BOOM!
The cart shot straight through the curtain of water.
A huge amount of clear water poured directly into the cart, drenching Link and the others from head to toe, then quickly drained out through the cart's pre-installed drainage system.
"Thief-Fall!"
The also-soaked Griphook snapped his fingers to dry all the potion water from the Thief-Fall off his body, and while controlling the lever, he said with a bit of pride, "This is the key to Gringotts's survival! It can wash away all spells, all magical disguises! Including Polyjuice Potion and the Imperius Curse!"
After speaking, Griphook turned his head around.
Don't be fooled by how humble he acted toward Link's group, this humility was for Galleons.
As for Link and the others, he had never looked up to them.
In goblin eyes, wizards were nothing but tools for squeezing wealth, or, to put it bluntly, slaves.
Right now, he really wanted to see just how pathetic a nouveau-riche American like Link would look after being soaked by the Thief-Fall.
This was one of the rare pleasures a Gringotts attendant could enjoy.
He couldn't hold back.
He could practically imagine the shocked looks on those wizards' faces already.
But the moment he truly turned his head, the mocking smile hidden on his face completely froze.
Because he saw that Link and the others' hair and skin were dissolving rapidly at an astonishing speed.
Just like chocolate put into an oven to melt.
This was what happened after the effects of Polyjuice Potion were washed off by the Thief-Fall.
Griphook had seen it with his own eyes during training.
Except… why was this happening now?
How did they dare!?
Griphook's brain short-circuited.
And at that moment, Link calmly pulled out his wand.
"Spiritus Exsolvo."
A nearly invisible puff of smoke streamed from the tip of the ebony wand and slipped straight into Griphook's nose and mouth without the slightest resistance.
A moment later, Griphook's shock-twisted face instantly relaxed, and his eyes became dull and vacant.
"Drive us to the Lestrange vault."
Receiving Link's command, Griphook turned back without the slightest hesitation, guided the cart onto another track, and drove toward the deeper regions of the vast underground.
After finishing this, Link wiped his face, waved his wand lightly, and under his water-control ability, all remaining potion water on everyone and in the cart evaporated instantly.
Of course Link knew about the Thief-Fall.
But he hadn't bothered preparing any countermeasures.
Because not only wizards, goblins, too, had soaked for hundreds of years in the myth of Gringotts being "impenetrable."
Now they had techniques and methods more modern than before.
But they had long lost their vigilance.
A ridiculously costly, supposedly unbeatable defense like the Thief-Fall didn't require precautions, not when it was in the hands of such arrogant goblins.
All Link's group needed to do was silence witnesses quickly enough so no message could be sent out.
That was all.
———
Little Barty was still standing on Diagon Alley, looking up at the tall, imposing archway of the street.
It was deep winter, yet he was drenched in sweat from the inner torment of conflicting thoughts.
Around him, crowds surged.
A group of young people, looking like they had only recently graduated from Hogwarts, walked past him laughing and chatting, and he didn't notice them at all.
But the next second, the shopping bags those young people were holding suddenly lifted at a strange angle.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Several red flashes burst out.
They shredded the paper bags… and shredded the cheerful atmosphere of Diagon Alley, shooting straight toward Little Barty.
Hum!
A faint, translucent shield materialized in front of Little Barty, blocking this wave of attacks.
The sound pulled him out of his tangled thoughts.
He stared in horror at the assassins across from him, then looked down at the wand in his own hand.
He… hadn't done anything just now.
But the wand had cast the Shield Charm on its own?
If Ollivander were here, he would've jumped in excitement.
Because after so many years, he would finally be seeing once again the rare phenomenon of a wand protecting its master on its own.
This only happened with wands that had phoenix tail feathers as their core.
Phoenix-feather wands had naturally unpredictable personalities, often acting against their owner's will.
Many wizards looked down on such wands for this reason.
But a very small number of lucky ones benefited from it.
Little Barty also hated this unpredictable nature.
This wand wasn't originally his, he used it only because Voldemort's wand also used a phoenix tail feather. Blind worship and imitation made him force himself to use this new wand.
He never imagined that the wand he normally wanted to snap in half would actually save his life today.
If he knew, he might have picked it up and given it a big kiss.
Unfortunately, he didn't have time to think about it.
Because those young assassins launched a new wave of attacks.
At the same time, several seemingly ordinary bystanders nearby also pulled out wands and aimed at him.
"Argh!"
Little Barty let out a furious shout. His entire lower body instantly turned to black mist and lifted him into the air.
The Flight Charm.
He had learned it specifically to imitate Voldemort's combat style.
But he overlooked something extremely important, the Flight Charm itself was actually not very fast.
Voldemort only used it because his magic was extremely powerful, allowing the Flight Charm to reach speeds comparable to a Firebolt.
But Little Barty obviously didn't have that kind of strength.
Hum!
With a dense humming sound, thin whips of light extended from the assassins' wands.
Moving in perfect unison, they swung their wands, and the whips intertwined in mid-air into a giant net, dropping straight over Little Barty's head.
A moment later, he was dragged down from the sky.
An elderly wizard with a beard as white as snow strode forward; the tip of his wand glowed with scarlet light.
The glow shone across Little Barty's face, staining his eyes blood-red.
At this most dangerous moment, Little Barty didn't choose a defensive spell or fight back. Instead, gritting his teeth, he pointed his wand at the sky and cast the spell he knew best in his entire life.
"Morsmordre!"
BOOM!
A green beam shot upward, piercing straight into the clouds.
Immediately afterward, a red flash struck him, blasting the wand from his hand, and the hunters nearby knocked him unconscious.
The target was captured, but the hunters' faces were dark and grim.
