Even though it was the middle of winter, cold sweat poured down Tom's face.
A bead of sweat rolled off his nose.
Just a little closer, and he would've lost it.
Several vines suddenly dropped from the ceiling, wrapping tightly around the statues' weapons, holding them in place.
Tom seized the chance to roll to the side.
A moment later, the vines snapped apart and turned back into several broken lanterns.
It turned out that, in that critical moment, Tom had transfigured the lanterns above into vines, stopping the weapons just in time.
But the danger wasn't over yet.
Tom glanced around at the scattered stone fragments nearby—remnants of shattered statues from those who had passed before them.
Now, though, they might just come in handy.
Without a moment's hesitation, he swung his wand.
Under pressure, Tom's Transfiguration skill burst beyond its usual limits. The countless stone shards around him transformed into twisting vines, which surged toward the two statues one after another.
For every vine that was torn apart, another replaced it.
Finally, the statues were completely entangled and toppled to the ground.
As they struggled violently on the floor, Tom raised his wand.
"Bombarda!"
Boom!
When the explosion cleared, both statues lying side by side had their heads blown clean off.
With their heads destroyed, the two flailing constructs finally went still.
But Tom was far too riled up to stop.
He kept swinging his wand wildly, unleashing one explosion after another on the fallen statues.
"Die! Just die already!"
In his fury, he didn't even notice that he was casting the Blasting Curse without speaking the incantation.
Wade set his own wand aside and wiped the sweat from his palm on his robes.
He could only think—so this was Tom Riddle. After being pushed to his limit, his power was truly extraordinary.
Remarkable talent indeed.
Wade floated down and grabbed Tom by the shoulder.
"All right, Tom, it's time to calm down now…"
"You die too!" Tom snapped, swinging his wand and firing another Blasting Curse at him.
But before the spell could be cast, Tom suddenly felt his hand go light—his yew wand had somehow ended up in Wade's hand.
The spell, of course, never came out.
Once his wand left his hand, Tom finally began to calm down.
A moment later, he collapsed to the ground, completely spent.
Even so, when he looked at the two statues blown to pieces, excitement still flickered in his eyes.
"I… I did it! Wade! Did you see that? I really did it! I took them down! Those disgusting lumps of rubble!" Tom said, voice trembling with exhilaration.
"Of course I saw it," Wade replied, placing the wand back into Tom's hand. "And… you didn't use any traditional form of Dark Magic just now, did you? Well, aside from the Blasting Curse in this context."
Hearing that made Tom even more thrilled. "I was thinking—if it were Dumbledore, how would he fight? Then I remembered his Transfiguration! And then… I actually pulled it off! I can't believe it!"
Tom spoke with excitement, replaying every brilliant move in his head.
Pretty impressive, right?
But as he recalled the last few moments, his smile slowly froze.
Because it dawned on him that… he might've just attacked Wade.
And not with a harmless spell—but with a Blasting Curse strong enough to kill.
Tom's heart sank instantly into despair.
Oh no! Wade was famously petty!
Back when Tom had first met him, he'd tried sneaking attacks on Wade more than once for all sorts of reasons.
And every single time, Wade would grin wickedly, draw his wand, and say, "So, you're challenging me to a fair duel, are you?"
Every time he said that, Tom would end up getting absolutely thrashed.
And now…
"You fought brilliantly this time, Tom. I actually saw a bit of Professor Dumbledore's flair in you," Wade said cheerfully. "So, I'll let that little sneak attack of yours slide—for now."
"That's… good to hear." Tom exhaled in relief—then suddenly froze.
"For now?" Didn't that mean Wade was planning to settle it later?
"H-how about you just hit me now and get it over with? I swear, waiting for it is so much worse!"
"How can you always misunderstand me like this? I'm not some violent maniac—why would I hit you?" Wade said in displeasure.
Suppressing his unease, Tom shouted, "You'd better not be!"
