"Holy shit!" Kasenhis shouted, twisting his body just in time to dodge the Killing Curse. The mechanical arms behind him shot forward at lightning speed, stabbing straight toward Neos's chest.
Squelch!
Nios barely managed to dodge to the side—the arm missed his heart, but the damage was still brutal.
The destructive spell crawling with trident-like runes detonated on impact, tearing half of Nios's shoulder into a mangled mess of flesh.
"Kasenhis! We need him alive!" Lupin shouted from behind Nios.
"Leaving the head counts as alive!" Sirius barked, ignoring the rest, as a strange, shimmering magic rippled continuously from his wand toward Nios.
Neos, however, maintained a constant magical barrier around himself, blocking the strange assault.
"Wands are the weapons of the weak! Let me show you what real power looks like!" Nios roared, stomping one foot down hard—then launched himself like a cannonball straight toward Lockhart, flying just above the ground.
"Shit! Save me!" Lockhart yelped, flinging spell after spell wildly at Nios, only for them to be smashed apart by his bare fists.
"What the hell?! That's insane! Is that even how people are supposed to fight in this world?!" Lupin's eyes nearly popped out of his head as he forgot to even cast a spell, blurting out his disbelief instead.
Fortunately, Kasenhis had been watching Lockhart the whole time—he appeared in front of him almost instantly.
Bang!
The collision between Kasenhis and Neos exploded with a deafening boom.
Kasenhis's palms—capable of smashing through a four-meter-thick tree in three seconds—barely managed to catch Nios's punch.
"Oh, you've got guts, coming at me head-on again? Looks like you don't want your other shoulder either!"
As Kasenhis barked the words, the mechanical arms behind him lunged forward again—an unmistakable warning that even Neos understood.
After all, this guy clearly hadn't learned his lesson; he'd already lost one shoulder and yet, a few seconds later, came charging right back.
If that wasn't the definition of not learning from pain, what was?
Bang!
From Kasenhis's perspective, Nios was indeed an idiot—an insanely strong and fast idiot, but still an idiot.
Just as the mechanical arm was about to pierce through his body, Nios suddenly raised his leg and kicked Kasenhis square in the chest.
The two were blown apart instantly.
Neos staggered back, panting heavily, while Kasenhis—and poor Lockhart behind him—crashed through two thick trees before finally stopping.
But in the blink of an eye, Kasenhis reemerged from the forest, surrounded by a swarm of wither skulls flying at Neos in a black-smoke trail.
"I told you, only the weak rely on laughable spells to challenge the strength of my body!"
Neos smashed the wither skulls apart with two heavy punches—but before he could finish his boast, Kasenhis appeared right in front of him, one hand gripping his throat, the other clamping down on his shoulder.
"Who knows how many dragon cores you've juiced yourself with," Kasenhis said in one second flat—then crack!
With a wet tearing sound, he ripped off Neos's remaining arm.
"It's not the destruction of the body that marks defeat—it's the destruction of the mind!"
Armless and defiant, Neos still roared and lunged straight at Kasenhis again.
"Look at you—looking like a damn T-Rex right now. I don't even know what to say to you anymore."
Kasenhis rubbed his temples helplessly, then conjured a bundle of spider silk in his hand and tossed it lazily onto the ground.
"…Ack."
"Bloody fool, Neos." Kasenhis rolled his eyes. A middle-aged man with nothing but brute strength trying to pick a fight with a PVP veteran—if that wasn't brain damage, what was?
He wrapped Neos tightly in the sticky web, then reinforced it with iron bars, forming a solid cage around the man.
"Sirius, do me a favor—go pull Lockhart out of the woods. I'm taking this one to Dumbledore."
With that, Kasenhis enveloped both Neos and the cage in a field of force and vanished, reappearing directly inside the Headmaster's office.
Dumbledore, startled yet again, looked at Kasenhis with a weary expression. He took a deep breath and said, "...Why didn't you just rip his head off while you were at it?"
"Honestly, I should have Fudge come see this," he continued, sighing. "Back then, you at least showed him mercy. You used a sword—not your bare hands to tear off an entire arm."
Kasenhis rolled his eyes. "So, our dear Headmaster, could you please check this bastard properly? The Veritaserum didn't work on him at all."
Dumbledore nodded, his expression turning serious again. "Let's see."
He drew the Elder Wand and traced it over Neos's face, whose expression twisted with rage and pain.
After a few moments, Dumbledore's face grew complicated—half exasperated, half strangely satisfied.
"What is it?" Kasenhis asked.
"Never thought I'd see the day," Dumbledore said with a faint smile in his eyes.
"Huh?"
"He's an alchemical automaton. As the greatest alchemist in all of England, you mean to tell me you didn't notice?" Dumbledore teased lightly.
Kasenhis's eyes widened as he looked at Neos, then at Dumbledore, then circled around Neos again in disbelief.
"This guy's a construct?!" he blurted out.
"You've gotten too high up the mountain, my boy—seems you've forgotten the basics of alchemy," Dumbledore said with a chuckle. "Material transmutation—turning watermarks into gold, or transmuting alchemical matter into flesh—these are fundamental principles. And this fellow, Neos, is clearly an alchemical automaton."
"Wonderful," Kasenhis muttered, staring hopelessly at the ceiling. "Now I've completely embarrassed myself."
"…Ahem. Rest assured, I'll keep this little secret for you," Dumbledore replied dryly.
"Actually, that's the least of our problems," Kasenhis said after quickly pulling himself together. "If he's an automaton, he must have a memory core or some kind of storage structure. Hand him over to me."
"In theory, yes," Dumbledore said with a sigh. "Unfortunately, it's already too late. On your way here, he must have triggered self-destruction on his memory unit. And he used the one thing that flesh fears most—heat. Like a child with a fever, you know?"
"Oh… great," Kasenhis sighed, slumping weakly onto the sofa. "Our lead's gone cold."
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