In the sky, Lynn and Umbridge stared at one another from across a vast distance.
The wind howled between them, snapping the hems of their robes. Clouds surged beneath their feet like a sea of crumpled cotton.
Lynn hovered in midair, his feet resting on nothing. He stood as still as a nail driven into the sky.
His wand rested in his hand, its tip glowing with a faint light.
Lynn watched the black mist surging around Umbridge, sensing that the Obscurial within her seemed to have grown even more powerful.
When the Obscurial had been stripped from that child last time, the mass of black mist had not been this thick, this dense, or this… alive.
It was different now.
The current black mist was far thicker, so dense that it looked as though someone had poured a bucket of ink over Umbridge.
Lynn could only make out a humanoid shadow that constantly writhed within it.
Just as he was considering how to test its strength—
The corners of Umbridge's mouth curled upward.
She raised her wand, pointing its tip toward Lynn.
A mass of black mist, so dense that it was almost solid, gathered above the wand.
Then, with a swing of Umbridge's arm, the mist surged from the tip of her wand toward Lynn.
The black mist exploded outward, transforming into thirty or forty long blades that whirled through the air, intent on cutting Lynn down.
They spun and tumbled through the sky, pouncing at him from every angle.
Their trajectories were chaotic, yet every single one targeted Lynn's vital points—his head, neck, chest, and abdomen.
Lynn's eyelids twitched when he saw the style of those blades.
They were exactly the same as the Fiendfyre blades he had used last time.
The same shape.
The same size.
The same method of attack.
This Obscurial was quite vengeful. It had learned his fighting style, copied his attack methods, and was now using his own magic against him.
Hovering in midair, Lynn pointed his wand forward.
A pitch-black shield immediately appeared, blocking the space in front of him.
This was a Spell that Lynn had learned from Lord Voldemort last time.
He had seen Lord Voldemort use this shield to block his lightning in the graveyard. He had Engraved it then, but had not found an opportunity to use it until now.
The enemies he encountered were either too weak to require it or too strong for it to be useful.
Today, this Obscurial was caught right in the middle—strong, but likely not so strong that he could not defeat it.
So, he decided to test how effective the shield was.
The long blades formed from black mist stabbed into the shield one after another.
Upon impact, they produced a rapid crackling sound, like metal clashing against metal.
The sound was so dense that it resembled a string of firecrackers exploding. Lynn felt his ears ringing.
The blades did not bounce away or shatter after striking the shield.
Instead, they drove directly into it.
Numerous cracks began appearing across the shield.
Starting from the points of impact, they spread outward like spiderwebs, densely covering the entire surface.
The cracks became more numerous, denser, and deeper.
Lynn frowned.
His gaze shifted from the spreading cracks to the long blades still pushing inward.
This Obscurial had indeed grown much stronger.
Last time, he could block the Obscurial's attacks with a Shield Charm.
This time, even Lord Voldemort's shield was on the verge of being pierced.
Its power was greater, its speed was faster, and its attacks were more concentrated.
How had it achieved this?
Soon, the Obscurial provided the answer.
Umbridge waved her wand again, mockery appearing on her face.
The long blades still struggling against the shield shattered into countless black fragments.
The fragments drifted through the air before re-condensing.
They spun and tumbled in the sky, then pieced themselves together into—humans.
Thirty or forty figures in black hooded robes emerged from the black mist.
No wonder Umbridge had been so keen on the job of cracking down on Death Eaters.
Lynn's mind raced.
Umbridge, the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, had been in charge of the crackdown on Death Eaters.
Every time she led a team, she would "successfully kill" a Death Eater.
The newspapers described her as "heroic," "decisive," and "arriving at the scene immediately."
But looking at it now, those Death Eaters had not been killed by her.
They had been eaten by the Obscurial.
The Obscurial needed growth.
It needed power.
And it needed… food.
Death Eaters were the best food.
The summoned Dark Wizards reached Lynn in the blink of an eye.
Their bodies streaked through the air like bolts of black lightning, pouncing at Lynn from every direction.
Lynn dismissed his shield and leaned backward, dodging the lunging claws of one Dark Wizard.
His body bent back nearly ninety degrees, like a stalk of bamboo in the wind.
The Dark Wizard's claws passed less than an inch above his face, bringing with them a foul gust of air.
He could even smell the stench on those claws.
It was the smell of something left out for too long—rotting, like a dead rat.
Suppressing his nausea, Lynn straightened and shifted to the side, avoiding the stabbing blade of another Dark Wizard.
That Dark Wizard held a black short blade, its edge wreathed in black mist as it lunged toward him.
Lynn flashed to the right, and the blade pierced past his left arm.
He swung his wand in one fluid motion.
An invisible blade shot from its tip.
Before the Dark Wizard could react, the invisible blade had already sliced through his neck.
Its head slid from its shoulders and fell through the air before dissolving into a cloud of black mist.
Then, Lynn retreated rapidly, darting out of the circle formed by the Dark Wizards.
In a one-versus-many fight, one had to maintain a safe distance. Otherwise, it was nothing more than a pure beating.
This was a lesson Lynn had summarized from countless experiences of "landing and dying" in games.
