A Brief Clash

The shadowy figure had clearly failed to understand what was going on, so he didn't respond right away.

The two sides fell silent, and things grew awkward for a moment.

At last, a deliberately disguised, deep voice spoke. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Harley's mouth twitched. Shouldn't she be the one asking this mysterious person that question?

On one side was a petite, adorable girl wearing a pink bodysuit. On the other was a mysterious figure wrapped in a black cloak, with blood still wet at the corner of his mouth.

Whoever you looked at, you lot were clearly more suspicious!

Even the owner of the hoarse, sinister voice from earlier couldn't stand it anymore.

"Idiot!" The voice came again, and Harley realized it was coming from the back of the mysterious cloaked man's head.

"You're completely useless! Why waste time talking? Just kill her!"

"Yes, my master. Your will is my guiding light." The man bowed respectfully as he spoke, then pointed his wand at Harley.

But he saw nothing where she had been standing, because Harley was no longer there.

While the man before her had been talking to that mysterious voice, Harley had already begun to move.

She wasn't going to prattle on like that idiot in front of her! Always take your enemy seriously—that was the first rule on the battlefield!

Harley tossed a mirror with a deft flick of her wrist onto a distant patch of grass. A trace of blood clung to its surface—

Harley's hair suddenly grew longer, slicing open her fair-skinned arm and scattering droplets of blood.

At the same time, Harley used the extraordinary ability her Assassin had granted her to leap lightly, gliding through the air like a feather as she swooped down on the man.

Two table knives clung close to Harley's palms, stabbing toward the man's throat like venomous snakes.

From what she'd observed, most wizards were better at fighting at mid to long range. They hit hard, but were fragile.

So Harley made the right call: get in close and try to catch him by surprise!

But the man reacted quickly. Something woven and unidentifiable suddenly swelled beneath his cloak, blocking Harley's attack before lashing out at her.

Harley tapped the woven material with her knife and used the force of the blow to drift back to where she'd started.

But the defense had knocked the man's hat off.

In the blink of an eye, Harley saw his face in the moonlight.

It was Professor Quirrell!

And the thing that had blocked Harley's attack was the large turban Professor Quirrell always wore around his head and refused to take off!

Harley immediately recalled the malice and Spirituality warning she had sensed by chance when she'd attended Defense Against the Dark Arts class with him at the start of term.

Professor Quirrell is hostile toward me, and he feels like a demigod! Harley's mind raced.

Putting together what I've learned, a demigod was gravely wounded and possessed Professor Quirrell to recover his strength! The Professor drank the Unicorn's blood on behalf of that demigod! How pitiful! Professor Quirrell has to bear the curse, while the mysterious demigod gets the benefits!

Harley's mind raced, but her hands didn't slow.

She threw the table knife in her right hand like a throwing knife, while the wand she'd bought slid into her palm.

"Smoke-shrouding Charm!"

The spell wasn't difficult, and it had no real offensive power. It could only release a large amount of smoke.

But after seeing the spell in one of her senior schoolmates' textbooks, Harley had spent a long time learning it.

When facing a powerful enemy, she needed to make things as chaotic as possible to give herself more opportunities!

As the Smoke Spell took effect, white smoke filled the clearing in the Forbidden Forest.

Amid the smoke, Harley heard Professor Quirrell's anguished voice.

"I can't find her, Master! I can't find her!"

"Useless!" The snake-like, sinister voice showed no mercy. "What use are you to me? Now someone has seen your face!

"Give me your body! I'll put an end to everything tonight! And you—you're useless. You have no reason to exist!"

A scream erupted from the smoke, and then Professor Quirrell's voice vanished completely.

At the same time, a powerful presence suddenly appeared where Professor Quirrell had been.

Harley's heart tightened as she realized that the mysterious demigod was taking over Professor Quirrell's body.

She moved even faster, quickly widening the distance between them. She didn't attack along the way, so as not to give away her position.

But Harley snapped her fingers, and black flames suddenly blazed up a tree at the edge of the clearing!

Harley quickly reached the Unicorn's head. Thanks to her deft toss, the mirror had landed right beside it.

Harley grabbed the Unicorn's head, poured Spirituality into the mirror with all her might, and jumped straight into it.

"Mirror Jump!"

As Harley entered the mirror, the blood on its surface instantly caught fire and turned into Black Flame, burning the entire mirror away!

The throwing knife Harley had tossed also had a trace of blood on it. So, like the Magic Mirror, it was burned to nothing.

Harley hated losing her gear, but she wasn't about to leave a demigod from some unknown domain with an item that could be used to track her.

In the mist, Professor Quirrell's body shuddered several times before finally returning to normal. Only, his face had become the snake-like one on the back of his head.

He casually waved his wand, as if getting used to the body. After a brief adjustment, clusters of black flame sprang from his wand and devoured the surrounding mist!

That wasn't the "feeble" black flame Harley had conjured earlier. It was cursed fire, brimming with destruction and death—Fiendfyre!

When "Professor Quirrell" extinguished the Fiendfyre, he found that the area around him was empty.

"Idiot! You've wasted my time!" Voldemort cursed. He glanced at the Unicorn's corpse nearby, which he had deliberately avoided, then immediately bent down and began drinking its blood again.

But he had barely had time for a couple more mouthfuls when the sound of hooves and dog barks rang through the Forbidden Forest.

At the edge of the clearing, a huge figure appeared, holding a crossbow in his left hand and a black dog by the leash in his right.

On the other side, countless Centaurs aimed their bows at the middle of the clearing.

They had been drawn there by the black flames leaping high above the tree Harley had set alight.

When Hagrid saw the scene in the clearing, he let out a roar.

"You vile fly, you shameless pest, you filthy cockroach from the gutter! How dare you kill an innocent Unicorn!"

Fang howled a few times in agreement, but his body told the truth: he hid behind Hagrid, daring to show only his head.

The Centaurs didn't curse like Hagrid. They were more direct. A rain of arrows was already flying toward the evil fiend who dared slaughter a Unicorn.

Voldemort sneered in disdain. If he were still at full strength, he could wipe out this rabble all by himself.

But now, someone had seen his face. To avoid complications and get the Philosopher's Stone quickly, Voldemort didn't waste time fighting them.

He unleashed Fiendfyre again, driving back every attack. By the time the Fiendfyre vanished, Voldemort had disappeared.

He planned to use up every last bit of life in this body and seize the Philosopher's Stone in one go!