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Phantom 22
🕑 Added 2023-04-08 18:00:45 +0000 UTC“Ma’am, this is your last warning! Remove that thing from the road right now, or I will be forced to authorise lethal force!”
“I refuse to do so,” Diana shook her head, her voice irritated and angry at the same time as she stood behind her lasso, Hestia’s weapon stretched across the only entryway into Las Vegas..and blocking the army from entering the city. Thankfully, the other roads were either blocked by heavy debris or the military couldn’t access them due to terrain limitations. It was only the sound of helicopters that had made her notice the encroaching force, and she had immediately closed off the route for them, “You don’t understand the magnitude of the clash happening right now. I can’t let you go inside with the intention of attacking the sorcerer and the man fighting him. However, if you give your word that your forces shall move inside only with the intention of rescuing the civilians, then I shall remove the lasso and give you the entry.”
“Okay lady, I don’t know the kind of shit that you have been smoking, but here is how it is gonna go now,” a middle-aged man with a cap on his head looked at her sternly, crossing his arms across his chest as his eyes moved over the city behind her. “Now I know that this city has got some real good freaks running about, but this ain’t one of your cosplay contests woman. This shit is real, so get the fuck out of my way and wear that slutty little armor in some strip club, got it?”
Her face showed no emotion in the words used by the officer, but internally Diana winced as she once again realized in this armor created by Hephaestus, his wife Aphrodite most probably had played a hand—though, it could just have been the Forge God himself, what with the way her whole family was probably the most amorous one in the world. “I assure you, officer, that I am not one of ‘freaks’ you speak of, and I certainly do not work in a stripclub,” she sniffed, her expression tightening the next moment as she stood at her full height, and some of the soldiers gulped as she seemed to loom over them despite being several feet away, “but this is no jest. I shall not let you pass into the city if you intend to attack, and believe me, it is only because I don’t want you and your comrades to die.”
“Shoot her legs,” the man sighed, turning towards the soldier beside him, “We'll see about this glowing rubber band thing afterwards.”
“Sir she is a civilia-”
“I don’t give a damn if that is the Queen of England dressed like a warrior of your dreams,” he growled back, putting his hand on the holster at his hip and pulling out a handgun, “and get ready for fifty laps once we get back to base.”
She sighed, watching the man pull on the trigger of his gun dispassionately. As the flash from the muzzle went away, Diana watched the bullet move toward her slowly, her eyes flicking towards the horrified reporter and cameraman standing a little behind by one of the artillery machines. Well…it wasn’t as if she wasn’t already going to be all over the internet and in world headlines…might as well be for the right reasons.
Raising her foot, she brought it down on the bullet sharply right as it entered her range, using just enough force to change its trajectory. The piece of metal slammed into the road behind her as her leg once again made contact with the earth, and she watched the confusion bloom across everyone’s faces as they looked at her unblooded thigh. Sighing a little, she took a step forwards, and disappeared from everyone’s sight for just a moment.
“What was th-where is my gun?” The man in charge blinked, his growl pausing midway as he looked at his empty hand. His eyes returned to her as Diana coughed, bringing out her hand before her to show the black pistol in her palms. Everyone’s eyes widened at that, and just to make herself more clear, she brought her fingers around the firearm, and crushed it into junk slowly, bending the steel with nothing but the strength in the palm of her hand.
“I hope this prevents you from thinking of me as a freak and a madwoman,” she calmly said as the bullets exploded, her gauntlet preventing the shrapnel from escaping anywhere. She took a momentary delight in the way everyone flinched at the sound, their eyes fixed upon her fist as she opened it and let the junk drop to the road, the sound of the crushed steel hitting the asphalt seeming to echo along with the sound of the bullets exploding. “Now, if you still insist on being stubborn then I will crush every firearm you possess, and break every weapon of yours into pieces—and trust me, that is better than me letting you wander into the city to fight. Leave this battle to Phantom, since he is the only one capable of taking down Faust before he obliterates Las Vegas. I will commend your bravery for wanting to fight against forces beyond your understanding and capability, but that is no reason for throwing away your lives. However, there are many humans still trapped inside, awaiting rescue and direction from the government and you…so I ask that you help me save them.”
“Go with it Commander,” a distorted voice spoke over the radio fastened to the man’s chest, and Diana tilted her head slightly at the camera held by the woman, sure that the speaker was watching her smile slightly at the words, “The Pentagon will be watching the situation closely, and we will greenlight aerial attack as soon as you clear out a radius of five blocks around the Eiffel Tower.”
