Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 480 Near-Death Fate and Arrangement

"What happened?" Helga came closer.

She noticed a drastic change in Rowena's expression and immediately realized that something big must have happened; otherwise, given the old raven's personality, he would never have lost his composure like this.

"Wait a minute." Instead of answering her old friend's question immediately, Rowena began to manipulate the crystal ball.

She couldn't let Salazar, under that alias, remain at the top of the leaderboard; it would bring him trouble. Especially since his score was rather astonishing.

Soon, Les Lint's name disappeared from the top of the leaderboard and returned to the bottom, all within a minute.

Despite the extremely short time frame, some people still noticed the anomaly in the rankings.

"Did you just see that? It seems like Les Lint has suddenly jumped to number one on the leaderboard."

"Huh? I didn't see it. How many points did he get?"

"Tens of thousands? Anyway, I couldn't count exactly how many digits there were..."

"Are you kidding me?"

"He's at the bottom of the leaderboard right now, so there must be something wrong with the points system..."

Several students who noticed the changes in the leaderboard began a heated discussion and quickly concluded that there was something wrong with the points leaderboard. Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why Les Lint's ranking had soared and why he had suddenly gained such an astonishing number of points.

"Of course, maybe it's our Mr. Lint who's transformed into a mysterious figure, wreaking havoc on the competition field," someone joked, but no one paid him any attention.

Although the mysterious figure has been somewhat lackluster lately, the psychological impact he has left on the contemporary magical world remains deep, and no one is willing to joke about it.

After clearing up the mess for Salazar, Rowena relayed her findings to Helga.

Helga frowned immediately after hearing this.

"Clearly, Salazar has gone on a killing spree," Helga concluded, reaching the most likely conclusion.

Rowena didn't know what to say.

How should I put it? This doesn't seem quite Salazar-like. This style of doing things is so Gryffindor! But then again, it seems very Salazar-like.

In this alternate world, their control over Salazar would be reduced to an extreme, allowing Salazar to lower his moral standards to a terrifying degree. In this state, Salazar would be far more belligerent than Godric.

"Should we contact him and ask him to tone it down a bit?" Helga thought that there were still dozens of students in the competition area, and Salazar shouldn't get carried away and drag them into it.

"There's no use contacting them now..." Rowena shrugged, helplessly spreading his hands and transferring the actual backend data to Helga.

Seeing Salazar's points steadily rising, Helga could hardly contain himself.

"With him causing all this trouble, you probably won't even be able to find a few decent experts in your little world anymore," Helga commented.

"That suits me perfectly; that's the point of sending him in." Rowena supported Salazar, even though his actions had indeed been a bit too much.

That's precisely why she can restart the Alchemy World as soon as possible and bring this out-of-control world back under her control.

"Look, the points aren't changing!" After chatting with Rowena for a while, Helga noticed that the number after the name "Les Lint" was no longer changing, so she immediately nudged Rowena, indicating that she could start contacting Salazar.

However, the "call" that Rowena made was not answered.

A few minutes later, Rice's points surged again.

Rowena, Helga: ...

"Looks like he's fighting some tough guy."

Rowena sighed.

There's no need to keep in touch with him. He'll contact us after this is over.

Helga frowned; she had a very bad feeling.

"Do you think Salazar might not be able to beat him...?" After hesitating for a long time, she finally revealed her thoughts to her old friend.

Rowena was startled.

"It can't be that bad. That's Salazar. He looks young, but in my opinion, his strength hasn't declined much from his peak."

Although Rowena rarely expressed her approval of Salazar openly, deep down she actually agreed that Salazar had gone further on the path to immortality than the other three.

If she were to tell the truth, she would admit that Salazar's life extension plan did indeed have the fewest side effects and offered considerable protection for one's personal strength—except for Helga's case, which could no longer be called life extension because her lifespan had not actually changed; she had simply become a time traveler.

