As the dark shadow rapidly approached, Avada finally managed to make out its full form.
It was a serpentine creature around thirty to forty feet long, its entire body covered in pitch-black, hard scales. It looked somewhat like the basilisk he had seen two years ago, but it was clearly less savage, and it lacked that same evil, deadly aura of Dark Magic.
What stood out most, however, was that atop its huge head—which otherwise looked no different from that of an ordinary snake—grew a pair of curved horns like those of a ram, making the entire creature look immediately bizarre and mismatched.
Horned Serpent.
Avada recognized the creature's identity at a glance—a XXXX-class magical creature known for its wide variety as a species, extremely diverse abilities, and the sheer difficulty of handling it.
As he remembered it, Horned Serpents, like Thunderbirds, could alter the weather within a certain range, summoning torrential rain, violent winds, and thunderstorms. At the same time, they possessed invisibility, a degree of shapeshifting ability, and even hypnotic powers. Their bodies were also among the sturdiest of magical creatures. Even among XXXX-class creatures, they ranked among the strongest. The only reason they had not been classified as XXXXX was that they generally were not considered especially aggressive.
But since the Horned Serpent in front of him had been selected as the boss guarding a stage of the Triwizard Tournament, Avada was quite certain its temper was not nearly as mild as that of others of its kind...
Let's test it first.
Avada frowned, raised his wand, and cast another pillar of ice toward the Horned Serpent, which was eyeing him like prey.
The ice immediately froze against its enormous body, then, under the influence of Avada's Transfiguration, transformed into thick steel chains that slithered into place. In only a few seconds, they had tightly bound the Horned Serpent from head to tail before it could even erupt into action, leaving it seemingly no room to resist at all.
That'll only buy a little time. If I remember correctly...
Sure enough, in the very next moment, a trace of mockery seemed to flash through the serpent's cold eyes. Then, without warning, its body suddenly shrank by an entire degree. With a flick of its tail, it slipped smoothly out from between the coils of chain. Then, as if melting away, it slowly dissolved into the dark water.
Shapeshifting. Invisibility.
Avada's brows drew together slightly as he also activated Occlumency, preparing himself for the mental attack that could descend at any moment.
What made him frown was not the Horned Serpent's displayed abilities. After all, no form of invisibility could hide from his magical senses unless someone could erase their very soul from perception.
What truly gave him some pressure was that, within his magical perception, the Horned Serpent was circling around him at a speed so fast it was almost unbelievable, while simultaneously gathering power for a spell that Avada found rather troublesome.
Can't interrupt it... I'll block it first.
Layer after layer of ice crystallized around Avada, quickly assembling into a hollow sphere that enclosed him inside. Then, under the effect of Transfiguration, the surface became a sturdy layer of glass.
In the next instant, in a patch of water not far from Avada, a great burst of electric arcs suddenly flashed out before rapidly dissipating into the water.
If Avada had not constructed an insulated sphere for himself in time, that single electrical strike would have been enough to knock him unconscious.
And this was in deep water over a hundred meters down.
Worse still, this kind of attack was extremely hard to interrupt. On one hand, there was the Horned Serpent's terrifying speed. On the other, water itself was an environment deeply hostile to wizards.
With the resistance of the water, the power, range, and speed of spells launched through it all suffered severe attenuation. A wizard's own movement and aiming also required much more effort than usual. Even Transfiguring "water" as a material was not especially easy. Turning it into ice was somewhat better, but freezing enough ice to be useful was labor-intensive in its own right...
It was precisely for these reasons that, even now, the magical world's understanding of aquatic magical creatures remained very limited. Generally, only creatures that preferred to live in relatively shallow waters ever entered the field of wizards' observation, while the deeper underwater world remained largely unknown.
And to encounter a XXXX-class magical creature underwater was, for the overwhelming majority of wizards, the stuff of nightmares.
And according to the plan, he had not even reached the part set up by Barty and the others yet. In other words, this Horned Serpent was actually one of the challenges arranged by the Triwizard Tournament organizers and had been approved by Dumbledore and the others.
Is this a mandatory obstacle for all champions, or am I the only one getting this special treatment? I wonder how Fleur would handle this thing if she ran into it. In the original story, she got eliminated by just a few Grindylows...
While inwardly cursing the Horned Serpent—which was putting even more pressure on him than the Ukrainian Ironbelly had—Avada spent a few seconds adding an insulating anti-curse layer to himself before dispelling the Transfiguration.
Immediately afterward, he felt Occlumency take a slight impact.
The Horned Serpent's hypnotic magic.
No good. I'll have to show some real skill. Otherwise, who knows how long this will drag on...
While continuing to create ice crystals and using Transfiguration to turn them into various tools to restrain the serpent, Avada split off part of his mental focus and quietly began analyzing the magic that had been continuously broadcasting his battle.
He needed a brief opening—a moment when he could slip outside the audience's sight and use a spell that was not exactly within the rules...
"Mr. Ken is having poor luck—the guardian of his ghost ship is the hardest opponent to deal with, a Horned Serpent!"
By the lakeside, Barty was still loudly commentating.
"Clearly, in an environment as disadvantageous as open water, even a champion as powerful as Mr. Ken finds it very difficult to deal with a Horned Serpent. At the very least, the move he used against the dragon is no longer effective here... However, he's also displaying a remarkably high level of skill in Transfiguration, using the omnipresent water around him, freezing it into ice, and turning it into material for his spells as he fiercely maneuvers against the serpent..."
"Oh, Mr. Ken seems to have created a cloud of thick black ink—does he intend to block the serpent's vision? There's no need for the audience to worry. Our broadcasting magic can see through invisibility and obstacles. For example, this Horned Serpent has actually been invisible the entire time, but we can still see it quite clearly... Hmm? Why has the screen gone completely dark?"
"It's lit up again—understandable, of course. Our broadcasting magic has a certain delay, and its reactions may be a bit slow... But it was only a second or two, wasn't it?"
What Barty and the other spectators did not know was that, during those "one or two seconds" of total blackout, Avada had already aimed his wand squarely at the Horned Serpent.
The serpent's pupils suddenly lost focus for an instant, then slowly gathered themselves again. Its bodily movement also became slightly stiffer than it had been a second before.
If anyone had noticed those details, it would not have been difficult to guess what spell had caused that effect—
"Imperio!"
(End of Chapter)