infodatos Chapter 297, Section 296: Dumbledore Inside the Door
Chapter 297, Section 296: Dumbledore Inside the Door
Chapter 297, Section 296: Dumbledore Inside the Door
The moonlight condensed into a pale frost above the forbidden forest.
It pierced through the dark clouds.
The light shone into the perpetually dark depths of the Forbidden Forest. In the clearing before the bronze gate, a storm of magic raged wildly, and two figures clashed and crossed paths at speeds exceeding human limits.
The air was filled with the smells of fire and decay.
Each magical clash created tiny cracks in space.
"Kneel down! Submit to me! Then let me take your place!"
Before he could finish speaking...
A blinding purple light shot out from the tip of the old wizard's staff. Ririm deftly dodged it, and the ground where he had stood was instantly corroded into an enormous crater.
Eerie black smoke was rising from the edges.
This is clearly an ancient form of magic, distinct from mainstream spells. It would be unfamiliar to most modern wizards, but it's impossible for "Lirim," the king of the ancient wizards, not to recognize it.
after all.
The person opposite him is another version of himself.
It might not be him.
He has never been able to understand this.
"Using 'Touch of Decay' right off the bat?" Ririm whistled. "Looks like you really are me, the one heading in a different direction—that's quite a cunning move."
Lirem's tone carried a hint of emotion.
The old wizard did not answer, but raised his hands above his head and chanted an obscure incantation. The sky suddenly darkened, and dark clouds gathered at a visible speed.
Lightning could be faintly seen streaking through the clouds.
"Heavenly Punishment Lightning? Old-fashioned." Ririm curled his lip, drawing a perfect circle with his wand in front of him. Countless tiny golden runes appeared in the air, forming a semi-transparent barrier.
Almost simultaneously.
Bolts of lightning, as thick as buckets, struck down, illuminating the entire Forbidden Forest and turning the sky as bright as day. Yet, this terrifying feat was refracted in all directions the moment it touched the golden barrier. The surrounding ancient trees suffered, hundreds upon hundreds of centuries-old trees turning to charcoal in the lightning.
a mess.
Ririm and the old wizard who called himself "King of All Worlds" were locked in fierce combat. Each of their clashes caused the heavens and earth to tremble, with lightning, flames, and spatial rifts crisscrossing the area, uprooting the surrounding trees and tearing deep trenches into the ground. However, all of this seemed to be confined within this eerie realm by some mysterious force.
The outside world remains peaceful and unharmed.
After a series of battles.
"Is that all you've got?" Ririm stood still, motionless, like a god enveloped in golden light, as if all attacks from the outside world were nothing but smoke and clouds to him.
"This is just the beginning, lucky fellow, you have no idea how powerful I am!" The old wizard suddenly raised his arm and chanted an obscure and difficult-to-understand incantation.
Instantly, a purple streak of fire condensed in the air, shooting straight towards Ririm. The light carried destructive power, cracking the earth wherever it passed.
Everything turned to ashes in an instant.
"Mirror reflection".
Ririm lightly touched the ground with his toes, his figure retreating like a ghost. He formed a strange hand seal with his left hand, drawing three silver arcs. The surging purple fire line collided with the silver arcs and turned back along the same path.
The black mist barrier hastily erected by the old wizard sizzled as it burned with his own flames.
"Not bad."
The wizard wiped the blood from the burns on his cheek, then suddenly flipped his scepter into a bone wand and slammed it into the ground. The soil surged and churned as if alive.
Countless thorny vines burst forth from the ground, each tipped with a rotten, scarlet flower.
"You even learned the forbidden arts of the Black Witch Ceremony, no wonder you're part of the abandoned destiny." Ririm clicked his tongue in amazement, and dazzling particles of light, like the Milky Way, burst forth from his palm.
"It's my turn."
He chuckled softly.
Tens of thousands of points of light formed a torrent, vaporizing the tamarisk vines wherever it passed. The remaining force of the light stream struck the bronze door, and the runes on the door suddenly shone as brightly as day.
However, it did not cause any damage to the bronze door.
This was also within Ririm's expectations.
"Void Rift!" the old wizard roared, thrusting his palms forward with a fierce shove. A twisted spatial rift appeared out of thin air, like a ferocious beast devouring its prey, rushing towards Ririm. Seeing this, Ririm didn't hesitate to use teleportation, his figure flashing to appear a hundred meters away.
"Is that all you've got?"
The old wizard grinned maliciously and uttered a mocking laugh.
