22, Disillusionment Charm

The surroundings remained unchanged.

But this time, Hoffa paid no attention to the sounds of any church, nor did he care about the scenery around him. Three consecutive deaths had left him intensely focused.

It seemed that merely knowing the incantation was still useless. He had to cast it completely in order to leave this secret realm.

Hoffa thought over the details of the spell he had just cast. The Disillusionment Charm was undoubtedly not a simple spell. Otherwise, there would not have been no record of it in the library.

When casting a high-level spell, he had to be focused enough.

He thought of the mental enhancement provided by Milarepa's Meditation Method and immediately tried it without hesitation. The good news was that the meditation method could still operate in this state.

With the help of the meditation method, all distracting thoughts were swept away, and Hoffa's will quickly grew firm.

In the endlessly repeating memory, the Black wizard climbed to a high place, entered the room, and opened the hidden passage.

Hoffa prepared himself. The instant he gained control of the body, the Black wizard's eyes sharpened.

A low growl sounded, and a red tongue shot toward him like lightning.

Hoffa immediately drew his wand, pressed it against his side, and calmly muttered.

"Disle Falconment."

It was as though a bucket of icy liquid had been poured over his head. This time, the giant lizard's tongue passed close against the Black wizard's waist and abdomen, smashing the marble globe and other decorations in the room into a mess.

But it had not touched Hoffa, after all.

Countless transparent holes appeared in his body. The holes gradually widened, and like a shard of ice beneath the blazing sun, Hoffa vanished into thin air.

The lizard's enormous body slowly crawled out of the hidden passage. It was at least eight meters long and grotesquely fat. Its three protruding eyes scanned the surroundings, yet it could not detect the Black wizard pressed against the corner of the wall.

Hoffa had succeeded!

He had successfully cast the Disillusionment Charm!!

Adrenaline surged through him. In the thrill between life and death, a rush of excitement shot straight to his head. Under the Disillusionment Charm, Hoffa did not dare move at all. He bit down hard on his lower lip and curled his toes, forcibly stopping himself from crying out.

Yet in the very next second, a shrill scream rang out.

"Ghost! There's a ghost!!"

The blonde, blue-eyed mistress who had been sprawled on the ground earlier clutched her silk robe and shrieked as she hurled the wine bottles on the floor wildly toward Hoffa. She kicked backward in panic, utterly beside herself.

One bottle struck the invisible Hoffa and fell to the floor with a clatter.

Hoffa's heart turned ice-cold. Damn it. I remembered the Disillusionment Charm but completely forgot about her! This damned bitch...

Sure enough, the giant lizard's eyes turned at once and locked onto the shattered glass bottle on the ground.

Then its red, barbed tongue swept through the air like a blade, carving across in a fan-shaped arc.

Crack!!

One clean, decisive strike.

When Hoffa returned to the starting point once more, he had completely calmed down. Not even the pain of being beheaded could affect him now. He continuously circulated the meditation method, and his mind was as sharp as a sword.

Simply casting the Disillusionment Charm successfully still was not enough. It seemed he had yet to fulfill the synchronization condition.

Then he would try again.

A minute later, he stood at the entrance of the passage again.

This time, he devoted part of his attention to closely observing the woman in the corner.

A roar rang out, and the woman woke up.

She saw "Hoffa" and began screaming.

Expressionless, Hoffa moved one step aside, placing himself, the woman, and the passage in a straight line.

The giant tongue shot toward him, and Hoffa suddenly bent down.

A fierce red gust brushed past his waist and rushed straight toward the screaming woman.

Hoffa rolled across the ground, and the scream abruptly ceased.

The monster lizard's tongue pierced straight through the woman's neck and wrapped around her entire body.

"Disle Falconment!" Hoffa recited the incantation during that one-second opening.

The lizard's tongue curled back with the woman's corpse. In an instant, Hoffa turned transparent and disappeared from where he stood.

