The sea of fire roared and surged.
The air was thick with the scent of scorching heat and burning embers.
The entire dueling arena appeared to be completely engulfed in the raging flas. Yet, even so, Albus continued advancing toward Ian, completely unscathed.
No matter how Ian manipulated the fire to twist and dance, whenever the flas neared this dazzling and refined young man, they would inexplicably veer off course, as if being influenced by so unseen force.
"Are you an Obscurial who has managed to escape their fate?" As if afraid Ian couldn't hear clearly over the roaring blaze, Albus asked again.
His voice still carried a fervent intensity.
"I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. My magical abilities are innate; I've never been an Obscurial." Ian was slightly taken aback by what the young Dumbledore had said.
Of course, it was that first sentence, the one that seed to see straight through him. Though slightly inaccurate, it was clear that this young Dumbledore had already realized Ian didn't belong to this ti.
"I see..."
Upon hearing Ian's answer, a fleeting shadow passed through Dumbledore's eyes. Still, he didn't stop. He kept walking toward Ian, one step at a ti.
No matter how fierce the sea of flas, he moved through it as if it wasn't even there.
"Did you see sothing in my magic?" Ian recalled what Professor Morgan had once told him. At this mont, he didn't dare to continue addressing young Dumbledore with the casual "you." After all, today's encounter might one day be rembered by the elder version of this man.
Of course, based on what Ian understood about ti-related rules, it was also possible the old headmaster had always rembered, and that was a rather unsettling thought.
"Yes. Traces." Dumbledore nodded. "It seems your understanding of magic is already very deep. It's hard to believe that, at my age, I'm encountering soone as brilliant and extraordinary as you."
"Perhaps... this encounter may even inspire ." Amid the raging inferno, Albus's figure stood tall, bright and unwavering.
He continued closing the distance toward Ian.
And clearly, not without reason.
Sensing the rising danger, Ian instantly swung his wand once more.
"Ring of Fla Rejection!"
As any capable wizard would, Ian had prepared a spell to prevent enemies from getting too close. With a surge of his magical energy, a ring of fla suddenly burst forth around him.
Like a fiery halo, it surged outward with Ian at the center, expanding rapidly in all directions, threatening to overturn everything in its path.
"You've invented quite a few original spells… but ultimately, they're not that useful." Facing the incoming ring of fire, Dumbledore once again employed his mysterious interference magic, warping and disrupting the flas.
However, this ti, just as the ring of fire was deflected, he suddenly lashed out with his wand. In an instant, he seized control of a small portion of the flas, not particularly imnse in size, but enough.
With a flick of the wand, that sliver of fire morphed, transforming from a flat sheet of fla into a whip-like chain of blazing fire.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh~"
Dumbledore manipulated the fiery chain as if commanding an invisible army.
With just a slight flick of his wand, the chain arced gracefully through the air, hissing with searing heat and booming through the arena, its force overwhelming as it shot toward Ian.
"That move... looks awfully familiar." Ian's eyes flashed with a hint of surprise, but he didn't retreat. Instead, he swiftly raised his wand, ready to counter.
However, the speed of the flaming chain was beyond imagination. In the blink of an eye, it wrapped tightly around Ian's body, binding him completely. The fire blazed wildly, as if it wanted to devour everything, yet, surprisingly, it didn't harm Ian's skin. Instead, it only scorched his robes, emitting a constant sizzling sound.
Ian's garnts began to char rapidly, and soon they started to fall away in pieces.
His wand dropped straight to the ground.
"Hiss, my clothes are almost gone! Are you so kind of pervert?!" He could only scream at the top of his lungs. Oddly enough, that shout seed to be more effective than any spell, "You creep!"
Now, those three words may not have had the power to banish a cheating ex like they do on the Muggle platform TikTok, but they were definitely powerful enough to make the fiery chain controlled by Albus halt imdiately.
The chain and the fire, though neither disappeared, instantly stopped burning Ian's robes.
In fact, Albus even raised his hand and magically repaired the charred parts of Ian's clothing.
"..." His expression was as speechless as it could possibly be.
"I've won." Albus sighed softly as he spoke.
"Really? I don't buy it." Ian, bound up like a tightly wrapped parcel, still refused to admit defeat.
He twisted his tightly bound hands and summoned his elder wand from the ground; it flew back into his grip.
A surge of powerful magical energy began to rise. However, this ti, Albus simply chose to ignore it.
"The fact that I walked all the way here ans I've already won." He then plunged his wand into the earth.
The next mont, the ground began to shake violently, as if stirred by so invisible force.
"Huh?!"
For the first ti, a flicker of panic appeared on Ian's face. As magical runes began to rise from the ground beneath him, his body started to lt, visibly and rapidly, into a puddle of sludge.
To this, the young Dumbledore was not the least bit surprised. He remained calm and composed, as though he had known all along that the Ian who had fought him wasn't the real Ian.
Clearly, Dumbledore had pretended not to notice for a reason.
Along the path Dumbledore had walked, mysterious runes began to erge from the earth, each glowing faintly like stars in the night sky, or like arcane symbols from so ancient magical to.
They arranged themselves in an intricate, deliberate pattern, one that radiated a powerful magical pulse.
Dumbledore turned his gaze toward a seemingly unremarkable corner.
There, the gravel on the ground began to stir.
"Just as I said earlier, you really are one devious little brat." He stared as a figure with a disheveled head of hair crawled out from the dirt.
"I was hiding eighteen feet underground, and you still found ?!" Ian looked completely deflated as he shook the gravel from his robes. He didn't even bother reaching for his wand at his waist.
"Your Transfiguration allows you to imbue inanimate objects with magical power… that's a gift even I can't help but envy." At this mont, Albus put away his wand as well.
His tone was sincere, and there was a trace of genuine admiration in his voice.
"Doesn't do any good. You still found anyway." Ian let out a helpless sigh.
"It more than my eyes, I trust my intuition. I must say, you're so talented it's actually shocking. But unfortunately, your control over magical power still isn't as refined as mine."
"Of course, I can't bla you for that. It's obvious you haven't been practicing magic for very long. And I can imagine, with your sheer amount of magical energy, you probably haven't t many opponents who could challenge you at all."
Albus spoke with a tone of wistful reflection, then turned his gaze back toward the puddle of sludge that had once been Ian's decoy.
"The only thing I can't understand is this: you already possess magical power that looks down on the world, so why have you developed such a cautious fighting style? That truly puzzles ."
Albus's expression grew sowhat strange.
"Being cautious never hurts. As a native Englishman, you probably don't understand; before one has the power to stand against the world alone, people like have enough reason to be careful." Ian's soul did not belong to this land, so the beliefs he upheld were clearly hard for most locals to grasp.
Albus rely chuckled in response.
(To Be Continued…)
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