Hoffa’s lips twitched. Some of his identities clung to him like parasites, impossible to shake off.

  He knew this man—Ithan Dominic.

  A French wizard, a half-giant, and a wizard syer.

  Once a loyal recruit of Germany, Dominic had been one of Grindelwald’s students. Half a year ago, when Hoffa first stepped onto French soil, this man had hunted him down. But that confrontation had been narrowly avoided thanks to the cunning intervention of Norbert. Now, however, Hoffa faced his so-called senior alone, and conflict seemed inevitable.

  “This has nothing to do with you, Dominic. I don’t want to fight you,” Hoffa said quietly.

  The man with the massive sword threw his head back and ughed. “I suppose being favored can become a habit. Did you think I would pamper you like the teacher did, Bach?”

  “His fanaticism has poisoned your mind. Grindelwald loves no one.”

  “Is that so? When he taught you the Shattered Grasp, I was left cleaning his wizard tower. When he personally traveled to Britain to meet you, I was sent to hunt Jewish Muggles in Paris. When he pnted the power of the Void Dragon inside you, I was stationed on this dull and barren sea, hunting worthless smugglers.

  “All along, I thought it was the necessary price. I spent over thirty years earning his attention, while you achieved it in less than three.”

  “If you call that favoritism, I have nothing to say.”

  “What else could it be? Tell me—has he granted you the power of immortality?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dominic.”

  The ice beneath their feet grew slowly, forming an icy bde at Hoffa’s side. He picked it up, cautiously backing away to put distance between them.

  The three-meter-tall giant exhaled lightly. “What a pity. It seems he doesn’t favor you enough.”

  Dominic stepped back into a defensive stance, watching Hoffa with unrelenting caution.

  “You seek to be his chosen one, but his reign will not st. The future will not side with him.”

  “Everyone talks like they know the future. How ughable,” Dominic said, hefting his enormous cruciform sword from his shoulder. “But since it’s you, my dear junior, I’ll share my thoughts on the future.”

  The half-giant casually swung the massive sword, testing its weight. “Lately, I’ve been pondering a possibility. What if I kill you, prove my strength, and make the teacher finally see me? Perhaps then he’ll grant me eternal life.”

  Hoffa’s cautious expression flickered, and he nearly ughed. “You’re welcome to try.”

  “Well said. Let’s see who survives.”

  Dominic donned his helmet and vanished instantly.

  *So fast!*

  Hoffa’s eyes darted, and he immediately raised his arms to block.

  Cng!

  A deafening crash resounded.

  As they passed each other, Hoffa’s icy bde shattered into fragments. His palm split open with a deep gash, and his thumb bent grotesquely backward.

  Dominic, cd in full armor, moved with speed rivaling Hoffa’s ghostly stride. Charging like a rampaging magical beast, he smmed into Hoffa, sending him flying nearly twenty meters.

  Hoffa rolled several times before climbing back to his feet, gripping his injured hand tightly. With a firm twist, he snapped his thumb back into pce, blood dripping freely.

  He had never encountered such raw physical strength—not even a dragon could compare to this man.

  “Overrated,” Dominic said, twirling his massive sword with ease.

  The enormous weapon blurred like a katana as he swung it, creating afterimages.

  He disappeared again. This time, Hoffa didn’t dare block. Converting magic into vitality, he sprinted across the icy surface.

  Dominic, however, used Apparition repeatedly, reappearing to deliver lightning-fast horizontal strikes.

  Hoffa’s midsection was nearly cleaved in two.

  Reacting swiftly, Hoffa twisted his waist, using his leg muscles to execute a side flip, narrowly avoiding the fatal ssh.

  While still airborne, he pulled an alchemical handgun from his pocket and fired at Dominic’s helmet. The shot illuminated the night with a fsh of fire, but a transparent Shield Charm deflected the bullet effortlessly.

  “Where’s your magic, Bach?”

  Lowering the shield, Dominic sneered. “Or is it that you’re not skilled in magic at all?”

  In response, Hoffa fired another well-aimed shot, the bullet striking a bolt on Dominic’s helmet and skewing it slightly to one side.

  The attack barely scratched the surface.

  As they passed each other once more, Hoffa somersaulted and scrambled to his feet.

  Dominic, however, remained stationary, touching his helmet where the bullet had struck. A faint chuckle escaped him, growing louder and louder until it became a derisive cackle.

  “Hoffa Bach, the youngest Transfiguration Master in history! The legendary shield-caster! Grindelwald’s most prized student?! The st person to spout such nonsense ended up feeding the sharks. To me, you’re just a kid with a toy gun.”

  With that, Dominic dragged his massive sword and smmed it into the icy ground.

  “Ice Prison!”

  A rain of sharp icicles descended from the sky, each as deadly as a bde. Simultaneously, the frozen sea sprouted dense forests of icy spikes, leaving almost no room to stand.

