As soon as the elderly ke demon finished speaking, Hoffa cpped his hands together.

  The snowy ground around them exploded violently. Giant stone hands shot out from the snow with lightning speed, aiming to grab the aged ke demon leading the group.

  Hoffa knew there was no chance of resolving this peacefully, so he made the first move.

  The old ke demon remained unfazed, a cold smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he struck the ground with his staff.

  An invisible ripple spread outward rapidly, and before the stone hands could reach him, they shattered into fine powder. The powder then transformed into countless stone needles.

  With a wave of his staff, the old ke demon directed the needles toward Hoffa.

  Hoffa was stunned. This was the first time his Shattering Grasp had been completely neutralized. The mental power of this old ke demon was terrifying!

  Ossivia’s expression changed. She raised a shield with one hand and reached out with the other to grab Hoffa, but her hand met only empty air. Hoffa had vanished entirely.

  "Be careful!"

  Her warning came too te.

  Crack!

  A fsh of silver streaked through the air.

  The elderly ke demon, still holding his staff, was suddenly cleaved in two by a silver katana. The stone needles, now without guidance, fell harmlessly to the ground.

  Hoffa reappeared, his chest heaving. The halved body of the ke demon dissolved into liquid and seeped into the earth.

  In the distance, Ossivia’s eyes widened in shock. Everything had happened too quickly.

  The isnd fell silent. The surrounding ke demons, muscur and imposing, exchanged uncertain gnces, seemingly unsure of what had just transpired.

  Hoffa’s silver bde reverted to a wand. Gncing at the liquid on the ground, he turned to leave. But as soon as he moved, he felt his feet stick fast, as if glued in pce by an unyielding force.

  "I admire your transfiguration skills, boy," came a voice from the ground. "Even more, I admire your speed."

  Hoffa's expression darkened.

  Something was wrong. There hadn’t been any signs of a duplication spell—so how had he struck the wrong target?

  He tried to break free, but his feet were completely immobilized.

  His legs were encased in blocks of solid ice, and the liquid on the ground was rapidly freezing. The ice began creeping up his body with arming speed, encasing him entirely.

  From the group of burly ke demons, a hunched figure stepped forward again. It looked at Hoffa and said, "What a pity. You were born in the wrong era. A few centuries earlier, you might have received a proper education. Modern wizards are becoming far too reliant on their wands."

  Hoffa struggled to move, but a biting chill surged from his legs straight to his head, eroding his spirit and magic.

  The ke demon flicked its webbed fingers.

  Three vines shot up from the ground like lightning, binding Hoffa’s wand arm tightly. Three massive male ke demons pulled the vines taut.

  Their overwhelming strength was irresistible. Hoffa’s left arm was dislocated immediately, and his wand fell to the ground.

  Ossivia sprang into action, dashing toward Hoffa, but the other ke demons drew their weapons and charged at her.

  Before he could cry out in pain, Hoffa activated his Vitalized Form. Electric arcs crackled around him as his body grew taller, reaching 1.7 meters.

  He grabbed the vines and let out a thunderous roar. Electricity surged through the damp vines, momentarily paralyzing the three ke demons and causing them to release their grip.

  Seizing the opportunity, Hoffa yanked on the vines. One of the ke demons, unable to maintain its hold, was dragged toward him. Mid-air, it drew a steel trident from its waist and aimed it at Hoffa’s face.

  Hoffa ducked, dodging the strike, then drove his right fist into the demon’s chest.

  The punch nded with immense force.

  Hoffa’s fist sank into the demon’s muscle, and its spine snapped with a sickening crack, bending at an unnatural angle. The ke demon’s body flew backward, hurtling toward the elderly ke demon.

  "Interesting," remarked the elder, twirling his staff.

  The flying demon abruptly changed direction and smmed into a tree instead. Snow cascaded from the branches, bnketing the ground.

  Hoffa freed himself from the vines and forcefully reset his dislocated arm with a loud snap.

  But the strange ice at his feet continued to bind him, rendering his lower body completely immobile. Even with the immense strength granted by his Vitalized Form, he couldn’t break the ice.