The three-eyed lizard chewed the woman as if she were a grasshopper and slowly emerged from the passage. Its eyeballs spun wildly, as though it was confused. There had clearly been two people here just now, yet now there was no one.

Watching the densely packed scales scrape past only a centimeter from his eyes with a clacking sound,

Hoffa became even more focused. He felt that he could not stay here for long. If he was discovered again, he would have to experience that heart-piercing pain once more.

He had planned to leave, but then reconsidered. If he left, he definitely would not fulfill the synchronization condition.

Someone had placed this giant lizard here to guard something—the thing this Black wizard wanted to steal. Hoffa grew curious.

Following the gap between the lizard's forked tail, he crept down the hidden passage bit by bit along the wall. It was a memory anyway; there would be no consequences from watching.

Thus, at the center of the dark Chamber of Secrets,

he saw a square stone pillar, with a silvery-white necklace hanging from it.

The necklace looked exceptionally strange, almost like a key.

Before Hoffa could examine it closely,

a powerful force struck the back of his head. He lost control of the body and floated straight upward.

In his final glimpse, the Black wizard reached out and grasped the necklace in his hand.

Hiss!!

It was as if he had awakened from a great dream.

Hoffa suddenly broke free from that strange space.

He jerked his head up from the ground. He was sitting in a dim basement, his butt on the solid floor, his hands braced against a raised, crude stone platform, with burning braziers all around him.

Yet these cold objects gave Hoffa a welcome sense of reality. He looked at his hands, and there was not the slightest delay in their movement.

He had returned to Hogwarts, returned to the Chamber of Secrets of the Violet Wizard Society.

Believe it or not, he had just died four times in a row. For the rest of his life, he truly did not want to experience that again.

The only good news was that he had now mastered the method of casting the Disillusionment Charm!

The joy of finally obtaining the spell he had longed for over several months was beyond words. His delight even overshadowed the madness of dying four times in succession.

When he experienced the heart-piercing pain in the illusion, Hoffa had nearly wanted to curse. But after coming out, he felt that he should properly thank the masked woman. It was she who had given him the chance to learn the spell.

Of course, in his excitement, he also wanted to complain to her about the miserable ordeal he had suffered in the illusion.

But after Hoffa got to his feet, he discovered that the masked woman was no longer in the basement. The basement was empty, with only the faint crackling of the braziers.

Whether he wanted to thank her or complain, there was suddenly no one to listen.

That made Hoffa feel awful.

She had left? What did that mean? Or had she gone visiting because he had not woken up for so long?

Hoffa tried to find her, but he could not. This room was only a little over a hundred square meters, square and bare, containing nothing but bricks, stones, and braziers. There was also a pile of scrolls sealed in the corner, unchanged from before, except one person was missing.

However, after Hoffa searched around and returned, he discovered a small hourglass beside the stone platform where he had been lying.

He had been too busy looking for the woman to notice the hourglass beside him.

He picked up the hourglass and looked at it. The sand had long since run out.

A slip of paper was tucked beneath it, bearing only a few words.

[Do not come looking for me again.]

Do not come again... Hoffa's expression immediately turned strange.

What was going on? Had he done something wrong? Why was she telling him not to come again?

Hadn't he learned the Disillusionment Charm?

Or did she think that because he had died too many times, he had not passed the test?

Damn it...

Looking at the sand in the hourglass, Hoffa was at a loss. Had he passed or not? Could she not give him a clear answer?

No matter how much he thought about it, he could not understand.

From then on, he became even more curious about the organization called the Violet Wizard Society. The entire club had only one person, a masked member, and it possessed an item that could let people learn spells like this.

What kind of organization was it?

He slowly circled the walls, looking at the portraits of members beneath the crackling braziers and feeling the quiet, lonely atmosphere of the place.

He saw several scrolls piled in the corner.

They were the very tools he had used to learn the Disillusionment Charm. Hoffa swallowed and slowly walked over to take a careful look.

The pitch-black scrolls inside the glass cases did not seem particularly unusual at first glance, but Hoffa could sense the ancient magic permeating the area.

