Chapter 391: Descent Into Chaos : So Close To Death.
"Oh? You're already dead?" Loki joked while casually watching Voldemort struggling to comprehend the attack he'd just launched.
Even though Voldemort was shaking his head like a drunk man as he tried to come to terms with the situation after Loki's attack, Loki didn't take the initiative or even launch another spell at him.
The reason was simple, he knew Voldemort could do several things to get him killed because he was two entire sequences above him when Loki wasn't even a demigod.
Voldemort could simply do a partial transformation into his mythical creature form and Loki would be done for in the next couple of seconds.
Loki knew this was a trap hence he just watched as Voldemort flicked his wand and caused all the mutations in his body to disappear as if they never existed.
But Voldemort's condition wasn't as great as Loki made it out to be.
He currently had a killer headache because of the spell since it seemed to be something that brutally tried to attack his body of heart and mind. It felt like someone had mauled his head, grabbed it like a dog and torn it apart like a house in a storm.
Although his defences had held up against the spell, it was only just barely because 'Loki' had already ruined his mental state while he was Tom Marvolo Riddle using Dumbledore's Corruption.
The voices in Voldemort's head got sharper and crueller as he started to feel various emotions that he'd stopped feeling a long time ago when he successfully became a Sequence 8 Coldblooded.
Voldemort was currently feeling himself swinging between total madness and sanity. He felt like if he took the wrong step he would return to being the same wisp of consciousness he was when he was 'defeated' all those years ago by Harry Potter.
Doing anything in this moment felt unnecessarily burdensome.
So Voldemort took Loki much more seriously.
He didn't know what spell the boy used, but it was better to guard against it just in case it was used again.
So Voldemort did something rather simple- he created a mental shield to form strict restrictions on his entire mindscape. He did this by using the rune for slowness and degeneration in demonspeak. It brought the degradation of his mind to a creeping halt.
Although not permanent and self-harming since it would also slowly degenerate his own mind, it would do for now.
Loki knew nothing about all this but he did suspect that Voldemort was acting stronger than he appeared to be. But with nothing substantial backing his claims it was all baseless for now.
Voldemort and Loki simultaneously looked at each other. Their eyes dangerously gleamed in the dark as each formed several plans and counter-plans that would be used against their opponents in the next few minutes.
With a flick of his wand, Voldemort started with the spell that shot out a strong green bolt of light that rushed towards Loki.
Loki, with his spirit vision active, could easily see the runes that floated around the spell and easily deciphered that the spell was not the killing curse.
And so instead of dodging the spell or transfiguring the ground to help delay it, Loki flicked his wand and conjured the Protego shield.
'Hmmm…can he not control his spirituality well? Because of all the mental instability?' Loki thought as he noticed streams of the spell spreading around the area and knocking into the ground, a blatant waste of spirituality in a duel that could be decided on who could last longer.
The semi-transparent shield conjured took the brunt force of the attack, but the remaining force was still enough to knock Loki off his feet and throw him several steps behind.
Loki wasn't thrown back violently or anything, it was much like how one is lifted of the ground while on a see-saw. Loki almost glided back.
The two duelers locked eyes again causing Voldemort to prompt a smile.
"I hope this is not all you have in your pockets?"
"...I assure you Mr. Dark Lord, my pockets are…especially deep…"
Voldemort's forehead creased since he didn't like the sound of what Loki promised but then he smiled and spoke calmly, "I wonder what face you'll make when I have you writhing beneath my feet."
"Oh don't worry. You don't have to stress your brain to hard, I know imagination is not your forte, the Angel of Imagination is what you fear…isin't that rig-"
Voldemort's wand flicked again to shut him up.
A thick red beam of light rushed towards Loki and this time, instead of using the protego shield, he did something clever.
With a flick of his wand, Loki flung out his spirituality at high speed. A thick blue tendril formed out of his wand and made its way towards Voldemort's spell.
The two collide in the air and a dance between blue and red invaded the sights of all the other people present in the area.
Both Loki and Voldemort pushed out their spirituality to keep their spells alive while fighting against each other.
The fights on the sidelines froze since Voldemort had stopped focusing on controlling the fiendfyre dragon, causing Cedric to start chipping it away bit by bit.
The rest of the Beyonders, all looked at Loki and Voldemort, wondering who would win in the clash between them.
Although none believed that Loki could do anything, Voldemort's poor control was slowly becoming more and more apparent.
The red tendril that extended out of Voldemort's wand flickered and fluctuated as a lot of it shot out around the spell Loki was casting, causing several smaller red tendrils to clash with the ground on Loki's side.
Loki was suspicious about the tendrils and didn't want to let them get close to him since Voldemort might have done such a thing on purpose so he always made sure to slap away any that came too close with blue tendrils of his own.
