One Glance Kill, Magic Institute Flees!

The night was black as ink, and the Flamel Family's abandoned manor stood beneath the moonlight like a scarred giant.

Uchiha Madara appeared soundlessly in the shadows beyond the estate, but he did not enter at once.

His crimson eyes glimmered faintly in the darkness as they calmly swept over the building before him.

Something was wrong.

A subtle yet intricate magical fluctuation filled the air—

It was not the straightforward protective magic used by British wizards, but layers upon layers of interlocking spells, like a restrained, complex, invisible net shrouding the manor's core.

The energy nodes were connected to one another, faintly echoing some kind of pulse deep underground.

A barrier... The word surfaced in Madara's mind, drawn from this body's scattered memories of Eastern magical systems.

They had set up a formation in advance? Interesting.

It seemed that this "guest" was no mere brute.

A cold curve tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Madara had no intention of forcing his way through the barrier. He melted into the night like a shadow and moved along its weaker points.

Though the One-Tomoe Sharingan had yet to fully recover, its insight was already enough to lock onto his target—

Beside the dried-up fountain behind the manor.

A middle-aged man in a dark gray kimono stood with his back to him, waving an oak wand wrapped in white talismans through the air.

The man chanted low incantations. With each movement, rune chains glimmering faintly intertwined through the air and ground, writhing and linking together like living things.

This man was Viper's backer.

A grand wizard of the Japanese Magic Institute and head of its London branch—Yagyu Sogen.

Through his shikigami, he had witnessed the blue flames at the bar and concluded that this "Blood Lord" was young, but a ruthless little bastard. He had to act personally and erase him with overwhelming force to uphold the Magic Institute's prestige!

Just as the barrier was about to close—

"Magic Institute... vermin? You finally decided to show yourselves?"

A cold, hoarse voice filled with undisguised mockery rang out behind Yagyu Sogen!

What?!

Yagyu Sogen's entire body jolted! A chill shot from his tailbone straight to the top of his head!

His mind had been highly focused while setting up the barrier, his senses covering the entire area. How could anyone have infiltrated so close without a sound?!

He spun around sharply. His wand erupted with blinding white light, and a powerful spherical protective spell instantly unfolded before him!

Under the moonlight, within the shadows beneath the eaves, a boy in black robes stood silently.

His hood slid back slightly, revealing half of a face—unusually young, yet cold as a sculpture.

Most striking of all were the blood-red eyes gradually lighting up in the darkness! A single black Magatama slowly rotated within each pupil, radiating something ominous and sinister.

It was Uchiha Madara!

"Those scarlet eyes, just like the reports... You're the 'Blood Lord'? The last Flamel!"

Yagyu Sogen's pupils contracted sharply, warning bells ringing madly in his mind. The other party had slipped through his outer defenses so easily; his strength had to be far beyond estimates!

But Yagyu Sogen was, after all, an experienced grand wizard. He forcibly suppressed his shock and shouted, "You really dare come here to die!"

He made up his mind not to give his opponent any opportunity! He had to seize the initiative!

He abandoned the barrier's closure, held his wand steady, and rapidly chanted an ancient spirit-word incantation—

A secret mental attack of the Magic Institute, using sound and magical resonance to strike directly at the soul's source!

The invisible mental assault condensed into a sharp arrow, instantly crossing the distance between them and shooting toward Madara's brow!

Yagyu Sogen was confident that even a veteran Hogwarts professor would suffer badly if caught off guard by this attack!

Yet Madara did not so much as raise an eyelid!

The One-Tomoe Sharingan stared at Yagyu Sogen coldly, as though watching a boring sideshow.

"Hmph. Pointless resistance."

Just as the spirit-word assault was about to touch Madara, Yagyu Sogen's gaze inevitably fell into those rotating crimson eyes!

Buzz—!

Yagyu Sogen felt as though his consciousness had been thrown into a massive vortex!

The mental defenses he had painstakingly built, the spiritual barrier he had cultivated for years—all of it melted away instantly before those eyes, like ice and snow beneath the sun!

Genjutsu: Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique!

This was not some complex genjutsu. In the Uchiha Clan, even a five-year-old could master it. Yet it struck at the most primal and profound fears hidden deep within one's heart.

Everything before Yagyu Sogen changed.

Flamel Manor vanished, and he found himself upon an endless wasteland burning with blood-red flames.

The sky was a suffocating dark red. Countless twisted, wailing souls rose and sank amid the fire. Before him stood a colossal, indistinct figure that seemed to hold up the heavens, radiating boundless majesty. Its eyes, looking down upon him, were covered in reincarnation patterns and so cold that his soul froze.

"No... impossible... This is..." Yagyu Sogen trembled all over. He recognized it as the image of the world-destroying demon god recorded in the ancient archives of the Magic Institute, a being that existed only in myth! It was the ultimate fear buried deepest in his heart!

He wanted to run, only to find his feet gripped tightly by countless pallid arms reaching out from a sea of blood.

He wanted to cast magic, only to find the magic within him as still as dead water, impossible to stir.

"Those who defile divine blood... die!" The giant demon god let out a soul-shaking roar and slowly raised a palm large enough to crush mountains, bringing it down upon him! The shadow of death was so thick it seemed tangible!

"No—!! Spare me!!" Yagyu Sogen let out a scream of utter despair.

In reality—

His wand fell to the ground with a clatter.

Both hands clutched tightly around his own throat. His eyes bulged, bloodshot, while his face twisted beyond recognition under the weight of extreme terror.

He saw it! He saw his body being crushed inch by inch beneath that giant palm, flesh and blood flying everywhere! He saw his soul ripped free and cast into those eternally burning blood-red flames to endure endless torment!

In the real world, Madara watched coldly as the grand wizard who had been imposing just moments earlier now flailed about like a madman, letting out inhuman howls before suddenly stiffening and falling backward with unfocused eyes.

"Bang."

His body struck the dust-covered ground, kicking up a small cloud of dust.

Yagyu Sogen was dead.

He had been scared to death by the deepest fear in his own heart.

Madara walked over to Yagyu Sogen's corpse. His crimson Sharingan swept over it, confirming that the man's life force had completely vanished.

He bent down, picked up the oak wand wrapped in talismans, casually weighed it in his hand, then pulled several scrolls and a token representing the Magic Institute from an inner pocket of the man's kimono.

"What a disappointment." He snapped the wand in half and tossed it beside the corpse.

As for the scrolls and token, he kept them for now. They might have some research value.

Madara's figure merged into the night once more and vanished from Flamel Manor.

The next day, the Magic Institute's London base received confirmation of Yagyu Sogen's death, along with fragmented memories desperately brought back by his accompanying personnel—

Only those scarlet eyes that made souls tremble.

And the horrific sight of Lord Yagyu dying in extreme terror.

The entire base fell into silent panic.

Even a grand wizard had been powerless to resist and died so strangely and miserably... Wouldn't people like them simply be walking into death?

Without any hesitation, that very afternoon, all Magic Institute personnel in London packed up at top speed and quietly withdrew from the United Kingdom through the International Floo Network, returning to Japan.

They did not even file a report with the British Ministry of Magic, as though they had never existed there at all.

Knockturn Alley and the upper ranks of the Wizarding World vaguely caught wind of the matter, but the details remained unclear.

The only certainty was that the "Blood Lord" had driven back a powerful force from the East through some unknown and terrifying method.

From that day onward, the Blood Lord's vicious reputation was no longer merely a rumor whispered in the shadows.