Wade pulled out a large bar of chocolate and shoved it into Tom's hand. "Here, eat this first and get your strength back. Then we'll keep exploring. I have to say… this Slytherin inheritance has completely piqued my curiosity now."
While Tom silently gnawed on the chocolate to recover, Wade crouched beside the shattered remains of the two knight statues to study them.
These battle constructs were definitely high-grade.
At the very least, they were far stronger than the so-called combat statues disguised as stone figures around Hogwarts.
And if generations of Slytherin descendants hadn't come through here before, wearing these statues down, who knew how many more would have appeared just now?
It also showed just how capable those earlier students must have been.
Tom had nearly died taking down just two of them, but the students before him had likely faced far more than that.
"What a pity… if you hadn't blown these two to bits, I might've been able to learn something from them," Wade said regretfully.
"What else could I do? If I didn't blast them to dust, what if they weren't dead and suddenly jumped up to stab me? It's not like they're human—blowing off their heads doesn't necessarily kill them," Tom said weakly. "By the way, do you have any water? This chocolate's sticking to my throat…"
"Tom, you're a wizard… you can just use Aguamenti. I literally just praised you for using your brain!" Wade said irritably.
Tom huffed but didn't dare argue—Wade didn't seem to be in a good mood.
Suddenly, Wade bent down and picked up a small shard of green crystal from the ground. It radiated a strong magical trace.
Carefully sensing it, Wade realized this was the same magical fluctuation unique to those battle constructs from before.
And it seemed as though something within it was slowly fading away…
Wade immediately used the power of his Nightmare Magic to investigate further.
That fading presence—it was a soul's energy?
"Uh, what's that?" Tom asked as he transfigured the chocolate wrapper into a crude cup.
"This should be the core of those battle constructs… unfortunately, only half of it remains," Wade said regretfully.
"You know this isn't my fault," Tom said helplessly. "You didn't help at all—how was I supposed to hold back?"
"I'm not blaming you," Wade said, sighing softly. "Still, it's a shame. Even without considering the alchemical craftsmanship, the materials alone are incredibly valuable."
Having recently studied alchemy in a hurry, Wade now knew enough to recognize that this fragment was made from several extremely rare ores, fused through alchemical means into a special composite material.
"How valuable?" Tom asked, taking a sip of the water he'd summoned with Aguamenti. He smacked his lips in mild disgust—it was tasteless.
"Well, if it were intact and sold to a master alchemist, the Galleons you'd get could probably buy a shop in Diagon Alley."
"What!?" Tom stared at Wade in shock. "That's ridiculous!"
Diagon Alley was the busiest hub of wizarding Britain—calling it worth its weight in gold wasn't an exaggeration.
To buy a shop there, not rent one… how many Galleons would that even take?
"Maybe it wasn't that valuable in Slytherin's time," Wade said as he wrapped the damaged core in parchment and tucked it into his pocket. "But over a thousand years have passed. Many materials that used to be common are now extremely rare. What was cheap back then has become priceless today."
"There are so many shattered statues here! Maybe there's still a complete one somewhere!" Tom scrambled up, ignoring both the water and the chocolate, and started digging frantically through the pile of debris.
"Tom, since when did you become such a miser? I haven't even said anything yet," Wade said, sounding genuinely surprised.
"It's not… about the money! I just… have my own reasons!" Tom's voice trembled as he spoke.
This thing was that expensive—and he'd blown up not one, but two of them!
Knowing Wade as he did, Tom was certain Wade would've considered those cores his trophies.
Wade's trophies. Destroyed. By him. And now Wade suddenly seemed to be in a bad mood…
Bloody hell, the sky was falling.
To make Wade's future revenge a little less brutal, he needed to find an intact one and hand it over—fast.
Tom felt like crying but had no tears left.
"Hey, Tom, it's not that serious… I'm not a monster," Wade said, already guessing part of what was going through Tom's head after seeing his panicked behavior.
Great. He'd scared the kid into developing PTSD.
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