Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 260: Unleashing the Resurrection Armor with Just One Spell

"Come on, let me test you. How do you think the statues on the other side detect whether visitors have access?" Rice initially wanted to destroy the sensors on the two kobold statues, but after thinking about it for a moment, he decided to leave this question to Daphne and Astoria to solve.

After hearing Rice's question, the two immediately focused their magic on their eyes and began to observe the flow of magic in the statue.

"Eye area!"

"floor!"

The two shouted at the same time, but from different parts of their bodies.

"How come you can't see the obvious flow of magic around your eyes?" Daphne demanded.

"But there's some on the floor too, look—" Astoria pointed to the floor between the two kobold statues, and sure enough, there was a faint flow of magic on it.

"If that's your argument, then there's magic flowing on the door too, but that's the floor and the door, what does it have to do with the statue?"

The two got into an argument.

"Is it possible that the floor, the door, and the kobold's eyes are all part of a sensor system?" Rice reminded them.

Ok?

Daphne and Astoria immediately examined the area more carefully and discovered that, as Rice had said, the magic connecting the kobold statue's eyes, the floor, and the stone door was interconnected. In other words, all three parts served as access control mechanisms: the statue checked the area between the floor and ceiling, the floor detected who touched it, and the door checked whether the person pushing it had the necessary permissions. This triple protection meant that a problem with any one of these mechanisms would awaken the statue.

"Then we should—?"

"Destroying all three magic circles simultaneously will render the statue 'blind'," Rice explained, offering a solution. He then posed a second question: "The designers could certainly have ensured that if the signal from any of these three locations were interrupted, the statue would be awakened to attack. Why didn't they do that?"

Rice's question made both Daphne and Astoria think.

"Because this used to be a palace, people come and go every day. If any magic circle malfunctions, the awakened statues will definitely cause a lot of chaos, right?" Astoria came to her conclusion after thinking for a moment.

"Brilliant reasoning!" Rice gave her a thumbs up. "Now we can destroy those magic circles."

The three drew their wands and unleashed three attack spells simultaneously, blasting away the kobold statue's eyes, the floor tiles, and the door panel.

After destroying the three sensors, Rice led Daphne and Astoria to the stone gate. Two kobold stone statues stood silently on either side of the gate, showing no sign of moving.

Rice had a feeling that Hufflepuff was very close, and that perhaps opening this door would provide the answer.

He placed his hand on the door and gently pushed it; the door slid open automatically.

The space behind the door was spacious, with dozens of pillars supporting the ceiling. Each pillar was carved with reliefs, perhaps depicting the palace owner's great achievements, or perhaps ancient Egyptian mythology. Strangely, apart from these pillars, there was nothing else in the hall, only a thick layer of sand.

"It's a dead end." Daphne stood behind Rice, looked around the layout of the hall, and realized that this was the end of the passage they had come in through.

Before the palace was abandoned, it may have been filled with countless treasures of gold and silver or papyrus scrolls, but now there is nothing left but sand.

It's possible that someone else set foot here thousands of years ago.

Rice felt a little unwilling. He squatted down, grabbed a handful of sand, and let it slip from his palm.

The clues we finally found just disappeared here—a thousand years ago, Helga came here, fought a great battle with the palace guards, and then left. The magical fluctuations she left behind even tricked her old friend a thousand years later.

"Sigh..." Rice sighed.

However, he felt that something was not quite right, but he couldn't figure out what the problem was.

Rice frowned and pondered for a while, a question flashing through his mind: If the aftermath of the battle could still be observed a thousand years later, then why is this hall still so intact, with even the stone carvings on the pillars not destroyed?

Thinking of this, he suddenly stood up, startling Daphne and Astoria. But before they could ask any questions, a figure emerged from the corner of the hall, out of the blind spot of the three of them. With a wave of its hand, a beam of light flashed out from in front of it and headed straight for Rice.

However, due to the positioning issue, Daphne became the target of the spell instead of Rice.

The attack happened so suddenly that neither Daphne nor Astoria had time to react, nor did Rice. From the moment the figure appeared to the moment Daphne was attacked, less than half a second had passed. He had only subconsciously cast a defensive spell, but such a hastily cast spell was hardly effective.

The blinding light instantly shattered Rice's defensive magic and rushed towards Daphne. The powerful magic, strong enough to tear her to shreds in an instant, prevented the girl from even opening her eyes. But at that moment, the necklace hanging on Daphne's chest shattered, and a thick barrier of light appeared in front of her, engulfing the blinding light.

The next moment, the same beam of light reflected back from in front of Daphne, blasting a hole a foot wide in the wall of the hall.

From the moment Daphne was attacked to the moment the spell rebounded, less than a second had passed. Daphne didn't even know why her necklace had suddenly shattered—without this necklace, she wouldn't even know when she died.

"Watch out!" Rice shouted, turning around quickly and pulling Daphne and Astoria behind him with a wave of his hand. At the same time, he was spreading magic around as if it were free, building his own domain at top speed.

Astoria was the first to react and quickly cast a defensive spell. Daphne also seemed to wake up from a dream and subconsciously tried to activate the spell in the necklace, but when she reached for her chest, she found nothing.

She then realized that her necklace had just shattered into pieces.

"You two, get out of here now, immediately!" Rice said sternly, leaving no room for negotiation.

Daphne opened her mouth as if to say something, but Astoria interrupted her by tugging at her sleeve.

The three of them walked slowly toward the door. Rice was on edge, constantly on guard against the next attack—the figure had disappeared when the spell rebounded, but Rice didn't think it had been killed by the rebounding spell.

He knew that thing was hidden in the palace, ready to launch another deadly sneak attack at any moment.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

This is the second update. The next update will be at midnight tonight.

(End of this chapter)