HP: The Duelist of Hogwarts - 436

Chapter 436: A One-Man Army

Bang. Bang.

Two punches hammered out in quick succession. The giant rushing in to block Sean took both blows squarely on the knees. He had never imagined a wizard could hit that hard. With a howl of pain, he collapsed to his knees.

Sean sprang up. One hand caught a fistful of the giant’s hair, the other clenched and crashed down into his eye. The impact burst the eyeball. Sean’s arm drove in like a spike, sinking to the elbow. Blood sprayed as he destroyed the brain through the socket, killing the giant outright.

More giants thundered towards him.

Sean yanked his arm free and flipped back, his body arching in a smooth curve under two grabbing hands. He landed on the shoulder of a second giant behind them, and without hesitation snapped out a whip kick. His heel slammed into the giant’s ear, bursting the eardrum and rattling his brain. The giant lost all sense of balance and toppled.

Sean rode the fall, coming down with him. As the head hit the ground, Sean’s feet were already in motion. He stamped hard on the giant’s neck. Bone cracked. The neck broke before the giant had time to react.

Sean took two quick steps forward, bent, and scooped up the fallen giant’s huge wooden club with both arms. He swung it sideways in a full arc, meeting a descending battle-axe from another giant head-on.

Crack. Boom.

The club shattered at the midpoint. The great axe ripped free of its wielder’s hands and spun away, crashing straight through a nearby hut.

Sean grimaced as pins and needles shot through his arms. He shook them out once, then sprinted forward. Muscles knotted and swelled in his legs. Power surged through his whole body, and he shot forward as an arrow loosed from the string, ramming straight into the axe-wielder’s belly.

The giant grunted and doubled over, but this one was tougher than the rest. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he snatched Sean up and smashed him into the ground. Then his foot came down again and again in a frenzy, stamping Sean deeper and deeper into the earth.

Sean curled his arms and legs up before him like a shield.

His teeth were clenched so hard his jaw ached.

Through the pain, he felt it—that familiar surge as the panel responded to his will.

The two giants he'd just killed fed their power into him, absorbed automatically by his system.

His Giant Physique talent rose to LV3.

His fingers hooked like claws, Sean grabbed the sole of the stomping foot from beneath. As the giant lifted his leg, Sean let himself be hauled up with it. He curled in tight, braced both feet against the underside of the boot, and, at the exact moment the giant tried to slam his foot down again, rolled aside.

He came out by the other ankle, body spinning. His leg whipped out and crashed into the joint.

A sharp crack rang out. The giant screamed and toppled.

Sean leaped and came down in a double-footed stomp aimed directly at the giant’s head.

“Blasting Curse!”

A yellow fireball, trailing a tail of sparks, slammed into Sean at an angle. The explosion threw him sideways. He hit the ground hard and skidded back, gouging a long groove in the packed earth.

“Pfah…”

He spat blood, then turned his head toward the Death Eater who had ambushed him.

He looked a little rough—streaks of blackened scorch across his skin, thin lines of blood where fragments had cut him—but the bleeding stopped almost at once. With LV3 Giant Physique layered over the LV5 Troll Hide he had taken from trolls, the Blasting Curse had hurt him, but not badly.

Staring at Sean—apparently suffering only surface wounds that were already knitting closed—the Death Eater who had fired the spell muttered, “What in Merlin’s name are you?”

“He took a Blasting Curse head-on, and that’s all it did?”

“This bloke is even more terrifying than during the Triwizard Tournament. Could he actually be that other mas—”

“Silence!”

Crabbe spun and slapped the new recruit hard across the face. The blow was heavy enough to knock off his skull mask, revealing a relatively young wizard underneath.

Sean recognised him at once.

If memory served, the man had graduated from Slytherin two years ago, in Sean’s third year. A member of a minor pure-blood family, he had barely registered during his school days. Yet now, in just two years, he had sworn himself to Voldemort and donned a Death Eater mask.

Sean dipped his head slightly and drew his wand from his boot. Recognition did not translate into sentiment. He had no interest in reminiscing with any of them. His magic resistance now exceeded that of an ordinary giant, but wizards had spells designed to deal with giants. Naturally, they had spells to deal with him. He was not nearly foolish enough to try to tank those bare-chested.

“Thorn Curse!”

LV5 Thorn Curse surged from his wand. The ground trembled as great cracks split the earth. All around the giants’ camp, every plant went mad. Trees and brambles shot upward in a heartbeat, weaving themselves into a dense forest. Vines and trunks coiled and lashed out, wrapping around giants and Death Eaters alike.

The giants did not flinch. They swung their weapons or simply tore with their bare hands, smashing trunks and snapping thick tendrils. The Death Eaters, though unable to Apparate inside the giants’ warded territory, were not weak. Those who had been deemed worthy to join their ranks unleashed a barrage of spells, hacking and burning their way through the growth.

By the time they had cleared away the last of the conjured forest, a subtle, almost undetectable ripple washed out across the camp.

The instant it touched them, giants and Death Eaters alike suddenly saw something new.

Aurors from the Ministry of Magic, descending from the sky.

Robes billowed, wands flashed. Without a word, the “Aurors” opened fire.

In the blink of an eye, the giants and Death Eaters were plunged into chaos.

They roared and swung their weapons and wands, hurling curses and blows at the attackers with all the ferocity they could muster.

Only the many-eyed giant stood still, staring in bewilderment at the sudden melee. His warriors and the Death Eater wizards were laying into the newcomers with savage violence, as if facing mortal enemies.

In that instant, he understood. His comrades and the wizards had fallen under some kind of illusion spell.

He flung open all the scattered eyes over his body, trying to cast the net of his mind-link and warn them.

At that precise moment, Sean’s figure appeared soundlessly at his back.