At this moment, the air in the Forbidden Forest seemed frozen.
The silvery-white stag stood beside Allen, its antlers still radiating light, but the light was becoming increasingly weak, like a lamp that was about to burn out, each time it lit up a little dimmer than the last.
The Dementor, who were standing a dozen steps away, clearly sensed it too. From beneath their gray-black cloaks came increasingly dense gurgling sounds, like dozens of broken bellows leaking air at the same time.
Allen's face was covered by a mask, so no one could see his expression behind it.
But in his heart, he had already cursed himself countless times.
The Patronus Charm couldn't dispel the Dementor —something he had never even considered before.
In his mind, the Patronus Charm was the bane of Dementor, and releasing it would solve everything.
But the group of things in front of him was clearly different from what he had imagined. They had retreated, but they hadn't gone far. They were just waiting there to wear him down, and then they would all pounce on him when his magic was almost depleted.
His fingers, gripping the wand, felt slightly numb. The countdown on James ' character card was ticking on the system panel: 3:50... 3:25... 2:58... 2:30...
With each tick of the countdown, his heart sank a little deeper.
Has he been having a run of good fortune lately?
On the beach, they dealt with Quirrell; on the Black Lake, they raised the entire lake; in Diagon Alley, Fiendfyre through the Fiendfyre; on the rooftop of London, they cast a Gale Spell that terrified thirty International Auror, causing them to flee Great Britain overnight...
These tasks came one after another, and he became more and more adept at them, so much so that he didn't even realize it himself. He had started to get a little carried away.
But think about it carefully, wasn't it always thanks to limited-edition character cards that we got through it all?
Quirrell used that card to withstand an attack from more than a dozen Death Eaters.
Tom Riddle's card: He fought a back-and-forth with Lockhart, who was controlled by Riddle, in Diagon Alley, and even managed to turn all the snakes in the alley against him using Parseltongue.
The card James is still in use, with his silver-white stag staring blankly at a group of Dementor.
Without these cards, what is he?
A half-baked wizard with fifth-tier magic power, whose spells are all based on fragmented memories implanted by the system, and whose combat experience is all based on instinctive reactions crammed into his brain by character cards.
To put it bluntly, he's just an actor wearing a trench coat and a mask, standing on stage playing the role of a powerful wizard, with all the props provided by the system.
He even had the thought that "I am very strong".
Allen mentally criticized himself severely, but couldn't help feeling discouraged.
Ultimately, he was now in an unprecedented predicament. Self-deprecation aside, the immediate problem still needed to be solved.
He stood still, his face expressionless. The hem of his trench coat fluttered gently in the damp, cold wind of the Forbidden Forest, and his Purple-Patterned Fox-Face Mask gleamed with a cold, eerie luster in the silvery light.
The people around him looked at him with hope, especially Ron, who would glance at him every now and then, his expression as if he were looking at a lifeline.
Allen gave a wry smile to himself. "Don't count on me. I don't even know what to do myself."
He flipped through the system panel from beginning to end, and then from end to beginning.
The limited character card Riddle only has one left, and James is using it, but time is running out. He can't just use it again when time is up; that would be a waste of time.
As for the title [ Restless Butterfly ]? The Gale Spell is at its peak, and it certainly works, but can the Gale Spell disperse Dementor?
He quickly reviewed the fragments of knowledge Ravenclaw had left him in his mind and came to the conclusion that it was negative.
Wind is a physical phenomenon, while Dementor are emotional beings; unless the Gale Spell is extremely powerful, its effect will be negligible.
There's also the learning efficiency bonus from Ravenclaw's blessing, but that's completely irrelevant to the current situation.
Neville's Steadfast Will provided him with a mental defense that could withstand the Dementor ' mental corruption, but that was only enough for him alone; there were three children and a filthy fugitive beside him.
The Pensieve... that thing is useless now.
Allen scanned the system panel again and again, but found almost nothing.
The countdown is still ticking, 2:15...2:02...1:50...
He took a deep breath, the cold air from the Forbidden Forest filling his lungs, carrying the smell of earth and decaying leaves.
