"Celestia."
Nathael didn't look away from Anneliese. He didn't even blink. But his voice—low, steady—rang out like both command and promise.
Celestia understood instantly.
As always.
She wrapped herself in blue magic—but this time with a different focus. The energy didn't spread across her whole body. It concentrated in her forepaws, her claws, the raw power of her leap.
She struck the ground with both paws at once.
The impact was brutal.
Marble and stone slabs tore from the earth as if the world itself answered her will. Fragments of the stadium—carved with millennia-old protective runes—rose into the air, trembling as if alive.
Nathael didn't waste a second.
He raised his wand.
"Transfiguratio Arcana!"
The stones didn't become simple creatures. They fused, twisted, and reshaped with a precision only ancestral magic could achieve.
From nothing, two manticores emerged.
Not illusions. Not shadows. They were real—lion bodies covered in black scales, scorpion tails dripping with magical venom, and human faces screaming with the voices of the damned.
The crowd gasped.
"Those beasts are highly lethal!" an elder cried.
"And Nathael is summoning them—from the stadium's own stone!"
But Anneliese didn't flinch.
"Lysander," she said, voice calm.
"I know," he replied.
While Nathael and Celestia prepared their next move, Anneliese raised her wand—but not to attack.
"Expecto Patronum… Arcanum!"
The words weren't just a spell. They were an invocation.
From the tip of her wand burst silver light so pure the sun itself seemed to dim. But it wasn't just light.
It took form.
A cat—but not an ordinary one.
Lion-sized, with eyes that gleamed like stars and fur woven from moonlight itself. Its roar wasn't that of a beast, but of justice.
"Ancient Patronus!" Newt Scamander shouted, leaping to his feet. "Forbidden magic! Only the purest of heart can wield it—and make it physical!"
The celestial cat charged the manticores.
It didn't attack with claws or fangs.
It purified them.
With every step, the venom from their tails evaporated. With every roar, the human faces fell silent—freed from torment.
"It's destroying their corrupted souls!" Eldrin, the judge, cried. "Not killing them—saving them!"
Meanwhile, Nathael was already moving.
"Apparition."
He vanished and reappeared behind Anneliese, launching a Confringo infused with ancestral magic.
But Anneliese was no longer there.
"Apparition."
She appeared to his left and cast a Stupefy woven with penetration runes.
Nathael dodged, rolled, and unleashed an Expulso, raising a wall of rubble.
But Anneliese was already airborne—appearing and vanishing across the entire stadium.
"They're using Apparition in combat!" Mira shouted. "Right in the middle of the duel!"
"It's illegal at Hogwarts!" Tobias added. "But here… it's art!"
And it was.
Nathael and Anneliese blinked in and out across the field—stands, ceiling, ground, midair. Each Apparition followed by a spell:
Confringo.
Petrificus Totalus.
Impedimenta Magna.
Reducto Arcanum.
Debris flew. Stones shattered. The sacred stadium, untouched for millennia, became a chaotic battlefield.
But amid the chaos… Celestia and Lysander waged their own war.
Celestia, using dust, smoke, and rubble, melted into the shadows.
Lysander knew it.
"Don't hide!" he said, launching himself skyward with blue magic.
He cast a spell.
"Lumos Maxima!"
A blinding sphere of light exploded at the field's center, illuminating every corner, burning away every shadow.
"There she is!" someone cried.
But Celestia had planned it.
Because the moment Lysander cast the spell… he lowered his guard.
And Celestia, from beneath a broken slab, shot forward like lightning.
"Stupefy!"
She struck Lysander, sending him flying meters back.
Lysander rolled, stood—and smiled.
"Good trick."
But he wasted no time.
With a swipe of his paw, he touched the rubble nearest Celestia.
The slabs rose and fused, forming a cage of black stone around her. But it wasn't an ordinary prison.
It was a magic-sealing cell.
"She can't use magic inside!" a judge cried.
Celestia felt it instantly.
Her magic grew heavy. Sluggish. As if the very air rejected her.
She tried to escape—but the walls closed too fast.
"Nathael!" she cried.
He felt it—not with his ears, but with his soul.
He broke off his assault on Anneliese and turned.
From the ground, black chains—like serpents of shadow—shot toward the cage.
But not to destroy it.
To seal magic with magic.
Because the chains didn't just immobilize—they neutralized curses and enchantments.
And Lysander's cage, though legitimate, was a form of restrictive magic.
The chains coiled around the prison and sealed it from within, breaking Lysander's spell.
The cage dissolved.
Celestia emerged, free.
"Thanks," she said.
"You were careless," Nathael replied.
"I know," she admitted.
But there was no time for more words.
Because Anneliese had already acted.
"Umbram Aeternum!"
From the earth, a black shadow spread in a perfect circle around Nathael and Celestia.
It wasn't darkness. It was the absence of light, sound, magic.
From the void, black hands emerged—sharp, ravenous—reaching to drag them into the abyss.
"Ancient Chinese curse!" Eldrin shouted. "From the time of the first emperors!"
Nathael and Celestia didn't hesitate.
"Finite Incantatem!" they cried in unison.
The spell barely slowed the hands.
"It's not working fully!" Celestia said. "It's too deep!"
Nathael frowned. He'd never seen this magic.
"Apparition," he said.
He grabbed Celestia and vanished just before the hands seized them.
They reappeared at the stadium's edge.
But the damage was done.
An explosion thundered at the field's center.
The two manticores dissolved into ash.
Anneliese's Ancient Patronus gave one final roar… then faded into silver light.
Silence.
The crowd was stunned.
"Anneliese destroyed the manticores!" Mira cried. "And used an unknown—but powerful—ancestral curse!"
"In this second exchange," Tobias said, "Anneliese takes the lead!"
Nathael and Celestia exchanged a look.
"Don't underestimate the heiress," Celestia said.
"I never did," Nathael replied.