“Copy that General,” the man nodded, his eyes flicking to the radio for a second before he looked back at her, “Listen lady, I don’t know the kind of shit you just pulled, but I hope that means you can move around some concrete and cars for us to pull out the people from this place…and the minute you do something suspicious, I don’t care if you can move faster than my pistol, you still won’t be able to dodge a hundred rifles and twenty 50 cals gunning for you.”
“Are you sure about this?” He asked, momentarily turning his face towards people beside him, his voice echoing in the conference room as a dark-skinned woman hummed quietly, her black eyes fixated upon the multiple screens before them, “You know that we could have just sniped her and been done with it.”
“Sometimes, it's worth watching the rabbit more than killing it for a quick meal,” she responded, leaning forwards as a blast obliterated an entire building in a blaze of light and shrapnel, “Times are changing rapidly General. First Superman, then the kid that they are calling Flash, and now Phantom has resurfaced along with Apollina and this woman. Sure they have acted as the saviors of humanity today, but power corrupts Wells. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. We already are scouring for that green material that had injured Superman when he and Phantom had fought against Metallo, but I want every single one of these ‘Superheroes’ to be observed. And send a few of your soldiers to the spot where Felix and Appolina crashed…see if we can get some of their blood or not.”
“Isn’t that against some ethical law or some shit?”
“Ethics and laws that were made for humans, General,” she replied easily, turning towards the man as she pointed at fire that suddenly exploded out at the eastern edge of the city, and swallowed half of the Frenchman Mountain. “As you can see, we are not dealing with something that is decidedly not human by our standards.”
Diana’s sword glowed a dark crimson in his hands as he fed his magic to the divine metal, feeling it almost purr in delight at the rage and power that was being poured into it. Slashing it in front of him, he grinned madly at the sight of the white scratch that came over Faust’s shield, the first sign of damage it had shown ever since it had first appeared. “Now you die,” he hissed, unleashing a barrage of strikes against the barrier that separated them, feeling the sword practically devour his magical power with each and every scratch that appeared over the pale red surface of Faust’s protection.
However, for every ten scratches he managed to deliver, they disappeared just as fast. At the same time, Harry felt a buildup of magic from the ancient sorcerer, the talisman on his chest growing a vivid green. Growling in annoyance and knowing that a spell that powerful would certainly be dangerous he redoubled his efforts in cracking that shield open. The speed and force of his attacks were so great that the surrounding infrastructure began to get damaged by the sheer shockwaves that were generated, with buildings trembling and the road beneath them shattering further and further.
“DIE!” Harry screamed, raising the longsword in the air above his head, his eyes glowing a bright crimson as a wave of power exploded out of his body, and a pressure seemed to descend on the area for a brief fleeting moment, crushing the cars and smashing the rocks into nothing but powder. He brought the sword down with all the power he could muster, his scream pulverizing the surrounding buildings into dust as the glowing blade crashed into the mystical shield. A blast of energy swallowed the whole area the moment his sword made contact with the shield, the sheer force of his strike completely obliterating the ground beneath them for several feet as the very Earth shook beneath his power.
The buildings around him began to topple, the walls that had been towards them simply blowing away into dust as their very foundation crumbled to dust. His hood blew backwards, revealing his features that looked like wrath-personified as he roared once again, giving it his all—and finally, after what felt like moments or hours, Harry felt the shield give away beneath his blade. Cracks spiderwebbed out on the shield, and he grinned at the sight of panic that appeared on Felix’s face, almost able to taste the fear and astonishment that he was radiating off the man. As their feet sunk into the destroyed road beneath them, the shield cracked even more, and with a pulse of magic, it shattered away into tiny little sparks, revealing the smirking face of the sorcerer beneath and a locket on his chest burning away into nothingness. Harry blinked in confusion at the sight, even as his sword continued its descent toward Faust’s head.
Only…it was slowing down to a crawl.
“The Egyptians always made the most stunning things,” Faust chuckled, leaning sideways and standing up to his full height as he lightly touched the sword that was further slowing down, his amused eyes turning towards the Kryptonian wizard, “Do you have any experience with them, young man? If not, then consider yourself fortunate to have experienced them by my hand—and stop resisting the magic child, you’ll just damage that body for my use.”