The silvery-white stag had darkened further, and the light on its antlers had shrunk to a thin layer, like frost on a window in winter, which would melt away as soon as the sun came out.
But for some reason, as he watched the number keep decreasing, the anxiety in his mind slowly subsided.
In a daze, memories of past experiences resurfaced before my eyes.
At the seaside, in St Margaret's Bay, he used Quirrell's card to stop Voldemort's Killing Curse for the first time; at that moment, he could barely hold his wand.
The Black Lake, its surface churning with purple Fiendfyre, was lifted into the air by him, causing the water to explode into millions of tiny diamonds under the moonlight.
Diagon Alley, Fiendfyre, splitting the purple flames in two to create a clean stone path in the middle.
On the rooftop of that building at the east end of Oxford Street in London, he drew all the wind to himself, scaring thirty International Auror into packing up and leaving overnight.
In that instant, the memory in Allen's mind froze on a strong wind in London.
He also thought of his title, " The Restless Butterfly," and the " Gale Spell " he had mastered to its fullest extent.
It seemed as if a flash of inspiration appeared for a moment, only to vanish just as quickly.
Gradually, his thoughts began to wander, and he fell into deep thought, his brows furrowing slightly.
Time seemed to have passed for a very long time...
It seemed like only a moment had passed.
A moment later, Allen finally opened his eyes.
Meanwhile, in a corner of the system's light screen that no one paid attention to, the continuously flashing [ Gilderoy Lockhart's Adaptability (Max Level)] finally stopped flashing...
Ron glanced at the trench coat-clad man beside him, who seemed lost in thought, and leaned closer to Hermione, lowering his voice to a whisper, "He's not out of options either, is he? This guy even dealt with the remnant soul of the You-Know-Who."
Hermione didn't even turn her head, replying in a low voice, "Don't disturb him. He's probably thinking of a way to solve the problem once and for all."
Ron, unusually, didn't argue back, but just pursed his lips and gripped his wand tighter.
Harry stood to the side, his face deathly pale.
He was the only one of the three who had seriously learned the Patronus Charm from Professor Lupin, and it was precisely because he had learned it that he understood even more clearly how outrageous that silver-white stag was.
He himself couldn't even condense a decent cloud of silver mist, while the Patronus Charm released by the masked man was so powerful that it forced hundreds of Dementor back more than ten steps!
But... even such a powerful Patronus Charm couldn't drive these things away, so what other options are there?
He felt something sinking down in his stomach, a chilly sensation, just like when he first heard the voice of the Dementor.
His mother's screams seemed to echo in his ears again, distant and indistinct, but they remained there, like a needle stuck deep in his brain that he couldn't pull out.
Sirius Black stood diagonally behind Harry, his grey eyes fixed on the increasingly dark stag for a long while, before suddenly speaking in a low voice:
"If we still can't get through, I'll just rush in."
Harry turned sharply to look at him.
" The Dementor ' target is me." Black's voice was calm, as if he were talking about something that had nothing to do with him. "You guys take advantage of that opening and run away."
Harry opened his mouth but no sound came out. Hermione turned her head and stared at him in surprise and doubt, while Ron simply wore his disbelief on his face.
Before anyone could refute, the silvery-white stag suddenly darkened further.
The light on the antlers was almost invisible, and the outline of the entire deer began to blur, like an ink painting soaked in water, with the edges gradually spreading outwards.
The Dementor, which had been surrounding them a dozen paces away, all took a step forward at the same time.
Hundreds of gray-black cloaks billowed in the cold wind, their rustling sounds pressing in from all directions, as dense as raindrops forming a continuous line on the eaves of a roof during a rainstorm.
Harry felt his knees begin to buckle again, and the chill emanating from his bones was even more intense than before. His mother's scream suddenly rose a notch, becoming as clear as if someone were shouting right next to his ear.
Black sighed, looking at Allen remained motionless, his voice so soft it was almost carried away by the wind. "Still no good?"
He gritted his teeth and was about to charge into the horde of Dementor.
Just then, a hand reached out from the side and landed firmly on his shoulder.
Black turned his head sharply.
The man in the trench coat who had been keeping his eyes closed opened them at some point.