Good or bad, does it matter?

At the same time, at the site of the destroyed building, deep in the forest, the battle was still going on, but it was obvious to the naked eye that the killers were losing and even the appearance of three more did not help them in any way and most of all, this whole situation angered Laurel, because now mostly only his people were dying, not counting the four wizards that Charles sent with them.

"Green-haired degenerate ... as soon as I finish here, your head will fly next!" the man hissed through clenched teeth, sharply dodging to the side from the red beam that burst out of his opponent's wand, and then, at the same second, kicking the ground, a powerful gust of wind burst out from under it, throwing back the snakes rushing towards him, turning back into debris created by another pale-faced bastard, who in these short five minutes, had already managed to really get him.

Still, the Gold squad member was first and foremost an assassin and was used to killing his target with the first or second strike at most, rather than engaging in a drawn-out battle, especially in the open, without an arm that they had never been able to restore, and against a powerful wizard who was no less than the squad leaders. 

And the longer he thought about this whole situation, the more his hatred for Charles grew, but for now, he had to swallow these feelings and focus on the battle, although if he had a second arm now, he wouldn't have to strain so much, because over the long years of fighting, he had created his own style, using a dagger in his left hand and a wand in his right, but now, he had to constantly change them, which wasted precious milliseconds that could easily cost lives, and the overall combat strength fell by almost twenty percent because of this. 

"We should finish this as soon as possible..." looking towards the rest of his subordinates, he squeezed his wand tighter, and his face became even more gloomy, because the fourth one had already died, "With all of them, I definitely can't handle..." 

"Since when did you have time to look around?!Avada Kedavra!" a pair of red, furious eyes, the owner of which was Voldemort, glared at Laurel. 

A green beam burst from his wand, which covered the distance separating them in a second and was about to send the killer to the next world, but the latter deftly dodged, thanks to his flexible, trained body and responded with a dark wave, rushing towards the first. 

But Tom didn't even try to dodge, creating a huge sparkling shield in front of him, which didn't have a scratch left from the opponent's attack, at the same moment he sharply waved his wand and small fragments of the building rushed towards the man, forcing him to constantly retreat.

"Damn nimble rat! Die already!" and the shield that had previously protected him turned into stakes. 

Laurel, who was busy with the debris, did not miss another attack that was being prepared and snorted coldly, his body was swallowed by darkness and the next moment, it flew into the shadow of a tree standing nearby, and in the same place, a second later, stakes were driven in, which slowly began to disintegrate ... Voldemort himself, whose black robe was badly crumpled and cut in the shoulder area, after an unsuccessful murder attempt, was even paler than usual, because blood was still dripping from his left hand, flowing from the wound, down his palm and fingers to the ground, but at the same time, the parselmouth's gaze exuded only hatred. 

Usually, only one thing could really infuriate the dark wizard, when someone dared to point out his not very pure origin, but now, even to the wound that caused pain to the point of grinding teeth, he seemed not to pay any attention. 

What pissed him off was that someone had dared to attack him, the descendant of the greatest Dark Wizard, Salazar Slytherin himself, and even wound him in front of the servants, disgracing him in front of everyone, and still survive. 

That was it, the dark wizard's arrogant nature could not tolerate this blasphemy. "Do you think you can hide in the shadows?! Don't even hope!" Over the years of travelling, he had studied a huge number of dark spells, as well as countermeasures to them, and shadow magic also belonged to this "branch". 

And sharply making a circular motion with his wand under himself, he pointed it at his shadow, from which, one after another, pitch-black snakes began to crawl out, rushing towards each shadow, and some, on the contrary, plunged back into it. 

These shadow reptiles quickly reached their targets and began to crawl into them, and ten seconds later, Laurel flew out from under the building's shadow, followed by snakes. 

"Now you die!" with a face twisted with anger, Laurel growled, from the tip of his wand, a stream of flame burst out, engulfing the shadow creatures, and then, he sharply directed it towards Voldemort... 

On the other "battlefield", Bellatrix, having given in to her madness, took on one of the killers and quite actively suppressed him, while not forgetting to watch the rest of the enemies. 

Therefore, a bloodthirsty smile never left the face of the witch, when one after another, unforgivable flew out of her wand. 

And at that moment, the woman was definitely difficult to call normal, she was more like a "mad witch", and her opponent, all that was left was to defend himself, because he was simply not given a moment to counterattack. 