Harry just grunted in response, and even that took several moments for him to do as the foreign magic completely slowed the time for him and everything he was directly touching. Apparating was out of the question, since the spell seemed to envelop his body in a different space-time, warping the reality around his body so that time flowed hundreds of times slowly for him. And what in the name of Morgana’s tits did Faust mean by his new bod-oh hell no!
“Over the ages, I have strived to find each and every piece of magic on this realm,” the smug, victorious voice of Faust floated by his ear as the sorcerer crossed his hands behind his back and looked him in the eyes, “I have grown so much more powerful in the arcane, bettering myself with each ritual, making myself stronger with each trade I made…but you,” Faust paused for a moment, closing his eyes and placing his hands on Harry’s shoulders. Opening his eyes, he revealed the golden circles that had formed in his irises, “You have given me the one thing I could never find, a body so perfect, that it can act as a magical conduit for my power, and is physically stronger than anything I have ever found.”
“I am immortal now,” Faust whispered, a flaming circle of runes and glyphs forming on his chest, and a smaller one on his forehead as Harry felt his magical power spike. “But taking your body won’t be enough punishment for your impudence, now would it? Maybe I’ll go and find that girl I burned, and torture her in front of you? I will probably break her mind and turn her into my little slave, happy to do my bidding and answer me like an obedient dog—while you will just watch, trapped in time and powerless before it like everyone is.”
‘Not everything is trapped in time, my dear,’ a voice he had not heard in years whispered inside his head, and Harry’s eyes widened as he felt an unseen finger dance over his face, ‘Or at least, not underneath the trappings of a lesser god’s power. After all, he can’t slow time for something that is not there, now can he?’
‘Something that is not there…what does she mean by i-oh right.’
However, before he could begin to act on his plan—or rather, Death’s suggestion—he felt a familiar feeling at the edges of his mind. ‘Oh no you don’t!’ he snarled mentally, even as his eyes snapped over to Faust’s glowing ones slowly. The sorcerer was trying to do what Voldemort had tried all those years ago when he had battled Harry for his body’s control—or at least, it was something similar.
Faust’s vast, ancient mind rammed into his barriers like a rampaging Nundu, and having never experienced such a powerful Legilimency attack before, Harry was left stunned in its wake, feeling the cracks and gaps that had developed with that single strike. Even as he calmed his mind down and shoved all the anger flowing through his thoughts to the depths of his mind, he could feel something moving inside his psyche, the foreign magic trying to dull his mental facilities and…control him.
‘Submit’ Faust’s voice whispered through his head, the word spoken so softly that it might as well be an invitation. At the same time, the attack on his mind resumed itself, and Harry struggled under the weight of the sorcerer’s powerful attacks that he fending off on the outside, as well as the variant of Imperius that was trying to control him on the inside, ‘You can’t win, so submit. You have fought enough, and your sister is dead anyway. What will fighting me accomplish? Submit.’
This was bad.
This was very very bad.
While Harry was no novice at the Mind Arts, and he possessed the skill greater than Voldemort himself, he had never needed to use those skills completely until now. Sure he had used legilimency in the years that he had changed Universes, but even then, it had never been in an emergency like this, nor against an accomplished sorcerer like Felix Faust. And if that wasn’t enough, he was battling the guy on two different fronts, trying to save his mind from being breached, as well as prevent his mind from being brought under control by the imperius the mage was using.
Submit
Gritting his teeth, Harry pushed back against the mental intrusion, feeling every fiber of his being roar in outrage at the thought of someone else controlling his body once again. He pushed back against Faust’s attacks, knowing them to be the more dangerous of the two things he was facing. Focusing his thoughts, he calmed down his mind, burying the anger and the hate inside him underneath a sea of peaceful thoughts, remembering Kara’s laugh as he sat her on his shoulder, and Diana’s smile as he had presented her with a bracelet for her birthday.
Bit by bit, he managed to stand firm against Faust’s attacks, reconstructing the holes and cracks in his defenses with a firm, calm mind. At the same time, he fought the imperius too, the spell somehow the same and yet different from the one that was created by his people. However, Harry knew that it won’t be enough to stop the ancient mage, even now, he could feel the power behind the Legilimency probes increasing with each attack, and if that wasn’t enough, he also had to worry about whatever the golden magical circles were meant for.
‘Submit’
Another wave of magic pulsed out from the unmoving form of Faust, and Harry watched the runes on his chest grow larger, the Aztec and Egyptian hieroglyphics beginning to revolve in a circle. And his mind rapidly worked upon the system’s function, his face blanched in horror at what the circle was meant for. Transfer of soul and energy from one body to another.
