Although he would be giving up some of his advantage by retreating this time, Doreke believed that he would be able to regain it during the battle that followed.
Once he had made his decision, Doreke decisively stopped casting the Killing Curse.
At the same time, to prevent any follow-up damage from Ternas’s water spell, he planned to cast the protective spell “Protego” on himself the instant he stopped the Killing Curse.
But things did not go as he had imagined.
The water-element spell Ternas had cast actually did not involve much magical output.
It was only a low-level spell, so its damage was naturally limited.
Yet this low-level water-element spell had managed to withstand the Killing Curse.
If this had happened in the wizarding world, it would indeed have seemed unbelievable.
A low-level spell had actually managed to resist what could be considered an extremely powerful Dark spell.
But to Ternas, this was perfectly normal.
Indeed, magical clashes were usually determined by the amount of magical power released by both sides and the strength of their respective spells.
But here, Ternas had found a clever workaround.
He was using the impact force of the water itself, mixing magical power into the stream and carrying that power toward the Killing Curse through the rapidly flowing water.
By continuously outputting magical power at extremely high speed, he could resist the Killing Curse, which concentrated its magical power but had a relatively slow flow.
The principle was similar to a water jet cutter in the Muggle world.
Soft water could cut through even the hardest materials once it reached a sufficient quantity and speed.
And now, Doreke had abruptly withdrawn his Killing Curse, leaving Ternas’s “water blade” without a target.
What happened next was easy to imagine.
For a spell that could be called a water blade and could resist the Killing Curse for a short period of time, one could imagine just how fast the water within it was moving.
The moment Doreke withdrew the Killing Curse and attempted to cast Protego, the water blade had already reached him.
Without giving him even the slightest chance to react, the water blade swept past and passed directly through Doreke’s body.
It shot straight toward the wall of the alley behind him.
To avoid accidentally injuring anyone, Ternas quickly withdrew the water-blade spell, although there were hardly any good people here in the first place.
Even so, that brief contact had left a deep indentation in the bricks of the wall behind Doreke.
From a rough glance, it was at least two inches deep.
After taking down one of the Doreke brothers, Ternas showed no mercy to the other.
He cast another Wind Blade spell, finishing off the man who was lying on the ground, still paralyzed.
Afterward, Ternas stepped over the bodies of the two men.
With a light wave of his wand, all the valuable items on their bodies floated out.
The two wands went without saying.
Besides those, there were also two leather pouches.
Ternas had no idea what was inside them, but he simply collected them and stopped paying attention to the two men, continuing toward the exit of Knockturn Alley.
Only after Ternas’s figure disappeared into the depths of the alley did the group of people who had been watching the show emerge.
Several impoverished and down-on-their-luck Dark wizards cautiously approached the bodies and stripped away anything they considered valuable.
Then two more people appeared.
They carried the two bodies away toward one side of the alley.
These two specialized in dealing with corpses in this place.
They were a group that made money from dead bodies.
After another minute or two, nothing remained in the alley except for a few faint traces of the battle.
The surrounding crowd did not discuss it or pay any particular attention to what had happened.
Although situations like this could not be said to happen every single day, they were still considered commonplace here.
Only then did a figure slowly emerge from a dark corner.
A hunched figure with a somewhat aged face.
If Ternas were still here, he would certainly have recognized him.
This was his generous benefactor, the man who had just allowed him to make a huge profit!
“What a pity.
I thought I could avoid spending any money.
What useless trash.
But it doesn’t matter.
This way, we can continue working together in the future.
That seems pretty good.” Muttering to himself, Borgin slowly returned to his little shop and continued polishing his treasured collection.
At the same time, he was already planning in his mind how to sell those treasures of his for the best possible price.
Leaving the various events in Knockturn Alley aside, let us return to Ternas.
He had already left Knockturn Alley.
After passing through an empty alley, all the disguises covering his body were instantly withdrawn into his spatial ring.
The figure of the eight-year-old boy appeared once again.
Ternas did not feel much about what had happened just now.
He felt neither the nausea that might come from having just killed someone nor the sense of accomplishment that came from winning a battle.
He had spent a very long time preparing for this day.
Just to ensure that killing would not cause him any adverse psychological reaction, he had already performed live dissections on more than fifty small animals.
After extensive exposure to blood and gore, his state of mind still fluctuated somewhat, but it was far better than that of an ordinary person.
Ternas did not linger here.
He quickly made his way back to the Junk Shop.
As one of the Longbottom family’s properties, the shop was quite large.
Because of Ternas’s particular hobby, there was even a private workshop here that belonged exclusively to him.
After greeting the shopkeeper, Ternas went straight to his workshop.
Once he closed the door, he took out the spoils he had obtained from the two men.
There was no need to bother with the two wands.
There was nothing particularly interesting about them.
The main things were the two leather pouches.
He took the two leather pouches from his robes and emptied the contents of one of them onto the table.
After a series of clinking sounds, a pile of Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts spilled out.
There was nothing besides money, which left Ternas somewhat disappointed.
“Damn, what a poor bastard!” After complaining, Ternas collected all the money from the table and put it into his spatial ring.