Of the three, Rowena's method had the most side effects and caused the greatest loss of strength.

"So you're sure he can handle the enemies in the alchemy world?"

"..."

When faced with Helga's question, Rowena remained silent.

Helga: ? ? ?

"Royna, say something!" Helga felt even more panicked.

She had only a vague feeling deep down that the old viper's condition might be bad, but the old raven's silence completely shocked her.

Salazar could really have messed up?!

"Under normal circumstances, there shouldn't be any problems." After a long silence, Rowena finally uttered a carefully chosen sentence.

"Under normal circumstances?"

"I mean one-on-one." Rowena was quite confident in Salazar. She didn't believe that anyone in her little world could defeat Salazar in a one-on-one fight.

"Is this the normal situation now?"

Helga's question silenced Reina once again.

Helga suddenly understood everything.

Judging from the speed at which Salazar's points increased, it's clear he wasn't fighting the natives in the Alchemy World alone!

Old Viper is probably engaged in a fierce battle with the world's most advanced combat forces.

At this point, Rice's points surged by two more points.

Rowena and Helga both gasped in shock: these three rounds of price increases had almost caught up with the total increases from before...

And these points are ranked according to the strength of the enemies killed...

Rowena and Helga dared not even imagine what Salazar was facing.

"Can we help? Rowena, we can't just stand by and watch!" Salazar's situation must be quite dangerous right now, and Helga felt that the two of them should at least lend a hand.

Otherwise, how will they face Salazar when he comes out of the Alchemist world?

"If I could be of any help, why would I—" Rowena was getting a little anxious. Wasn't Salazar sent in because she had lost control of this little world?

Her intervention was ineffective.

However, Rowena squinted her eyes halfway through her sentence.

"You know what, I can actually give it a try." As she spoke, she led Helga quickly to the vicinity of the competition venue and then touched the boundary wall between the alchemy world and the real world.

"I can create the illusion of restarting the alchemy world to attract the attention of the world's will," Rowena explained her idea to Helga while she was busy working.

In her view, Salazar's current situation is most likely due to the World Will targeting him, so she only needs to divert some of the World Will's attention to help Salazar effectively.

Once she had an idea, Rowena immediately took action.

Upon contact, Rowena immediately sensed something amiss—the world's will in the Alchemy World had weakened considerably. She now even possessed the ability to directly restart the Alchemy World.

Of course, that was all she could think about, since dozens of contestants and Salazar were still in the Alchemy World.

If she chooses to restart now, Salazar will most likely be safe and sound, but it's hard to say about the young wizards.

"Well done, Salazar," Rowena couldn't help but exclaim.

Salazar really helped him a lot in the matter of the Alchemy World.

At this moment, everyone in the Alchemy World—including the contestants—is running away.

For some unknown reason, disaster struck suddenly.

A terrifying flood swept everything away, turning half the continent into a swamp. Along with the flood, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions also broke out.

At least in the eyes of ordinary people in the alchemy world, these are the names of the disasters.

However, those with deeper understanding would realize that a war of gods had broken out, and all those natural disasters were caused by the war of gods.

There are god-level beings fighting!

Regardless of whether they could see through the nature of the disaster, they all had to flee.

The gods who clashed were, of course, Rhys and the native deities of the alchemical world, each wielding a different element. The battle between Rhys and the four gods destroyed half the continent, returning those lands to their natural state.

Although the gods possessed the advantage of terrain, they were somewhat inferior to Rice in the development and utilization of their domains—these four hadn't even fully mastered their own domains, let alone awakened them. Coupled with Rice's first-mover advantage, this allowed him to hold his own against four opponents.

Ultimately, due to the lack of close coordination among the four gods, and the fact that the water god's domain almost completely overlapped with that of Rais, Rais finally managed to find a breakthrough in the water god's domain. He traded injury for life and forcibly killed the water god. After a prolonged battle, he then took down the fire god and earth god, who were slightly weaker.

