Allen glanced at the countdown on the system screen.
[Limited Character Card: time remaining 4:20.]
Only four minutes and twenty seconds remained.
The discovery instantly brought a sheen of cold sweat to his back.
Four minutes and twenty seconds might seem like plenty, but the man facing him was Quirrell, possessed by Voldemort.
Even if Voldemort was now too weak to act himself, Quirrell alone was powerful enough to give most wizards in the entire wizarding world more than they could handle.
I have to end this quickly!
Meanwhile, Voldemort's shrill voice rang out in Quirrell's mind again. "What are you standing there for?! Finish him quickly! The Ministry's pursuers could arrive at any moment!"
Quirrell shuddered, his eyes refocusing and locking onto Allen before him.
Master was right. I couldn't drag this out any longer. The Ministry's Aurors could catch up at any moment.
Quirrell's gaze sharpened, and his wrist snapped.
"Expelliarmus!"
A streak of red light shot from his wand tip, so fast it left only an afterimage.
Allen raised his wand almost simultaneously, with almost exactly the same gesture. "Expelliarmus!"
The two red beams collided in midair, bursting into dazzling sparks that briefly lit the beach as brightly as day.
Both men stepped back at once, then spoke in unison:
"Protego!"
Almost perfectly synchronized.
Invisible barriers formed before them, and the shock wave from the collision of their magic stripped a layer of sand from the beach, sweeping through their surroundings like a miniature sandstorm.
Quirrell's pupils contracted slightly.
His opponent's casting motion and timing for Protego matched his own exactly, as though he had predicted precisely what Quirrell would do next.
Allen's mind was not idle either.
Quirrell's combat memories were merging into his body with extraordinary fluidity.
It was a strange sensation. He had never practiced spells for a single day, yet his body was as familiar with them as if he had trained for twenty years.
He smoothly cast a silent Impedimenta, trying to disrupt Quirrell's casting rhythm.
An invisible force field rushed toward Quirrell.
Quirrell raised his wand almost simultaneously, likewise firing an Impediment Jinx without a sound.
The two force fields collided again, compressing the sea breeze into a strange, low howl and sending broken shells flying across the beach.
Only seven or eight meters separated the two, and that stretch had now become a miniature battlefield.
Spells flew back and forth, red, gold, and blue light flashing in turn.
The longer Quirrell fought, the more alarmed he became.
The Disarming Charm, the Impediment Jinx, the Stunning Spell, Oppugno, Petrificus Totalus... every opening gesture was so familiar that it sent chills down his spine.
It was as though he faced not an enemy, but a younger version of himself.
What he found even harder to accept was that his opponent cast faster than he did and clearly had far more experience in magical combat.
He had spent more than a decade studying Defense Against the Dark Arts, yet before this young man, every one of his techniques was completely suppressed.
His opponent's attacks gave him no chance to catch his breath, spell after spell driving him into a desperate situation.
A trace of madness flashed in Quirrell's eyes.
He could feel himself nearing his limit. If this continued, defeat was certain.
If I can't beat you, you won't get off easy either!
A vicious gleam burst into Quirrell's eyes.
He flicked his wand sharply upward, and a rich emerald light coalesced at its tip, so quickly that the casting process was almost impossible to see.
Silent! Instantaneous! A Killing Curse!
This Killing Curse incorporated every technique he had mastered: silent, instantaneous, and immensely penetrating. A hit meant certain death.
The emerald light shot silently toward Allen like a venomous snake.
But Allen had already read the opening motion for this spell in Quirrell's combat memories.
The instant Quirrell began gathering the Killing Curse, Allen's body had already shifted half a step to the left.
And just like that, as though Quirrell had missed, Allen naturally evaded the deadly green snake.
The green light skimmed past his shoulder and struck the reef rock behind him, blasting the half-man-high stone into fragments.
Quirrell's face had gone completely white.
His strongest killing move, a silent, instantaneous Killing Curse, had been dodged as easily as a flying pebble.
