27, First Clash

Creak!

The wooden door of Two Brooms slowly opened.

Hoffa heard faint footsteps downstairs. No longer hesitating, he gripped the window crack and slowly pulled open the old-fashioned shutters.

The friction of the old window's metal latch made Hoffa curl his toes, his nerves stretched to the limit.

He had never imagined that he would be studying leisurely at Hogwarts in the morning, only to stake his life on the table and gamble against Dark wizards by nightfall.

Fortunately, the sound from the window did not alert the man below.

The footsteps downstairs grew louder, mixed with the sounds of bodies being turned over.

The man was checking.

Hoffa pointed at the window, signaling for the goblin to go first.

The goblin immediately climbed onto the windowsill and stepped onto the wooden eaves outside the inn.

Hoffa climbed out after him.

They were more than three meters above the ground. For an eleven-year-old child and a goblin barely half a man tall, that was already quite high.

Bang!

Behind them came the sound of a door opening.

Hoffa spun around, but it was not their room. It was another room.

He let out a breath and exchanged a glance with the goblin.

The goblin pointed down, then at himself, and opened his arms.

He meant that he would go down first, then Hoffa could jump into his arms.

Hoffa nodded.

The goblin leaped down from the eaves.

He landed on the ground with a soft plop.

Several seconds of silence followed.

Then Hoffa heard the footsteps in the stairwell behind him growing louder.

He did not dare hesitate. He immediately jumped down.

Fortunately, Yinduo was strong enough to catch him without making a sound.

At the instant Hoffa left the eaves, the door to the room they had just occupied was violently thrown open. A tall man appeared inside, looked around, and spotted the open shutters.

He strode to the window and bent down to stick his head out.

Below was nothing but fog.

Not a sound could be heard. The air was as thick as butter, making it hard to breathe.

Hoffa and Yinduo covered their mouths and noses, standing silently in the dense fog with their backs pressed against the Two Brooms sign. They did not even dare breathe.

The inn's sign blocked the view from above.

They had both felt the sharp, icy gaze of that man just now. It was the look of someone who had killed countless people.

After searching for a long while, the pointed head beneath the hood slowly withdrew.

Yinduo nodded at Hoffa, and the two moved slowly along the wooden wall like moles.

Hoffa did not dare use the Disillusionment Charm at all. On one hand, his magic had not fully recovered. On the other, he had no idea whether the magical fluctuations from the spell would expose him. He did not want to make things worse.

Hogsmeade was neither particularly large nor particularly small. There were at least five streets between Honeydukes and Two Brooms.

It was Hoffa's first time in the village, so he was far from familiar with the place. After leaving the area around Two Brooms, he could only rely on his memory to make his way toward Honeydukes.

With the thick fog everywhere, he had to stop every few steps to determine whether he was heading in the right direction.

Along the way, there were scattered unconscious pedestrians. Some shop doors stood wide open, their owners lying unconscious inside. They had all inhaled the poison gas in the air.

Hoffa was in no position to help anyone. He could barely save himself.

Before they had gone far, both of them abruptly stopped.

With his back to them stood a tall figure. Nearly two meters tall, he held a wand and a lantern as he searched the area.

Luckily, there were several empty wooden barrels nearby. They hid behind them, covering their mouths and not daring to make the slightest sound.

Just after they hid, the tall Dark wizard turned around.

The figure passed in front of Hoffa, his black robes dragging over the ground with a rustling scrape.

Hoffa saw his wand. It was thick and long, practically usable as a melee weapon.

As he passed the corner, the tall man raised his lantern and looked around.

Fortunately, Hoffa and the goblin were only as tall as his waist. Combined with the dense fog, they went unnoticed.

Once the man had moved farther away, Hoffa lowered his voice to the barest whisper.

"We need to change direction. He's blocking our path."

The goblin nodded tremblingly.

Hoffa rubbed his face, trying to calm his wildly pounding heart. He thought that if he could escape alive this time, he would definitely learn silent casting before leaving again.

