Chapter 426: Darkness Reappears

"My potion-making technique was learned when I received private tutoring from Snape in my fifth year," Harry said slowly. "I first studied Occlumency with him, and then, incidentally, learned a bit more knowledge related to potions. I had previously fallen into a cognitive trap, but in fact, professors and textbooks are not equivalent."

"Ah! You mean the old bat is the Half-Blood Prince?" Luo En couldn't help but exclaim, and many people in the pub cast curious glances over.

"You're too loud," Hermione made a shushing gesture.

"Sorry, but this is really..."

"As for Sectumsempra, we all know Snape was a Death Eater for a time, right?" Harry ignored their interruption and continued with his train of thought. "After he invented this spell, he used it many times as a Death Eater, and then it was learned by the Ministry of Magic. We also know this spell is not very difficult to learn."

"Yes, from the perspective of spell theory, the logic behind the spells invented by the Prince is relatively clever; that is, as long as one can understand it, it is very easy to learn," Hermione commented.

"Regarding the circulation of the textbook, we originally found this old textbook in the place where Snape hid his things, and it was subsequently brought out by Luo En inadvertently—I think it's easy to understand why Snape wanted to hide it; he actually didn't want us to know that he called himself the 'Half-Blood Prince' when he was young."

Luo En, at this moment, also recalled the process of the textbook's circulation, and he began to cover his mouth and giggle.

"Especially since the origin of 'Prince' was not some royal bloodline, but that his mother's surname was Prince. If used as a word, it means prince, but as a surname, it has no special meaning. So the actual meaning of this term is 'a person who is half-blooded with the Prince surname wizard bloodline,' using a pun to lead people to misunderstand it as 'Half-Blood Prince,' thereby making himself seem very impressive without lying. That's just how it is; Snape probably thought exactly that when he was young."

"I can't take it, Harry, I'm going to die laughing," Luo En covered his cheeks, which were laughing uncontrollably, with both hands. "You've practically stripped Snape down to his underwear."

"Although I still respect Professor Snape very much," Harry also couldn't help but laugh. "But imagine if, and I mean if, Sirius, who didn't get along with him when he was young, walked into the Headmaster's office, knocked on the table, and asked him, 'Hello, Your Highness Prince, how are you getting along with Miss Vampire?' How would he answer that?"

"He'd probably cast Avada Kedavra, pfft hahaha."

"What is Miss Vampire again?" Hermione showed a curious expression.

"Let me explain it to you, the old bat has had a second spring this year..." Luo En began to speak excitedly.

For the whole afternoon, after chatting briefly about business, they had been talking about all kinds of gossip. In Harry's feeling, time passed quickly. When they noticed that the students sitting in the shop were leaving one after another, the ordinary residents of Hogsmeade village began to enter the shop, and the landlady began to light the lanterns—at this moment, Harry, Luo En, and Hermione knew it was time to go back.

So the three of them walked out of the Three Broomsticks, laughing and talking, and began to walk toward the castle against the setting sun. Just as they were passing a forest, Luo En said happily: "Do you remember? We met that Crimson Knight here last time."

"Yeah, later Zhang Qiu said... wait!" Harry was still chatting with Luo En carelessly, when a figure in front of him gave him a big jump.

An armored person in black and green suddenly appeared from behind a tree. He had spike-like hair and huge shoulder armor, a pair of fierce eyes drawn on his mask, and a red cape that showed a very strong sense of oppression.

"A new enemy?" Luo En took a deep breath and quickly transformed into an Elemental Dragon.

However, before he could engage with the black and green enemy, another red figure suddenly appeared and punched the Elemental Dragon back several steps.

The newly appeared enemy was somewhat different from the knights seen before. He had various strange accessories on his body, the colors were relatively rich, and, if Harry were to say, this knight had many similarities with Cross.

Luo En looked very anxious; he wanted to repel this red knight immediately because the green knight was walking step by step toward Harry and Hermione.

Hermione might have encountered this situation for the first time; she looked a bit flustered. After hurriedly taking out the driver, she didn't even buckle it to her waist and immediately wanted to insert the energy bottle into it.

"You can't insert it directly; run first." Harry pulled her robe, and at the same time, his other hand began to reach into the inner pocket of his clothes. He soon touched the soft Invisibility Cloak, but now was not the time to use it—pressed under the Invisibility Cloak was a revolver that had already been loaded with bullets.

