Volume 5: The Burning Golden Flame Chapter 340: Human-headed Lion-body Scorpion-tailed Beast
"It's true that I created that secret room, but the castle has been around for so many years, and the structure and facilities inside should have been renovated and improved countless times."
In Dumbledore's headmaster's office, on the wall covered with portraits of past headmasters, the old Slytherin, who looked like a monkey, whispered.
"But what I am sure of is that the location I told the little girl at the beginning was not wrong. The entrance to the secret room I designed at the beginning was a round trapdoor. As long as you say "open" in the snake language, you can successfully enter."
In response to Slytherin's words, Dumbledore simply waved his hand.
"I never doubted that there was something wrong with the information you provided, Salazar. There are many possibilities for Hermione not finding the entrance. Besides, he already knew that you had joined us, so he would naturally guess that you could provide us with the exact method and location of entering the Chamber of Secrets. According to the vigilance he has shown over the years, if the Chamber of Secrets really holds something for him, then he would definitely make some changes."
Hermione looked at Dumbledore firmly.
"So, should we continue looking, Professor?"
Dumbledore nodded in response.
"Of course, the more he hides, the more valuable the place we want to find is, but it also means that the risk you personally face will be much higher. Since he can change the location of the secret room entrance, he will also make some different preparations in the secret room."
"I'll be very careful," Hermione said quietly.
Dumbledore looked on and smiled.
"Of course, I have never doubted your ability, Hermione, but I think the other information you got last night may be more worthy of our spending more time to explore. You said that you saw a boy on the map, and he left the castle privately through a secret passage?"
Hermione didn't hesitate, she nodded.
…
"Everyone is petrified!"
The red beam of light streaked across the surrounding burning woods and grass, leaving a trail of magic in the air!
Jon suddenly turned his upper body again to avoid Emil's spell, and at the same time he stepped forward and cast a spell to counterattack.
"Expelliarmus!"
Emile was dodging as well, but he wasn't dodging the attacks nearly as easily as Jon.
After the Iron Armor Spell that had been maintaining his body was broken, he immediately added another layer of protection. But even so, he didn't dare to take another spell from John easily.
The power of the spell John cast was astonishingly great. Even after shattering his armor spell, he showed no sign of stopping. The residual power of the spell almost knocked him to the ground.
Emile rolled over unsightly on the ground covered with ash. Although the process was embarrassing, it allowed Emile to avoid Jon's spell while also putting some distance between him and Emile.
But Jon had no intention of letting him go. He took another step forward, casting spells and never stopping his mouth to put pressure on him.
"I have fought with many Death Eaters, including your uncle and aunt who look down on you, but to be honest, compared with them, your spell-casting technique is too crude, the timing of the spell is wrong, the speed of chanting the spell is not fast enough, and even the swing of the wand is not decisive enough. So none of your spells made me feel the pressure of defending. Is this what you get for learning magic for three years longer than me?"
"Fainted!"
Emile gritted his teeth, his face flushed red, and it was obvious that he was trying to reorganize his counterattack against John despite the great humiliation.
However, his counterattack still did not achieve any effect. There was not only a gap between the two in spells and magic, but also a huge difference in combat experience between wizards.
With John's current level of spellcasting without using the ring, he can be compared with professionally trained elite Aurors. The gap between him and Emil cannot be made up by passion or anger. John has already steadily suppressed him. If Emil cannot find a way to escape, it is only a matter of time before he is defeated.
Finally, Emile couldn't bear it anymore, and under another disarming spell from Jon, he finally hid in an unavoidable place.
He clung to a large tree, surrounded by bushes that were on fire from the dragon's breath. The orange-red light of the flames shone on his face, making it look so pale.
But the closer it got to this point, the more alert Jon became.
If he kicked Emil out of the competition at this time, it would mean that the two participating warriors under Voldemort would be wiped out, and no one would complete the first competition and get a result.
Perhaps this does not represent the final result of the game. They may have arranged other possibilities for a comeback later. But did Voldemort really not expect that John would kill everyone in the Forbidden Forest?
Jon was very skeptical, but this suspicion did not make him hold back. He waved his wand as usual. This time, in order to speed up the casting of the spell, he even omitted the step of chanting the spell. Although the strength of the spell was reduced, Emil now had no chance to resist.
However, before the tip of his wand could light up with the red light of the spell, a huge figure suddenly rushed out from a hidden corner and pounced straight towards John!
It was incredibly fast and so agile that even if Jon reacted, he had no room to dodge. Its two sharp claws and a hooked tail activated the Iron Armor Spell in front of Jon!
A light blue light suddenly lit up, and then shattered with a loud bang. Such interference directly interrupted John's original spell. At the same time, the ferocious and huge creature shattered the Iron Armor Curse with one pounce, and had no intention of stopping for a moment. It continued to press its body down, and closed its two claws on John's head, as if it wanted to directly scratch his head!
Of course, Jon was prepared for such an emergency. He aimed at the creature's empty belly and stretched out his wand when he was not holding it. Without chanting any spell, the magic on the ring was directly activated!
The next moment, he flew directly into the air, and the creature that was as big as a tiger or leopard missed his claws again and fell to the ground.
But Emil seized the opportunity and took advantage of the time when Jon was stuck, turned around and ran through the sea of fire around him.
Jon saw Emil's running back, but he did not chase him immediately. Instead, he focused his attention on the animal that suddenly rushed out to disrupt the situation.
