"Don't move!"
Hermione's slightly panicked voice rang out.
"This is Devil's Snare! We learned about it in Herbology!"
"The more you struggle, the tighter it squeezes!"
As she shouted the warning, she forced herself to stay calm.
Her top-student instincts made her mind race at incredible speed.
Devil's Snare thrives in dark and damp environments…
It… it fears light! And fire!
Right!
Fire!
A simple flame spell would make it retreat instantly.
But knowing the theory was one thing.
Casting the correct spell immediately—while your limbs were bound by cold, tightening vines and you could feel the life being squeezed out of you—was something entirely different.
Hermione tried frantically to reach the wand in her pocket.
But her arms were already wrapped tight with vines like a mummy.
She couldn't move at all.
She watched helplessly as black tendrils like serpents wrapped around Harry's neck…
Around Ron's mouth and nose.
Ron's muffled groans of suffocation struck her nerves like hammer blows.
"Fire… the fire spell…"
Hermione's lips trembled unconsciously as she desperately searched her mind—now nearly blank from fear—for the basic spell she had practiced hundreds of times.
What was it again?
Incendio?
Or… Lumos?
No—no, that's wrong!
The suffocating pressure had already begun tightening around her chest and throat.
Her vision started to blur.
In that moment—
The three of them were seconds from death.
Just as the tightening vines were about to steal their final breaths and drag them into endless darkness—
A figure drifted down silently from the trapdoor above.
Light as a feather.
It was Lucian.
The black vines, which had been lunging like starving serpents, sensed the pure and powerful aura around him.
Instinctively, they shrank back.
Like creatures encountering a natural predator.
Not a single vine dared approach him.
Lucian calmly surveyed the writhing Devil's Snare.
Then he glanced at the three friends whose faces were red from suffocation.
He could clearly sense the magical plant's nature.
Its dependence on darkness.
Its primal fear of light.
Hermione's idea was correct.
Fire or strong light would indeed drive it away.
But…
That would be crude.
And inelegant.
A faint smile curved at the corner of Lucian's lips.
You are plants.
You crave energy.
Then I'll give you… more than enough.
His heaven-defying comprehension activated once more.
Research Topic: How to convert pure light magic into a "life catalyst" capable of being instantly absorbed by dark magical plants—overclocking their life process until it collapses.
Spell Constructed.
Lucian slowly raised one finger.
A light ignited at its tip.
Not the weak glow of Lumos.
Not the burning blaze of Incendio.
It was a pure, warm radiance—
Brilliant as if torn from the core of the sun itself.
A holy light overflowing with boundless life energy.
The instant it appeared, the entire dark underground chamber lit up like daylight.
Then Lucian spoke softly, his tone almost lyrical.
"Photosynthesis MAX."
The next moment—
A miracle unfolded that completely overturned Hermione's understanding of magic.
First Second — Frenzied Growth
The moment the Devil's Snare absorbed that pure life energy, it exploded into activity.
It was as if it had been injected with a thousand times the dose of super growth hormones.
The vines wrapped around Harry, Ron, and Hermione didn't retreat.
Instead they expanded wildly.
They thickened.
They lengthened.
Fresh green shoots burst out everywhere.
The crushing pressure disappeared instantly as their forms changed.
Harry and the others suddenly felt the grip loosen and tumbled free from the vines, gasping desperately for air.
Second Second — Spectacular Bloom
Before they could even recover from the shock of survival—
The Devil's Snare had already grown into something resembling a dense tropical jungle.
At the tip of every branch—
Flowers burst open.
Huge, strange blossoms emitting eerie glowing light—flowers that had never appeared in any botanical guide.
Thousands of blossoms bloomed simultaneously in the eternal darkness.
It was bizarre.
Magnificent.
And breathtakingly beautiful.
A dazzling final aria of life itself.
Third Second — End and Withering
But the brilliance lasted less than a moment.
At the peak of their bloom, the flowers withered instantly.
Black gem-like fruits formed within the fading petals—
Then shriveled and lost all luster.
Next came the vines.
The leaves.
The entire Devil's Snare, which moments ago had been brimming with life and menace, suddenly lost all vitality.
It yellowed.
Shrank.
Crumpled.
Finally—
Whoosh…
A faint breeze passed through the chamber.
And the Devil's Snare, having lived an entire three-second epic of life, crumbled completely—
Into fine gray ash drifting silently through the air.
—------------------------------
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