While running away from the battlefield with Harry, Hermione tried to buckle the driver to her waist, but, just like Harry's first attempt, the belt did not respond to her.

"What's going on!" Hermione tapped the driver anxiously. "Still not working?"

"The determination to fight is not firm enough," Harry prompted. "You need to mobilize your emotions."

"Forget it then." Hermione seemed to calm down a lot all of a sudden. She stuffed the transformation prop back into her pocket and then pulled out her wand again.

Seeing that the Elemental Dragon and the red knight were evenly matched and neither could get away for a while, Harry decisively pulled out the revolver.

"Alright, let's give it a try," he said in an unyielding tone. "Let's see if ordinary wizards really can't do anything about these armored men."

Hermione had already quickly cast two or three spells, but obviously, the Disarming Charm and Stupefy were easily deflected by the armor, and only the Impediment Jinx had some obstructive effect on the green knight.

"Must use Transfiguration." As soon as Harry finished speaking, he immediately transformed a fluffy hound and quickly pounced on the knight.

"But this little dog of yours is definitely useless, right?" Hermione questioned while adopting her own method; she tried to make a large stone move and use the power of a stone giant to deal with the knight.

The green knight grabbed casually, and a pink sword formed out of thin air in his hand. He easily chopped the hound Harry transformed into ashes, and then cut the stone Hermione had managed to animate into two halves.

Fortunately, Harry's intention in casting the spell had always been to attract his attention, and now was the moment for a counterattack. He fired quickly, and two bullets hit the knight's breastplate, bursting out intense sparks.

This move was indeed effective; the enemy clutched his chest and stopped. It seemed that the Blood-English bullets could indeed have an effect on the knight. Harry fired two more shots without hesitation, but this time the green knight was clearly prepared; he covered his head and chest, and these two bullets only hit the opponent's arm.

The fifth and sixth bullets used warheads made of Queen's Blood. Harry believed this would definitely have an effect, and might even penetrate the armor directly. So, out of the kindness in his nature, he aimed at the opponent's thighs and abdomen.

However, the scene that followed made him panic all of a sudden—the green knight pressed both hands on his waist, and an invisible shockwave enveloped his side. Two dark blue warheads were quietly suspended a few dozen centimeters in front of him, but they could no longer hit his body.

"You reload." Hermione, who had also come back to her senses, waved her wand again; she prepared to transform more stone giants to buy time for Harry. But Harry, while mechanically reaching into his pocket for bullets, thought worriedly: with the enemy clearly prepared, what other means did he have to use?

"Pause!"

With an unexpected low voice, the green knight suddenly froze in place.

Then, on the other side of the forest, an identical knight appeared. He ran toward this side quickly, and while running, he took out a colorful bow and kept shooting light arrows toward here—these attacks landed solidly on the previous green knight.

"Even if you stole the original cassette, you can't use Cronus well," a voice that Harry felt very familiar with came from the new knight's armor. "Only by truly beating all the games can you unleash the full power of the hidden character—you medieval bumpkins who haven't even seen a television won't understand~"

After a handsome counter-clockwise roundhouse kick, the two green knights canceled their transformation at the same time. Standing in front of Harry, the winner who gently took off the driver was Zhang Qiu—judging from her words, this knight named Cronus was related to the games she had played. Obviously, she had started preparing very early.

But what shocked Harry was that not far away, after rolling three times on the ground, the other Cronus who had embarrassingly canceled his transformation was also someone he knew, and someone he was very reluctant to see: Bellatrix Lestrange.

Bella didn't say anything, just waved her wand gently, and immediately turned into a cloud of black mist and left the battlefield. Then, the red knight who had been entangled with the Elemental Dragon also turned into a cloud of red mist and dissipated.

"What is going on?" Harry couldn't help but ask.

"Let's go back and talk slowly." Zhang Qiu's gaze lingered on Hermione for a long time, then she sighed and said, "I didn't expect them to bring out Evolt, and if I'm not mistaken, the raw material is probably... Voldemort."

As soon as she returned, she brought such explosive news, which made the three local wizards present show expressions of disbelief, and, a bad worry arose in their hearts. ===== CHAPTER 427 =====