Lyria's face was as pale as paper, and tiny beads of sweat glistened at her temples. Maintaining magic of this caliber was a deadly burden for an eleven-year-old body.
But she didn't let go. Something ancient, almost savage, burned in her ice-blue eyes.
"Humph!" Black smoke billowed around the shadow, pushing back against the advancing ice. Wherever it touched, the grass and trees sizzled, clearly corroding them. "Let's see how long you can hold out."
"Yulian," Lyria whispered through gritted teeth. "I can't hold out much longer..."
A spell of this scale was clearly too much for Lyria to bear right now. The black smoke visibly drove back the ice crystals and rapidly closed in on the two young wizards.
Yulian stepped forward, shielding Lyria with his body. His wand was already in his hand. Its Silver lime wood was smooth and warm as jade, but now it trembled strangely—not with fear, but with an echo from somewhere deep in his blood.
He flicked his wrist, tracing a precise half-moon arc with his wand, and clearly spoke the incantation: "Obscurum Flecto!"
Beneath the hazy moonlight, a faint black glow appeared at the tip of his wand.
The black smoke surged like a living thing, but it no longer advanced. Instead, it formed a translucent energy barrier in front of Yulian and Lyria.
Black, spiderweb-like lines glimmered faintly across the barrier in the moonlight.
The shadow opposite them paused, clearly taken aback.
"Shadow Deflection Charm!" His voice held a note of incredulous amusement.
"A secret art of the Black family?! ... I thought it had been lost with that old man's death. How interesting. This is getting more and more interesting."
"Black." A pair of scarlet, slit-pupiled eyes lit up within the shadow. "An ancient surname. Could there still be any