  Hoffa leaped and twisted, dodging with precision.

  Even so, his clothes and face bore numerous shallow cuts from the razor-sharp ice.

  Each time he dodged, he raised his hand to fire another shot from his alchemical weapon.

  Bullets ricocheted off Dominic’s armor, sparking but failing to penetrate, leaving only faint white marks.

  The two raced across the ice, a deadly chase where neither gained the upper hand.

  In the distance, two women hiding in a lifeboat watched in stunned silence. The boy, constantly dodging and weaving amidst absolute danger, moved with steps so graceful they resembled a deadly dance. One misstep, and it would transform into a dance of death.

  Dominic quickly grew impatient.

  "Argh!!"

  He roared, swinging his sword in a horizontal ssh.

  A shockwave of magic, ced with razor-sharp air, tore a long trench across the icy surface.

  Ice shards flew everywhere. Hoffa bent his knees and contorted his body, twisting into a precarious inverted pose. Seizing a fleeting opportunity, he tched onto Dominic's back with unyielding grip.

  Another ice bde materialized in Hoffa’s hand, but this time, it transformed into steel.

  He swung it down fiercely toward the crack in Dominic’s helmet, left behind by the earlier bullet strike.

  Cng!

  A metallic csh echoed, sending shivers down one's spine.

  Dominic's helmet loosened slightly. Hoffa raised his arm high and delivered another crushing blow.

  Thud!

  The bde wedged itself into the helmet’s fissure.

  Pnting his feet firmly on the half-giant's shoulders, Hoffa exerted all his strength. The bde shattered into pieces, and Dominic’s helmet flew off amidst a spray of glittering metal shards.

  "Futile!!"

  Dominic roared, reaching back to grab Hoffa by the neck. He smmed him down with bone-crushing force, cracking the ice into a spiderweb pattern.

  Dragging Hoffa across dozens of meters, Dominic shattered countless ice spikes along the way, leaving Hoffa battered and bloodied.

  Cng!

  The helmet tumbled to the ground, nding near Hoffa's hand.

  Hot on its heels was Dominic’s massive bde, descending in a wide arc.

  Hoffa rolled away, vanishing from sight just as the bde splintered the ice.

  The battle entered a frenzied climax.

  The two combatants flickered like phantoms across the icy battlefield. Each reappearance brought an earsplitting metallic crash. Each csh obliterated Hoffa’s ice bdes, yet he swiftly conjured new ones in their pce.

  Boom!

  Dominic unleashed an attack of unrestrained ferocity.

  Cng!

  The ice bde, reforged as steel, shattered once more under the overwhelming force.

  The immense impact hurled the slender youth like an autumn leaf caught in a gale. Hoffa flipped midair, barely brushing a spike with his toes to propel himself backward in retreat.

  "Face me!!!"

  Dominic bellowed, swinging his enormous sword in two wide arcs before hurling it forward.

  The cruciform bde spun like a shooting star, hurtling toward its airborne target.

  Squelch!

  The bde pierced through its mark.

  From the distant lifeboat, the two women let out terrified screams.

  From their vantage, the massive sword had skewered the silver-haired boy in mid-leap, pinning him to the ice like a juggler’s knife striking an apple atop its stand.

  "Hoffa!"

  In the lifeboat, a frail Chloe struggled to her feet, stumbling toward the scene of Hoffa’s apparent demise.

  Dominic’s heavy breathing filled the air. He touched the shattered metal fragments at his neck, then gnced at the motionless figure pinned to the ground in the distance. A triumphant grin spread across his face.

  "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

  Striding leisurely to where the sword had fallen, Dominic found the silver-haired boy half-buried in the ice, impaled and utterly immobilized. Hoffa clung to the giant sword lodged in his chest, his hand bloodied and raw, his breaths shallow and uneven—a picture of death’s door.

  Standing over him with disdain, Dominic sneered, “Run. Go ahead, keep running. Is this the limit of a so-called legend, Bach? You managed to knock off my helmet!?”

  Coughing weakly, Hoffa gasped, "If I... if I stop running... cough... will you spare me...?"

  "Of course not, kid. Your head will be my proof of strength. I'll use it as a goblet to present wine to Grindelwald."

  Dominic adjusted his disheveled hair with a look of disdain, squatting beside the boy. Gripping the sword's hilt, he said, "Honestly, I don’t understand what the teacher sees in you. You colpsed before I even used my full strength."

  Half-buried in the ice, Hoffa raised his heavy eyelids, panting heavily. "If... if you're so... confused... why... why not... ask him yourself? Cough... Honestly, I never... never wronged you... Your hatred... should be... with yourself... cough."

  Blood sprayed from his mouth as he spoke.

  Dominic smirked, wearing the indulgent smile of a victor. “Not a bad point, but utterly meaningless.”

  Straightening up, Dominic raised his sword, its bde now engulfed in red fmes. "Salut."