At that moment, Allen turned his wrist.
"Expelliarmus!"
The red light flew almost flush with the sand, striking Quirrell precisely on his wand-holding right wrist.
The wand flew from his hand, spun several times through the air, and fell onto the beach.
Besides knocking away his wand, Allen's Disarming Charm carried a powerful impact that sent Quirrell staggering. His knees buckled, and he dropped heavily onto the sand.
Quirrell knelt on the ground with both hands braced in the sand, his head lowered as he panted.
Allen stepped forward, pointing his wand straight at Quirrell's forehead.
Its tip was barely a fist's breadth from the space between his eyebrows, and the silvery-white light flowing within the Jianmu wand looked cold and deadly beneath the moonlight.
"You lost," Allen said.
Quirrell raised his head, looking at the dark brown wand before him, then following its length to the young man in the black trench coat.
For a moment, his gaze grew unfocused.
In that instant, he seemed to see not Allen, but his younger self.
All those years ago, he too had been so full of youthful confidence, highly proficient in spellwork, with nonverbal spells at his fingertips.
Back then, when he demonstrated his spellcasting skills before the entire school, even Professor Flitwick could not help applauding in admiration.
He had once been Ravenclaw's pride, earning twelve O.W.L. certificates, one of the finest students in nearly a century.
He had once spoken eloquently in class, proposed many pioneering theories in his papers, and even received an invitation from the Ministry of Magic.
Back then, although shy, introverted, and inarticulate, he had truly loved magic and yearned for knowledge.
But later...
Quirrell's vision blurred a little.
He saw the forests of Albania, saw the journey that had led to his complete downfall.
He had heard that the Dark Lord was lurking there, and thought that finding him would prove his ability and win him the recognition of the entire world.
But the moment he actually met Voldemort, everything changed.
Fear, greed, a hunger for fame-Voldemort seeped little by little into the cracks in those emotions, soaking his soul like poison.
His mind had been eroded without his realizing it, transforming him from an introverted, bashful scholar into a puppet who seemed timid but was, in truth, deranged.
He had done too many wrongs.
The villagers injured by his dark magic experiments, the innocents he had controlled with the Imperius Curse, the intelligence he had offered to please Voldemort...
Every life, every drop of blood, had piled up on the face at the back of his head.
Looking at Allen, he seemed to see his younger self standing opposite him, gazing down at him with contempt and pity.
As though asking: Quirinus Quirrell, how did you become like this?
Quirrell closed his eyes in anguish, his voice hoarse. "I don't know... I've done too many terrible things..."
Allen felt a little wistful. Of course he knew Quirrell was a complicated man. At least in his prime, he had been a scholar with boundless prospects.
But he also had to admit that the man's crimes were truly too numerous to record.
Just then, Quirrell's eyes snapped open.
This time, his gaze became resolute.
"I've made too many wrong choices in my life," he said. "Every time, I chose fear. I chose obedience."
"Only this time-"
He suddenly lunged forward, driving his own neck onto the tip of Allen's wand.
Allen's pupils abruptly contracted. He tried to pull back, but it was already too late.
Quirrell's body stiffened for an instant, then slowly fell backward.
His eyes remained open, but his pupils had already begun to lose focus.
The sea breeze swept past, lifting his faded purple turban and revealing a peaceful face.
He lay on the cold, wet beach as the waves washed over his body and receded.
A faint, barely perceptible smile rested on his lips.
In a haze, he seemed to return to his youth.
The young Quirrell stood surrounded by classmates, all praising him at once. Some admired his vast knowledge, envying him for winning award after award.
He stood there, somewhat at a loss, his cheeks burning, yet the corners of his mouth rose despite himself.
Someone patted his shoulder. "Quirrell, you'll definitely become one of the greatest wizards someday."
"Thank... you..." Quirrell murmured his final two words, whether to Allen or to his once-young self, it was unclear.
