However, Firenze's words fell on deaf ears—his two centaur companions completely ignored him.
Seeing that Firenze remained "stubbornly unrepentant" and intended to continue helping other creatures, the two said no more. They turned and quickly departed, disappearing into the depths of the forest.
"I apologize. I hope you won't despise us for this. Bane and Ronan aren't bad at heart," Firenze spoke apologetically to Dudley.
Dudley merely shook his head slightly, focusing intently on the unicorn's wound. His hands never stopped moving as he continuously adjusted bottle after bottle of potions.
"I know the nature of you centaurs."
For Firenze's sake, Dudley wouldn't hold it against them.
"Bear with it—this will hurt a bit," Dudley said softly to the unicorn.
He then carefully dripped the prepared potion onto its wound. Like cold water dropped into boiling oil, an intense reaction occurred instantly. The unicorn's wound began corroding rapidly as if splashed with acid.
However, the black vapor clinging to it began dissipating at a visible rate. The process wasn't particularly comfortable. The unicorn began struggling unconsciously from the pain.
Helplessly, Dudley extended both hands, placing them on the unicorn's body and pressing gently. It immediately quieted down.
Soon, the black vapor around the wound finally dissipated, and the unicorn gradually stopped struggling. However, where it had been injured, the corrosion had left a terrifying-looking hole.
But it only looked scary—in reality, it was just a surface wound. For wizards, as long as you weren't dead, cursed, or suffering irreversible spell damage, everything was just a surface wound. Even if your hand was chopped off, a few potions could grow it back in minutes.
Of course, "minutes" was an exaggeration—it would still take some time.
He pulled out two potions. One he poured down the unicorn's throat.
Essence of Dittany (Internal Formula)
The other he carefully poured onto the unicorn's wound.
Essence of Dittany (External Formula)
At the wound site, flesh buds began growing at a visible rate, scabbing over, healing, and gradually recovering until new skin grew. Excellent results.
However, unlike other areas with fine fur, the newly grown skin was smooth. Potions were truly magical, with immediate effects.
The unicorn gently nuzzled Dudley with its head and licked his palm. If it weren't for its mane being plucked bald, it actually had a decent relationship with Dudley. After all, no magical creature could resist Dudley's cooking.
After feeding the unicorn some of his homemade food and seeing its spirits improve considerably, Dudley patted its rump, signaling it to stand and take a few steps.
Though still trembling slightly, overall there were no major problems. No, physically there were no major problems... It just looked somewhat hard to describe overall. Well, appearance-wise.
How to put it—originally only the mane area was somewhat bald, and it was still a handsome unicorn. Now, due to treating its injuries, a large patch on its belly was also hairless.
Those who knew would understand it was a symptom from injury; those who didn't might think it was alopecia areata—quite unsightly. Fortunately, surviving was already good enough. Worrying about appearance was unnecessary, and hair would grow back before long anyway.
Seeing the unicorn's condition stabilize, Firenze bid farewell to Dudley and returned to his herd.
Dudley first collected some of the silver blood on the ground. Unicorn blood had healing and life-extending effects—in Muggle legends, it could even resurrect the dead. Resurrection was definitely impossible—even phoenix tears didn't have that effect. Moreover, because it wasn't willingly given, unicorn blood, while life-extending, contained a curse. Once consumed, one could only live like the walking dead.
This blood could be used to make curse-type potions with quite strong effects.
Next, Dudley examined the balding unicorn's body again. After confirming no problems, he and Charizard escorted the unicorn back to its herd.
The unicorn herd lived in the deeper parts of the Forbidden Forest, naturally with high danger levels. Adult wizards without skill wouldn't choose to go there at night. But Dudley's combination of unicorn and dragon was among the top predators in the Forbidden Forest, so naturally there were no problems. They quickly delivered it safely.
Dudley had Charizard roost as close as possible to the unicorn herd. Since it wasn't fully mature yet, staying near the unicorns would be relatively safer.
After instructing the dragon, Dudley left the Forbidden Forest.
Honestly, besides riding dragons, he also wanted to ride unicorns. Unfortunately, unicorns had even less weight capacity than the dragon. So this idea was destined to remain just that—impossible to implement. Unless he could lose weight...
Returning to Hogwarts Castle, Dudley began reviewing this battle. Summarizing combat experience, analyzing problems and shortcomings, and continuously improving oneself was also an important part of being a spellcaster.
The cloaked figure's identity was already clear in Dudley's mind. Though from the moment he grew a tail on his rear, he no longer treated his memories as gospel, some information was still very useful.
Late night, deep in the Forbidden Forest, drinking unicorn blood. Three key points—it could only be one person. There was only one truth.
"Someone possessed by a certain noseless villain!"
The direct confrontation also gave Dudley a preliminary understanding of the opponent's strength. The immediate feeling was strong—very strong. Even as just a fragment of a soul possessing someone, it wielded terrifying power, not as pathetic as in his memories.
Being able to nearly kill an adult unicorn—that alone was beyond most adult wizards. Unicorns, like phoenixes, had a danger rating of only XXXX—powerful creatures with little aggression toward wizards. However, an enraged unicorn's strength wasn't much less than legendary creatures with 5X danger ratings like Chimeras or Manticores.
That horn wasn't for show—even dragons had to avoid its point.
This also made Dudley realize his shortcomings. His ranged attack methods were rather limited and needed improvement. He needed to find some ranged attack methods. If nothing else, he needed to add some attack varieties.
Dudley's first thought was firearms. Theoretically, if flashlights could work, then firearms naturally could too. How about getting a Magnum? That thing had pretty strong killing power—Dudley loved it when playing Resident Evil.
"Ding!"
Just as he was pondering, Dudley's ears suddenly heard the system notification that had been offline for so long.
"Achievement Task: First Confrontation with the Dark Lord, obtained—"
[Chapter Complete]
***
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