As Dumbledore thought this, a second spell was smoothly cast.
Wade had just gotten back on his feet when he saw a Petrification Curse shooting straight at his face.
Bang!
Wade' Shield Charm was shattered outright, and his entire body was blasted backward by the spell.
It was only because Wade possessed reflexes like a cat that he had managed to cast the Shield Charm in time.
Otherwise, it would have ended right there.
Wade knew he could no longer afford to take hits passively. While being flung backward, his wand in hand trembled rapidly.
The once-flat floor suddenly surged upward, stone walls rising one after another.
The moment those stone walls rose, they were blown to pieces by Dumbledore's third Disarming Charm.
However, this was also within Wade' expectations. Once the stone walls were shattered, he finally gained an opening to counterattack.
"Expelliarmus!"
This was the first time Wade had shouted a spell aloud.
A burst of red light shot out violently from the fragments of the shattered stone walls, streaking straight toward Dumbledore.
Seeing the spell beam before him, a trace of satisfied amusement appeared on Dumbledore's face.
To cast a Disarming Charm with such power was enough to prove that Wade's strength already surpassed that of many professors.
Dumbledore casually raised the Elder Wand, intending to block Wade's Disarming Charm.
But just as the spell was about to be neutralized by the counter-charm on his wand, the beam suddenly split apart, scattering into six separate streams.
The directions of those six spell beams changed as well.
They curved around Dumbledore's defensive zone and suddenly attacked from behind.
A spell that could bend mid-flight? Dumbledore showed a look of surprise for the first time.
He had seen spells deflected countless times before, but this… bending spell beams was something he had never encountered.
Of course, although the six spell beams were unexpected, they were still unable to truly threaten Dumbledore.
A single Shield Charm easily blocked them.
Yet at the moment he deflected the spells, the stone fragments on the ground suddenly transformed into a massive stone serpent that lunged at Dumbledore, snapping its jaws.
Dumbledore smiled and flicked his wand, and the stone serpent shattered with a crash.
The Elder Wand traced an elegant arc through the air, and the falling fragments of the stone serpent gathered together, forming a gigantic stone lion that leapt fiercely toward Wade.
Bang!
Before the stone lion could reach him, Wade blasted it apart with a Blasting Curse.
But before the fragments could scatter, they transformed into countless small wyverns that continued their assault toward him.
Dumbledore's casting speed was simply too fast, especially his Transfiguration.
Wade was just about to respond with Transfiguration of his own.
But the Dumbledore opposite him suddenly vanished.
An inexplicable chill ran through Wade's heart, and he spun around sharply.
Dumbledore had already appeared behind him. A blazing Disarming Charm was rushing straight toward Wade's face.
This room allows Apparition? That thought flashed through Wade's mind just as Dumbledore's spell collided with the incoming miniature wyverns.
Dumbledore was taken aback, because he discovered that both his spell and the Transfigured wyverns had struck nothing.
Wade himself had already appeared behind Dumbledore and launched his counterattack.
A smile surfaced on Dumbledore's face once more.
Indeed, with such powerful magic, learning Apparition was hardly difficult.
Dumbledore pivoted swiftly, and the spell in his hand slammed head-on into Wade's spell.
Boom!
Intense magical fluctuations rippled outward in all directions.
Wade was still fully focused on his spell clash with Dumbledore when he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet grow soft.
Startled, Wade realized that while Dumbledore was exchanging spells with him, his Transfiguration had never stopped.
So that was it… a single attack could incorporate several spells at once? I was being too rigid.
With that thought, Wade Apparated again, his body vanishing and reappearing in midair.
Dumbledore looked up at Wade and smiled faintly once more.
Wade immediately sensed trouble, but it already seemed too late.
As it turned out, Dumbledore had hidden several stone wyverns in the air as well.
"Tsk… that's really devious!"
Those small wyverns suddenly spread out, transforming into a huge net that completely enveloped Wade.
By the time Wade Apparated out of the net again, before he could even catch his breath, he felt a slight pain in his back.
Dumbledore had already appeared behind him, the Elder Wand resting quietly against his back.
"You've lost, Wade."
"Professor! I've got it now! So-called dueling is all about being devious!"
Wade said excitedly.
"..."
"Pfft~! Ahahaha!!" Behind him, Dumbledore could not help but laugh.
He put away the Elder Wand, then smiled and said, "What you said is rather crude in wording but not wrong in principle. That is roughly the idea, though we can phrase it a bit more elegantly."
Dumbledore then asked, "Do you play chess?"
"Only a little," Wade replied modestly.
"In fact, the art of dueling is much like playing chess. When you make a move, you must already be thinking two or three moves ahead, or even seven or eight," Dumbledore said, pointing toward the large net created by Transfiguration.
"Just like earlier, when I attacked you with Transfiguration, I also hid a follow-up move. After several exchanges, that hidden move was able to force you into a mistake."
"And because I anticipated that you might make such a mistake, I had already considered several wrong choices you might make afterward."
"Of course, for every possible wrong choice you might make, I prepared several finishing methods. And if those finishing methods failed, I had also thought through how to respond to the counterattacks you might launch afterward. For every option, I had an answer."
"..."
Wade listened in stunned silence. "Your method… really is something else."
"This approach might be very hard to teach to others," Dumbledore said with a smile. "But for you, I believe you can definitely learn it, because you are the most intelligent student I have ever seen at Hogwarts."
"In fact, when you dueled with me just now, you were already doing this to some extent. You simply did not think as many steps ahead as I did. It is like chess. I can think seven moves ahead, while you can currently consider only three. But that is not a serious problem. As long as I practice with you for a while longer, you will naturally be able to think several moves further ahead."
Wade could not help rubbing the bridge of his nose. To be honest, this style of fighting was elegant, but it was far too mentally taxing.
Even though he would instinctively fight this way in battle, he could never take it to the extreme that Dumbledore did.
And besides…
"Professor, when you fought Grindelwald earlier, I was watching from the side. Why didn't you use this method then?" Wade could not help asking.
"At that time, my magical power was already stronger than his," Dumbledore said calmly.
Wade immediately understood.
Back then, after Wade had found a way to help him resolve his inner conflict, Dumbledore at his peak, with a purer state of mind, was terrifyingly powerful.
Even though Grindelwald was still wielding the Elder Wand at the time, he was still an entire tier behind the enhanced Dumbledore in terms of raw magical power.
In such a situation, Dumbledore had no need to engage in intricate mind games with someone whose magical power was inferior to his own. He could simply overwhelm him directly with sheer strength.
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