Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 262 A Battle Spanning a Thousand Years (Part 2)

Upon seeing this clay figure, Reis understood everything: a thousand years ago, Helga came here. Perhaps a fierce battle took place, or perhaps it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but the result was that she left behind a clay clone here...

It caused me endless troubles later on.

Rice remembered that when she was still at Hogwarts, Helga's "Maiden Creation Spell" had a time limit on the number of dolls it created. Now it seemed that she had made further progress in this spell, overcoming the difficulty of the dolls' limited lifespan.

Perhaps the doll could continuously absorb magic from its surroundings? Rice made a simple deduction, and then focused his energy on the battle against the Helga doll.

At first, both sides were in a state of testing each other—but even though it was a test, the spells cast by each person and each puppet were deadly enough.

Rice casually conjured a wall of fire that stretched across the hall, and then the raging flames swept towards Helga's doll in a semi-encircling manner. The doll held a magic wand made of clay, and with a wave of her hand, she created an earthen wall of similar size to the wall of fire. Rice's wall of fire crashed into the earthen wall, shattering into hundreds or thousands of sparks like waves crashing against rocks.

Seeing that his spell had failed, Rice remained calm. With a flick of his wand, the sparks exploded all at once, shattering the earthen wall summoned by the puppet.

While dealing with the puppet, Rice never gave up expanding his territory, but the speed was very slow. So far, only a dozen square meters of ground around his feet had been turned into a sticky mud.

It has to be said that fighting Hufflepuff puppets in the desert is a huge disadvantage. The moisture here is so thin that even though the palace is buried deep underground, it is negligible. Furthermore, Helga Hufflepuff is skilled in earth magic, so he is naturally at a disadvantage in this environment.

The two exchanged spells, causing the floor of the main hall to crack inch by inch, and many pillars to be smashed in half, with dust billowing everywhere.

puff!

Several sharp spikes emerged from the ground, piercing through Rice's foot completely, but his expression remained unchanged, because what gushed from the wound was not blood, but a viscous mud like asphalt.

It's one thing that the area isn't very convenient to expand, but it's another thing whether it can be expanded at all. At least within the surrounding area of ​​a dozen square meters, Rice can still do a lot of things—even these few soil spikes are flaws he deliberately left unattended.

Just as the clay figure thought he had succeeded, he also triggered some of the backup plans that Rice had secretly hidden during the spark explosion.

boom!

An explosion occurred near the doll, and it quickly dodged, but several more explosions occurred along the way, blasting several cracks into its doll body.

Dust rose from the ground, and the puppet conjured several earthen shields around itself, protecting it firmly.

Protected by the earth shield, the puppet and Rice regained their distance, and Rice's hidden trump card in the dust was completely used up.

Sand drifted to the side of the doll, gradually filling the cracks that had been blasted open on its body.

It raised its head and stared intently at Rice with eyes made of clay, causing Rice to frown: This doll doesn't seem to be just a simple clay figure...

Did Helga leave some kind of backup plan on it?

As he pondered the secrets hidden within the clay figure, the clay figure gripped the clay wand with both hands, knelt on one knee, and planted the wand into the sand.

Rice: !

He had a bad feeling: how could this kind of action be an ordinary little spell?

Magic gathered at the tip of Rice's staff, and then he lashed a long whip shimmering with black light at the puppet—he didn't intend to hurt it, but only to interrupt its spellcasting.

But Rice's whip was stopped halfway through its flight: a huge hand made of sand suddenly emerged from the sand and grabbed his whip, and then a second hand emerged from the sand and tore the long whip in two like a hair being pulled out.

The next moment, the entire hall shook, and the sand spread on the ground surged wildly towards where the doll stood. Two large hands, after tearing off Rice's whip, slammed onto the ground like a man doing pull-ups. The sand then began to transform into part of its body.

Rice's face immediately turned ugly. Just from this prelude, he felt that this guy was not easy to deal with.

He continued to cast several spells, but those spells, when they struck such a massive summon, barely left even superficial wounds.

Soon, the monster summoned by the puppet revealed its true form: it was a giant sandman. The sandman was round and plump, with a body that was almost the same length and width, very short legs, but thick and long arms.

It slowly emerged from the ground, and as the sandman took shape, almost all the sand that had accumulated on the floor of the hall was consumed, and in some places the stone floor was even exposed.

The height of this great hall is no less than fifty meters, and when the Sandman emerged from the ground, his head was already half the height of the hall, so the height of the Sandman was probably close to thirty meters.

The doll stood atop the sandman's head, looking down at Rice.

Rice: ...

He suddenly remembered a fun magic trick Helga had shown them long ago—she could summon a clay figure about half a person's height, which would then perform all sorts of funny actions to amuse them. This round, chubby sand figure before him looked exactly like a miniature clay figure magnified hundreds or even thousands of times.

The doll pointed at Rice, and the Sandman raised his fist and slammed it down hard on the spot where Rice was. As he swung his fist, a sandstorm like a tornado was stirred up.

Rice turned into a puddle of mud and shrank into the ground.

The next second, the Sandman's fist slammed heavily into the ground, creating a deafening explosion like a cannonball exploding in the hall, causing the entire hall to tremble. The Sandman's fist disappeared into the ground, splattering sticky mud everywhere.

It was like sticking your hand into a quagmire; when it pulled its arm out, half of the Sandman's arm was covered in filthy mud.

Rice poked his head out from a short distance away.

That powerful attack hadn't caused him much damage, and it had even given Rice a glimpse into the puppet's true nature.

If it were Hufflepuff himself standing here, he wouldn't stand a chance—fighting Hufflepuff in the desert would be too much of a disadvantage for him, but bullying this clumsy puppet would be no problem at all.

Even if this puppet can unleash power almost equal to Hufflepuff's.

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.

Here's the second update. Goodnight everyone.

The next update will be at midnight.

(End of this chapter)