Although three of the four gods were gone, the situation did not improve, because the remaining wind god was the strongest and had the support of the world's will. Rice himself was also severely injured.

If this fight continues, both sides may very well perish together.

Rice was prepared for the worst.

But at that moment, the world's will suddenly weakened its suppression of Rice by a large margin, and the authority of the Wind God was also greatly diminished.

Rice and the Wind God both exclaimed in surprise, but Rice shouted "Royna" while the Wind God shouted "World Destruction".

Since the world's will is too busy to attend to anything else, Rice will naturally not miss such a good opportunity.

With the help of Reina off the field, Rice finally took down the last enemy.

After collecting the azure fragments of the world that had burst from the Wind God's body, Rice landed back on the ground.

After forcing his way back to the ground, Rice could no longer suppress the injuries within his body, and the wounds left by his various enemies erupted all at once. His aura also weakened at a visible speed, and large amounts of scales grew uncontrollably on the surface of his body.

Rice understood that this was caused by a complete loss of control over the wounds to his soul.

He should start making some arrangements.

Staggering forward a few steps, Rice entered a forest that had not yet been destroyed by the aftermath of the battle.

He randomly picked a tree and slumped against the trunk. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crystal ball issued by the Ministry of Magic.

Looking at the perfectly intact crystal ball, Rice couldn't help but chuckle softly.

This crystal ball is of surprisingly good quality.

It's quite a miracle that the crystal ball wasn't destroyed during such a fierce battle.

"Damn Rowena, why didn't you intervene sooner? What were you thinking about making a 'phone call' for?" After leaving a bloody handprint on the crystal ball, Rice couldn't help but complain about Rowena's actions.

While he was locked in fierce combat with the Four Gods, Rowena suddenly called him, at which point Rice couldn't help but swear.

Now that everything has settled down, Rice has taken the initiative to contact Rowena.

The moment the call was made, Rowena answered it, and she was startled by Salazar's appearance in the crystal ball.

"Holy crap? Salazar, are you alright?"

Rice: ...

"That's a bit too much for Herga," Rice couldn't help but retort.

Does he look like he's alright?

"I'm right here," Helga said, sounding annoyed. But when she came closer, she was startled by Salazar's appearance.

At this moment, Salazar's face was mostly covered by blue snake scales. The eyes within the scale-covered area had completely transformed into snake pupils. As for the part not yet covered by snake scales, it was devoid of any color, like a corpse.

"Salazar, you..." Helga wanted to tell Salazar not to rush into chatting with them, that healing was the priority. But as the words were about to come out, she remembered that Salazar was the most skilled healer among the four of them, and since he was the one who was injured, there was really no need for her to say anything more.

His choice was definitely the right one.

"It's incurable. The physical wounds are manageable, but the wounds to the soul are too deep." Rice spoke calmly, as if he weren't talking about himself.

It's hard to say whether Rice's current soul form is more broken or worse than Voldemort's.

The natives of the alchemy world were quite powerful, leaving him with many incurable injuries.

After the voice came from the crystal ball, Rowena and Helga fell silent at the same time.

Finally, Rowena took a deep breath and told Salazar not to overthink things.

"You hold on for now, Helga and I will figure something out after the match—"

"I'm going to die."

Rowena was momentarily speechless, and then she felt a surge of anger rush to her head.

"Salazar, what nonsense are you spouting! Are you looking down on me? Let me tell you, I can easily come up with a hundred treatment options—"

"This is a prophecy of the prophet."

"Huh?!" Rowena and Helga were both stunned for a moment.

"This is fate, there's no need to try to reverse it. It's not a bad thing, you two listen to me in peace..." Rice's voice continued to come from the crystal ball.

His calm and composed tone eased the tension between Rowena and Helga slightly.

The two decided to first hear what Salazar had to say.

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.

Updated! Goodnight, muah! See you tomorrow night at midnight!

(End of this chapter)