After changing streets twice more,

Hoffa saw a shop with its door wide open. It was Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, which specialized in selling quills.

A scraping, dragging sound came from inside.

Then a tall man emerged, dragging the unconscious shopkeeper behind him. He lined the unconscious people up on the ground, his wand glowing as he carefully inspected them one by one.

Damn it, another one! Hoffa cursed inwardly.

They had to change direction again. When would they ever get back to Honeydukes?

He pulled Yinduo and turned in another direction. But after taking one step, Hoffa suddenly sensed something was wrong.

Something had suddenly wrapped around his arm.

He looked down. On his arm was a creature with blue-green wings, somewhere between a reptile and a butterfly in appearance. It tilted its head at him, its gaze vicious and cold.

Yinduo noticed the strange thing on Hoffa as well. The instant he saw the blue monster, he screamed, "Shake it off, Hoffa! It's a Swooping Evil. It eats human brains!"

The butterfly-like reptile on his arm snapped open its enormous maw, and its sharp tongue shot toward Hoffa's head like lightning.

Hoffa only had time to fling his arm. There was no way he could dodge.

In that split second,

Yinduo flicked his finger, and a powerful magical ripple shot from his fingertip. A streak of silver light struck the Swooping Evil like a bullet.

Boom!

The creature was struck by magic just centimeters from Hoffa's face and slammed into the wall behind him. It shattered into pieces, spraying blue-violet blood everywhere.

Hoffa, who had narrowly escaped death, felt no relief at all.

Instead, his face turned ashen.

Everything had been exposed.

The tall hooded man behind them abruptly rose to his feet and let out a piercing shout.

"Hier, er ist hier!!!" (He's here!!)

At the shout, the tallest hooded man in the middle of the street whirled around. He shook his robes.

A swarm of Swooping Evils flew out from beneath the hooded man's robes, their wings beating furiously! They closed in on Hoffa from every direction.

"Run!" Yinduo shouted.

There was no point in hiding anymore.

Without thinking, Hoffa ran.

As he ran, he tapped his arm.

"Disillusionment!"

The running Hoffa vanished into the fog, evading the Swooping Evils' first attack.

The Dark wizard behind him saw him turn invisible.

The Dark wizard reacted with extraordinary speed and opened his cloak again.

A gleaming silver ape stood on his shoulder. It narrowed its eyes and looked around, then immediately raised an arm.

With shrill chattering cries, it pointed toward the direction Hoffa had fled while invisible.

The Dark wizard moved, his black robes billowing beneath the moonlight.

At the same time, the other two Dark wizards closed in at incredible speed.

Hoffa sensed the Dark wizards rapidly approaching from behind him, and panic swiftly flooded his mind.

These people could see through his stealth!

What should I do?

What should I do!?

As if that were not enough, the sprinting Hoffa was caught off guard when he tripped over an unconscious pedestrian!

Behind him, a Dark wizard raised his wand.

A dangerous green light shot from it like lightning.

Straight at Hoffa on the ground.

Am I going to die?

No!

He had to thank that masked woman. She had made Hoffa experience the trials of life and death several times in the illusion.

At that moment, Hoffa bit his lip. He calmed down at once.

He kicked off the wall and lunged forward, then rolled across the ground, narrowly brushing past the spell.

The green curse struck the wall, swiftly corroding a huge hole through it. Smoking liquid dripped to the ground with a hiss. Its power was terrifying.

Before the shaken Hoffa could catch his breath, another wizard raised his wand as well. A massive gray serpent appeared from thin air. It opened its bloody maw and lunged straight for Hoffa's head.

It made no sound, but it was incredibly fast. This attack was nearly impossible to evade.

Just then,

a deafening boom rang out.

A suit of silver armor fell from the sky.

It crashed heavily down in front of Hoffa.

It raised a shield against the gray serpent.

Teeth struck steel with a screech that made one's teeth ache, but that was only the beginning. The serpent's eyes instantly turned red, its entire body swelled, and then it exploded.

