Hogwarts Study Panel.

Chapter 577, Part 575: Godric Gryffindor

The border area was shrouded in mist.

The outline of a dilapidated street could be vaguely seen.

The alleyway here is always piled with garbage, and next to the peeling paint door, the faded "Oak Tree Children's Home" sign hangs crookedly, shaking off the dust in the wind.

As dust settled, a black cat was suddenly grabbed.

"Centuries have passed, and you guys are still showing up in the same place—"

It was a voice full of interest, strong and powerful.

The black cat suddenly disappeared as if provoked, and when it reappeared, it was already standing on a cloud of mist.

The mist began to gather not far in front of it. It moved slowly, as if someone was using invisible fingers to gather the gray mist layer by layer, piling it into a huge outline.

First, there was a huge cat head, then a standing body, and finally, dark fur.

The wizard looked up and could see a giant cat standing tall, with a diameter of nearly five meters.

"Huo."

He chuckled and raised the sword, which gleamed with a scarlet light.

The giant cat stared at him with its cold, vertical pupils, and then vanished in the next second.

When it reappeared, it was already more than ten meters away.

The sword glowing red is the sharpest thing in the border region, and no wizard is unaware of this.

Unfortunately, the giant cat underestimated the speed of the male wizard in front of it. Just a few seconds later, the wizard blocked the giant cat's path with his sword.

"Who are you----"

The giant cat asked warily.

It stared intently at the male wizard before it, wondering which infamous wizard from the borderlands he might be.

Very few dark wizards can survive in the Borderlands, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Even behind the veil of death, the soul is not entirely safe.

No place is entirely harmonious; this applies to every realm of magic.

This is especially true in border areas, which is why wizards often avoid newly arrived dark wizards.

They will always be devoured by their own opposites; there's no need to get entangled with them.

But the black cat never expected that it would encounter a dark wizard, whom it hadn't faced in so long, at this moment.

He was very close to the dark wizard.

The first thing that popped into the black cat's head was this phrase, but he had no such connection with any dark wizard, let alone "the madman with the ruby ​​sword."

So when the face began to emerge from the floating mist, the black cat noticed the scar first.

Three deep claw marks slanted across his left forehead and nose, extending to his right jaw, almost splitting his face into two halves.

The scars were old and faded, yet they were still so menacing that one wanted to take a step back.

But the eyes above the scar were bright amber in color.

He seemed frozen at an age where he no longer grew old, around forty years old, with dark golden hair like a lion's mane mixed with gray, and a beard that was roughly and casually trimmed, as if he had casually shaved it with a dagger one morning.

He wasn't wearing the magnificent wizard robes depicted in ancient wizard portraits, but rather a dark red old coat with frayed cuffs and a patch on his left shoulder that was noticeably darker in color.

This patch was sewn on later.

The black cat didn't understand why it knew this.

The "madman carrying the ruby ​​sword" tilted his head, his gaze on the black cat filled with undisguised curiosity, like someone flipping through an open book at a market.

"You're awake."

"The madman with the ruby ​​sword," said the voice, low and hoarse, "Most people are dreaming when they get here. You're not here."

"The Void Rune grants wizards the ability to traverse borderlands."

The giant cat said.

"Oh? Is that what you think?"

The "madman carrying the ruby ​​sword" grinned, his body trembling slightly with laughter.

The giant cat stared at him, especially at the sword.

"You really like this sword?"

He said with great interest, "I used this sword—a goblin-made, shockingly ugly sword—to cut down seventeen wizards in one go. They were all pretty skilled guys."

For the next month, I couldn't lift my right hand and could only hold my wand with my left. One of my old friends cursed at me and brewed a whole vat of ointment. The way he cursed me was even more disgusting than the ointment he made—”

The giant cat didn't understand the meaning of what the dark wizard was saying. It stared at the "vicious" male wizard who had killed seventeen wizards at once, wondering if it should leave the border area as soon as possible.

"You've come here because I have something to teach you."

"The madman carrying the ruby ​​longsword" stepped forward. "What Ravenclaw didn't teach you, I'll teach you."

"What?"

