"Crack."
Amidst the shattered pile of rocks, Helbo barely managed to pull himself away from the wall. The dark-skinned girl's face was shadowed with gloom, her modest chest uncontrollably heaving up and down due to the fierce clash of magical powers. His gaze towards William finally revealed a rare trace of fear—damn it, just who is this person?
"Get out of my student's head, Helbo. I'll consider leaving you with a complete corpse."
Seeing that the other party didn't seem to want to reply, William smirked and proposed a constructive suggestion, enough to have him back in Dumbledore's office drinking tea in half an hour. But clearly, this ancient black wizard had no intention of adopting it.
Damn it—
Helbo could see from a mile away that William was totally talking nonsense. Now, with his 'backup' deeply embedded in Harry Potter's mind, he could grasp that sliver of hope for a comeback. At this moment, the old guy, who had lived two or three millennia, couldn't help but regret he hadn't spent more time practicing dueling.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have encountered two people in succession who were "stronger" than him in combat.
"Hey, you have a weakness."
Helbo also smiled, albeit it seemed a bit forced. "You shouldn't have exposed how much you care for this kid—"
"Looks like you don't want a good end, that's fine—"
William interrupted, the corner of his mouth lifting in a gentle yet confident smile. "Then let's switch to a simpler approach," he said, raising his wand to point at Harry, who was sitting at the stone table, completely immobile. "Unclouded."
A clear and gentle, moonlight-like pure blue-gold light shot from the wand's tip like an arrow, piercing into Harry's forehead.
"Buzz—"
The boy's body trembled lightly as the same clear blue-gold flame ignited between Harry's brows. A wailing wisp of black smoke emerged from his eye sockets, grabbed by the hand formed by that flame, attempting to be pulled out, and then the boy's cheeks began to shake uncontrollably—
"No, this can't be!"
Helbo yelled in disbelief, as if that could stop William's next move. He couldn't understand why William could so easily counteract the curse he had studied for so long. The curse had a simple function: like an incurable tumor, it forced a fragment of his soul into the target's mind and slowly consumed them—
Yes, compared to Voldemort's crude method of directly killing the original host, Helbo's method was safer. A normal body could serve him for decades, even centuries (wizards generally have long lifespans). Instead of calling it parasitism, possession might be more appropriate.
So often, Helbo would choose a powerful infant as his target, planting the curse in its mind while still in swaddling clothes. Then, by the time the child was about eight years old, he could flawlessly take over the body—like the body he was using now, that of an excellent student from Uagadou, Abeba Hailu.
And he had intended to do the same to Harry just now; after all, living another hundred years with such a "burden" and exhausting William Richard seemed quite challenging. But if he became Harry Potter, he might even find a way to sneak back—
With the boost of magical energy, the process of possession could be reduced to within three days.
Therefore, when William showed up, Helbo felt wary but not overly afraid. Despite not being particularly powerful in combat intelligence, he was still a black wizard who frequently made enemies everywhere and yet survived until now. Besides inventing the soul artifact, his main reason for living so long was his cautious nature—merely having three rabbit holes couldn't describe all his precautions.
Upon William exposing his hidden trick in the boy's mind, Helbo still didn't panic excessively. After all, the work was done so secretly. Helbo was steeped in soul studies for millennia, and his confidence in his ability was strong—until William used a counter-curse to begin eliminating the 'poisonous bugs' Helbo had left in Harry's mind; that was when he finally started to panic.
It wasn't solely because his plan was exposed—
Many, like Merlin and Bridget Wenlock, had exposed and countered his plans before. But those took a significant effort, and Helbo had other plans too. However, William was the first to do it so quickly, even bringing out a counter-curse for it—
Yes, that was the most terrifying part—as far as Helbo knew, the curse he had developed simply didn't have a counter-curse.
So how did this person manage to do it? Helbo began to tremble uncontrollably from fear. Could his remaining methods also be swiftly uncovered by William if exposed? From the moment William appeared, the plot development began sprinting wildly in an unpredictable direction for him—
Suddenly, Helbo was a bit afraid to die.
The soul artifact is not omnipotent; he must find a way to escape. Compared to any ultimate secret of the world, or the hidden existence of ancient magic, survival was Helbo's most significant fear and the thing he most wanted to escape—it was "death."
Otherwise, he couldn't have survived "lingering" in this world for nearly three thousand years...
After all, Nicolas Flamel got tired of living after only five or six hundred years. If one's mind wasn't somewhat troubled, anyone who has lived three thousand years would have gone mad long ago.