In a one-on-one fight, he could close in, go head-to-head, and use brute force.
But against many opponents, he had to pull away, stay safe, and be patient.
During Lynn's retreat, Umbridge did not remain idle.
She frequently manipulated the black mist to intercept and pursue him.
Under her control, the black mist transformed into black snakes, pouncing toward Lynn from every direction.
Lynn did not dare to be careless.
He frequently turned and fired Spells at the black mist, dispersing it before it could reach him.
Finally, after pulling back to a sufficiently safe distance, Lynn found an opportunity to counterattack.
His gaze shifted from the black snakes still chasing him to the Dark Wizards he had left behind.
Those Dark Wizards had pursued him for a long time and were now crowded shoulder to shoulder, like a string of sausages.
But they did not know that crowding together had made them the perfect target for Lynn.
Seeing his chance, Lynn accelerated into a dive.
His body plummeted straight down from high in the sky.
Blinding lightning gathered in his palm.
Electricity leaked through the gaps between his fingers, spinning and compressing above his hand as it became smaller, brighter, and more blinding.
It was like a small sun suspended in his palm, radiating a light that made people instinctively want to flee.
In the posture of a diving strike, Lynn descended with the massive lightning sphere held in his hand, landing directly on the head of the uppermost Dark Wizard.
He was so fast that the Dark Wizard only had time to look up before seeing a flash of blue-white light.
Lynn pressed his palm against the Dark Wizard's head.
The lightning sphere surged from his hand and poured into the Dark Wizard's skull.
Blue-white arcs of electricity scattered outward, striking the bodies of the Dark Wizards below and blasting them into a sky full of black mist.
Naturally, Umbridge would not miss such a perfect opportunity to strike.
Lynn's back was wide open.
Her wand pointed toward the surviving Dark Wizards around him.
Red light flared across their bodies one after another, as though something inside them were being ignited.
Lynn's eyes sharpened.
He swung both hands downward with force, and the lightning sphere flew from his grasp, smashing directly into those glowing bodies.
Then—it exploded.
The lightning sphere collided with their bodies, blue-white and red light intertwining before erupting into a dazzling flash.
As the explosion thundered through the sky, Lynn's figure was swallowed by the blast.
The smile on Umbridge's face became even more unrestrained.
At that moment, a soft crack sounded.
A giant sword formed entirely from condensed lightning appeared instantly at Umbridge's waist.
Clang!
The blade of the giant sword slashed into Umbridge's side, and a large charred mark immediately appeared on her body.
Unfortunately, the blade did not cut through her body or slice her in half.
However, the force of the blow was so great that Umbridge was sent flying backward.
Naturally, Lynn would not miss the chance to kick someone while they were down.
His figure emerged from the light of the explosion.
With a wave of his wand, the giant sword chased after Umbridge in the direction she had been sent flying.
The giant sword was even faster than Umbridge.
It caught up to her in less than a second.
The blade swept horizontally across Umbridge's waist again, this time striking the other side.
Her body was flung away once more—faster, farther, and in a far more miserable state.
After enduring another strike from the giant sword while being hurled backward, an enormous amount of black mist instantly billowed from Umbridge's body.
Lynn immediately lost track of her position.
But that was not all.
The sweeping black mist surged outward without restraint, and before long, it had enveloped Lynn as well.
He quickly waved his wand, and a tri-colored shield instantly formed around him.
The outermost layer consisted entirely of lightning, blue-white arcs dancing and crackling across its surface.
The middle layer was Fiendfyre, with golden-red flames surging within it.
The innermost layer was flowing water, pale blue and moving like a thin membrane.
Three layers of shields.
Three layers of defense.
Three layers of insurance.
Lynn believed that one could never be too prepared.
When dealing with an enemy of an Obscurial's caliber, one could never be too careful.
From Lynn's perspective, Umbridge's figure appeared in one place one moment, then another the next.
Her body flickered in and out of the black mist.
She appeared on the right, and Lynn pointed his wand right.
Then she vanished again.
She appeared above, below, in front, and behind him.
This was already disgusting enough for Lynn.
A pink toad swimming around him while cackling like a monster—remaining calm at all was an achievement.
He was tempted to strike out and attack, but Peter's Jolt told Lynn:
No. You do not want to do that.
The battle fell into a temporary stalemate.
Lynn stood in the center of the tri-colored shield, wand raised and eyes fixed on the black mist.
The two of them simply waited.
You do not strike, I do not strike.
You do not move, I do not move.
Both waited for the other to break first.
Finally, it was Umbridge who could no longer hold out and launched the first attack.
Maintaining this state seemed to be extremely taxing for her.
Releasing so much black mist to surround Lynn and conceal herself consumed a great deal of power.
She could not maintain it much longer.
In an instant, a solid beam of black light shone from the darkness.
It shot from deep within the black mist, fast and straight, heading directly for Lynn's face.
At that moment, Lynn captured Umbridge's exact position, achieving precise targeting.
He flickered and vanished from where he stood.
He moved so quickly that the black beam only struck his afterimage.
When Lynn reappeared, a cluster of fire intertwined with gold, red, blue, and white had already condensed in his hand.
He had appeared directly behind Umbridge.
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