He redoubled his efforts against Faust’s mind, trying to get just one moment of respite to focus on his cloak and call upon its magic.
“You have lost, Harry Potter” Faust whispered, his eyes glowing with victory as he drove a lance of mental strength into his barriers, bursting through directly into a memory that showed one of his younger days, the halls of Hogwarts materializing before his eyes for a moment, replacing the dust and rubble-filled surroundings. However, he powered through the hallucination Faust was trying to create, once again focusing on repelling the man and saving himself just a moment’s worth of time. Faust cackled gleefully, rampaging through his memories like a Niffller that had sniffed gold, “This…this is pure Ambrosia you ignorant fool! With my new body and the knowledge of this world you come from…not even the Gods will be able to stand before me!”
Growling mentally, Harry forgot all thoughts of repelling the imperius, trusting his innate stubbornness and pride to handle that for the moment as he focused on Faust’s presence in his mind. Already, he could feel the powerful psyche of the ancient wizard spread through his thoughts like cancer, watching and tearing through his thoughts like a damn fucking parasite. Even as he tried and pushed the older mage back, a part of Harry knew that it was a futile effort in the face of the three-pronged attack he was dealing with. Kara was indisposed at the moment, and Diana was helping with the rescue effort most probably…which left him alone against Faust’s efforts to take his body and power.
And he didn’t have the benefit of Priori Incantatem like he had possessed back in the Triwizard Tournament, when Voldemort had crucioed the fuck out of his body. Honestly, it was a miracle his mind had survived those few seconds t-Harry paused his train of thought as he felt a beginning of a plan form in his head. Grinning savagely, he faltered in his defense slightly, and at the same time, started protecting a section of his mind more than the others, fending off Faust’s Legilimency more desperately from near there than any other section of his psyche. He hoped the aged wizard would take notice of it…and his hope was proven right.
Faust instantly noticed his panic, centered around the memories he was protecting more dearly than any other in his mind. And if there was one thing that Harry knew prideful, powerful assholes couldn’t resist, it was the temptation fo discovering something dear to the one they were tormenting—he would know, what with having watched Tom do it a thousand times—and torture their minds and heart even more. He felt Faust pause for a moment before his mind resumed the ongoing battle with a vengeance, his Legilimency almost ravenous in its approach as Faust rammed against the rudimentary barriers he had erected over the memories he was using as bait. And then, with a scream of victory, he broke through the mental shields, arriving directly in a…graveyard.
‘Gotcha bastard’ Harry grinned, blood running down his nose and mouth in the real world as he immediately let the modified memory play, using all of his mental strength to imprint it into Faust’s mind, ‘Take that for a moment will you?’
“CRUCIO!”
The pain of a hundred crucios crashed down on Faust’s mind in an instant, and unknown to Harry, he had almost killed the sorcerer right then and there. The connection between their minds, and the soul magic Faust had been weaving with his runic circles magnified the effects of the memory a hundred times, making it feel more powerful than any real crucio had ever been—as Harry had compressed every single crucio he had experienced as Harry and Voldemort both into a single one…and unleashed that on an unsuspecting Faust’s mind.
And Harry grinned mentally as he heard the ancient sorcerer scream. He laughed madly at the way the man recoiled from his mind, instantly leaving his thoughts alone, in an instant focused upon his soul, calling upon the cloak’s magic in its entirety. He disappeared from the real world, fading away from view as he watched Faust fall back on his ass, the magic circles disappearing slowly as the man howled with soul-searing agony. Honestly, it was euphoric, watching Faust scream with pain, his eyes wide and unseeing as he twisted and trashed on the broken ground.
And then, as the cloak’s magic completely covered him, Harry shuddered at the feeling of something passing through him, his insides feeling like someone had tickled him to death.
A moment later, he fell forwards to the ground, his momentum from when he had been trying to cleave Faust’s head in twain carrying his face to the destroyed earth as he felt time resume its normal pace around his body. Taking a breath as he felt the foreign magic leave his body in an instant, he stabbed Diana’s sword into the Earth, supporting himself on it for the moment as he shook his head to clear the cobwebs from his brain.
