The Black Bloodline of Hogwarts

"Ardere Periphera! (Edge Burning)"

Julien didn't wait for Wolfgang to fully display his literary skills; he struck first!

This is a spell he created himself (provided by the Magic Resonance Library, so it can also be considered self-created), inspired by Grindelwald.

Instead of a direct attack, it creates a controllable fire barrier around the enemy, restricting movement, consuming oxygen, and forcing the opponent to choose between suffocation and burns.

Julien wouldn't admit that this was almost black magic. He had given the other party a choice; how could it be considered black magic?

Silvery flames erupted from the tip of the staff, burning on the stone slabs of the alleyway and forming a perfect circle that trapped Wolfgang and his two accomplices in the center.

The flames weren't ordinary red; they were a silvery-white refined through alchemy, carrying a high temperature with a purifying property—especially effective against wizards who relied on energy from another world.

"Dermis Trahere (Skinning and Bone-Stripping)!"

Wolfgang swung his bone staff, and the putrid green light collided with the silvery flames, emitting a piercing hiss.

His two accomplices—Julien now saw clearly that they were both young faces, probably not much older than him—simultaneously raised their wands and uttered some ancient, almost whispered incantation.

"Nox Eminus!"

Darkness surged from the tips of their staffs, not to dispel the light, but to devour it. The ring of silvery flames began to shrink, as if being gnawed by some invisible mouth.

Julien felt his magic being drained in reverse—these two young dark wizards, their spells carried a certain… resonance, like tributaries branching off from the same source.

"A new trick?" Julien gritted his teeth, fighting off the loss of magic power within him. "A crash course at the Moonshadow Council?"

"A gift from the Council," Wolfgang approached in the shrinking flames, the green light of his bone staff growing ever brighter, "no slow learning process required, just... acceptance. How about it? Want to give it a try? Hogwarts is outdated."

His eyes appeared unnaturally colored in the green light—the pupils were dilated, and the irises were cloudy, like two glass beads that had been soaked for too long.

Clearly, even Wolfgang was "filled" with something. It wasn't magic, but something more...external.

Julien changed tactics. Since the fire barrier couldn't be maintained, then...

"Fluxus Inversus!"

The wand's trajectory changed from a circle to a spiral, and the remnants of the silver flame were twisted, forming a rotating, inward-contracting vortex.

Spin, jump, never stop.

The white flames drew Wolfgang's dark energy, along with the spells of his two accomplices, into the center of the vortex. Wolfgang's power was transformed into upward lift, which in turn enveloped him as well.

Wolfgang roared. His bone staff trembled in the vortex, the thorny markings on it writhing like living things. The two young dark wizards turned pale, their spells abruptly interrupted, the backlash of magic forcing them to their knees.

"You—" Wolfgang's scars contorted, "How did you know these things?"

"You don't need to know that," Julien said, his voice hoarse from the exertion of magic. "But your darkness can be my fuel."

Just when things seemed to be at a stalemate, Wolfgang seemed to have a trump card up his sleeve. He reached into his cloak with his left hand and took out something—not a wand, not a ore, but a badge. Withered thorns, entwined with a crescent moon.

Wolfgang grinned maliciously, crushing the badge in his hand. "Don't get cocky. You're just one person."

Space was torn apart. Not in an orderly, door-key-like manner, but in a violent, forceful way.

Three figures emerged from the crack—more dark wizards, more bone staffs, and more murky eyes.

Julien's vortex collapsed instantly. He was thrown back by the impact, his back slamming against the cold stone wall. The wand was still in his hand, but most of its magic was gone.

Five enemies surrounded them in a fan shape, their green light from the bone staff weaving into a net.

"Soul Exanimare!" Wolfgang said, raising his bone staff. "Say goodbye to your body—"

In an instant, a wave of dark purple light surged toward Yu Lian.

Before the attack could even strike Julien, he felt a wave of powerlessness wash over him, a sense of emptiness as if he were being drained and absorbed. He couldn't feel pleasure and even began to doubt his own existence.

"Expecto Patronum!"

The Guardian Charm was the only spell Julien could think of at the moment. A silver light surged from his wand, forming a huge shield in front of him, while a silver raven flew out and fluttered around him.

Instantly, the negative feeling from before completely disappeared, and Julien felt warm again.

"The swamp has collapsed!" (Palus Submersum)

A beam of earthy yellow light shot in from the alley entrance, not at Wolfgang, but at the ground beneath his feet.

The ground rippled like mud, and the spot where Wolfgang and the other dark wizards were standing suddenly sank, trapping them in a knee-deep swamp.

Wolfgang roared and tried to leap up, but the second golden light struck his knee, and he fell flat on his face.

"Cassian Thorne," Julien gasped as he uttered the name, watching the figure in the grey trench coat step out of the alleyway, "you always appear at the most...dramatic moments."

Cassian's monocle shimmered in the green light, its lens adorned with a miniature astrolabe spinning rapidly. His wand—a plain, unadorned ebony staff—pointed at Wolfgang, its tip brimming with an energy that Julien couldn't discern.

Cassian nodded slightly to Lian, his voice as calm as if reporting the weather, "Wolfgang, the signal from that badge you crushed was louder than your scream."

"The Department of Mysteries has prepared spatial markers specifically for the Moonshadow Council, so their escape last time won't happen again," Cassian explained to Julien.

Wolfgang struggled to his feet from the collapsed ground. The green light of the bone staff had dimmed, but the madness in his eyes burned even brighter: "Thorne! You always—you always ruin our plans!"

"This is my job," Cassian's wand traced a complex arc, "and your job is... to disappear."

"Obscurum Dissipare!"

"The Judgment of Radiance!" (Lux Judicium)

Cassian uttered two spells in quick succession, or rather, a compound spell. Golden light instantly appeared.

The golden light wasn't rays, but a net—a net of light woven from pure magic, covering the entire alleyway. Wolfgang tried to block it with his bone staff, but the net didn't attack him; instead, it attacked some kind of...attachment on him.

The foreign presence that filled him emitted a silent scream within the web of light. Wolfgang's body shrank like a punctured balloon, and the cloudy eyes on his scarred and distorted face gradually regained their clarity—and then fear, real, human fear.

"No—the council promised me—power!"

“Your parliament’s so-called promises,” Cassian approached, his voice low, “have always been loans, not gifts. And now, it’s time to collect.”

The light network contracted. Wolfgang let out a final wail, a wail that mixed two voices—his own, and something older, more hollow. Then, silence.

He fell to the ground, the bone staff rolling to his feet, the thorns on the staff withering rapidly, like vines drained of their life force.