They all looked up, and saw the once-clear sky now filled with storm clouds. A huge skull was slowly forming with green light, with a twisting, monstrous smoke-serpent crawling out of its mouth.
"We messed up! What do we do now!?" a young hunter said anxiously.
The white-bearded old wizard gritted his teeth.
"This place isn't safe. Get him out of here first. And send a warning message to the Young Master immediately!"
With orders given, the hunters hesitated no longer.
They quickly formed a circle around Little Barty, and with a twist of their figures, Disapparated.
The entire encounter had lasted less than a minute, and the passing pedestrians only reacted after the hunters disappeared.
People stared at the spot where the hunters had been standing, then looked up at the twisting Dark Mark spreading across the sky, stunned.
In an instant, the once-bustling Diagon Alley fell dead silent.
After a long moment, a piercing scream tore through the quiet.
It was like a signal.
Pedestrians scattered in a panic, and the goblin guards at the entrance of Gringotts immediately slammed the doors shut.
With the doors suddenly closed, chaos and fear spread through the marble hall.
Many customers still doing business ran frantically toward the internal Floo fireplaces, but more people were frozen in confusion.
Seeing the growing panic, an elderly goblin sitting deep behind the counters adjusted his glasses and shrieked in a trembling voice, "Hurry and notify the Ministry of Magic! Death Eaters have broken into Diagon Alley!!"
———
In Knockturn Alley, which connected to Diagon Alley, people also saw the abnormal sky.
At this sudden change, the "quasi-dark wizards" who roamed these gray areas didn't act much better than the ordinary people of Diagon Alley.
They didn't hesitate.
Led by Borgin and Burkes, shops immediately closed.
They were much more decisive than the merchants of Diagon Alley. Any customers lingering inside were driven out with wands, or simply killed.
The crackling noises of people Disapparating echoed throughout the wet and shadowy street.
Soon Knockturn Alley, which was already never lively, fell completely silent, leaving only a few lunatics fervently worshipping the Dark Mark.
And inside an unmarked shop not far away, a black-robed figure watched the Dark Mark with a heavy expression hidden under the hood.
As a Death Eater placed in Knockturn Alley to conduct intelligence gathering, receiving and monitoring Little Barty was also one of his duties.
Little Barty would probably never know, his humiliating behavior these past days had already been thoroughly observed by this Death Eater.
But because Little Barty was Voldemort's favored subordinate, this Death Eater had no intention of reporting it and offending him.
But now, that was no longer an option.
Little Barty dared to cast the Dark Mark in Diagon Alley.
This could no longer be described as simple stupidity.
For the Ministry of Magic, still refusing to believe Voldemort had returned, this had been a huge advantage. But with Little Barty doing this… who knew what would happen next?
And why did he suddenly cast it?
Did he succeed?
The shadowed Death Eater shook his head quickly.
Little Barty's pathetic performance in recent days had left a deep impression, no way he suddenly succeeded in only a few days.
Which meant there was only one answer left.
Little Barty was in trouble…
That Dark Mark was a distress signal.
"This must be reported to the Dark Lord immediately!"
Thinking this, he slowly raised his wand.
Crackle!
———
Deep beneath Gringotts, the cart rolled to a stop on the tracks.
Link stepped out of the cart with Emily.
Everyone looked calm, except Scathach, whose face was gloomy.
Link using the Imperius Curse on a goblin earlier had shocked him greatly.
After all, the Imperius Curse was one of the Three Unforgivable Curses.
Perhaps many Muggle-born wizards couldn't understand.
A knife is a knife, and a person is a person.
The one who commits the crime is the person, while the knife is merely a tool.
You can't call everyone evil just because someone used a knife for murder.
Otherwise, what about people who use knives to cook?
But what Muggle-born wizards didn't understand was that the Three Unforgivable Curses had their reasons for being unforgivable.
Countless families had suffered tragedies because of them.
In a way, these three curses were not "tools" in the ordinary sense at all.
Seeing Link using the Imperius Curse openly in front of him, Scathach simply couldn't accept it. It didn't match his understanding of justice.
But he didn't intend to confront Link right away.
He planned to do what Link suggested, wait until today's events were over before deciding.
He would treat it as giving Link one chance to explain.
If after today Link still couldn't convince him… then even if it cost him his life, he would never assist evil.
Gritting his teeth, Scathach stepped off the cart as well.
They no longer knew how deep underground they were.
Looking upward, aside from the faint magical lights along the rocky walls, they couldn't even see the bright entrance anymore.
Scathach tapped the ground with his iron-hardened sword.
The echo that came back was not the crisp sound he imagined, it was hollow, strangely empty.
It felt like they were nearing the Earth's core.
His face immediately turned ghost-white.
Noticing his reaction, Link and Newan both cast him a disdainful glance.
His thoughts were not hard to guess.
Most children raised in pure-blood wizarding families never received basic scientific education, they didn't understand how huge the Earth beneath their feet actually was.
The "core" was nowhere near this.
The vast underground caverns carved out by goblins over millennia hadn't even pierced half the Earth's crust.
Otherwise, they'd have been roasted to death long ago.
Link withdrew his gaze and ordered Griphook, "Keep leading the way."
The goblin said nothing, simply stepped down from the driver's seat and walked ahead like a sleepwalker.
They followed him into the darkness.
After a short walk, the faint sound of metallic clinking reached their ears.
It wasn't loud, and everyone instinctively held their breath, wanting to hear it more clearly.
But it was unnecessary, the sound grew clearer as they moved forward, as though they were walking directly toward its source.
Finally, turning a corner, everyone froze in place at the sight before them.