The basilisk's body twisted madly. The scattered formation of the young wizards left it momentarily uncertain whom to attack, and during its hesitation, Blasting Curses bombarded it from all directions.
"Impedimenta!"
Suddenly, a spell different from the Blasting Curses rang out from one side. An invisible barrier appeared before the basilisk, halting its descending body for an instant, causing it to lose balance and crash onto the ground beside it.
"ROAR!"
Howling in fury, the basilisk whipped its head toward where the sound came from, raised its body, and lunged at Wood, who had just cast the Impediment Jinx.
Just as the basilisk switched its target to Wood, Cedric finally found an opportunity. He quietly approached Harry's side, picked up the already limp Harry, and moved him to a safe location.
"Thank you all—"
Looking at Cedric's smiling face and everyone fighting in the distance, emotion flashed in Harry's eyes.
"Don't mention it." Smiling slightly, Cedric lightly tapped his wand. A stream of clear water appeared from thin air, gathering before Harry's mouth, relieving his dehydration from prolonged running.
Then, after instructing Harry a few times not to approach again, he returned to the battlefield, standing beside Percy.
The battle had now entered a stalemate. Although the young wizards didn't dare raise their heads, as members of the Magical Creatures Club, they had fought dark creatures in the Forbidden Forest for nearly two months and personally destroyed a poachers' den.
Although the two strongest dark wizards in that den were dealt with by Professor Kahn, before that they had contributed considerably and defeated quite a few dark wizards that ordinary Aurors would find very difficult to handle.
They were very experienced in team combat.
"Confringo!"
A spark shot from the tip of Percy's wand with his head lowered, landing on the basilisk and exploding, making the already pain-wracked, constantly writhing basilisk's movements even more violent.
However, after doing this, he didn't continue casting but instead, after confirming the basilisk's gaze wasn't on him, quickly raised his head, observed the basilisk's body, then lowered his head again and pondered.
Their battle had lasted nearly two minutes. In these two minutes, they had cast at least dozens of Blasting Curses, but the effect didn't seem very obvious.
When he raised his head earlier, he could clearly see that although the basilisk had many wounds from the Blasting Curses, not one could threaten it.
After fighting so long, the only damage that could be considered threatening was Fred's initial sneak attack stomp. Even after two minutes, the basilisk's tail still continuously oozed dark green blood. If they could keep dragging it out, they should be able to make the basilisk die from blood loss.
But their current combat environment was really too poor. Observing shadows to attack wasn't a very effective attack method to begin with.
At least half their spells would miss their target, and once, George's spell nearly hit him.
Moreover, the basilisk's own abilities were extremely terrifying. If anyone made one careless mistake, the basilisk might catch an opening. He couldn't confirm whether Professor Kahn or Professor Dumbledore was constantly watching them. If a mistake occurred and the basilisk seized an opportunity to cause irreparable harm to one of them, he would never forgive himself.
They couldn't rely on dragging out this battle to end it.
Having made his decision, Percy signaled Cedric beside him to take his position, then retreated a few steps, rapidly thinking through solutions.
The basilisk's scales had very strong magical resistance—Professor Kahn had mentioned this in class.
But Professor Kahn had also said the basilisk's body strength actually wasn't very high. It just relied on those highly resistant scales on its body—conventional magic basically couldn't harm it.
If so, if they found a way to focus fire on one of the basilisk's already scale-broken wounds, like the tail Fred had crushed...
After pondering briefly, Percy shook his head slightly.
With their heads lowered, they had no way to cast spells precisely. But if they raised their heads to aim, they might look directly into the basilisk's eyes.
But thinking this, Percy's eyes suddenly brightened.
Could the basilisk's eyes also be a weakness?
Those eyes as large as human fists couldn't possibly have higher defense than its scales.
But... how could they hit the basilisk's eyes?
As the basilisk's most vulnerable organ, its eyelids must be the area with the highest magical resistance. The damage Blasting Curses could inflict on the basilisk was already very limited—if cast on the eyelids, there might not be much power left.
Moreover, raising one's head to aim at the basilisk's eyes was very dangerous. With slight inattention, one might make eye contact with the basilisk and turn into a statue.
Head lowered, one possible measure after another flashed through Percy's mind. Suddenly, his body trembled—he thought of a possible solution. Hitting the basilisk's eyes was extremely difficult, but if it couldn't open its eyes, then aiming at its tail wound wouldn't be difficult!
Eye-related curses definitely wouldn't work on the basilisk, but some magic might not be impossible.
Percy steeled himself. He raised his head and observed the battlefield situation.
The battlefield situation changed constantly. Due to the danger-predicting pendants Professor Kahn had given them, whenever the basilisk was about to attack, its target would receive a warning and dodge aside in time.
Fighting until now, aside from George being somewhat unlucky and getting his arm scratched by flying debris, no one else had been injured.
At this moment, the basilisk was furiously staring at Wood and biting at him, but each attack was nimbly dodged by Wood.
After confirming the basilisk's attention was completely off him, Percy aimed his wand at the ground and quietly recited a spell.
"Glarea Turbinis."
A pale blue shockwave condensed before Percy, pushing toward the ground. Accompanied by a loud boom, within the shockwave's range, all the ground's rock turned to dust and floated toward the sky.
Then Percy waved his wand again. The dust from the explosion began gathering beside him. As he raised his wand, the cloud of sand and stone swept upward, soon blanketing the basilisk's head completely.
The massive head began swaying wildly, trying to shake off the cloud obscuring its vision. Taking advantage of the basilisk's struggle to break free of the spell, Percy shouted, "George, Fred, keep the Levitation Charm on the dust cloud—don't let it see!"
"Everyone else, raise your heads, aim at its injured tail, and blast it!"
"An XXXXX-level basilisk—if we take this thing down, we'll be legends!"