"Capricornus!" Vigo was stunned by the sudden turn of events. She panicked, shouting Capricornus' name as she lunged toward him. However, Sagittarius, with more battle experience, quickly grabbed her hand and yanked her aside.
Sa-Sa-Sa!
Dozens of ice spikes crashed into the spot where she had just stood and the path she had taken toward Capricornus. If Sagittarius hadn't intervened, she would have been skewered by now.
Thanks to Sagittarius' help, Vigo dodged Rhys' attack, but Sagittarius wasn't as fortunate.
"Ug.."
The rain falling from the sky turned into needle-like ice threads, striking one side of his body.
Though he reacted swiftly and cast a Shield Charm above him, some of the ice threads still slipped through the edges of the spell, embedding themselves into his arm.
Sagittarius felt a sudden chill in his arm, and then the entire limb went numb, becoming uncontrollable.
The attack didn't stop there.
The raindrops were continuously transforming into powerful ice needles, and the mist surrounding them had turned hostile, now causing them significant trouble.
In an instant, Sagittarius and Vigo found themselves in a dire situation.
Fortunately, a voice rang out from nearby.
"I'm not dead!"
Capricornus pulled the ice spike from his chest, leaving a gaping hole. The mist enveloped his wound, swiftly filling and mending the opening.
Within his domain, even after suffering what would normally be a fatal wound, Capricornus was relatively unharmed. After all, when a wizard activates a domain, they essentially become part of it.
This makes wizards with domains overwhelmingly powerful compared to those without them—a difference akin to a dimensional disparity. However, Capricornus could sense something was off.
For some reason, he had lost the usual seamless control over his domain.
The mist was still under his command, but manipulating it felt strangely awkward, difficult to describe.
Seeing that Capricornus was unhurt, Sagittarius and Vigo felt a surge of renewed hope.
If something had gone wrong with Capricornus, they would have been completely doomed tonight.
But with him still maintaining his strength, they stood a chance.
The two exchanged a glance, increasing their magic output, pouring all their power into the godly remains that parasitized their bodies.
Vigo's skin grew even paler, making her seem like a true marble statue—not just in appearance, but in toughness as well. The ice needles could no longer pierce her skin.
Sagittarius' transformation was even more startling.
His eyes ignited with flames, and through the blaze, his perception of the world changed. Physical objects dissolved and deconstructed, leaving only colorful clusters of magic.
On the surface, the three had completely reversed their disadvantaged situation.
Considering Capricornus' large-scale domain in play, they seemed to hold every advantage. But despite this, Sagittarius wore an expression of fear—because the world he saw through his magic-enhanced vision starkly contradicted reality.
The entire sky and ground were flooded with silver-green magic.
Everywhere he looked, the world was drowned in this overpowering magic, consuming nearly everything, including Capricornus' domain, which spanned much of Hogwarts.
In his magic vision, Capricornus' domain was almost entirely eroded by the silver-green energy. As for himself and Vigo, Sagittarius could only see their faint, flickering magical auras, as fragile as candles in the wind.
They were like a lone boat adrift in a vast ocean, constantly on the verge of being swallowed whole.
Sagittarius wanted to warn his teammates, but when he opened his mouth, not a single sound escaped. At the very moment he tried to speak, the numbness that had started in his arm spread throughout his entire body, leaving him completely paralyzed.
Capricornus and Vigo were too focused on gathering power for a counterattack to notice Sagittarius' strange condition.
Suddenly, the endless barrage of ice needles and the occasional ambushes by ice spikes stopped, and a figure appeared a short distance in front of them.
Vigo wanted to charge forward and deliver a powerful elbow strike, but Capricornus stopped her.
By this time, Capricornus had sealed the hole in his chest with mist, looking as though nothing had happened.
"Who are you?" The old man warily scrutinized the person standing before him.
His first impression of Rhys was his youth—he looked unbelievably young.
"Salazar Slytherin," Rhys answered truthfully.
Vigo snorted in disbelief, and although Capricornus remained silent, his expression showed that he too didn't believe Rhys' claim.
"If you're Slytherin, then I must be Athena," Vigo retorted sarcastically.
Rhys shrugged. Sometimes telling the truth just makes people less likely to believe you.
Capricornus wanted to say something else, but Rhys raised his hand to cut him off.
"I don't know if you have a teacher or if your teacher ever told you this, but the simpler a domain is, the stronger it will be."
"For example, water is stronger than rain, snow, frost, or mist; wind is stronger than smoke, and so on. In other words, try not to let your domain be a derivative of another."
"Even if you can't grasp a fundamental domain, you should at least aim for a combination of basic elements. For instance, magma—formed by combining fire and earth—is a great example. Of course, that's asking a bit much since those who can comprehend domains are already elite among wizards," Rhys rambled on, sounding almost like an old professor lecturing his students.
Capricornus was listening intently, almost forgetting that they were in the midst of a life-and-death struggle.
But soon, he realized something was terribly wrong—he had completely lost control of his domain.
"You see, this is how a basic domain crushes a derivative one. If you had mastered a different domain, I might have had to put in more effort. But since yours is mist, it's quite simple," Rhys said, waving his hand casually, and Capricornus' domain instantly dissipated.
Now, all that remained was a light drizzle falling from the sky.
Capricornus' face turned ashen.
At that moment, Sagittarius, who had been frozen in place, suddenly burst into flames.
If time were slowed down, one could see that his entire body had become fuel for those burning eyes of his.
The fireball split into two—one half streaked toward Rhys like a shooting star, while the other half shot up into the sky.
Facing an opponent so overwhelmingly powerful that it induced despair, Sagittarius chose to sacrifice himself, fully offering his body to the godly remains fused within him. His only hope was to delay Rhys for even a brief moment, while his soul attempted to escape.
Boom!
The fireball collided with Rhys, instantly reducing him to ashes. But before Vigo's face could fully register joy, another Rhys appeared just a few steps to their side.
As for the other half of the fireball flying toward the sky, it gradually dimmed in the constant drizzle, and finally, after flying nearly a hundred meters, it was extinguished.
Plop!
Two cloudy eyeballs fell onto the grass.
Rhys glanced at them, a fleeting thought crossing his mind—they seemed strangely familiar, perhaps once belonging to an old "acquaintance."
"Yes, I'm nothing more than a relic of a bygone era," Rhys said casually. His eyes drifted toward Vigo and Capricornus, and with a tone full of regret, he remarked, "But the fact that you couldn't even deal with an outdated relic like me is truly disappointing."
Capricornus opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but no words came out.
He felt something flowing from his chest.
Looking down, he realized that the mist that had been sealing his wound had vanished, and blood was now trickling from the gaping hole.
Capricornus could feel his strength rapidly draining away, and his vision began to blur and darken...
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12 Advance Chapters—Patreon.com/HornyFBI