  Just as he prepared to deliver the final blow, the bde refused to budge, as though it had been embedded in stone.

  Twice he tried to yank it free, to no avail.

  Dominic hesitated, bewildered by the sudden resistance.

  At that moment, Hoffa, still half-embedded in the ice, abruptly released his grip on the bde. With a spring-like motion, his body shot up from the ground, defying gravity in a stunning counterattack.

  Dominic's expression twisted as the unexpected unfolded.

  The boy who had just been struck down now stood, his bloodied wounds shimmering with a silver-white metallic glow. Supporting him were two pairs of iron-colored, featherless bone wings sprouting from his back.

  The skeletal appendages, reminiscent of pterosaur wings, elevated him high above, bringing him face-to-face with Dominic's stunned and disbelieving expression.

  "As long as you have a weakness!" Hoffa snarled, a twisted grin repcing his earlier frailty.

  Damn it! Human transmutation!?

  Realizing the dire turn, Dominic’s instincts kicked in. In the blink of an eye, he lunged toward his discarded helmet a few meters away.

  The icy surface shifted and writhed, sinking the helmet into its depths.

  Sensing danger, Dominic raised his sword defensively.

  The hastily lifted bde was knocked aside with a cng, leaving the two combatants face-to-face, mere centimeters apart.

  Hoffa’s left hand gripped Dominic’s head tightly.

  In a fsh, the fingers of Hoffa’s right hand morphed into five long, razor-sharp metallic cws. With lightning speed, they plunged upward, piercing through Dominic’s chin and emerging from the top of his skull.

  Schrrrkk!

  The cws withdrew with a sickening sound, and blood spurted in every direction.

  Hoffa’s wings vanished as he kicked Dominic in the chest, propelling himself backward to create distance from his stunned opponent.

  Dominic staggered, clutching his chin and crown. His tongue, now pierced, rendered him speechless. His hands desperately tried to stanch the bleeding as he swayed unsteadily, his eyes filling with blood.

  Like a drunken madman, he stumbled forward, wrenching his massive sword from the ice. With no rhyme or reason, he swung it wildly in every direction.

  Each blow shattered ice spikes rising from the frozen sea. Dominic tripped over his own feet but scrambled back up, continuing his erratic onsught.

  Hoffa, holding his abdomen where blood seeped through his fingers, simply retreated. His expression remained cold and indifferent.

  The more Dominic bled, the slower his swings became.

  When Hoffa spotted an opening, he surged forward, slipping inside Dominic's arc of attack.

  “D-die…” Dominic rasped, gring at Hoffa with bloodshot eyes. His voice wheezed like a broken bellows.

  Cng!

  Hoffa’s bck, metal-cd hand caught the giant sword mid-swing, halting Dominic's dying strike.

  “Seems like Grindelwald’s judgment isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!” Hoffa sneered.

  With that, he wrenched the fming greatsword from Dominic’s grasp, raised it high, and brought it down in one decisive ssh.

  Crunch!

  Blood sprayed in a grotesque arc, the stench of burnt flesh permeating the air.

  Dominic’s headless body colpsed heavily onto the ice.

  His severed head rolled away like a ball, coming to a stop far from his lifeless form.

  The frozen sea fell into utter silence.

  Hoffa stood panting, white puffs of breath escaping his nostrils as he gazed at the headless corpse. The fming greatsword, now devoid of its master, gradually dimmed and extinguished in his bck-gloved hand.

  After a moment of bored breathing, Hoffa tossed the sword aside.

  Pressing a hand to his abdominal wound, he watched as the magical energy in his mechanical gloves quickly depleted. In their active state, they accelerated his healing, causing the gash to visibly close.

  He’d narrowly avoided death—Dominic's sword had almost pierced his heart. Thinking quickly, Hoffa had managed to trap the bde between his arm and ribs, sparing his vital organs.

  With his breathing steadied, he turned to head back.

  Halfway there, he spotted Chloe sitting limply on the ice, staring at him with a vacant expression.

  “I…” she stammered, her eyes fixed on Hoffa, whose body was drenched in blood. Her teeth chattered, and she couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

  “If I had spared him just now, I would have died myself,” Hoffa said ftly. “Sorry, but my life matters too. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “I’m not… I’m not here about that,” Chloe stammered, pointing behind her as her body shook uncontrolbly. Her face was ashen, and her words were incoherent, filled with dread.

  Hoffa frowned, sensing something amiss.

  It was too quiet.

  Supporting Chloe, he rushed back to the lifeboat. What he saw expined her trembling terror.

  The young widow he’d spent less than three days with y sprawled on the lifeboat’s deck. In her hand was the handgun he’d entrusted to her. Her face, pale and expressionless, bore the same helpless and confused look she’d often worn.

  But on her forehead was a small, crimson mark. Blood trickled slowly from the wound, painting a chilling scene.

  (End of Chapter)

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