The giant cat didn't react immediately.

"Didn't she etch the staffless spell into your soul just so I would come to you?"

The dark wizard grinned. "She's still the same, saying nothing and waiting for people to guess. She thinks this is wisdom," but who doesn't know that? But we love her, so we let her be."

The giant cat was shocked. So the "madman carrying the ruby ​​sword" was Ravenclaw's suitor?

"Come on, try my sword."

The black wizard raised his sword, its sharpness reminding Sheen of the legends of the borderlands.

Legend has it that the "madman carrying a ruby ​​sword" is the most vicious and ruthless fellow in the border region.

He possesses an absolutely sharp sword, from which no wizard can escape unscathed, and to this day, no one has ever been known to defeat him in a duel.

But ironically, he's also the kind of guy who likes to challenge people to duels.

Most of the time, no wizard wants to see him at the border.

If they still want to see the fog tomorrow.

"Oh, right, I won't be satisfied if I don't give it my all."

The black wizard laughed heartily.

The giant cat felt that its fur must be standing on end.

The next moment, the earth shook violently, and something extremely drastic seemed to be happening deep within the mist.

As special guests of the border region, the giant cat always enjoys extra privileges.

For example, it can use magic that is difficult to use in border regions; for example, it can partially deform or conceal its own soul.

The sudden enlargement, sudden disappearance, and sudden reappearance that just happened are all effects of this type of magic.

Now, it naturally used the magic it was familiar with.

Huge, intertwined stone hands suddenly bulged from the ground, dispelling the entire fog.

Amidst the rumbling sound, "the madman carrying the ruby ​​sword" laughed heartily, then was firmly grasped by the stone hand.

The ancient, remnant-like giant stone hand closed, and the giant cat, as if deflated, transformed into a black cat.

Is it really that simple?

The black cat pondered the words the dark wizard had spoken.

He's a suitor for the Ravenclaw teacher, and he wants to come and teach him?

His method was to come and chop down a cat with a sword.

The whole thing had a strange quality to it, and the black cat couldn't quite figure it out for the time being.

The changes that occurred the next second rendered it unable to think.

The stone guardian was cleaved open once again. This time, it split the entire stone hand in two from top to bottom, crashing down onto the white expanse of land with a thunderous roar.

The black cat had never seen such magic before, nor such a powerful wizard.

"That's not enough!"

Amidst the flying stone chips, the dark wizard emerged from the rubble as if taking a leisurely stroll. His bright amber color was even more captivating. "We had long anticipated that when all the crises were resolved, the wizards of the future would become weaker—but not this weak."

As her student, her only student, I can't let you do this—”

Before the black cat could react, his shoulders slumped, his knees bent slightly, and in an instant he was on the black cat's face.

The black cat had never felt anything sharp so close to it before, and its emerald green vertical pupils turned serious.

In the blink of an eye, a stone shield a meter wide appeared between them.

This time, even the invincible crimson sword paused for a moment.

The black cat's paws slammed heavily into the mist, and the shattered stone hand reformed, as if something deeper and more magnificent was about to break through the mist.

The "madman carrying a ruby ​​sword" laughed wildly, his scars stretched wide on his face, making him look somewhat gruesome.

He watched with great interest as the mist was pushed aside, then saw the black cat's vertical pupils lose their luster the next moment, and it was so tired that it almost fell out of the mist.

At the same time, the entire border area seemed to be rumbling.

Two stone palms, each thirty meters in diameter, pierced through the mist and closed at a speed that could not be reacted to.

The moment the stone walls met, a tremendous sound wave dispersed the fog that had gathered again.

As for the black wizard between the stone walls, his fate remains unknown.

The black cat, however, remained staring intently at that spot, and then took off running.

"Quite a few people do run away during duels, and I occasionally spare their lives—"

A hand appeared out of nowhere and lifted the black cat, whose legs were still waving.

The "madman carrying the ruby ​​sword" wasn't in much better shape either; his robe was torn in several places, and he was covered in dust, but he still seemed to be alright.

Knowing it could not defeat him, the black cat floated on its chest, and the mist was about to envelop it and send it out of the world behind the veil of death.