  He attempted to use Phantom Step to escape the icy restraint, but the ice was eerily resilient. Even in his ethereal state, he remained stuck to the ground.

  Gring at the old ke demon, Hoffa roared, "What have you done to me?"

  "Young man, there’s much you have yet to learn," the demon rasped, "if you even get the chance."

  With that, it took a deep breath, its chest swelling like a toad’s.

  Then, the creature opened its mouth wide, stretching into an exaggerated arc. A stream of scalding hot oil sprayed forth, igniting mid-air into a bzing inferno that surged toward Hoffa.

  The snow on the ground evaporated instantly, and the surrounding air became thick with steam.

  Sweat on Hoffa’s forehead vaporized before it could even drip. He couldn’t tell if he was dealing with a ke demon or some kind of dragon.

  Without his wand, Hoffa panicked. Desperately, he extended his hand and roared, “Tarico-Skita!”

  A faint shield spun into form from his palm.

  In that moment, fshes of imagery raced through Hoffa’s mind—a speeding train, a boy in a wheelchair.

  Crack!

  Before the shield could fully form, it shattered in mid-air. The fmes singed Hoffa’s eyebrows as they surged closer.

  “Damn it!” Hoffa cursed, frustrated that he still couldn’t cast a proper shield charm in the face of danger.

  Just as the fire threatened to consume him, a bck figure darted in front of him with lightning speed. Five fingers outstretched, the figure conjured a shield to block the fmes.

  It was Ossivia.

  She held the fmes at bay with one hand and, turning her head, tossed Hoffa his wand with her other. “Is transfiguration the only subject you’re good at?!” she snapped.

  “How was I supposed to know what I’d be up against?!” Hoffa retorted.

  In the distance, shouts echoed through the dense fog. One by one, ke demons poured through the fissures in the frozen ke, surging toward the isnd. The situation had spiraled completely out of control.

  “What about this?” Hoffa asked, pointing to the ice creeping higher up his body.

  “That’s a voodoo curse. It’s feeding off your magic to strengthen itself. Don’t fight it directly!” Ossivia yelled as she bsted two ke demons away with a spell.

  Hoffa immediately understood.

  A curse! No wonder even Phantom Step couldn’t free him.

  Wasting no time, Hoffa deactivated his Vitalized Form and activated the Conversion Art of Gugal, transforming most of his magical energy into life force.

  Immediately, the ice, deprived of its magical fuel, stopped growing. As the magic dissipated, the ice began to lose color and become brittle.

  Crack!

  Hoffa broke free of the ice and grabbed Ossivia’s arm, dragging her toward the church.

  “This way!”

  Ossivia flung her shield, which transformed mid-flight into a massive spinning chain of fire, shing toward the elderly ke demon.

  The ke demon raised its staff horizontally. The air in front of it fragmented into gleaming walls of mirrored gss. When the fiery chain struck the mirrors, it shattered into countless sparks, illuminating the isnd in a fiery glow.

  Temporarily forcing the ke demon back, Ossivia followed Hoffa.

  Scrambling and stumbling, the two climbed a slope and returned to the ancient headmaster’s graveyard. Hoffa pushed through the church doors, and after Ossivia entered, he grabbed the church’s long-dislodged stone door.

  Thud! Thud!

  Together, they smmed the doors shut.

  Ossivia wiped sweat from her brow as Hoffa stepped back and crossed his hands. From the ground, massive stone arms erupted, weaving tightly together to barricade the church doors.

  Through the cracks in the door, Hoffa could still see fmes roaring and strange magical lights fshing outside.

  A horde of ke demons stormed the graveyard, sprinting across the snow.

  “Lake demons can use magic this powerful?”

  “That’s their chieftain—the tribe’s only shaman. Its strength is comparable to a top-tier wizard.”

  “Why are these creatures attacking students and teachers with lethal force? Aren’t we at Hogwarts?!”

  “I don’t know! This has never happened before!” Ossivia shouted angrily.

  She hurried to the other side of the church but found her path blocked by heaps of rubble.

  Looking back at the besieged doors, she said, “Quickly, the doors won’t hold for long! Use your transfiguration to clear these rocks so we can escape to the school from the other side.”

