"…I still prefer your rebellious look. Why don't you switch back?"
Slytherin was momentarily stunned when he heard Wade say that.
Then, a faint, sickly smile slowly spread across his face.
"Is that so, little Wade? Well then, since you insist, I shall revert for you…"
The smile on Slytherin's face grew incomparably excited.
The smile on Wade's face instantly vanished, and a very bad feeling rose in his chest.
"Wait… I was just saying that casually…"
Slytherin had already raised his wand, and the hand holding it was trembling slightly with excitement.
"Too late… You should have known what I would do once I returned to my old self. How could you know my hands have been itching for this? Heh heh heh… little Wade, here I come… Avada Kedavra!"
"I'm done for!"
The battle erupted instantly.
Twenty minutes later.
A petrified Wade lay sprawled across the pockmarked floor, his face full of existential doubt.
Slytherin slowly walked up to him and poked Wade's stiff cheek with his wand.
"Little Wade, weren't you quite arrogant? Go on, show me that arrogance again," Slytherin said, feeling thoroughly satisfied.
The moment the petrification was lifted, Wade sprang to his feet.
"Impossible. Absolutely impossible."
"What's impossible about it?" Slytherin smiled. "You didn't seriously think that just because we fought once when we first met, you could now match me, did you? Think carefully. What was different between that battle and the one just now?"
Wade stroked his chin and fell into thought, beginning to compare the two fights.
Suddenly, a sharp glint flashed in his eyes. "I've got it."
"What have you figured out?" Slytherin asked with a faint smile, wand in hand.
Now that he could use magic again, Slytherin's confidence had fully returned, and even his earlier irritability had vanished.
Standing in the Chamber and patiently guiding Wade like this, he looked no different from how he must have appeared when personally teaching his students a thousand years ago.
Only at this moment did he truly resemble one of the Four Founders.
"The difference in fighting style…" Wade sighed. "When we first met, our battle was a direct clash of power. But this time… your fighting style was completely different. Very… well…"
"Very underhanded, right?" Slytherin finished with a smile.
"Not exactly underhanded. Just a different strategy. Either way, I accept the loss," Wade said frankly.
"Your magic is very strong," Slytherin said. "In my current state, even though this robe lets me use magic again, my magical strength still cannot compare to yours. So I have to rely on technique. However dirty the methods need to be, so be it. Victory is the only goal."
"I know that too. Professor Dumbledore has been teaching me how to defeat the strong with the weak. But… I didn't expect that after learning for so long, I still couldn't gain any advantage against you," Wade Reynolds said with a sigh.
It could only be said that Slytherin truly lived up to his title as one of the Four Founders. Even though his current magical power was weaker than Wade's, his vast combat experience still left Wade completely unable to fight back.
Twenty minutes earlier, Wade had still believed that a wizard's battle was fundamentally a contest of magical power.
Even when overcoming the strong with the weak, the difference in magical strength should not have been too great.
But now, he had overturned that belief.
Because the combat system of wizards was unique.
Certainly, the side with stronger magic held an enormous advantage, but that advantage only applied in the majority of spell confrontations.
Some spells, however, did not lose their effectiveness simply because the caster's magic was weaker.
For example, the Killing Curse.
Before the Killing Curse, all beings were equal.
The Killing Curse would not fail to kill simply because your magical power was inferior to your opponent's.
Because of this, wizard duels allowed many ways for the weak to defeat the strong.
Take the battle just now as an example. Slytherin's current magical power was inferior to Wade's.
Theoretically speaking, Wade could have ignored most of his attacks, because those spells should not have been able to break Wade's Shield Charm.
So when dealing with those spells, Wade Reynolds had multiple options. He could either take them head-on or dodge them. Under normal circumstances, that would have made it much harder for his opponent to manipulate him.
However, Slytherin had skillfully used Dark curses such as the Killing Curse, which Wade could not possibly withstand, with the sole purpose of forcing him to move exactly as intended.
As a result, Wade's positioning and responses fell completely into Slytherin's rhythm.
One misstep led to another, and in the end Slytherin seized the opportunity and dropped him with a Petrification Charm.
This fighting style shared some similarities with Dumbledore's method of planning many steps ahead, but there were also many differences.
Although Dumbledore's approach could be somewhat cunning, it still had certain boundaries.
Slytherin's style, however, truly left no method unused.
It could no longer be described as merely cunning. It was downright vicious.
Dumbledore's combat method relied on anticipating the opponent's responses and preparing multiple follow-up traps in advance.
