a single step.

If anything, the human had actually suppressed it, a Nundu, in terms of pure speed. This simply exceeded the Nundu’s capacity for understanding.

More and more wizards were gathering around the perimeter of their battlefield. If it continued to linger here, trading blows with this impossible opponent while surrounded by increasing numbers of enemies, it would surely lose its freedom once again.

The intelligence of magical creatures should never be underestimated by those who consider themselves the dominant species. They are not the ignorant beasts that most wizards, in their arrogance and anthropo-centric worldview, believe them to be.

Instead, they possess clear, rational thinking processes, complex emotional responses, and the kind of wisdom that comes from surviving in a world where every day brings new threats and every mistake can mean death.

Crack!

The sound of Disapparition split the air as Bryan vanished with Amelia, leaving the railway tracks in the space between one second and the next. They reappeared with precision on a tall cast-iron lamppost standing beside the rail line.

Looking closely, Bryan could see that the Nundu was still staring directly at him across the distance. The creature seemed to be nursing a deep, long-lasting grudge, wanting to burn his appearance into the deepest part of its memory.

The speeding steel behemoth of the passenger train was only a few hundred feet away from where the Nundu crouched motionless on the tracks. At this distance, with the train traveling at its speed of 180 kilometers per hour, it would take only three or four seconds to reach the spot where the creature waited and crush it beneath tons of rolling steel if it failed to move.

“It—” Amelia began, her voice weak.

Her left arm, blackened in one spot where the electrical current had touched her flesh was trickling small streams of blood that looked almost black in the moonlight. She endured waves of throbbing pain that seemed to pulse in rhythm with her heartbeat and breathed with visible difficulty.

She looked toward the Nundu, preparing to say something. But then—

BANG!

Just as the train was about to roll over it, the Nundu’s powerful limbs suddenly pushed against the steel rails with explosive force. The creature vanished like a wisp of smoke, disappearing so instantly that for a moment it seemed it might never have existed at all.

‘It escaped? ‘

The Muggles packed into the passenger cars of the train had no idea that they had just narrowly avoided disaster on a scale that would have made international headlines.

Each car was filled with the cheerful laughter and active conversation of people heading home after evening entertainment, their voices mixing with the clacking of wheels on rails to create the comfortable soundtrack of ordinary life continuing its course.

Bryan’s gaze pierced through the vision-blocking metal of the carriages and looked beyond, directly observing the Nundu as it darted like crimson lightning into the shadowy forest.

Having no deep understanding of this creature’s habits, behavioral patterns, or the complex psychology that drove its actions, Bryan felt genuinely puzzled by this withdrawal.

But in an instant, Bryan snapped back to attention. He appeared beside Remus with Amelia, handed her over to Remus, then looked at the weakened young witch.

“We can’t let that Nundu to wreak havoc in the city,” He said with absolute conviction. “If it reaches the populated areas, many innocent Muggles will suffer and die. But fighting empty-handed, I’m afraid I can’t control it with the precision necessary to prevent collateral damage.”

Meeting Bryan’s calm but piercing gaze, Amelia bit her lower lip hard. She wasn’t entirely sure if giving Bryan Watson her wand was the wisest course of action, especially since this entire night concerned her crucial entrance examination for the Department of Magical Security.

Her performance here would determine whether she received the position she had dreamed of since her school days.

If Mr. Graves became dissatisfied with her performance during this crisis, this rare opportunity would be ruined forever. Her career would be over before it had truly begun.

Remus’s lips moved slightly as if to speak, clearly wanting to offer his own wand as an alternative. But Amelia showing decisive courage had already made her decision. She raised her trembling right hand, and slowly extended her wand toward Bryan.

“Ebony wood, unicorn hair core, eight and a half inches long—” Amelia recited the specifications in a weak but steady voice, her cheeks flushing with color that was visible even in the dim moonlight.

A wand is an intensely private, deeply personal item in the wizarding world, as intimate and undisclosed as a person’s thoughts or dreams. Generally speaking, wizards simply don’t give their wands to others as it’s considered almost as personal as sharing one’s deepest secrets or most treasured memories.

Remus, standing beside them and witnessing this, secretly pursed his lips. He felt he had been somewhat meddlesome in his desire to help.

“Thank you—” Bryan said simply.

He didn’t act coy or engage in false modesty. Instead, he reached out with steady fingers and grasped the tip of Amelia’s wand, while the handle remained clutched in Amelia’s hand.

The moment his skin made contact with the smooth ebony surface, Bryan’s relaxed eyebrows suddenly trembled. Simultaneously, Amelia, standing directly opposite him, had her previous bashful expression instantly disappear, replaced by confusion and astonishment.

Both of them felt it simultaneously—a warm current that seemed to surge directly from the ebony wand.

The sensation connected their palms through the wand, and both people grasping their end of the wood felt an intimate sensation of blood mingling.

While Amelia was still marveling at this strange, unprecedented feeling with a mixture of confusion and wonder that left her momentarily speechless, Bryan had already recovered his composure. He gently withdrew the wand from her loosening grip, raised it and waved it twice through the night air.

Then he smiled at Amelia.

“A very fine wand indeed,” He said with sincere appreciation. “I’ll use it carefully and return it to you in perfect condition—”

Without waiting for the wand’s owner to respond, Bryan Disapparated with the crack

of Apparition. He left only Amelia standing there in stunned silence, one hand still extended where the wand had been, savoring the momentary warmth that had surged through her heart.

The murky moonlight, previously obscured by clouds and the dust of battle, gradually became clear and bright as Bryan flashed to a dizzying height of over a thousand feet above the urban landscape.