Boom!!

The violent explosion illuminated the darkness of the night. Fire and raging wind scattered the fog.

The silver armor bent over in front of Hoffa, shielding him from the shockwave. Its shield and back were blown to pieces by the serpent.

Hoffa was so stunned by this unprecedented magic that he could not say a word.

Yinduo stood in the distance with a finger raised, panting heavily.

"Run! What are you standing there for!?"

Hoffa, pale-faced, immediately snapped out of it.

Yinduo had saved him again.

He did not dare waste the opportunity. Scrambling wildly, he rolled over and climbed to his feet.

Behind him, the Dark wizard spotted Yinduo and immediately turned his head. In the sky, the flying Swooping Evils locked onto the goblin below.

They shot toward Yinduo like bullets.

Yinduo did not dare linger. He snapped his fingers, intending to Apparate away.

But the Dark wizard reacted even faster. He swung his wand in a wide arc.

A bolt of golden lightning erupted from the tip of his wand.

The Dark wizard shouted!

The golden lightning wrapped directly around Yinduo, forcibly pulling him out of the process of Apparition.

Yinduo only had time to cast a protective spell, blocking the swarm of Swooping Evils, before the power of the lightning left him unable to move!

Schmidt: "Es gibt noch andere. Lasst nicht ihn fliehen/gehen!" (There's another one. Don't let him escape.)

His voice was utterly flat.

The silver ape jumped down from Schmidt's shoulder and swiftly climbed onto another wizard's head. The other two Dark wizards firmly pursued Hoffa in the direction he had fled.

The wizard with the silver ape saw through Hoffa's route and specifically blocked the way to Honeydukes.

After narrowly escaping death, Hoffa fiercely bit down on his lower lip until his mouth was filled with the taste of blood.

He became completely calm.

With a Finite Incantatem, he ended the Disillusionment Charm.

Invisibility was useless. With that strange ape around, he could not sneak around at all. It would only waste magic.

Yinduo had already been restrained, and the road to Honeydukes was blocked. He was truly trapped in a desperate situation.

But it was not time to give up yet. Hoffa quickly sorted through his remaining cards in his mind.

There was no way to escape by conventional means. The gap in strength was simply too great. But his system still had (2/3) spell fragments.

At this point, he could only gamble.

Looking at Hogsmeade Village's forty-five percent exploration progress in his mindscape,

Hoffa's gaze hardened.

Seeing Hoffa dispel his invisibility, the two Dark wizards behind him assumed fear had broken him. They sneered coldly and strode toward him.

But the silver ape seemed to sense something. It chattered wildly atop their heads.

At the ape's cries, the two Dark wizards immediately became fully alert.

Without hesitation, Hoffa turned and ran.

He had figured it out. That ape possessed some kind of strange precognitive ability. He could no longer move with a clear destination in mind.

He began changing direction at random, his steps utterly erratic.

Sometimes he turned invisible, and sometimes he abruptly emerged from invisibility. There was no logic to his movements at all.

The ape on the Dark wizard's head was completely confused by Hoffa's chaotic actions and began anxiously scrambling about.

Even amid the chaos, Hoffa still had a purpose.

His gaze swept rapidly over the shops around him. Every time he came across one, he darted inside, then jumped back out through the window.

Dervish and Banges

[Hogsmeade Exploration—46%]

Quidditch supplies shop.

[Hogsmeade Exploration—47%]

Gladrags Wizardwear

[Hogsmeade Exploration—49%]

Behind him, the two wizards had no idea what Hoffa was doing. His behavior had exhausted their patience.

One of them raised his wand high. Magic surged forth, and raging flames tore through the night as they howled toward Hoffa.

Suddenly, the sprinting Hoffa stopped.

He saw the sign of the Hog's Head in the distance, but there was no longer any need for him to approach it.

Mindscape.

Ding!

Hogsmeade Exploration reached 50%.

Obtained One-Third Spell Fragment.

Spell Fragments (3/3)

You may now upgrade any spell ability.