Slytherin's method, on the other hand, used ruthless spells to forcibly dictate the opponent's reactions.
With Dumbledore's spells, you could choose to dodge or resist.
With Slytherin's spells, if you did not dodge, you died.
That alone cut the amount of calculation needed by half. Naturally, it made his combat style far more straightforward than Dumbledore's.
This was a style that seized the initiative at any cost. Fierce and highly aggressive.
Everything was done for the sake of victory.
As for whether the Dark Magic he used to achieve that victory might cause severe harm to the surroundings or to bystanders, he simply did not care at all.
"In my era, failure meant death. If it was to survive, what methods could not be used?" Slytherin paused, then continued, "To sum it up… what Dumbledore taught you can only be considered dueling technique. What I just demonstrated… is the technique of life-and-death combat."
"Yeah.. I've learned a great deal," Wade said respectfully.
Regarding defeating the strong with the weak, what Dumbledore had taught him was to be as cunning as possible in a duel.
What Slytherin was teaching him now was that not only must one be cunning, one must also be utterly unscrupulous.
"When I fought you just now, my methods were actually rather clean," Slytherin said, a trace of reminiscence flashing through his eyes.
"Back in the day, I used to hide a hand crossbow inside my robes and fire a bolt when my opponent least expected it. Many overconfident dark wizards died to my anti-magic bolts. And my cane… you didn't think I carried it because my legs were weak, did you? My old cane concealed at least nine kinds of lethal poisons that could kill without drawing blood…"
The more Wade listened, the brighter his eyes became. "You can actually do that… I see now!"
Crossbows were a bit outdated. Wade decided that in the future, he should hide a Thompson submachine gun in his pocket, paired with a fifty-round drum magazine.
kekeke~~
Just thinking about it was thrilling.
At the very least, he should hide a .38.
For ambushes, that would be far more useful than a wand. Hm! Hm! He nodded to himself.
Or perhaps, at the start of a battle, he could quietly release some Venomous Tentacula and have them sneak up from behind to bite the enemy's backside.
At this moment, after hearing Slytherin's theory, Wade felt as if the door to a whole new world had been opened. All kinds of brilliant ideas surged forth like a fountain.
"Professor, let's continue," Wade said eagerly, snatching up his wand.
Slytherin stroked his beard and said excitedly, "Then let's begin. I'm not satisfied yet."
Having gone so long without using magic, Slytherin had no intention of missing any opportunity to cast spells.
…
Two hours later, Wade Reynolds used the power of the Obscurus to replenish the magic in Slytherin's enchanted wizard's robe.
After two hours of intense combat, Wade had gained a great deal.
At the same time, based on the rate of magical consumption, he calculated how long this ghost-enabling robe could sustain spellcasting during heavy combat.
If Slytherin fought continuously like an ordinary wizard, even assuming nonstop combat for twenty-four hours, it could last a full three days.
However, if Slytherin fought in his old style, constantly unleashing high-powered spells, it would last at most twelve hours.
This alone showed just how powerful the magic contained within the Obscurus truly was.
Overall, it was more than sufficient for Slytherin.
Situations where he would need to go all out in prolonged, high-intensity combat were nearly nonexistent in the present era.
Unless he were to face Dumbledore or Grindelwald.
Of course, against opponents with equally rich combat experience, in his current state, Slytherin would have no chance of winning unless he regained the magical power he had in life. In such a matchup, the outcome would not take long to decide.
"As for that new Muggle crossbow you mentioned, although I don't fully understand its principles, if you intend to use it, you must engrave this rune on the bolt's tip. Otherwise, when facing certain powerful wizards, it will not be able to break their defenses."
As he spoke, Slytherin swept his wand through the air, leaving behind a complex rune.
Wade carefully committed the rune to memory.
It seemed that if he wanted to use Muggle weapons in the future, he would have to engrave anti-magic runes onto the bullets.
The work of carving runes onto bullet heads could probably be handed to Tobby. This kind of tedious and repetitive task was perfectly suited to a house-elf.
Hmm… since he was already engraving runes, should he add a few more with additional effects besides the anti-magic rune?
And then… perhaps coat the bullet tips with a bit of basilisk venom… kekek~~
Wade wrote down the stream of ideas that had just surfaced onto the parchment.
Seeing him scribbling nonstop, Slytherin floated over for a look.
After reading just two or three lines, ghostly Slytherin could not help but suck in a breath of air that did not exist.
"What kind of demon have I just unleashed…"
___
o(*￣▽￣*)ブSupport and read 12 Chapters ahead of WN at-
Patreon/Captain69