Meteors thundered down from the sky, hurtling toward Grindelwald.
These meteors, blazing with terrifying heat and kinetic force, were not merely falling stars. Their surfaces were layered with magic, "high heat," "gravity," and more.
Together with Cappadocia himself, they formed an immensely powerful spell.
Even a seasoned Eternal Wizard like Odin had to concentrate when facing this spell, or risk being injured himself.
Cappadocia had escaped once before by using this very spell to draw Odin's attention.
Grindelwald frowned slightly as he watched the meteors plunge toward him under their crushing gravitational pull.
He could not retreat, because the spell was powerful enough to flatten Hogwarts behind him.
And if that happened, Dumbledore would certainly die.
Grindelwald's path to becoming an Eternal Wizard had been something of a shortcut. His ascension had not relied solely on his own talent and understanding of magic.
Using the fragments of his blood pact with Dumbledore as the core, and the imprisonment pact that followed as support, he had bound himself to Dumbledore, borrowed a portion of Dumbledore's talent, and become an Eternal Wizard through it.
If Dumbledore died, Grindelwald's power as an Eternal Wizard would vanish with him.
This was a secret that absolutely could not be revealed. Grindelwald did not even dare tell Dumbledore himself.
So he had to protect Dumbledore, even if it cost him half his life.
Still, troublesome as these meteors were, they were not enough to cost Grindelwald half his life.
Grindelwald had built himself on the foundation of modern magic, mastered it completely, and then traced it back to the burst of magic that came with a wizard's awakening, thereby achieving an eternal form of magic that could directly influence all things through magic alone.
This magic was mysterious, dexterous, and unpredictable, but lacked explosive destructive force.
When facing an attack like this, it was not that he had no answer. Only that he lacked a direct one.
Twin beams of magical light burst from Grindelwald's eyes, and the gravity Cappadocia had imposed around him suddenly vanished. In the next instant, great masses of earth and rock slowly floated up into the air.
The meteors in the sky were affected as well. Their descent slowed more and more until they gradually came to a halt in midair.
Grindelwald stirred his hands slowly. The floating earth and stone began to rotate, and the meteors, laden with powerful magic, spun with them, rapidly crumbling apart as they turned.
Cappadocia, caught among the meteors, was no exception. His body twisted, and lava and blood sprayed out.
The magical burst of modern magic could alter physical phenomena. As an Eternal Wizard, Grindelwald's magical surges were almost capable of making anything he willed into reality.
But the flaw was that they did not hit hard enough.
Though Cappadocia's body twisted and warped within Grindelwald's magic, he changed far more slowly than the meteors did. A closer look showed magic boiling up from his skin, resisting Grindelwald's own.
One by one, the meteors were crushed. Cappadocia's body became smeared with dried blood, yet he showed not the slightest fear.
Titans, the proud creations of the Eternal Wizard Tiamat, possessed the strength to stand against Eternal Wizards themselves.
Cappadocia had only Titan blood, not the full power of a true Titan, but as an Inferius, fighting without any regard for the consequences, he could still trade a few moves with someone like Grindelwald, who was not especially adept at offense.
Flames surged. The stone shell covering Cappadocia's body exploded apart, and great torrents of lava burst outward, shredding Grindelwald's magic.
Grindelwald's brow lifted. His body abruptly turned insubstantial, dodging the lava before landing safely elsewhere.
At the same time, he exhaled, and bitter cold swept out, freezing the splashing lava to keep the flames from spreading.
With a thunderous crash, Cappadocia fell from the sky and shattered the ice strewn across the ground.
He rose, glared at Grindelwald, and roared, charging him again despite his wounds.
Grindelwald sidestepped with the motion and struck Cappadocia with a surge of magic.
Cappadocia's body twisted and transformed into a cute little white rabbit, yet instead of slowing down, the rabbit became even faster, and the magic inside it surged even more violently.
The little white rabbit had become a missile.
Grindelwald's expression changed, and he Apparated away.
The rabbit's momentum did not diminish in the slightest. It shot forward without hesitation and slammed into a tree.
A huge tree thick enough that three people together could barely wrap their arms around it instantly disintegrated, and the rabbit kept going, blasting through swaths of forest in a shower of smoke and dust.
When the dust settled, Cappadocia, back in his original form, stepped out of the ruined forest.
His body was now covered in large wounds that refused to heal. Blood flowed out, only to be seared dry by the flames.
A terrible gash had opened across his back, deep enough to expose bone.
The Transfiguration had turned him into a rabbit and given him a rabbit's physical constitution.
His magic had remained just as violent as ever, but a rabbit's body could not withstand such raging power.
Unfortunately for Grindelwald, the Transfiguration had only worked on Cappadocia for a few seconds. Even that much had only been possible thanks to Grindelwald's status as an Eternal Wizard. An ordinary Transfiguration would never have affected him at all.
With wounds like those, an ordinary person would already be thinking of retreating or seeking treatment.
But Cappadocia was an Inferius. Though his soul remained in his body, despairing within it, it could not control the body at all.
...
He obeyed only Voldemort's orders.
And Voldemort's order was to hold Grindelwald back at any cost.
Even if he died, he was not allowed to retreat.
Cappadocia let out a tragic roar and charged Grindelwald once more.
This would be a brutal fight. Even an Eternal Wizard like Grindelwald could not end it quickly.
While Cappadocia and Grindelwald were locked in a fight to the death, Voldemort had already slipped quietly into Hogwarts.
He did not have much time. He had to obtain all the remaining Deathly Hallows as quickly as possible.
But the current Voldemort was no match for Dumbledore wielding the Elder Wand.
"I'll have to use my brain, otherwise I'm finished," Voldemort thought. Then suddenly his senses stirred.
He felt the fluctuation of the Invisibility Cloak.
And it was nearby.
His gaze swept the surroundings, and he quickly found the target.
Ah. And what have I found here? A lone Harry Potter.
At that moment, Harry Potter was standing outside the castle with the other students, watching the battle in the forest. When meteors fell from the sky, he gasped along with the rest of them.
He looked like some clueless country bumpkin who had never seen the world.
And in the hands of that "country bumpkin" was a garment like transparent flowing gauze.
The Invisibility Cloak.
And as a bonus, Harry Potter himself.
What a gift from the heavens. Both a hostage and one of his targets had just been delivered right to him.