The red light from Voldemort's end flickered some more before it suddenly *snapped* audibly like the snap of a guitar string as the spirituality contained within it exploded like a firecracker.
All the people surrounding the fight grew ecstatic and became overjoyed when they saw Voldemort lose.
They watched Loki's blue tendril rush through the broken remains of the red streak of spirituality as it tore through everything in its path while advancing towards Voldemort.
With his focus on the spell, Loki missed the smile on Voldemort's face as he flicked his wand once again.
A sharp green light exploded out of Voldemort's wand and caused Loki's blue tendril to explode in place.
"Did you really think-" Voldemort was about to gloat but before he could speak another word, Loki's blue tendril that had been exploded dissipated and gave way to a fresh new purple tendril that was hidden within it.
Voldemort was surprised by the spell and annoyed at being interrupted but he handled Loki's deception well.
With a simple flick of his wand, Voldemort intercepted the fresh spell and diverted its path away from himself and into the ground.
This time, however, he waited for a few moments before making sure that Loki had no more tricks up his sleeve as he spoke-
"Did you really think-"
But before anyone could comprehend what had happened, Voldemort's head was suddenly and violently, ripped apart.
Voldemort was beheaded.
'Hehehehe~'
'He missed it!'
'Or did he?'
There was a sudden startling silence in which the Death Eaters and the Unspeakables all looked at the head that had been tossed into the air by shadowy appendages that had ripped Voldemort's head off.
Only by looking at the shadowy appendages did people realise what Loki had done.
He had used the intense lighting due to the clash between the spell trails of himself and Voldemort to cover up the shadows that had encroached onto his territory.
His plan was never to take him down by a simple spell but to decapitate him by using the shadows as his limbs to slice his head off.
'He did it!' Both Death Eaters and Unspeakables were happy to a certain extent but most other Death Eaters panicked.
A few more like Bellatrix were intensely worried and shocked beyond words.
'How could that boy do this!?'
'How could the Dark Lord be taken down!?'
'So easily!!!??'
The Death Eaters who assumed that this was the end of things rushed to apparate away, but just before apparating away their gazes fell on Loki, wondering how happy the kid would be for defeating the dark lord.
But the expected happiness that everyone assumed would be on Loki's face never appeared.
Instead what marred it was a profound frown.
And before anyone could react, Loki jumped backwards.
Almost as instantly as he did, spikes of trees sprouted out of the ground and pierced the air. The branches appeared corrupted and human in nature as they bled red blood from the several cracks in them.
Soft murmurings and whispers entered everyone's ears as they all found it hard to control their bodies.
Suddenly, everyone was feeling terrible. They all wanted to run away as a creeping madness clawed at their minds. It was almost as if the world would've taken them under had they not forcibly entered a state of cogitation.
Those who could not do so since they lacked the ability to do so, started to mutate into blobs of flesh with reproductive organs hanging from their fleshy bodies.
Hermione nearly puked midway through while noticing these changes as she used transfiguration to fight and keep them away from the Beyonders trying to control Voldemort's Fiendfyre dragon.
The floating head and the headless body flickered for a moment, transforming into something translucent before they shot towards each other and reattached.
The shadowy mist that was Voldemort's figure blurred for a second before it reformed into Voldemort.
Voldemort had used his ability to turn into a mass of desires. An ethereal construct which allowed him to negate most physical damage by simply turning into a dark mass of desires before turning back into his humanoid form.
Loki looked at the man with a frown while Voldemort looked at Loki with a frown.
Both sides had set up traps and sprung it at the most opportune moment but each one had already noticed it and countered it.
Each eyed the other warily since they'd begun taking each other seriously.
Loki was more frustrated because he could see that Voldemort wasn't just fighting him but was also handling the fiendfyre at the same time, he had just made it look like he wasn't focusing on the fiendfyre so that Loki would think he'd truly died.
"You're good." Voldemort finally conceded a little.
He looked at Loki for a few moments and then asked softly.
"Would you like to join me? I can give you much more than what 'He' can."
A smile sprouted on Loki's face and then he spoke calmly. "Would you believe me if I did most of all this on my own?"
Voldemort's eyes widened a little and then his eyes narrowed.
"Is that soo…I see then, this leaves us with no other way."
Loki agreed and lifted his hand with his wand.
Voldemort did the same.
Both sides had grown a sort of respect for the other side since their own expectations had been surpassed. While Loki hadn't ever thought he could defeat Voldemort, but since this was his first-time fighting someone at such a high level, he felt some respect.
As such, apart from wanting to meet his objective of delaying things until Laura arrived, Loki also secretly wanted to learn more from his duel with Voldemort.
Each dueler gave the other a secret nod of acknowledgement before they flicked their wands and started an attack at the same time.
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A/N : I messed up uploading the previous chapter, it was smaller than normal and I didn't realise. I increased the length of this chapter to compensate!
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