Ririm, who was floating in mid-air and slowly descending, was not annoyed.
"Starfall!" He suddenly opened his eyes, raised his palms upward, and dozens of dazzling orbs of light fell from the sky, carrying an aura of incineration as they crashed down on the old wizard.
"That's all there is to it."
The old wizard sneered, crossed his arms over his chest, and chanted a defensive spell.
A thick energy barrier instantly formed, blocking all the falling light spheres. However, at that very moment, Ririm's figure had already silently appeared behind him.
"You're too focused on defense," Ririm said in a low voice, gathering a ball of dark blue magic in his right palm and slamming it hard into the opponent's back.
"Do you know what it means to cultivate both magic and martial arts?"
His attacks were incredibly powerful.
boom!!
A massive explosion swept through the surrounding area, blasting the old wizard's body away. He crashed into several giant trees before barely regaining his footing. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, a flash of anger in his eyes.
"You think you can defeat me like this?" the old wizard sneered, raising his hands high. The surrounding air began to distort violently, and streaks of purplish-black shields moved around his body.
It makes a crackling sound.
"Well then... let me see your limits." Ririm's lips curled up slightly, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. He clearly wanted to know how far he had come in his fate of being abandoned.
In fact.
Even now.
He only dared to use a small portion of his power in this special space. Fortunately, it was in this space, otherwise he wouldn't even dare to use these ordinary spells.
As for the reason...
That's something only Ririm himself knows. In Ian's guess, Ririm, also known as Merlin, clearly had some very special experiences during the years he returned to Hogwarts.
As a result, in the normal dimension of reality, he cannot cast spells as freely as a normal wizard. Even when he releases some small spells, he is extremely cautious and even feels powerless.
There must be some kind of apprehension or constraint on Merlin. Of course, now that he's in this world, Ririm's shackles have clearly been loosened somewhat. This is evident from his ability to cast a spell on Snape and keep that spell active.
"I am the King of all ages! I have no limits!"
The old wizard, whether he'd ever watched Ultraman or not, was definitely stealing lines from others. As soon as he finished speaking, his shield transformed into dozens of black snakes that lunged at Ririm.
"At least I haven't fallen into the quagmire of dark magic. King of all worlds? What a joke." Ririm snapped his fingers unhurriedly, and all the black snakes instantly froze into ice sculptures, then shattered into a pile of ice crystals.
"A kiss of frost?"
The old wizard's expression changed slightly.
"You've actually mastered the secret arts of the Northern Witches!"
He looked incredibly unbelievable.
"If you could live in a world with ravens, you'd know that sleeping with two witches is perfectly fine for getting stronger, but dark magic will only lead you to your end."
"Unfortunately, you're not so lucky. The real surprise is yet to come." Ririm suddenly opened his arms, his robes fluttering in the wind. His eyes turned completely silver-white.
Countless tiny spatial cracks began to appear around him. The ground within a hundred meters radius began to rise unnaturally, and a muffled thunderous roar came from the ground.
The old wizard finally revealed a look of horror: "Are you insane? Summoning ley line tides here? Don't you know this place is unstable? You could be implicated..."
He didn't finish his sentence.
The whole world seemed to be crumpled by an invisible hand. The ground rose and collapsed, and trees were thrown into the air like building blocks, then torn to pieces by an invisible force.
"This is the Four Symbols Seal. It's obvious you've never learned proper magic." Ririm exclaimed, then suddenly bit his tongue, and blood mist condensed into a complex array in front of him.
Pillars of light rose simultaneously from the four cardinal directions, forming a pyramid-shaped barrier. Almost at the same moment, the ground undulated violently like ocean waves, and tens of tons of soil gushed into the air, reaching a height of hundreds of meters.
More than two square kilometers of forbidden forest were reduced to ashes in the energy turbulence, but this was only an anomaly; the power that truly struck the old wizard was far more terrifying.
"Are you trying to seal me into your power?!"
"hateful!"
"You won't succeed!"
The old wizard seized the opportunity to break free of his chains, and a mirror-like reflection condensed at the tip of his bone staff.
"Taste your own masterpiece!"
He also wanted to deflect Rirem's attack.
however.
Lirim suddenly laughed. Instead of retreating, he advanced, clasping his hands together again.
"This is something you couldn't reach, the Raven's magic—the Reverse Entropy Technique." And so, the sealing magic that had been deflected faded away as if a rewind button had been pressed.
Meanwhile.