Instinctively, he wanted to reach out and touch the glass cases.

But in that instant, the hairs on his body stood on end. He suddenly felt as if he were being watched.

He turned his head and found that the eyes in every painting were silently staring at him. They clearly had not been moving just moments ago.

Hoffa snatched his hand back like lightning and stumbled back to the entrance.

The painted eyes did not move, but their gazes followed him to the door.

There was something wrong with this club...

Hoffa swallowed and quickly pushed open the portrait before stepping out.

Only then did the feeling of being watched vanish without a trace.

Hoffa wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and a new sense of awe for this place arose in his heart.

Standing at the entrance, Hoffa closed his eyes and circulated the meditation method for a while. His mind gradually settled.

Whatever secrets this club hid had nothing to do with him. So what if he had not passed? His goal had been achieved anyway.

He had already learned the Disillusionment Charm.

Hoffa buried all those doubts deep in his heart, then could not resist tapping his arm with his wand.

"Disle Falconment!"

It was as though a stream of icy liquid flowed down from where his wand had struck, spreading through his entire body. It felt as if someone had cracked a dozen cold egg whites over him.

Something magical happened. His body took on the colors and patterns of the school's background wall, as if he had become a humanoid chameleon. Hoffa vanished completely into the air.

He covered his eyes with his hand, but it was pointless. Even through his arm, he could see several wizards chatting and laughing fifty meters ahead.

An incredibly fresh and thrilling sensation surged into his heart, and he could not resist the urge to throw up his arms and shout.

He tucked away his wand and swaggered through the school.

Hoffa would never normally strike such an exaggeratedly arrogant pose, but right now, he was immensely pleased with himself.

As he passed the two older wizards, he overheard their conversation.

"Did the president change the password today?"

"Yeah, it's 'bloody underwear.'"

"Wow, the president has some seriously heavy tastes..."

Hoffa covered his mouth and barely kept himself from laughing, but a snorting sound like a pig still escaped him.

The two were quite sharp. They turned around at once.

"Huh, it sounds like someone's there..."

"Are you blind? Where is anyone?"

Then the two of them crawled one after the other into a portrait of an excessively flamboyant man.

Hoffa thought that he had not died for nothing. Now, as long as he wanted to, he could enter all the club classrooms he normally could never get into. Their defenses were as good as nonexistent.

It was as if every world had opened its doors to him.

After walking a few more steps and turning a corner,

Hah!

Hoffa spotted an old acquaintance.

Argeleia. She was actually in the club tower area too.

She strode ahead with her head held high, followed by a group of older students.

Those older students all wore pleading expressions.

"Miss Drases, please stay. Our Calvin Transfiguration Club has really excellent benefits."

"That's right. We can make you vice president, if you're willing."

"When you're a little older, you can even become president."

Argeleia turned around, planted her hands on her hips, and snapped angrily, "Get lost! You can't even turn stone into gold. Your Transfiguration is so terrible it's unbearable to look at!"

After saying that, she strode forward.

Muttering, "None of the thirteen Transfiguration clubs are any good. Hogwarts really is a garbage school."

Then, "Ow!"

Under the gaze of the older students, Argeleia, who had been striding ahead, suddenly tripped on level ground and crashed to the floor as if she had stumbled over an invisible stone.

She sprawled out in utter disarray.

Everyone behind her was stunned and rushed forward.

"Are you all right!"

"Miss Drases!"

"Miss Drases!"

Argeleia sprang to her feet like lightning, her face dark as she said, "What did you see?"

The group exchanged looks.

"Uh..."

"We didn't see anything."

"We didn't see anything."

"If any of you says one word about it, you're dead."

After dropping that icy threat, she hurried away. When she turned another corner, she let out a miserable wail, covered her face, and ran off.

In the corner, the sneaking Hoffa nearly laughed himself to death. He had to brace himself against the wall just to barely stay standing.

That felt amazing!

That felt amazing!