But in an instant, when she threw the enemy aside and he hit his head on a tree, losing consciousness, when rationality was restored for a moment, a thought appeared in her head "Something is wrong in this battle..." and this made her freeze for a second, right in the middle of the "battlefield" and one of the enemies released several icicles that rushed towards her back, but a red barrier that appeared out of nowhere blocked them and the witch immediately noticed how the bracelet on her hand sparkled, from which Bellatrix's smile became more restrained and even a little warm, - "Damn! What am I thinking about! Something is definitely wrong in this battle!" Having gotten rid of a second's obsession, she shook her head from side to side, because now was not the time to remember him, and began to look around, as if looking for the reason for this thought, while simultaneously fighting off spells that occasionally flew in her direction. 

And the longer she thought, the more oddities she noticed, but the most important thing that made her very wary was that there were no more opponents at all after the arrival of the last three, and the "Death Eaters" arrived at this place almost every fifteen to twenty seconds, as if they were all specially gathered in one place. 

Bellatrix also shared these thoughts with Yaxley, one of Tom's main advisers, whose position in the organisation was not inferior to Abraxas Malfoy. 

Having joined him in battle, he was already a little old and inferior to his opponent in terms of speed, and even his experience did not help him much. 

And the wizard, having thought over her words, also paid attention to this oddity, but besides this, after watching them, he noticed the frowning glances of the enemies, which they cast towards two certain wizards from their side, as if they had some kind of split in the group. 

"Okay, I'll report to the master right now." the old man sighed tiredly, hoping that he would not be tortured in the same place. 

For the same reason, none of the servants of the Dark wizard were in a hurry to help him, since they did not want to get into trouble.

"Then, I will play with your opponent," the black eyes of the witch narrowed in anticipation of the battle, because her new opponent was a very strong wizard, and the previous one simply did not compare to him. 

"Be careful and do not get too close to him," he looked sullenly towards the killer, who also decided to take a short break and catch his breath, and also look around a little.

"I know," sharply pointing the wand towards the enemy, she exclaimed: "Avada Kedavra!" and a green beam rushed towards the enemy, who in response snorted contemptuously and hit the ground with his staff, a stone wall grew right in front of him, stopping the deadly spell. 

But before he could even raise his staff, the next moment the wall in front of him exploded and a powerful shock wave threw him back, but he quickly regained his balance and landed on his feet.

"Perra…" he hissed angrily in an unknown language, feeling a strong, aching pain in his right hand, in the shoulder area, where a rather large fragment of stone flew.

"Te mato!" striking the artefact on the ground, dozens of spikes burst out of it, rushing at high speed towards the grinning witch, who the next moment turned into black smoke and easily dodged, but they followed her. 

Realising that it was pointless to retreat, she stopped abruptly and created a shield in front of herself, and then turning to the man, another green one burst out of her wand, as if mocking the wounded wizard, from which the enemy's eye twitched, but still, he was not going to just die and this time he dodged, so as not to repeat the previous mistake. 

But as soon as the killer did this, to his surprise, he saw that the green beam, right before his eyes, turned red and abruptly changed its direction, flying straight at him and he simply did not have time to dodge or put up a normal barrier, so he had to squeeze the staff tightly in his hand and create a small sphere at the end to at least block the spell. 

And as soon as the beam was ready to collide with the staff, he noticed out of the corner of his eye how, as if time itself slowed down, fiery spears slowly began to appear above her, one after another... Bellatrix, from the very beginning, did not underestimate her opponent and thought over almost every step, and her crazy image was only to mislead her opponent. And the next moment, fiery spears rushed towards the wizard.

"Perra! Perra! Perra!— having somehow reflected the first spell, while dislocating his arm and flying back a metre, he immediately created another stone wall, but almost four times thicker than the previous one, remembering his past experience, and he had fought fire mages more than once and therefore he understood how strong such a spell could be and having created such a wall, the man was sure that even half as weak, it should easily withstand a fire spell, but ... a second later, he froze in disbelief looking at three spears sticking out of his chest, which passed through the obstacle, like a hot knife through butter and he vomited blood ... 

"H-How ...?" he whispered, as if not believing what he saw, because how could a fire spell even break through a stone wall almost half a metre thick. 

Bellatrix herself was also shocked after what happened, because she expected to get him in the next three moves, but not now. 

She was truly amazed by the power of this spell, which she had forced out of Regulus during the holidays and had not even managed to fully master. 

"I definitely have to find out who taught him this!" the woman thought with a burning look, because she had long been looking for someone who could help her become even stronger, because the witch simply did not have enough practice with the master once a week. 

But this thought quickly faded into the background when she felt a burning sensation in the forearm area, on her left hand and heard Voldemort's hissing, cold voice in her head "This is a trap! Everyone apparated from the battlefield!" And the next moment, right before the eyes of the surprised killers, one after another, the "Death Eaters" began to disappear into the black haze, and when the surviving people of Laurel felt some relief, the three wizards sent with them from the "Steel" department became very nervous, but they simply did not have time to do anything...

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Thank you for reading.