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The instant Dudley saw that dark green light, every hair on his body stood on end.
Ever since he began training Hamon Energy, his five senses had become far sharper than those of an ordinary person. In that regard, even the elite among wizards could not compare to him.
Especially when it came to things connected to death.
That was a spell.
And an extremely terrifying one at that.
It contained a power of death completely opposite to the life force of Hamon.
Compared to that, the spells cast by Hogwarts' young students were nothing more than children playing house.
It was the first time since gaining magical resistance that Dudley had felt a genuine threat.
A power that not even his magical resistance would be able to block.
If it hit him, even if it didn't kill him, it would at least tear him up badly.
So without a second thought, Dudley rolled to the side and dodged at once.
At the same time, the little dragon beat its wings and shot straight up into the sky.
The dark green light struck a tree behind them.
The tree began drying out at a speed visible to the naked eye, until it turned into a dead, rotting trunk.
A hooded figure appeared soon afterward, moving almost as if it were floating, like a ghost.
That had to be some kind of magic.
A flying spell more advanced than an ordinary Levitation Charm.
Dressed in black from head to toe, face hidden under the hood, and holding a wand that gave off a faint ghostly green glow.
There was no need to say it.
That entire appearance screamed villain.
And he had attacked Dudley right away, using a deadly spell.
Whatever his intentions were, he was an enemy.
Dudley moved at blinding speed, vanishing from where he stood in an instant.
His speed was absurd, and since the distance between them had not been that great to begin with, he closed the gap completely in only a few seconds.
As long as he tore the wand out of the other man's hand, a wizard was not all that different from a watermelon by the side of the road.
With a little force, he would explode like a balloon.
The cloaked man clearly had not expected Dudley to react so quickly.
He barely had time to move his wand once.
'Take this, Face-Smashing Punch!'
Dudley's fist landed cleanly, but instead of flesh, it felt like hitting a slab of steel.
It was the Shield Charm, an extremely practical defensive spell with high resistance against both physical and magical attacks.
But being able to block the damage from Dudley's punch did not mean it could completely erase the impact.
In the very next second, the cloaked man was hurled backward like a baseball hit with full force.
Judging by the sound, Dudley could tell that at least several trees had been torn through or snapped along the way.
If it had been an ordinary wizard taking that punch, even with a Shield Charm up, then even if he was not seriously injured, he would at least have come away lightly hurt.
After all, the Shield Charm could defend.
But could it absorb one hundred percent of the shock?
Apparently, the answer was yes.
Because he simply floated back out of the forest as though nothing had happened.
Another dark green spell came flying immediately afterward.
Faced with that spell coming straight at him, Dudley drove both arms into the ground at once, burying nearly half his elbows. The ground there, deeper in the forest, was somewhat harder than the loose earth near the edges.
Then he yanked upward with brutal force.
"Earth Style: Mud Wall... physical version."
A huge chunk of earth was ripped free and lifted like a shield, blocking the dark green spell racing straight toward him.
Beneath the hood, the man showed a trace of contempt.
His spell was not going to be blocked by a mere mound of dirt.
And indeed, the spell shattered that mass of earth without the slightest difficulty.
If Dudley had still been standing behind it, he would have been hit head-on.
But he was no longer there.
The instant he raised the earthen wall, he had already moved.
And besides, although the spell destroyed the chunk of dirt, it did not erase the mud scattered everywhere.
That was not a cleaning spell. It was an offensive one.
It had no effect whatsoever for removal.
The shattered earth turned into a heavy rain of mud.
Visibility had already been bad enough under that hood.
With that thick curtain of solid mud pouring down in front of him, the cloaked man's vision was completely obscured.
In a fight, vision was extremely important.
At the exact moment the man cast another spell to clear away the mud in front of him and prepared to launch another attack, four test tubes shattered behind him, not far away.
A yellow-brown wave spread through the air, carrying with it a stench so revolting it was hard to imagine, covering a ten-meter radius.
It was troll odor, only refined by Dudley.
A certain wise man once said:
Stench is also a very powerful weapon.
No...
That was something Dudley said, but whatever.
That brutal odor caused the cloaked man to interrupt the spell he had been about to cast.
His incantation was cut off halfway.
"ROOOAR!"
The little dragon let out a furious roar.
Then it poured out flames as if they cost nothing.
Dragonfire!
The tip of the cloaked man's wand flashed, and an invisible wall sprang up in front of him, completely separating the flames.
It was an extremely high-level defensive spell.
More advanced than the Shield Charm itself.
Dudley still could not identify exactly what spell it was.
But that did nothing to slow his movements.
Four more potion vials were thrown in one go.
The glass shattered the instant it touched the protective film formed by the defensive magic, splashing a dark green liquid across the entire surface of the spell.
Immediately, white corrosive smoke began rising along with a hissing sound.
Even the most perfect defensive magic could be broken.
And that potion had a name:
Corrosive Potion (Perfect)
A potion specifically designed to corrode defensive spells.
The perfect version took that ability to the extreme.
The instant it touched the barrier, it had already opened several small and medium-sized holes in it.
The dragonfire shot straight through those holes.
The cloaked man had not expected the flames to pass through his protection. Caught off guard, he was licked by a few tongues of fire, and his cloak itself started to burn.
With a wave of his hand, he extinguished the flames, then immediately cast another spell that forced the little dragon to retreat.
Although he had not suffered any serious injuries, the situation still looked rather miserable.
Dudley had been trying the entire time to find an opening to tear the enemy's wand away.
Unfortunately, after experiencing Dudley's monstrous strength in their earlier exchange, the man had clearly decided never to give him that chance again.
The terrain around them was far too open.
And he could still fly.
That, truly, was the proper way for a wizard to fight.
First step: create distance.
Second step: bombard the opponent.
The little dragon dove down again to attack him, but the man pinned it in midair with a spell cast over his shoulder.
Since the dragon had not yet reached adulthood, its physical strength still was not much to speak of, and its magical resistance had not yet peaked either.
Being restrained by a spell was only normal.
And that was when Dudley moved again.
Long-range attack?
Well, Dudley had those too.
He simply grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground and shoved a potion vial into it.
"Take my fake Bombarda!"
It was a combination of dirt and Exploding Potion.
"Explosion is art!"
"BOOM!"
The explosion, comparable to that of a real bomb, forced the enemy backward and interrupted his spell at the same time.
The little dragon broke free immediately, beat its wings, and flew back into the sky.
Perhaps that man's power had truly frightened it, because now it no longer dared to dive in head-on.
It only cooperated by attacking with dragonfire whenever Dudley created an opening.
The cloaked man began casting spells nonstop, one after another, flicking his wand over and over.
Fortunately, Dudley carried an enormous variety of potions and ingredients with him.
For practically every kind of spell, he had some way of dealing with it.
On top of that, his physical agility far surpassed the enemy's.
If he managed to close the distance even once, that would mean the end.
For a while, neither side was able to do anything decisive to the other.
The fight fell into a deadlock.
For the moment, both sides were barely holding the other at bay.
Then, together with a shout from somewhere in the distance, there came the sharp sound of something cutting through the air.
An arrow came flying out of the forest and buried itself in the ground not far from the man's feet.
"Who was it that injured that unicorn?"
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