This is a monster with a human head, a lion's body, and a scorpion's tail.
Its name is as straightforward as its appearance - a manticore, a sphinx, a scorpion tail beast, a xxxxx-level dark magic creature, more dangerous and notorious than a volley bat, and more frightening than a fire dragon.
The monster stared at Jon flying in the air with its pair of blue-gray eyes. Its scorpion tail, which was said to kill someone instantly with just the slightest touch, swayed slowly from side to side.
The hideous woman opened her mouth towards Jon, revealing three rows of sharp teeth on the upper and lower sides.
"Is your mission to protect him, or to kill me?"
Jon was not frightened by its terrifying appearance. Instead, he looked at the monster and said coldly.
The mouth on that human face was moving, but no human words came out. Instead, a sound similar to a mixture of a flute and a trumpet was heard.
Seeing that his question received no response, Jon narrowed his eyes and stopped asking questions. Instead, he clenched the wand with both hands and raised it high above his head in a strange way.
"The rules say you can't kill any contestant, but you don't fall into that category, right?"
The beast with a human head, a lion body and a scorpion tail seemed to have sensed the approaching danger. Its hair, which was even redder than that of a lion, was tense and the scorpion tail that was constantly shaking behind it suddenly swung!
In an instant, countless poisonous thorns pierced the air and shot towards John who was floating in the air with his wand held high!
John's strange wand-swinging action did not stop there, but his body had already risen a certain distance following the levitation spell when the poisonous thorns were shot out. While dodging the attack of the monster, he also swung his wand down, holding the wand with both hands and then slashing it horizontally!
"God's sword has no shadow!"
“Buzz!”
The next second after John chanted the spell, a humming sound like steel trembling came from the air around him!
A gust of wind blew across the flames, lifting the hem of Jon's robe. Following the wind, countless invisible things in the air swept past in an instant!
As Jon chanted the spell, the human-headed, lion-bodied scorpion-tailed beast was already feeling extremely uneasy. It roared, and leaped up from the ground, while swinging its body sideways, trying to swing its tail so that the poisonous needle on it could sting Jon's calf.
However, the next moment when the wind blew, it let out a loud roar of pain!
The ground, trees, grass, stones, and even the still burning dragon flame were all split in half by an invisible sharp blade at this moment!
The thick fur of the man-headed lion-body scorpion-tailed beast, which was even as resistant to magic as dragon skin, also had countless bloodstains. The hideous woman's face was also cut with dozens of cuts, and the scarlet blood instantly stained its entire body. The magic left in the wounds continued to corrode it. Almost every second, the wounds on the monster would get worse, and more blood would flow out!
Such a huge injury made it look at John with resentment , then it turned around and hid in the bushes nearby.
Jon watched it trying to escape and had no intention of chasing it. This man-headed, lion-bodied, scorpion-tailed beast was doomed to die unless it could find a wizard who could help it remove the spell of the Invisible Sharp Sword.
If that were the case, then things would become more straightforward.
This enhanced version of the Shadowless Divine Strike consumed a lot of Jon's physical strength.
This was the spellcasting method he learned from a forbidden book in his ring during the summer vacation. By holding the wand with both hands, he increased the flux of magic power on the spell, thereby giving the spell itself an extremely powerful blessing.
It is very effective against area damage magic such as blasting spell and shadowless strike, but because of its high consumption and long lead time before casting the spell, it is not very practical in real one-on-one combat.
But it is much easier to deal with magical creatures with extremely high defense like this, especially when Jon has air superiority.
In other words, the contestants are not allowed to kill each other, otherwise Jon would not have to play this childish game of house with Emil, and would have directly used the killing curse to force out the man-headed sphinx-body scorpion-tailed beast.
The appearance of such a dark magic creature also confirmed John's guess. In the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort's own territory, he would definitely not be unprepared. Even John himself could get help from Hagrid's friends who . It was not surprising that other animals in the Forbidden Forest served Voldemort.
At least the current situation lets John know that Voldemort still attaches importance to the outcome of this game. Otherwise, with his personality, how could he care about the life and death of Emil and Draco?
As Jon thought about it, he picked up a golden snitch from the ground. The snitch had been destroyed by dragon breath and its metal wings were trembling, but it could no longer fly. This was something left by Emil.
Putting it in his pocket, Jon prepared to start dealing with the real business of the competition. There were only so many fire dragons in the Forbidden Forest anyway, and as long as Emil wanted to continue to improve his performance, they would meet again sooner or later.
Jon whistled, and soon Hoss appeared beside him with a silly look on his face.
"Let's go, starting , and take them one at a time."
The rules of this competition to snatch the Golden Snitch from the fire dragon may require a lot of effort and brainpower for other participating warriors who do not have the ability to fly, but for Jon there is no big risk at all.
After all, he can fly, and he can also use the ring to absorb the magic power from alchemical items.
As long as he flew up and got close to the golden snitches, and then used the second gem in the ring to absorb the magic power from the golden snitches, he could catch these things with ease.
And the impact those fire dragons brought to Jon could not pose much threat to him at all.
So from the beginning, after learning the rules of the first event, Jon didn't have much to worry about. As long as he played normally, it would be easy to get a high score in this event. The only thing he had to worry about was whether Voldemort himself would arrange something against him in the Forbidden Forest.
Because of this, Jon planned to find Emil first. If there was really an arrangement, it would most likely be with him.
Now that it has been confirmed that this arrangement is just about magical creatures, Jon can let go.
