This black mist was extremely unusual. Inside it, not only could you not see your hand in front of your face, it also blocked the transmission of sound.
Anyone trapped inside it could see nothing, hear nothing, and feel nothing. It was as if all five senses had been stripped away.
Damocles was one of the victims. Choking on the black mist until tears streamed down his face, he suddenly felt a hand grab him.
Who?
Damocles jolted in shock and nearly screamed.
"Don't make a sound. Come with me."
It was the black-robed man's voice. Hearing that, Damocles quickly covered his mouth, swallowing the scream that had been about to burst out.
The black-robed man pulled Damocles through the black mist, weaving and shifting through it with surprising agility. He slipped past one Werewolf wizard after another, and before long they had reached the edge of the encirclement.
Meanwhile, the Werewolf wizards were still standing there at a loss.
The black-robed man let out a quiet breath of relief. With his strength, taking down a whole group of Werewolves was nothing short of a fantasy. Even if he turned himself into a Killing Curse machine, he still would not be able to withstand a coordinated volley from all those Werewolf wizards.
At a time like this, escaping was the right choice.
But just as the two of them broke out of the encirclement and were about to slip into an inconspicuous alley, Leonard, dressed in long robes, suddenly stepped into their path.
Under the black robe, the silver glow in Leonard's eyes faded, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
"Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder. Interesting. I never expected the great Raven organization to be using children's tricks like this," Leonard said in his hoarse voice.
Unfortunately, no kind of smoke could block Leonard's magical vision. Although the smoke from the Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder also carried magic, otherwise it would never have resisted the gale, it was still far less obvious than the flowing magic within a wizard's body.
"Surrender."
Leonard raised a finger. At the sight of that, the black-robed man's pupils shrank. He yanked Damocles aside and dodged sharply to the side.
At the spot where they had just been standing, a root suddenly shot up from the ground. It lashed outward, brushing across Damocles's ankle and instantly tearing away a large strip of flesh.
"Ah!" Damocles let out a miserable scream and collapsed to the ground.
"Tch. Useless."
Seeing that, the black-robed man actually grabbed Damocles by the arm and flung him at Leonard with one hand.
Leonard instinctively took a step back, avoiding Damocles, then looked warily at the black-robed man, who was preparing to flee.
The black-robed man's body stiffened for a moment. Then he sighed.
"What's with that instinctive dodge? Weren't you supposed to catch him?"
"Why would I catch him?" Leonard said coolly. "He's a traitor. If he gets hurt, he gets hurt. As for you... stopping you matters more."
As he spoke, he pulled out an acacia wand and pointed it at the black-robed man.
Because his own wand was far too distinctive in appearance, Leonard had asked Midgard to find him a spare wand in advance.
"I haven't even done anything. Do you really need to stare at me like that?" the black-robed man said with a low laugh. "Ah, what a pain. Looks like I'll have to use that after all..."
Leonard immediately became alert and aimed his wand at him without hesitation.
"Expelliarmus!"
A flash of red light shot toward the black-robed man, but he remained calm. He simply grabbed the crow on his shoulder.
Crack!
With a crisp sound, the seemingly living crow split apart like a mirror. Silver light flowed from the cracks and wrapped around the black-robed man.
"Until next time."
Within the silver light, the black-robed man waved at Leonard. In the next instant, he turned into a streaking afterimage and shot past Leonard's side.
A violent gust of wind blew open Leonard's cloak, revealing the face he had disguised with Polyjuice Potion.
"Hm?"
A soft sound of surprise flashed by. By the time Leonard came back to himself, the black-robed man had already vanished.
"Leon... are you alright?!"
Midgard, who had finally made her way out of the black mist, hurried over and looked at Leonard's grim expression as she spoke.
"I'm fine."
Under the astonished gazes of several Werewolf wizard apprentices, Leonard pulled up his hood.
"Take Damocles away and interrogate him."
"Alright." Midgard nodded and beckoned for several Werewolf wizards to drag Damocles off.
"Are you hurt? Why does your face look so bad?" Midgard asked.
Leonard shook his head and said nothing.
...
Night, by the Thames.
For wizards, even early night already counted as fairly late, but Muggles, lit by electric lights, were still lively and active.
Watching the boats moving back and forth along the river under the guidance of the lights, the black-robed man leaned against a bench by the river, breathing hard.
"I took a huge loss helping out this time."
He pulled back his hood, revealing a roguishly handsome face.
But terrible silver patterns remained on that face, almost like some kind of skin disease, and the skin around them looked pale and shriveled.
"Tsk... forcing the use of ancient magic really was a bad idea. These marks on my face will take at least half a month to fade."
The exhausted crow on his shoulder gave two hoarse caws.
"Alright, alright, I did wrong by you too this time. I thought it would be a simple little job, but I didn't expect to run into such a troublesome opponent," the black-robed man said with a sigh, reaching up to stroke the crow on his shoulder.
"Caw, caw!"
"You're saying I shouldn't have gotten involved in this mess? True enough. I really shouldn't have touched a mission from that bunch of lunatics. But I happened to be nearby."
As he spoke, an amused smile appeared on the black-robed man's face.
"Still, this trip was pretty interesting. I got to see Werewolf wizards far beyond what I imagined, and I also ran into someone unexpected."
Thinking back to the face he had seen just before leaving, the amusement in the black-robed man's expression deepened.
"It was Professor Flitwick. How did he end up mixed in with the Werewolves?"
No one answered his question.
The night wind blew past, and the black-robed man, who had just overdrawn his body to use power that did not belong to him, shivered from the cold.
"Sigh. No causing trouble for a while. Hey, Starr, get in touch with the teacher."
The black-robed man sneezed and spoke to the crow on his shoulder.
The crow let out a caw, and its body suddenly melted, turning into a mirror.
Ripples like water spread across the mirror's surface, and soon a figure appeared within it.
That figure looked like a black silhouette, with no visible features. A crystal ball sat before him. Inside it, mist swirled into a pattern like a cat's eye, drawing in anyone who looked at it.
"Harris Raymons? Your face... did you use ancient magic?"
"Yes, teacher."
At the sight of the figure, the black-robed man greeted him in a loose, casual tone.
"The task you gave me over there failed."