From this aerial vantage point, suspended in the night air like a hunting hawk, he could overlook the entire city spread out below him.

In his magical vision, he could clearly see the Nundu’s distinctive magical signature. It appeared as a faint red lightning bolt, rapidly advancing from the sparse forest edge at the park’s perimeter toward the denser, more complex areas of Central Park.

The creature was obviously attempting to use the park’s more complicated terrain to its tactical advantage that could provide concealment and multiple escape routes. It was trying to evade the inevitable pursuit by the wizards who would soon be scrutinizing every inch of the area in their search.

Bryan’s expression grew slightly serious as he processed this information. The fact he had just confirmed through his contact with Amelia’s wand had put him in a poor mood.

He didn’t intend to continue this lengthy cat-and-mouse game with the Nundu any longer. Instead, he prepared to end this confrontation and subdue the Nundu with thunderous, overwhelming force.

Whoosh—

His body flickered and blurred as Bryan’s phantom shadow swept forward at tremendous speed, moving through the night like a meteor given consciousness and purpose. In his partially ethereal state, he was even more astonishingly fast than the legendary speed of the Nundu.

In just over ten breaths, he had not only caught up to the fleeing creature but was advancing alongside it with ease.

The highly alert Nundu immediately noticed it had been caught up to by the wizard again. Its keen instincts let it sense that the one entangling it was indeed that gray-haired wizard from before, and moreover, the threatening aura emanating from the shadow above was even more intense than before.

Whimper!

The Nundu let out a low whine. It suddenly changed direction, leaping across a stone arch bridge spanning a small river in the park.

A young couple sitting on the bridge railing, engaged in passionate kissing, were swept up by the sudden gust of wind, lost their balance, and fell screaming into the water while embracing each other.

Just as the two were thrashing about fearfully in the water, a mysterious force acted upon the two Muggles, lifting them from the river and flying them back onto the bridge.

“Ghosts—”

“Ghosts—”

The two trembling young lovers stared at each other, then suddenly, in the same second, they let out piercing screams and fled in terror.

This Nundu was indeed exceptionally clever. It plunged into the densest patch of forest, seemingly without inertia as it twisted and leaped between the thick tree trunks, attempting to break free from Bryan’s lock-on.

But all of this was destined to be futile. Accompanied by a slightly cold snort reaching its ears, the surrounding trees suddenly came alive.

The forest within a large area rapidly transformed, those thick branches suddenly becoming soft and resilient.

These transformed branches, now functioning as natural whips with minds of their own, cracked through the air with rustling sounds. Then, moving with the fluid coordination of a pack predator, they struck down like schools of wooden fish entering water.

The Nundu that had darted into the forest with such confidence suddenly found its situation becoming exponentially more difficult with each passing second.

Countless whips moved with nimble intelligence, coiling toward its limbs and body. The space available for maneuvering grew ever smaller as more and more branches joined the synchronized attack, creating an increasingly tight web of wooden chains.

“ROAR!”

With an angry roar, the furious Nundu snapped the seven or eight thick vines that had managed to wrap around its neck. Then its ferocious mouth opened wide, revealing rows of fangs, and spewed forth a concentrated cloud of its most potent poisonous smoke.

The trees directly in the path of the toxic fumes withered at a visibly rapid pace. For a moment, it appeared the creature might break free from its bonds through the use of biological weaponn.

But strong magical winds, summoned by Bryan’s casual gesture, soon dispersed the poisonous fog before it could spread beyond the area. Even as the toxic cloud was being blown away, more vines from the forest perimeter struck across the ground moving swiftly to bind the creature’s body once again.

Silently, the entire layout of the small grove began to change. Thick trees that had been rooted in the same spots for decades suddenly moved through spatial manipulation. The relocated trees arranged themselves in orderly rows with precision and began to rapidly grow taller.

By the time the Nundu finally managed to use its sharp claws, fangs, and most concentrated poisonous gas to break free from those persistently annoying vines, it discovered with shock and growing desperation that it was now trapped within a sophisticated siege of living wood.

Its sharp gaze swept across the wooden prison that now confined it looking for escape routes. The Nundu felt this cage wasn’t an insurmountable problem.

It crouched slightly, gathering its strength, and its body once again became smoke-like, and when it reappeared, it was actually racing swiftly up the heightened wooden walls.

With several spectacular leaps that demonstrated why Nundus were considered among the most athletically gifted of all magical creatures, it was about to vault over the prison walls and escape.

However, just as the Nundu thought it had finally escaped to the freedom it craved so desperately, a familiar golden fire net suddenly appeared in the star-sparse night sky above. The deadly net fell like a heavenly cover woven from pure destruction, sealing off its escape route with the finality of a coffin lid.

BOOM—

The Nundu landed heavily on the forest floor. It raised its head to stare at the fire net hovering above that contained a strong aura of death. Its black pupils were filled with unwillingness and frustrated rage.

Floating in mid-air, Bryan calmly manipulated Amelia’s borrowed wand. The earth immediately began to rumble in response to his commands. Soil flowed like a slow river toward the center of the magical prison. This moving earth drove the circular wooden walls to compress in, further reducing the Nundu’s space for movement.

In the blink of an eye, the enormous cage had shrunk to the size of a typical, and was still continuously contracting—

“Meow!”

Suddenly, a cat’s cry reached Bryan’s ears. He looked in the direction of the sound and saw it was that Kneazle called Hoppy that had disappeared after the disturbance began. And it wasn’t alone—it had brought two companions, Kneazles with white and yellow-white mottled fur.

“Please don’t do that, Mr. Watson.”

An aged, slightly anxious voice emerged from the twisted space beside the kneazles, stopping Bryan’s action of further confining the Nundu.

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