Hogwarts: Lacus doesn't want to be a witch who destroys nations.

Chapter 93 Belief (7 chapters released after initial release)

The stench of blood in the church hadn't completely dissipated, and several members of the Fireseed lay sprawled on the snow, groaning and moaning. They were the unlucky souls who had tried to help but were knocked unconscious by Eve's casual slap.

Anthony slowly woke up and the first thing he saw was Eve, who was nailed to the coffin lid with several thick silver nails and was stiff as a stone statue. He scrambled back as if he had seen a ghost.

While it is true in a certain sense.

"No—don't come any closer! Kill her! Kill her now!" Anthony's voice was shrill, his hand pointing at Eve trembling as if he were sending a telegram, and the dark wet stain on his crotch seemed to have expanded a little more.

No one cares about him.

The few surviving members of the Fire Seed, including the one whose arm was cut and who was grimacing as he wrapped it with bandages, watched him silently.

The awe or blind obedience of the past was gone from those eyes; only naked contempt remained, along with a lingering fear and anger that seemed to say, "How could we have believed you, you idiot?"

While Lux was fighting that monster for her life, this leader was completely out of it and even wet his pants the whole time. Now he suddenly wants to give orders?

Old Ivan, who was tidying up the Molotov cocktails on the ground, looked up at the sound, slamming the canister in his hand to the ground with a jarring crash. He glanced at Anthony, his tone as cold as ice: "Now you're scared? Where's all that energy you had when you were hiding under the table screaming for help when the vampire pounced on you?"

Anthony's face instantly turned a deep purplish-red. He wanted to retort, but then he saw Aunt Martha bend down and pick up the Tinder badge that he had personally given her earlier. It was just a piece of broken wood painted red, which had been casually thrown into the snow and crushed with her heavy boots. The wood broke in two with a "crack".

The other members who had been surrounding him earlier were also packing their things with their heads down. No one looked at him, and the disappointment and disdain in their eyes felt like needles pricking him.

"What are you doing?" Anthony scrambled to his feet, grabbing Martha's arm. "We're comrades who fought against Muggle tyranny together! Now that the monster has been defeated, we should celebrate!"

Aunt Martha shook off his hand and wiped her sleeves in disgust. "Companion? Anthony, Eve's claws almost scratched my face just now, and you were the first to crawl under the stool. If it weren't for Miss Lux, we'd all be dried-up corpses hanging on the wall by now."

"I was looking for an opportunity to cast a spell!" Anthony stubbornly insisted, but his voice grew softer and softer.

The young man in overalls crumpled up his previously written "spell manuscript" and threw it into the nearby fire. The flames shot up and the manuscript instantly burned to ashes: "Stop fooling yourself. You can't even teach a decent spell. Following you, I'll die in some unknown corner sooner or later."

After saying that, the young man picked up his tool bag, nodded to Vova, and turned away from him. The others followed suit. Some threw the manuals that Anthony had distributed on the ground, while others simply walked around him. No one said a word to him the whole time.

Soon, everyone in the spacious church gathered around Lux ​​and Vova.

As Anthony watched this scene, his face went from deathly pale to flushed red. His lips trembled as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, no sound came out. The pitiful authority he had painstakingly maintained shattered into dust under the real fear and contrast, without even a sound.

Finally, he got up and ran into the forest, and neither Lux nor Vova paid any attention to his departure.

Vova slung the empty gun back over his shoulder, walked to Lux's side, and looked at Eve in the coffin with a complicated expression, then at Lux's still bleeding neck: "Are you alright? What do we do with this thing?"

"I won't die, I have thick blood." Lux grimaced as she touched her neck. The wound was already healing quickly, leaving only a faint red mark.

She kicked the rough wooden coffin. "Find a place to lock her up for now. I have some questions to ask her. Oh, and you guys too—"

She looked at Vova and the Fireseed members who were leaving behind him, and sighed. Although these half-baked people couldn't help much and even caused some trouble, at least they didn't desert their posts, which was much better than some pure-blooded leader.

She fumbled in the pocket for a while and pulled out a roughly bound book with the words "Five Years of Curse, Three Years of Simulation (by Laksana Crownguard)" written crookedly in ink on the cover.

"Here, this is for you. I wrote it myself. If you don't know English, you can learn it yourself." She handed the book to Vova.

"It's not finished yet. It only contains some basic stuff. It's more reliable than Anthony's pure-blood meditation theory. It covers how to control magic, how to make hand gestures, how to cast Illumination Charm and Levitation Charm, and a few variations of the Armor Charm. Figure it out yourself. Of course, I think your priority right now is to find a wand maker to make a decent wand, but that's better than practicing blindly."

Vova flipped it open and looked at it. His eyes widened instantly. The picture on the paper could move on its own. This small, animated illustration demonstrated the wrist movements of the Levitation Charm, clearly indicating how much force to use with the fingertips.

He exclaimed in surprise, "Wow!" and reached out to touch it, then hesitated, afraid of breaking it: "How can it move? Are all magic books like this?"

"Most proper spellbooks are like this, but mine is better." Lux nodded.

"Thanks, but what about this vampire? Where did she come from?"

Lux scratched her head, deciding to reveal part of the truth, only offering the explanations she could, "This thing is called Eve, and she's a kind of—artificial vampire. She's entangled in a very troublesome dark magic, specifically hunting down those who bear certain magical marks."

"Those two envoys that Anthony contacted," she said, "are accomplices of the source of the mark, which is why he was targeted." She pointed to the wooden coffin. "You should stay away from this kind of mysterious black magic in the future, or you won't even know how you died."

Vova took a deep breath of the cold air and nodded.

"Then what should we do? After you left, we don't know when we will meet another wizard like you."

"You can leave here and explore the magical world," Lux said.

"Besides fighting, there are many things that magic can do."

"Go to the Soviet interior and find more hybrid wizards like you. Anthony wants to use magic to restore the old ways, but magic shouldn't be like that. It can fix wells, make frozen potatoes sprout, and help old people carry firewood back from the snow. These are the things that will be useful to you."

Vova looked up abruptly, the confusion in his eyes vanishing instantly: "You're right. We always thought about hiding and rebelling, but actually we can use magic to help more people, those who, like us, have awakened magic but don't know what to do. They need someone to guide them."