Chapter 58.4- Doom Days

The answer was redirection. He waited for my next duo of spells and deflected them with uncanny aim. One smashing Simba straight through the head— the blasting curse taking all of his upper body in one blow. The second, missed Mufasa by a hair’s breadth. Serrano had been stung by one of my hornets right as he had deflected it. There was no expression on his face as his hand lashed out to his neck with a sharp slap.

He deflected both my next spells in Mufasa’s direction. The stunner missing him right as he jumped and the gouging curse catching him mid air. Creatures more or less dealt with, Serrano could turn his full attention to me once again. That wouldn’t do. I slashed my wand upwards.

The stones that I had loosened with my first attack rose under my attention and began to spin and form a golem.

“No chance” I was pretty certain Serrano whispered to himself before five different blasting curses hit the stone creature before it could finish forming. That was the point though.

The stones scattered, each of them filled with my magic from the botched golem spell already. A twist of my wand as all it took to use that magic to catalyze a change. They turned to rats. Dozens of them. And then they were off.

Two gouging curses forced Serrano to keep his attention on me. He deflected both into the rat horde. That was the point thought. He thought this was the same strategy as before. No. The previous game had been about distracting and outmaneuvering him with a combination of transfigured and direct attacks. This one was far less subtle.

So I kept my rai.n of attacks to piercing curses. Deflecting them never ended up with more than a single rat dead, and there were dozens. My constant barrage did also happen to mean that there was nothing he could do to deal with them as they approached, other than retreat. I felt a bead of sweat run from my forehead down to my neck. It was not alone. Ignoring the heat seemed to get harder and harder as more time passed. Good thing it was almost over then. Just when the rats were almost there, I cast my final spell. Instead of a piercer or anything aimed at him, it was a banisher aimed at the rats, forcing them to cover the last few steps faster than Serrano had planned.

Undoubtedly, he had some strategy for dealing with them when they got close enough, I circumvented that entirely by enrsuring that close turned to too close in a matter of seconds, never allowing close enough to materialize. The rats bit down on whatever they could once they reached him. To his credit, he managed to blast a few off, but his grunts of pain told me they were doing their job quite effectively. One latched on to his wand arm, and the duel was just about over.

“Incarcerous” I incanted out loud, shifting the intent of the spell as I flicked my wand.