Hogwarts: Lacus doesn't want to be a witch who destroys nations.

"Stop! This is an Auror case!" the masked man in the lead shouted sharply, his voice cold and flat, but the tip of his wand pointed at Lux without hesitation.

"Aurors?" Lux was taken aback, looking at the unfamiliar aura emanating from them, thick with dark magic. Her heart skipped a beat. "No! You're not Aurors! You are..."

Before she could finish speaking, the masked man at the head of the group had already pointed his wand out with lightning speed!

"Extremely painful!"

A ghastly green, malevolent light, like the spitting tongue of a venomous snake, accompanied by a piercing whistling sound, instantly traversed space and struck Lux hard!

"Ugh!" Lux felt a bone-chilling cold instantly invade her body. Oh no, she was going to die here!

But... the excruciating, bone-deep pain I had anticipated didn't come immediately.

She looked down at herself blankly. Her clothes were intact, and she could move her hands and feet. It seemed like... she was alright?

[The host is afflicted with an unforgivable curse: Heart-Rending Curse]

[Data-driven implementation in progress, immune to negative sensory effects]

[Health points are continuously decreasing. Current health points: 424...404...384...]

Lux looked at the twisted skull icon on the system panel and her health bar steadily decreasing like water being released from a dam, and instantly understood.

This excruciating pain is like being ignited; the data has rendered the body immune to the negative effects of pain, but the damage still occurs, even if you don't feel the pain.

"Too much blood lost, got it! Play dead for now!"

Lux made a quick decision, her face scrunched up, her eyes rolled back, and she made a very realistic, barely audible "Ugh..."

Then, like a puppet with its strings cut, its body fell straight forward with a "thud," landing face down on the cold, gravelly beach. It even twitched twice at just the right moment before finally becoming completely still.

[Health Points: 364...344...324...] The health bar is still steadily decreasing.

"Lux!" Holmes' heart nearly stopped when he saw the green light strike Lux!

He roared and charged forward, but the masked man's cold wand was already pointed at him.

"Muggle, stay put if you don't want to die!" another masked man coldly warned.

The masked leader glanced at Lux, who was lying on the ground, seemingly unsure of her fate, and, appearing very confident in the effectiveness of the Cruciatus Curse, refrained from delivering the final blow.

His attention shifted to the werewolf who was still struggling in pain; this was the real purpose of his trip.

"Useless! Can't even handle a minor wizard!" He sneered, waving his wand. "Petrify them all! Confuse them! Dissipate their power!"

Several spells were cast, and the werewolf's howling stopped abruptly; he fell to the ground, unable to utter a sound.

"Take him away! This werewolf cannot stay here," the masked leader ordered.

"Apparition!"

After a few soft explosions, thick fog billowed along the riverbank, and the mysterious masked men, along with the captured werewolves, vanished completely as if they had never existed.

All that remained was the thick, impenetrable fog, the sobbing of the river, and... Lux, lying on the gravel beach pretending to be dead, and Holmes, gripping a gun, his face ashen, his eyes burning with an unprecedented rage.

Holmes rushed to Lux's side, knelt on one knee, and with trembling hands tried to turn her over, his voice filled with unprecedented panic: "Miss Lux! Lux!"

[Health Points: 264...244...224...] Lux watched her health bar continue to drop, feeling a little anxious: "Hey, when are you going to stop losing health? If this keeps going, I'll be a corpse!"

[Remaining duration of the Piercing Bone-Scraping Continuous Damage: 60 seconds]

"I'm running out of health!"

Just as Holmes's hand was about to touch Lux's shoulder, the "corpse" lying on the ground suddenly moved, and then Lux's body was covered in a golden light, which Holmes could not move no matter how hard he tried.

A few seconds later, to Holmes' astonishment, Lux suddenly raised her head, spat out the sand and pebbles in her mouth, her little face scrunched up, and rubbed her chest in a grimace: "Ouch... It doesn't hurt, but this continuous blood loss is too scary. Luckily I bought a Golden Body."

Holmes: "..."

He looked at the disheveled but seemingly energetic young wizard before him, and the worry, astonishment, and bewilderment on his face eventually blended into an extremely complex and almost distorted expression.

Even though he had seen many storms and understood the ways of the world, his mind was a little blank at this moment.

"You...you're not dead?" Holmes's voice was dry, like sandpaper scraping. "That...green light just now?"

"Oh, that 'Extracorporeal Mechanism'?" Lux struggled to sit up, and Holmes instinctively helped her up.

"It's nothing, it's nothing! It just drains my health a bit..." She pointed to her head, as if there was a status bar there, "It's down more than half, I need to drink some medicine to replenish it quickly."

Holmes watched as she rambled on and on, then actually pulled a small bottle that shimmered with a faint green light from that magical pocket, uncorked it, and gulped it down, the movements so smooth and natural that it was as if she were drinking pumpkin juice.

[Health points are recovering]

As the potion went down, Lux's previously pale complexion visibly regained its color, and even the dust she had picked up earlier no longer looked so disheveled.

She sighed contentedly and patted her chest: "Ah, that feels good! I feel like I could go and fight them for another three hundred rounds!"

Holmes watched her actions silently, his expression shifting from shock to numbness, finally settling on a somewhat absurd sense of relief.

He took a deep breath of the cold, damp riverside air, feeling as if his worldview had been completely refreshed, shattered, and then reassembled in an extremely bizarre way tonight.

Magic is indeed illogical.

"Immune to pain..." he repeated softly, this phrase completely beyond his comprehension, shaking his head helplessly, but a barely perceptible smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. "It seems that in your wizarding world, even death can be bargained over."

"Hehe, so-so. Lux is still the best. Anyone else would probably be dead here." Lux chuckled, patted her butt, stood up, and looked around at the messy scene.

The unknown wizard was completely lifeless, and the air was filled with the nauseating smell of dark magic and blood.

"Mr. Holmes, what do we do now? The trail seems to have gone cold again... Those guys captured the werewolf, could it be Grindelwald?"

Holmes's eyes sharpened. He walked to the dead wizard and examined him closely. He noticed that the wizard seemed to be clutching something in his clenched fist.

Holmes carefully pried open his cold, stiff fingers.

A small, unassuming silver locket fell out. The lid of the locket seemed to have been smashed open with great force, and the inside was empty. However, the locket itself had a very peculiar shape, with a canine tooth embedded in it.

Holmes' voice regained its usual calmness, carrying a hint of insightful decisiveness. "They took the key werewolf, and the full moon isn't over yet. Our actions tonight disrupted their rhythm, but in doing so, we also exposed ourselves—those fake Aurors..."

He looked at Lux, his gaze behind his glasses deep: "They know your magic. Our troubles have probably only just begun."

Holmes sighed deeply: "I thought there was no chance of finding the truth, but I've seen this pendant before, so the trail hasn't gone cold."

"You've seen it before?" Lux asked, puzzled.

"There's a gang of vagrants in the London sewers who call themselves the Fangs. Official members are given a silver-plated wolf fang pendant. Don't underestimate a detective's intelligence, little wizard."