Villin’s breathing nearly halted when he saw the spell coming towards his torso. It was fast, extremely fast, and the distance between himself and Granolf wasn’t large to begin with. 

Using a spell to counter it was out of the question, even though he did have the wandless ‘Reverto’ saved, he didn’t have the magical power required to cast it, and even if he did, there was no way he could stop a spell professor Crumb couldn’t easily stop.

All Villin could do in time was try and tilt to the right, making it so that the spell would hit his shoulder instead of his torso.

Using all of his efforts, Villin barely managed to tilt his body enough for his purposes and so the spell hit him right in his shoulder.

Villin expected one of two things to come from this spell. Death or massive amounts of pain.

He got neither.

The spell phased right through his body without doing damage, at first Villin was surprised but then he heard the massive explosion behind him, and with it a shockwave reached him, throwing him to the ground with ease.

The spell indeed didn’t interfere with living things, the target had always been the wall. The very same one that was currently exploding into pieces.

The spell that had been used was one of the best spells used to take care of enchanted buildings, and just before it hit, Granolf slightly transfigured the wall, weakening some of the enchantments.

Rocks flew everywhere, large and small. One of the pebble-sized rocks hit Villin in the back of the head, causing him to become woozy and nearly black out. Various other rocks hit him as well causing over a dozen cuts to appear all over his body. The contents of his backpack spilled all over and, to top it all off, a massive rock fell onto his right leg, crushing it.

This was the force of a single spell cast in less than half a second.

Marvin, standing next to him, was luckier. Even though the terrified boy still got hit by various rocks at tremendous speeds and the shockwave threw him onto the ground, only one of his arms got broken.

Professor Crumb looked grim. Granolf managed to trick him despite his own combat experience. Whenever one of them cast a spell the other would sense the amount of magical energy in an instant, together with its frequency and the exact color of the spell they would be able to tell what spell their opponent was using within a moment. Then they would use one of their own spells capable of countering it.

Still, there was always some guesswork involved, to aid you in this you could gather information on your opponent, figuring out what spells they all knew, and generally guess what spell they would use in the scenario.

Granolf used this to his advantage. The spell he used was a sieging spell, not an offensive one, yet it had the same color and a similar frequency to an offensive piercing spell he knew. Seeing the spell, professor Crumb naturally assumed it was the offensive spell, he used a semi-physical spell to counter it, yet sadly it didn’t work, and the spell arrived, seriously harming Villin.

Knowing the damage that had been dealt to Villin, professor Crumb wanted to increase his attacks and push back Granolf but he found himself unable to. His soul was seriously maimed and with every spell he cast he increased the speed of decay, this also meant less and less nodes in his web were available and his choices when it came to spells became more and more limited.

After another seven minutes, all the professor could do was defend, he barely attacked anymore. Sweat began pouring down his forehead as, due to the intense amount of spells he had been casting, his soul had reached a breaking point. Even though at this point, Granolf had exhausted about half of his magical energy, and his attacks were significantly slower, it didn’t matter.

To anyone watching, the ending of the fight became clear. Villin who had stopped himself from screaming due to his leg looked at the fight hoping the professor would be able to turn the situation around somehow.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

The battle didn’t end due to a spell, but transfiguration instead. Finding some time in between spells, Granolf managed to transfigure the ground underneath the professor’s feet. They both suddenly move in opposite directions causing the professor to almost fall.

When he was still busy catching his balance, a blue streak hit him in the abdomen. He flew to the side, arriving about ten meters away from Villin.

As soon as the professor hit the ground, two more spells were already upon him.

Large lacerations appeared on both of his arms causing him to drop his wand, then, without giving him time to breathe, Granolf used transfiguration to cause portions of the ground to rise around the professor’s arms, taking away their movements and stopping him from casting the majority of spells, be it with or without wand.

Seeing the situation, Granold broke into a smile. Despite how it seemed, the fight was extraordinarily difficult. Every second a multitude of spells was shot out, the speed at which you would have to identify spells and create countermeasures was insane. This was no doubt the toughest battle he had ever been in. If he met this opponent ten years ago, he surely would’ve lost.

Still, there was no use talking about ‘ifs’, currently, Granolf felt as if he was in heaven as he approached professor Crumb, still pointing his wand towards his forehead.

The old man was helpless, his arms were completely trapped and his soul seriously maimed.

Seeing this, Villin’s eyes widened ‘no, nonono, nononono, get up professor, come on!’ he begged mentally, hoping the old man would do something.

Yet all he saw was a bitter smile on an exhausted face.

Granolf bent forward bringing his mouth just next to the professor’s ears “Now, let us see what secret this little head of yours holds.”

After saying this, he suddenly clasped the professor’s head between his hands and stared into his eyes, invading the wounded man’s mind.

As this was going on, Villin could feel a faint string of magic power approaching him, coming from professor Crumb. Looking at the man who’s head was clasped by Granolf, he could see a single tear moving down his cheek.

The small string of magic power moved besides Villin and then moved underneath some of the rubble. It was the location of the disk he used to hide. He thought that the professor meant he should use the attack function on it to save him but he couldn’t, his leg was crushed and he couldn’t reach the disk, and even if he could, the attack function was already used to aid in their escape.

Villin felt tears streaming down his face and tried to move despite the fact his leg was crushed, he just wanted to grab the disk, it still had its healing function, who knows if he healed the wounds that had been dealt to professor Crumb and Granolf, the situation might end up different, but really, he knew this wasn’t true.

After half a minute, Granolf began laughing loudly “So that’s how you find it! To think it had been under my nose all along!” yet, before he experienced the full extent of the happiness that knowing the location of the monarch’s legacy brought him, his face suddenly turned pale and panicked. He tried transfigurating the area around him to bring a wall in between him and professor Crumb but couldn’t do so in time.

The last time Villin saw professor Crumb was now, he saw the stubborn look on the old man as he looked at Granolf as if he was a dead man. Then two things happened.

The strong of magic power professor Crumb had sent Villin’s way had arrived at their destination and activated both of the remaining functions of the disk, healing, and shielding. A translucent shield formed around Villin and Marvin while their wounds were being healed.

At the very same time, professor Crumb’s body exploded in a ginormous blaze. The ground and walls in the entire area were instantly blown up, not just Granolf, but even some of the reinforcements that had been on their way and were still fifty meters away were killed. Classrooms blew up and an unbelievable torrent of fire followed. The explosion seemed to be consciously avoiding the location of Villin and Marvin, yet, even so, the shield still shook immensely, cracking in a multitude of locations. The entire spherical shield was shaking and rocks were flying everywhere. 

Yet Villin didn’t see all of this, all he saw was the moment where professor Crumb’s body exploded into pieces, his previous sobs and screams came to a halt as he looked at the situation before him without any feelings to spare.

Over the last months, he had begun to see professor Crumb as a father figure, a mentor. The person that would allow him to learn and prosper. Now all that was gone. Unable to take the feelings that came with it, Villin fainted.