“Yo-You are going to pay for this, you insolent little child!” Faust gasped from the ground, and Harry blinked as he saw the man shake off the cruciatus as if it was nothing more than a jelly legs jinx. The man stood up shakily, stumbling for a moment as he hacked a bloody cough, his hands alight with poisonous green fire. He looked up at him, his dark eyes swirling with a maelstrom of magical power as a pressure descended upon the area, and for a moment, Harry was taken aback by just how much power the sorcerer possessed. Snarling out hatefully, the purple-robed man swept out his hands sharply, the green fire in his hands exploding out with more power than anything Harry had ever seen or used before, “DIE!”
Arcs of emerald fire careened out of Faust’s hands in every direction, and Harry immediately sped backwards, watching the fire cut and melt through literally anything and everything it touched. Stone, glass, steel…the green fire melted and turned them all into molten slag, and as he weaved and dodged the ones that came his way too fast for a human eye to see, Harry couldn’t help but be amazed by the destruction that was being caused. Every single building around him was glowing red hot, and outright melting down to the Earth by the sheer heat and power of the flames Faust had thrown around like they were going out of style. His super speed was enough to evade those hot fiery blades, grinning as he blocked one with a shield, Harry raised Diana’s sword into the air, once again pouring his magic into the blade.
With a shout, he brought it down, and from its edge, a dark blue arc of energy shot out toward Felix, cutting through the rubble in its path better than any cutting curse had ever done for him. However, Faust wasn’t someone who had survived and collected power and knowledge for thousands of years for nothing, and it showed as he simply raised a palm, and a purple shield manifested all over him. His attack crashed against the barrier, and it disappeared in a flash of light after a brief moment, but Harry had expected that, and as soon as it happened, a dozen spells were already making their way toward Faust.
A shield breaker slammed against the purple barrier he had created, destroying it instantly to leave the path unimpeded for the various curses that were following it. However, Faust simply teleported away from there right as the blood-boiling curse was going to touch him, and Harry cursed his stupidity for not casting a ward and transfiguring a few traps for the ancient wizard. Casting out his senses, Harry crouched down, spreading his magic through the ground around him, and for a moment, he winced at the sheer damage he and Faust had already caused the underground system of the city.
‘There’ Harry thought, his eyes snapping eastwards to look through the building at the floating form of Faust, alerted by the small stone falling to the ground when the sorcerer’s foot touched it. Instantly, he conjured a set of chains around the wizard’s legs, anchoring him to the ground, which then the next moment transformed into a set of hands large enough to smother an elephant. Harry crushed the mage between them, reinforcing the cement and stone with his magic to make it multitudes stronger than steel. Hoping to keep Faust trapped for at least a second, he rose up and jumped forwards, breaking through the walls and concrete in his way as if it were a castle made of cards—his fist cocked back to deliver a punch to place where Faust’s head was supposed to be behind the stone fingers.
However, right before his fist was going to turn Faust’s head into a crushed watermelon, the stone structure glowed from within and blew apart in an explosion of fire and brimstone, revealing the unharmed sorcerer within. “You may have overpowered my shields Harry Potter,” Faust hissed, his eyes shining a malevolent purple as he thrust his palms forward, “But you can’t even begin to comprehend the kind of magics I command boy!”
A swirling cone of black miasma shot towards him at breakneck speeds, Harry grunted as he created a shield before him, feeling the black vapor almost devour the magical energy as it ate away at the transparent barrier. Frowning a little, he disapparated into the watching the darkness of Faust’s spell spread through the city rapidly. His eyes zeroed in on a group of fleeing humans as they were swallowed by the spell, and when it passed over them…only their bones were left behind. Skeletons clattered to the ground amidst the dust-filled surroundings, and the people who saw them screamed all the louder, only to die the next moment, falling to the footpaths or getting eaten away by the spell in their cars.
The spell stopped after a second or two, but it was still enough to kill hundreds in a span of moments, and while Harry had great faith in his body’s durability and his own magical power…he knew that he had done the smart thing by apparating away from the spell instead of stopping it. Apparating back behind the sorcerer, Harry once again used Fiendfyre, a sea of cursed red flames roaring out towards the man ahead of him, swallowing everything in its path and burning it to vapors. Harry grunted as he saw a wave of black flames crash into his spell from the opposite direction, and at once he stopped the Fiendfyre, jumping into the sky to avoid the roaring inferno of dark flames that came at him.
