"What?" Damocles looked around in horror, and only then did he realize that he had not left Knockturn Alley at all.
The familiar streets and familiar faces around him all made that painfully clear.
When he looked into the distance, he even saw the place where he had always worked, that damned potions lab.
That flashy transfer magic had only moved them from inside the room to a spot outdoors less than a hundred meters away, and it had happened to drop them right into the middle of the Werewolves' encirclement.
"That's right. You didn't get away, and you're not getting away now either."
Midgard stepped out of the darkness.
She looked at Damocles and said quietly, "What a disappointment, Mr. Belby. I thought the reward I gave you was already generous enough. I never expected you to really choose betrayal."
"M... misunderstanding. This is all a misunderstanding," Damocles said, trembling.
"A misunderstanding? I don't think so."
A shrill, piercing voice rang out. A figure wrapped tightly in a cloak emerged from the potions lab, holding the experiment notebook whose cover was only slightly scorched.
The notebook!
How was that possible?
Damocles froze.
He had thrown that notebook into the brazier with his own hands. There had been no one around at the time. By all rights, it should have been half-burned by now.
How could it have ended up with only a singed cover?
"Well now, looks like I got played. So you were in the potions lab the whole time," the black-robed man said in surprise as he looked at the cloaked figure. "Such a brilliant Disillusionment Charm... and yet you chose not to act back then. Why?"
Hearing that, Damocles suddenly understood, and cold sweat instantly poured down his face.
If this dangerous person had really been inside the potions lab the whole time, then that meant every move he made had been watched from start to finish.
The thought that all his little actions in the potions lab had been seen clearly by an unseen pair of eyes made Damocles shiver with fear.
"Nothing much. I just wanted to see what your special transfer magic was actually capable of. Now it seems it's nothing impressive," the cloaked figure said.
As she spoke, she walked past the two of them, completely unconcerned that they might attack, and went straight to Midgard's side before handing her the notebook.
In the moonlight, the black-robed man noticed that the hand beneath the cloak seemed grayish green.
A Goblin?
His expression shifted, and he suddenly asked, "You said our kind of transfer magic. Sounds like you know Raven, or have at least seen them before?"
"What does it matter? Live long enough and you end up seeing all sorts of things," Leonard said casually.
An old Goblin? No, perhaps that was just information deliberately revealed by the other side. Whether it was true still remained to be seen.
The black-robed man fell into thought, to the point that he nearly ignored the Damocles beside him, who was so frightened he looked ready to wet himself.
"Then surrender. You're not getting away," Leonard said.
"Surrender?" The black-robed man laughed. "Not quite, not quite. I think I can still save this."
"Oh? Really?" Leonard looked at him with some surprise. "And how exactly do you plan to escape?"
In Leonard's eyes, there was no way this man could get away.
This time, Leonard had deliberately brought out a plant he had never used before: Devil's Snare.
Because Devil's Snare avoided light by nature, Leonard had never been able to plant it in the botanical garden, so he had kept all its seeds stored in the magical seed bag.
The magical seed bag preserved the seeds' vitality, which meant every Devil's Snare seed Leonard had could still be used immediately.
But the most important thing was the enhancement Leonard had seen after obtaining Devil's Snare.
And among those enhancements, the one that mattered most, the one Leonard was using now, was the Spatial Buffer Net.
Its effect was not an Anti-Apparition Charm. If it had been, the black-robed man would never have been able to Apparate in.
Its true function was to turn the area covered by its roots and tendrils into a "viscous" zone of space.
Once the seed was planted, that Devil's Snare began to grow wildly. Unlike an ordinary Devil's Snare, it did not grow visible tendrils. Its translucent roots seemed to sink into the void itself, spreading upward through the air and forming a hemispherical cage.
That cage did not block anyone from entering or leaving. Its roots and tendrils seemed like something outside this world.
But any transfer magic used within it would be restricted, or even fail altogether.
It was like a spider's sticky web. It did not stop any insect from flying in, but getting back out was another matter entirely.
Unless your transfer magic was powerful enough to break through Devil's Snare's web.
The black-robed man's use of the crow's transfer magic had genuinely surprised Leonard, but within Devil's Snare's range, his movement radius was still limited to less than a hundred meters.
And that was only movement within the web itself. If he wanted to break through it, he would have to stand at the very edge of Devil's Snare's range.
Any transfer magic used from within the web would be warped and misdirected.
Leonard had always disliked Devil's Snare because its light-avoidance problem had never been solved, so he had never really used it and never thought it would amount to much.
Now, though, Leonard had only one thought.
This thing was incredible.
Once spread open, Devil's Snare was basically the perfect trap for any wizard skilled in Apparition. Once someone fell into it, they could forget about leaving in one piece.
Leonard could not understand what gave this black-robed man so much confidence.
Surely he did not think the failure of his transfer magic just now had been a mere accident.
"I can tell you're very confident in your power to seal off transfer magic. I've never seen this kind of power before, but I do know that trying to fight it head-on would be foolish."
The black-robed man quietly put on a pair of gloves.
"But this kind of power must only target transfer magic. It probably can't stop someone from physically going in or out, can it?"
"No, it can't. So what?" Midgard waved her hand, and the Werewolves closed in, their wands trained on the black-robed man and ready to strike at any moment. "Do you really think you can escape from us?"
"Don't get so worked up." The black-robed man smiled. "You all seem very confident, but..."
A pellet suddenly appeared on one of his gloves.
The moment it hit the ground, it burst and released a huge mass of smoke.
Midgard gave a cold snort and swung her wand, summoning a fierce gale. But to everyone's surprise, the black smoke would not blow away at all. It was like darkness itself, slowly spreading outward.
"Everyone stay where you are and watch your surroundings!" Midgard only had time to shout that much before the black fog swallowed her.
Leonard's gaze shifted. Silver light flickered in his eyes as he quietly stepped back and avoided the black mist.