Then his body slowly toppled sideways, his forehead coming to rest against the sand, and he moved no more.
Allen stood where he was, his wand still pointed forward, motionless for a time.
He looked down at Quirrell's body as the sea breeze sent his trench coat flapping.
"...Why did you have to do that?" he said quietly.
Just then, a dense cloud of black mist erupted from the back of Quirrell's head.
That deathly pale face emerged from Quirrell's hair, its scarlet eyes glaring fixedly at Allen.
"Useless!" Voldemort's voice was shrill and grating, filled with fury and disgust. "Useless trash!"
Allen reacted instantly, firing an Imprisonment Charm from his wand straight into the black mist.
The spell passed through the mist and struck the sea behind it, bursting into a spray of water beneath the moonlight.
"No use." Allen gritted his teeth and fired three more spells in succession.
The Impediment Jinx, the Disarming Charm, the Stunning Spell-all passed through the mist without the slightest effect.
The black mist circled once beneath the moonlight, letting out a chilling hiss, then swiftly drifted away like smoke scattered by the wind, disappearing into the night sky.
Voldemort's remnant soul had escaped.
Quirrell's combat memories contained no methods for dealing with souls, because he had done little research into them during his lifetime.
"...All right, then." Allen slowly lowered his wand, looking at the empty night sky with a wry chuckle. "At least I drove him off, though he'll probably find a new vessel before long."
He looked down at Quirrell's body.
Beneath the moonlight, the face of the man lying on the beach was utterly peaceful.
The horrifying face on the back of his head had completely vanished, leaving only an ordinary, slightly pale face.
His brow had relaxed a little, as though he had finally awakened from a long nightmare.
Allen stood silently for a long time, the sea breeze stirring the hem of his trench coat, salty moisture coating the ends of his hair.
"You were a pitiful man guilty of unforgivable evil," he finally said softly. "Perhaps death was the best end for you."
He glanced at the system screen.
[Limited Character Card time remaining: 32 seconds]
There was little time left.
Allen turned to look in the direction the fisherman had fled, then used Apparition, vanishing from the spot the next instant.
Soon, behind a patch of low shrubs, he spotted the middle-aged fisherman slumped on the ground, trembling.
The fisherman hugged his knees, his face deathly pale, endlessly muttering incoherent prayers.
Allen crouched before him and gently tapped his forehead with his wand.
"Obliviate."
A soft white light flowed from the wand tip into the space between the fisherman's eyebrows. His body shuddered violently, then his eyes gradually grew vacant and bewildered.
Allen had not dared erase all his memories, because deleting large amounts of memory could cause irreversible damage to a Muggle's brain.
He had only precisely removed the small fragment of the fisherman's memory concerning his face, along with his vague impressions of this incident.
Even if someone investigated later, they would get only vague, confused descriptions.
"There." Allen withdrew his wand and stood. "You were only caught in a shipwreck tonight. You nearly drowned, and someone saved you."
"Get a peaceful night's sleep. Everything will be better tomorrow."
He rolled his slightly aching shoulders, gripped his Jianmu wand tightly, and murmured, "Apparition."
An invisible force twisted and pulled at his body, and the next instant, he had vanished from the beach.
Less than five minutes after Allen left.
Several sounds of swift flight cutting through the air came from the night sky.
Three broomsticks swooped down from the northeast, coming to a steady hover above the beach.
The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes had received word of powerful magical fluctuations here and sent people to investigate.
Hunt swung off his broom and landed on the sand.
Brown and Lillian landed behind him in turn, and all three looked toward the body on the beach at once.
Moonlight shone on Quirrell's face. His blood had already spread across a large area, staining the surrounding sand a dark black.
"Someone's dead." Brown crouched down and carefully checked the pulse at the side of Quirrell's neck, then shook his head. "This has escalated. Notify the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."
Hunt strode forward and bent down for a closer look. His gaze lingered on Quirrell's face for a moment, and his breathing involuntarily quickened.
"Quir... Quirrell?!"