Gathering power in his hands, he winced as a spell slammed into his leg, shattering the bone completely and shearing the skin off his leg at the same time. Gritting his teeth, he powered through the agony, he weaved the spell in his hands, using occlumnecy to disconnect from the pain in his body as he saw Faust teleport in front of him. With a shout, he released the ward all over the city, barely avoiding the spell that came for his head. Grinning savagely at the ancient wizard, Harry raised his hands to the sky, and brought them down sharply, conjuring lightning once again right on top of his enemy. An explosion of power happened before him, and he laughed a the sight of Faust’s smoking form beginning to fall to the ground instead of teleporting away like he had tried to do.
Only to be stopped by the ward he had cast a moment ago.
Numbing the pain in his leg with a thought, Harry dropped down after the falling wizard, internally chuckling at the reversal in their situations from how it had been at the start. However, he had to admit that Faust was an excellent wizard, and definitely more powerful than him—as evidenced by the fact that he was still relatively unharmed despite the hundreds of thousands of volts Harry had shot at him in an eyeblink, the mage somehow managing to protect himself from the worst of it.
He touched down on the smoking, ravaged land softly, his robes nothing more than scorched and torn in a few spots for all the power that Harry had thrown at him. “You puny little child!” Faust snarled, a dark purple aura beginning to form around the man as he took a step forwards, “Enough of these games!”
A massive runic circle formed beneath Faust, and before Harry could do more than look at the runes for a moment, Faust launched a wide arc of crimson magic at him. His eyes widened as he saw the spell expand with each foot it traveled between them, the magic somehow turning into a sphere that was growing larger at a mind-boggling rate. Not wanting to trust his shield against a spell once again, and being unable to teleport due to his own wards, Harry did the next thing that came to his mind.
He summoned his cloak, covering every inch of his body with the Hallow’s power and trusting itself to protect him from the man’s unknown magic like it had hidden him from the time-bending spell a while back. The magic passed over him harmlessly, and Harry grinned, rushing forwards the next moment with every bit of speed he could muster. He watched Faust’s eyes widen as he appeared in front of the sorcerer before he could even realize what was happening, and immediately grabbed him by his neck. He hissed as he felt an insane amount of electrical shock pass through him as a series of runes appeared over Faust’s neck, no doubt a result of the protection rituals the sorcerer had performed. At the same time, he saw the skin on the tips of his fingers begin to turn black and rot…just like what had happened to Dumbledore back in the sixth year.
“You can’t defeat me,” Faust grinned, utterly unbothered by the grip his neck was in as he tilted his head sideways, his hands coming upto rest on Harry’s neck. The Kryptonian wizard hissed as he felt the necrosis begin on his neck too, the rotting spell slowly beginning to deaden everything in its path while the lightning continued to burn him from within. Within moments, half of his face was gone, revealing the stingy, black muscles beneath, and even that was dying rapidly to reveal his skull to the elements as his eye dried up and flaked away into the wind. His hands were also similarly decaying at a rapid pace, the spell eating away at his biomass and leaving nothing but death in its wake, “Only I know the countercurse to this spell, and as our previous bout showed, you are far from capable of taking that information from my mind. Your body is going to die slowly, Harry Potter, and when you are nothing but a screaming pile of dying cells, you will realize what folly it was to pit yourself against me, the Master of Magic! I have dabbled in magics nad mysteries so powerful and vast that you can’t even begin to comprehend my p-what?”
“You may have done of all of that, you imbecile,” Harry chuckled, exerting just a bit of his power to choke the mage a little, cracking his neck as rose up into the air, recalling the way he had killed the trees and grass in Themiscyra with just his aura and touch alone. He called upon the magic of the Hallows combined, feeling it rush through his body like a drug. The sting of the necrosis spreading over his body stopped instantly, and he grinned at the sight of the confusion that appeared over Faust’s face. Bit by bit, inch by inch, he reverted the necrosis, the tissues on his face and arms growing back to cover the bone, the black slowly changing into the pinks and reds of the flesh as the ‘uncurable’ was healed right before Faust’s very eyes. His eye regrew to reveal the normally emerald iris having turned a bright red, and he used what little muscles he had over his skeletal fingers to tighten them around his neck a little more. Harry leaned forwards so that his lips were right by Faust’s ear, and he pushed one of his finger inside his stomach with a wet sound, casting a blood-boiling curse along with a healing one right after it “And a Master of Magic you may be, but you picked a fight with the Master of Death…Goodbye Faust.”