And it was at this moment that the blue light in Harry's eyes faded. A confused and bewildered expression instantly crawled onto his young face, as waves of intense terror swept over the boy's soul like a tide. This was precisely the side effect of the "Flow" magic. The moment the magic was lifted, all the emotions that were suppressed during its duration would engulf you in an instant—
The boy instinctively took a half-step back, gasping for breath, his eyes full of lingering fear as he looked at William.
"You see, I told you—those clumsy tricks of yours are easily dealt with."
William breathed a sigh of relief—of course, he wasn't a hundred percent sure. He was a wizard, not God. However, he happened to catch sight of Helbo's casting process as soon as he arrived, and was able to successfully infer the ability of the counter-curse. Even though this ability sounded shockingly unprecedented... it truly was indeed.
However, how practical the counter-curse turned out to be was beyond his determination. But it seemed effective enough for now, so he could continue to put on airs.
As these words fell, William raised his magic wand once more—
"Ashtel-gor Vesh!"
Seeing this scene, Helbo was instantly scared out of his wits, and forcibly swung both hands. The string of words that didn't sound human was recited once more, and a more solid skeletal phantom—many times more so than the one hurriedly conjured before—appeared, howling as it stood in front of him—
The next moment, golden and dark blue light interwove and gathered at the spiral tip of the redwood wand, causing the surrounding space to slightly distort. Ancient runes seemed to flow and shimmer slowy in the radiance of the spell, and William's robe fluttered despite the absence of wind. That magical energy coalesced for a fleeting instant before shooting out—
The remaining dark aura in the crypt dissipated wildly as if snow melting under the sun. Helbo's pupils shrank suddenly, and the tremor from deep within his soul made him regret what nerve made him provoke this person. He realized that this strike didn't only target his current body; the other party was also trying to probe—
William was attempting to cross the barriers of time and space, aiming to lock onto the soul-bound object of Helbo hidden in an entirely unknown location.
'Impossible! Absolutely impossible!'
Helbo roared inwardly, but his body's response was faster than his mind. He knew well enough what the price of being struck by this attack would be, and the Bone Defense Spell actively met the attack. Meanwhile, Abeba's body leaned back, and the next instant, three or four tattered shadows wrapped in blood and tawny cloth strips tore open "her" abdomen and leapt out—
Those mummies bathed in blood emanated golden light, with runes blooming brightly atop them.
A light shield formed behind the bone shield—
And behind the light shield, a cloud of black smoke swiftly concealed itself, darting into the mummy's sarcophagus at the back.
The next moment, the bluish-golden spell dissolved everything it touched like a thermal ray, including those two layers of shields, the three mummies, and that sarcophagus. The spell's power even smashed into the rock wall further behind, leaving a charred hollow—
The light at the tip of William's wand dimmed, and he showed no intention of pursuing, even as he looked at the ruined corpse on the ground.
The reason was simple: Helbo fled too decisively, so decisively that William's spell didn't graze any part of him. He was even cunning enough to abandon his shell as a hindrance. Tracking him would require too much effort, let alone this being a potential trap—after all, would a monster over two thousand years old really be this weak?
William pondered for a moment and dismissed the possibility that he was too strong—what a joke, after all, he was just an ordinary seventh-year student at Hogwarts.
However, regardless of this, he had managed to frighten the opponent this time, and he had planted a "seed" on Helbo during the initial battle. When the time is ripe...
"Alright, it's all over now."
William put away his spell, gently patted Harry on the shoulder, and in a warm tone said, "Look here. How many fingers is this?" He opened his hand and waved it in front of Harry.
"Five, five fingers?"
Harry's gaze was fixed on the nearly unrecognizable corpse on the ground. His face was pale as the turmoil within him slowly subsided thanks to William's voice. The boy nodded heavily, his voice trembling a bit, "He, is he dead?"
"Wrong, it's six fingers. Remember, empiricism is not reliable—"
William stopped waving his hand and stretched out the sixth finger he had transfigured in front of Harry, giving it a wiggle. "As for whether he's dead or not... he's not. These old cockroaches are incredibly hard to kill one after the other. There's no way around it; we'll take it slow." William sighed, then he suddenly remembered something, "Hey, by the way, where's that boy Cedric?"
Then, William's expression changed dramatically, "Damn, did I botch the rescue and get in trouble? Damn Xiao Huohuo actually mocked me?!"