  “Got it.”

  Hoffa csped his hands together, preparing to cast Shattering Grasp.

  But suddenly, an inexplicable thought popped into his head:

  Why am I doing this?

  Because you’ll die if you don’t, idiot! he scolded himself.

  Yet another strange question floated into his mind.

  Why do I even want to live?

  The thought echoed.

  Hoffa loosened his hands, took two steps back, and inwardly cursed.

  The aftermath of Vitalized Form.

  It had chosen the worst possible time to kick in.

  Almost instantly, a bnkness swept through his mind.

  Hoffa dropped to the ground, sitting there with a vacant stare fixed on the ceiling.

  “Get moving!” Ossivia urged anxiously.

  “Mm,” Hoffa mumbled, sitting limp on the floor, his mouth half-open, showing neither joy nor sorrow. He made no move to act.

  Ossivia was on the verge of losing her mind. The church door was on the brink of colpsing, and yet Hoffa sat there with an indifferent expression.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?! If you don’t act now, we’re both going to die!” she yelled.

  Hoffa, now mentally bnk, muttered in a daze, “Life and death come and go, like puppets on strings.”

  The phrase was in Chinese, and Ossivia couldn’t understand it.

  Frustrated, she stomped her foot and yanked off her neckce.

  With a sharp throw, the neckce transformed mid-air into a serpent. The serpent multiplied into several snakes, which hit the ground and morphed into metal snake sculptures, reinforcing the weakening door.

  Outside the church, the elder ke demon smmed its staff into the ground with a roar, then spat out a fiery orb. The projectile rocketed forward like a cannonball, smashing into the church door.

  The entire isnd lit up as bright as day, the ground trembling violently.

  Gothic spires snapped, and massive stone columns crashed to the ground with resounding thuds.

  Ossivia grabbed Hoffa by the colr. “We can’t hold it anymore. Stop wasting time!”

  But even as explosions and falling debris rained down behind him, Hoffa’s expression remained unchanged. Slumped on the ground, the corner of his mouth curled into an enigmatic smile.

  “When the thread breaks, the fragments fall freely.”

  Ossivia turned and gred at him, her fury boiling over. She spped him hard across the face.

  “Idiot! What are you even thinking?!”

  Hoffa’s head tilted to one side, but his mind was still lost in a void. He spoke indifferently, “For a sinful race like ours, the greatest honor is to hold hands and walk into death together.”

  “Lunatic!” Ossivia shouted in frustration.

  Boom!

  The entire stone church colpsed.

  Piles of sharp spires plummeted from above.

  “It’s over,” Ossivia murmured.

  Looking up, she instinctively wrapped her arms around Hoffa, rolling him and herself out of the falling debris’s path.

  Yet, several tons of stone smashed into the ground, shattering it completely.

  Suddenly, the ground beneath Ossivia gave way, forming a pit. She lost her footing and tumbled down, dragging Hoffa with her.

  They rolled for several meters before coming to a stop. Thick dust filled the air, choking her and making it impossible to see.

  After coughing violently, Ossivia managed to mutter, “Lumos.”

  The white light illuminated their surroundings.

  She realized they were trapped in a narrow corridor. A broken piece of the ceiling had wedged itself above them, creating a triangur crevice barely rge enough to fit a person.

  Hoffa y sprawled on top of her, his expression still vacant, like a monk lost in meditation.

  “Damn it,” she muttered.

  Leaning back against the massive stone sb, she gasped for air, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

  She tried to push Hoffa’s head off her chest but quickly realized she couldn’t move at all. The confined space left only her left arm free to move.

  After a long struggle, she sighed in defeat and stopped resisting.

  Outside the ruined church, the elder ke demon, still holding its staff, slowly closed its mouth. Darkness recimed the surroundings, with only the moonlight and the fiery glow of the half-melted stone door illuminating the scene.

  Soon, a towering ke demon approached the elder one.

  “Tavo, what should we do?”

  “Find their bodies. Let no living creature leave this isnd,” the staff-wielding ke demon replied coldly.

  “Until this school’s reign ends, no mistakes can be allowed.”

  (End of Chapter)

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