Faust’s eyes went wide as his blood boiled within his veins, his every ritual, every talisman failing in the face of the power Harry was using by directly pouring his magic in the man’s blood. He screamed, writhing in his grasp as he shook with all of his might, his organs literally getting boiled inside his body—a body, which not only was healing itself by the power of the rituals Faust had performed on it, but was also helped in that by Harry’s healing spell, keeping his body completely fine despite the sheer agony he was feeling due to the blood boiling curse.
A minute later, Harry stopped the curse, watching the sight of the blood welling up from Faust’s ears and nose before it dried up instantly. Pulling out his finger that was still inside his gut, he tilted his head sideways and grabbed him by his head with both of his hands. While he wanted to keep torturing the man for as long as possible, Harry knew that keeping Faust alive was a venture that had far more risks than what his satisfaction was worth. Already he could feel the magic gathering on the tip of Faust’s finger, his half-delirious mind and sluggish body being the only things that were preventing him from resisting fully to his grip.
“This is where you die, Felix Faust,” he whispered as he saw the sorcerer open his eyes, smirking at the sight of the fear that he saw in the wizard’s eyes for the first time since they had begun fighting, “Say hello to her for me would you?”
He felt the power of the Hallows once again flow through him, chilling his blood and making his spine shiver he stared into Faust’s eyes, the skin on his face finally regrowing back to cover the sight of the tissues and bone beneath. Faust began to wraith and thrash in earnest as he realised what was about to happen, his magic lashing out instinctively in an effort to free itself, while trying to blast Harry point blank with a blast of fire. However, he just grabbed the arm that was coming to aim for him and crushed the bones beneath his grip, reveling in the scream that came from the wizard as he created a shield over his body, while at the same time, casting the curse of necrosis over Faust.
He felt his magic take effect, spreading outwards from wherever his fingers were touching Faust, spreading outwards and beginning to destroy him in an agonizing, slow manner. He relished in the pained screams that began to come from the mage as the pain of a dozen cruciatus began to act along his body, his skin drying and turning black before it flaked off to reveal the tissues beneath, blood dripping down his fingertips and flowing down his body from the wounds—only to disappear as his spell devoured it all.
He watched the eyes that had cruelly smiled down at Kara’s burnt form dry up before turning into sand, and he watched the fingers that had dared to touch his sister break away to fall to the ground as the very bones were turned to dust. His hair fell off in clumps, and his face rotted away slowly to reveal the skull and the organs within, which were already blackening and breaking apart as Faust somehow continued to scream. And then as the skin of his neck decayed into dust, Harry watched his voice finally go silent as black veins crept over everything before slowly growing into patches of necrotic muscles, which further deteriorated into dead cells that simply turned to dust.
And then, as his spine turned to dust and his skull fell off his palm, Harry ended his levitation, falling along with the skeleton that was slowly turning to dust. Removing the ward that he had cast over the city, he apparated down to the ground, and stared up at the falling robes and the bits and pieces of bones that were falling along with it. Gathering the last dregs of his magical power, Harry brought his hands together, staring at the various charms, rings, and lockets that were falling along with the dead sorcerer’s robes, and with a shout, launched a beam of pure destruction at them.
A pillar of golden energy shot up from his hands, as wide as a skyscraper and as bright as the sun itself, turning the road beneath him to molten stone within moments as he turned destroyed every last particle of Faust’s body, as well as completely obliterating the various artifacts he had possessed. He felt them resist his power, the wards and the charms upon them meant to make outlast anything nature or magic could throw at them…however, they were no match for his power, especially not without a host wearing them. With a burst of magic, each and every last one of the magical objects was reduced to dust, and a golden pulse of magic radiated outwards from the pillar as it reached into the sky.
Harry heaved a sigh as he stopped the spell, falling back on his ass and taking a look at his bloodied leg, before his eyes once again rose up to the clouds, the last vestiges of sunlight casting the sky in beautiful shades of blues and oranges.
Now to find his sister and check on her.
Comments
PP092
thanks Mr.Taylor! Ur reviews are always the ones I await. SO sorry for the late response!!
Russell Taylor
I'm so satisfied right now, "heavy sigh" faust is dead and i can't seem to remove the massive cruel grin from my face. I am so very pleased with this chapter, faust's suffering and slow agonizing death brought tears of joy to my eyes. The shear satisfaction that is in my heart and soul right now is... indescribable. It's like i've been sitting at my table in a 5 star resturaunt with naught but the menu to tell me just how good the meal will be, for it to arrive and be so divine i forgot my manners and devoured it like an animal... X 1000