It was at this moment that the fog was dispersed.

The black cat stared intently at the dispersed mist with its wide pupils, gaining a new understanding of the sword's power.

"If we don't duel properly, I'll still be unhappy. If you want to play with that witch named Ariana again next time, I'll have a hard time agreeing to it—"

The "madman carrying the ruby ​​sword" looked even madder.

The black cat's usually calm vertical pupils turned cold at the mention of Ariana's name.

The dark wizard in front of me is too dangerous.

How did he know Ariana?

What else does he know?

What does he want to do?

"The Madman with the Ruby Sword" — Just like the name given to him by the people of the borderlands, he has always been a madman, and no one can predict what he will do.

Therefore, "Fujiishi Guardian -

'

If souls can make their own voices, then the black cat's soul must be growling.

"Yes, that's it."

The dark wizard laughed, as happy as a child.

But the next moment, his smile froze on his face.

Because the trembling ground returned to calm after a few breaths, the black cat's complexion visibly worsened, and its breathing sounded like it was working a small bellows.

"You bastard—"

The dark wizard was taken aback, then his lips curled into a wide smile, and he burst into laughter. "Have you run out of magic?"

The black cat quietly stirred its own misty clumps, rapidly searching through Dumbledore's dream.

It certainly doesn't have much fighting power left, but it can still find outside help.

"You've exhausted the magic of your soul? Where does the soul get its magic?"

The dark wizard was still laughing, but his cheerful tone prevented his words from sounding mocking.

The black cat paused, its paw poking at the misty dumpling, as if it had suddenly received a profound awakening.

Is a wizard's soul truly limited by so-called magic?

The black cat already knew that magic resided in the wizard's soul.

However, the wizard's body also affects the realization of magic. If magic were not restricted by the wizard's body, what kind of power could it unleash?

The black cat didn't know.

It never even considered it.

But now it wants to know.

"Let me see your will! At the crossroads, if you believe you can stir up giant waves, you can become a storm!"

The dark wizard growled.

Thus, this became the last complete sentence he uttered before he fled.

Even as he barely managed to slip away from beneath the towering stone giant, his eyes still held an undisguised look of astonishment.

It's not like a mountain, because mountains don't squat like that.

Its massive body is made of bluish-gray granite, and its surface is covered with cracks of varying depths.

Moss and lichen spread across its shoulders in dark green patches, and dwarf pines emerged from the rock crevices at its collarbone, their roots cracking the originally fine texture.

Its head was tilted slightly forward, and a rock protruded from its brow bone, obscuring the two dark red lights in its eye sockets—those were faintly glowing iron ore.

It just squatted there at the border.

The black wizard couldn't see its shoulders; he had no idea that the mist floating high in the sky at the boundary could be touched, unless a stone giant's head was faintly buried in it.

"What blind confidence!"

As he swung his sword, breaking the stone giant's earth-shaking, unbreakable arm, he charged straight at the black cat without looking back.

It lay on a mound of mist, the boundary giving it vertical pupils that could not be obscured by the fog.

The next second, the black wizard saw the mist begin to vibrate.

Floating on the border, the boundless, eternal mist surged at this moment.

The talisman floated, yet it was deeply cracked with a ravine.

The black cat was unaware of this; it only felt as if something had entered its body through the empty talisman.

The battle ceased when the black cat discovered the crack in the empty rune in a panic.

The black wizard looked at the black cat and grinned widely.

"The etiquette of dueling... I've forgotten it for far too long—"

The dark wizard cleaved the stone giant's hand away with a single sword strike, the shockwave causing the black cat to narrow its eyes in alarm. "You will face Godric Gryffindor, death—1177."

The mountain moved, bowing its head from the distant clouds, allowing the dark-furred cat before it to stand on its shoulder.

"Sheen Green — Survived — Fourteen years."

The black cat's figure was completely obscured by the mist.

Godric Gryffindor's body stiffened.

He just dueled with a fourteen-year-old wizard?

Is she really fourteen?!

"I'm not playing anymore."

Gryffindor sheathed his sword.