The old wizard's rebound magic also began to regress immediately.
"Impossible!" The old wizard's eyes widened in disbelief, his face filled with astonishment. Yes, he could sense the significance contained within this magic.
This is the law of time.
He also knew about time magic, but this kind of magic shouldn't be used so recklessly and easily, after all, it was magic that touched the essence of this world.
"Learning more is never a bad thing, but unfortunately, you seem to have stopped learning. You can't even clearly discern my power." Ririm's body shimmered with a mother-of-pearl-like luster, and his hair moved without wind.
"Welcome to my realm... I reside in the clouds, mimicking the gods, so you may call me... the King of All Forms." He also indulged in a bit of chuunibyou (adolescent delusions of grandeur).
Is such that.
Merlin was a delusional guy to begin with. He snapped his fingers lightly, and the old wizard's left arm suddenly snapped cleanly at the elbow, the wound as smooth as if it had been cut off by space itself.
Strangely, not a single drop of blood flowed. The severed arm hovered in the air, then suddenly transformed into countless glowing butterflies that flew towards the bronze gate. The old wizard was forced back dozens of meters, the severed surface of his left arm writhing with fleshy buds.
He was reborn in the blink of an eye.
It is clear.
He underwent magical modifications on himself that Voldemort could not reach, including biomorphic transformation.
"You think I have no trump cards?" The old wizard chuckled sinisterly, suddenly tearing off a lock of his white hair and tossing it into the air. The hair burst into a ghastly green flame, instantly illuminating the night sky like a ghostly realm. Before his words had even finished, the entire sky split open with a hideous rift, and murky Yellow Spring water cascaded down like a waterfall.
Space is distorted and deformed wherever it passes.
A few splashing water droplets eroded deep, bottomless holes into the ground.
This moment.
Rirem finally frowned.
"The Styx? I truly underestimated you... underestimated your bottom line... So, are you me, or... the Merlin I've always fantasized about?"
He murmured softly.
Ririm raised his hand to cast a spell.
He summoned this abandoned version of himself.
need.
In reality, it was about overcoming one's inner demons. The battle continued, with two ancient beings clashing fiercely in this distorted realm, each magical collision causing a small-scale spatial collapse.
However, at the heart of this chaos, the bronze door remained unmoved, its runes shimmering with an eerie light, as if observing this unknown battle unfolding.
The battle was intense.
Everything in that eerie forbidden forest has vanished.
however.
The outside world was completely unaware of this. Inside Hogwarts Castle, everything was peaceful and normal. In the common room of Gryffindor Tower, several younger students were playing wizard chess by the fireplace. In the kitchen, house-elves were busy preparing breakfast for the next day, while Professor Trelawney on the Astronomy Tower was muttering to herself, gazing towards the Forbidden Forest.
"There is misfortune there, great misfortune." Even if there were people here, let alone no one else, probably no one would choose to believe what this divination professor said.
Looking at the Forbidden Forest from this angle.
The forbidden forest was peaceful and serene.
It didn't seem like anything had happened at all.
No one knew of the terrifying battle taking place deep within the Forbidden Forest. The moonlight continued to gently envelop the castle, as if nothing unusual had ever happened in the world.
……
The moment he passed through the vortex of the bronze gate, time seemed to stretch out like a thread. As Dumbledore's boots touched solid ground, the moist scent of morning dew wafted over him.
After entering the gate.
Not much time had passed for the old man. He stared blankly at the valley before him, his blue eyes behind his crescent-shaped glasses unusually rippled.
The rising sun gilded the thatched roofs, and the creaking of the waterwheel drifted through the thin mist. This was Godric Valley in 1899, every pebble in its place exactly as remembered. In the distance, a boy sat reading under an apple tree in front of a house with blue window frames.
"It's me, but this isn't the past." The old man had a clear judgment, but he still couldn't control his body from unconsciously taking a step forward, and then he stopped abruptly.
His fingers dug deep into his palms, yet he felt no pain. A red-breasted robin landed on his shoulder, its chirping perfectly echoing a distant morning from his memory.
next moment.
The wild rose bushes outside the fence suddenly swayed, and a little girl with a face full of freckles popped out.
"Albus!"
She held up a dandelion covered in mud, exclaiming, "Look what I found!"
Dumbledore was struck dumb. That voice—Ariana's childish voice—was the melody that had haunted his nightmares. In a daze, Dumbledore saw his younger self raising his wand.
"Leave me alone!"
The voice was very cold.
(End of this chapter)