By the time my thirty-fifth opponent hit the floor, the world around me was spinning.Sweat clung to my skin, my vision blurred, and my wand arm trembled from exhaustion. The cheers of the crowd faded into a dull roar, drowned by the throbbing in my temples.
I'd done it — thirty-five consecutive victories.
And I had nothing left.
The moment I stepped back into the Slytherin dormitory, I barely managed to collapse onto my bed. My robes still smelled faintly of smoke and ozone from all the spells I had cast. My wand slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the stone floor. My eyelids grew heavy, consciousness slipping away.
Then it came — the familiar, crystalline chime inside my mind.
Ding!Congratulations, Tom Riddle, for dominating the Dueling Club with thirty-five straight wins.You have proven yourself an unparalleled prodigy in magical combat.
Rewards granted:– Magic reserves increased threefold.– Complete knowledge of Voldemort's Blood Magic and Necromancy.– Complete knowledge of Magical Rituals.– Complete knowledge of Basic Combat Spells.
Instantly, my exhaustion vanished — replaced by a flood of knowledge that poured into my mind like a raging river.
Images. Words. Sigils. Blood-red runes. Complex circles of magic carved into stone floors. Incantations older than Hogwarts itself.
I gasped, clutching my temples as my brain burned with the influx of information. I saw rituals of sacrifice — blood drawn from one to empower another. Spells that could animate the dead — skeletal warriors, inferi, and things far more terrible.
Necromancy.Blood Magic.The forbidden arts.
I now knew them all.
I understood how to bind souls to objects, how to drain life force to enhance one's magic, how to twist blood into sigils of binding and servitude. Even the ancient methods of creating liches — the immortal masters of death — were laid bare before me.
And woven through it all was a catalogue of every combat spell worth mastering.
Avada Kedavra.Crucio.Confringo.Bombarda.Levicorpus.Incarcerous.Depulso.Stupefy.Protego.Expelliarmus.Accio.Bombarda Maxima.
Each incantation pulsed through me, alive with energy, as though my wand itself were whispering their intent into my soul.
When the flood finally slowed, I lay still on the bed, breathing heavily. My heartbeat echoed in my ears — steady, powerful.
Three times the magic I once possessed now coursed through me, humming just beneath my skin. My body ached, but my veins burned with new life.
I raised my hand and watched faint threads of crimson light trace across my palm — blood magic answering my call instinctively. The energy shimmered before sinking back beneath the skin.
My lips curved into a faint smile.
"I'm no longer just powerful," I murmured softly to myself. "I'm ascending."
The world of magic had boundaries — laws set in fear by those too weak to cross them. But I? I was rewriting those limits.
This was what true evolution looked like.
With my Eye of Insight, Wizard King talent, and now the complete mastery of blood and death, I wasn't just the heir of Slytherin.
I was becoming the embodiment of what Salazar dreamed of — a wizard supreme.
Sleep finally took me, but even in my dreams, I saw crimson runes glowing across stone floors and armies of the dead kneeling before me.
And I knew, without a doubt…
This was only the beginning.