HP/LOTM: Visionary - 412

Chapter 412: Domain of Disorder vs Time Reversal

"Damn it. Why do you lot always insist on standing in my way? I have already claimed Their power. Would it not be better to rule the world at my side?"

Tom raised her right hand and slammed it into the air. An invisible domain descended, covering every wizard fighting above the Mediterranean. The instant it swallowed them, all colour drained from their bodies. Using this domain as an anchor, the power of Chaos poured endlessly into reality.

So she still has fragments of Chaos, does she, Edmund clicked his tongue inwardly. In his mind’s eye, he seemed to see some heterochromatic-eyed bastard scribbling away.

No. He really is writing.

Borrowing the might of time, Edmund tore himself free, just a little, from the play being woven by that Audience and managed, with difficulty, to glimpse the script in His hand.

The dragon sleeping in the grey fog simply curled His lip, exhaled a gale, and blew Edmund off the clouds.

"Rotten Aiden. At least let me have a proper look!" Edmund cursed as he plummeted back down.

Reality snapped into focus again. Edmund saw the grey domain already reaching toward him. He opened his mouth and spoke two words.

"Descend."

In the void, a gorgeous, ornate chapel flashed into view. If one could ignore the piled corpses that made up its walls, it might have been considered a fine tourist spot.

Creak, creak, creak—

Teeth-grating friction rang out as the chapel of bones met Chaos head-on, slowing the spread of the grey domain.

But Tom had already enveloped most of the wizards. With a flick of her hand, she flipped the sea within the domain. A vast mass of seawater tore free of the surface and crashed toward the sky. Wizards scattered in panic.

"Going that far? Not even sparing your own side?" Edmund muttered, pupils reflecting the incoming wall of water.

"But…"

He reached out. In the Hazy Realm, the dragon did the same, extending one claw. The shard of Reverse Entropy in the material world was blessed from a higher level.

The clockface filling the heavens rippled. Time bled from the Death Eaters even faster. Wrinkles etched themselves into their skin. Their hair leached white. Bright, keen eyes dulled to a withered yellow.

Dong. Dong. Dong.

Like a clock striking the hour, the great dial in the sky tolled three times, its sound rolling over the Mediterranean.

Time began to reverse.

A Sequence 1 Author had called upon a Deep Realm King’s power to forcibly turn back the time of the entire sea.

In the water, shrimp that had been swallowed by big fish were spat out again. Fish eggs that had just been—cough—released were pulled back into place. The very currents of the sea ran backwards.

Reversing with all of it was the vast volume of water Tom had sent crashing down on the wizards.

Space rippled. Tom stepped out directly behind Edmund, wand glowing green in her hand like a dagger as she drove it toward his back.

Edmund glanced over his shoulder, peach-blossom eyes sharp in his handsome profile. A golden dial spun once in his pupils. His personal time surged forward at a terrifying rate.

In less than one hundredth of a second, Edmund appeared behind Voldemort instead. Silver-white light kindled at the tip of his wand.

It was gentle Patronus thought, woven with magic into a spell of protection. But Edmund’s heart was full of killing intent. He wanted to make the mastermind who had murdered his father understand what it meant to live wishing for death.

Unfortunately, Tom was not one to be taken lightly. As the Dark Lord who had ravaged all of Europe, she might be a complete disaster at politics, but her magical prowess was beyond doubt.

Her blood-red snake eyes rolled back. Behind her, several black, gelatinous pythons erupted into being, jaws gaping as they lunged straight for Edmund’s face.

Rage had flooded Edmund’s mind. For a heartbeat, he even thought that dying together with her would not be such a bad end.

The onlooking Audience had no intention of letting him throw his life away that cheaply. The man’s compatibility with Reverse Entropy was far too good.

Bellatrix Lestrange.

No persuasion. No mental compulsion. The Mind Dragon merely dropped a name into Edmund’s mind, and his survival instinct roared back to life.

The hands of the dial in his eyes jumped again. Time ripples spread from Edmund’s body, smooth and lustrous as silk, wrapping gently around Tom and cloaking her in a garment called time-stop.

His wand tip slipped past the serpents unhindered and drove toward Tom’s body. A silver eagle sigil flared where wand and flesh met.

Then—

Boom.

The explosion tore the air apart. Using the blast she herself had triggered, Tom ripped free of Edmund’s constraints.

Her perfect body had taken a serious hit, but it hardly mattered. So long as she could draw on Chaos, she could heal without limit.

"What—" Edmund had not expected an explosion at all. The shockwave picked him up and flung him away.

Every wizard in sight stared at the blast. A beautiful woman plummeted from the black smoke and hit the Mediterranean with a splash.

"Did we win?" an Egyptian wizard could not help but whisper.

Things did not go as he hoped. The sea below them began to heave. A vast shadow moved in the depths.

Water roared as the head of a snake-haired woman broke the surface. Her body rose, and Tom’s mythic form emerged in full over the Mediterranean.

Chaos raged unchecked. The surrounding sea began to break apart at speed, torn down into its tiniest particles.

Edmund, hurled away, came flying back. Seeing Tom’s colossal form, he knew his scheme had worked. In myth-creature state, she was utterly suffused with Chaos, but before that, he had already seeded her with enough Patronus power.

"Good choice, Tom," Edmund said, delighted, snapping his fingers to detonate what he had planted.

Bulges erupted along the Gorgon’s waist, scurrying under her skin like mice under a robe.

Pop.

One cluster burst. Chaos poured out of the rents. Black slime gushed from Tom’s body in torrents, crashing into the sea below with a vicious hiss.

The chapel of bones, bolstered by Reverse Entropy, moved to contain the flood. In the heart of the ooze, Tom emerged once more.

"Avada Kedavra!" she cried. Green light speared from her wand.

Edmund refused to back down. He raised his wand in turn. "Expelliarmus!"

Thick green lightning and red lightning smashed together mid-air. At last, Lucius’s wand reached its limit and blew apart in a shower of splinters. Sensing the turn, Tom whipped out a second wand and Disapparated on the spot.