BOOM!
A green and a black beam shot toward each other and crashed together hard.
At the point where the two spells met, plasma sprayed out. The light created by the clashing energies was even more dazzling than the explosions of the dragon-hunter bolts not far away.
Unlike other spells that explode instantly and dissolve into drifting energy, these two stayed locked together under the uninterrupted flow of magic from both Link and Voldemort.
Unfortunately, this stalemate could only last for a short time.
If we're talking pure magical strength, Link was still no match for Voldemort in his prime.
As Voldemort drew closer and increased his magical output, the black beam from his ebony wand was being swallowed bit by bit by the green light.
"Tsk…"
Knowing he couldn't keep this up, Link frowned and clicked his tongue. With a twist of his wrist, the black beam wrapped in green light suddenly veered off to the side.
Link himself seized the opportunity to escape the path of the Killing Curse, diving straight into the "magic turbulence layer" below, where countless spells were constantly colliding and exploding.
Almost in the next instant, a cluster of dragon-hunter bolts exploded violently right in front of him, turning into a fierce magical shockwave.
But there wasn't the slightest trace of panic on Link's face.
It was as if he had predicted everything. With a light shift of his body, he avoided the blast at an angle close to the limits of what was possible, all without dropping speed.
Doing all this wasn't too difficult for Link.
With his Super Sensory Charm fully active, his senses were expanded to the extreme. Every moment of those terrifying magical explosions, from birth to end, was captured by his magical vision, resulting in something close to actual foresight.
This was also why he chose to charge into the magic-turbulence layer.
Of course, he wasn't naïve enough to think that these explosions would seriously hinder Voldemort.
As long as they slowed the enemy down even a little, that would already count as a win.
But Link had still underestimated Voldemort's power.
After following Link into the turbulence layer, Voldemort was likewise barely slowed at all.
But unlike Link, faced with the surrounding torrents of magic, he didn't even try to dodge. He simply charged straight through.
Those terrifying explosions, enough to shatter stone and split cliffs, hit him like a breeze brushing past a mountainside, unable to affect him in the slightest.
"Hahahaha! Link Flamel! You're not escaping this time! I'm going to catch you! Drain every drop of your blood and then kill you!"
Bursting out from a massive cluster of multicolored magical explosions, Voldemort roared with manic laughter.
Before his voice had even fallen, a thin streak of black-red lightning shot from his hand, tearing the air as it sped toward Link.
Sensing everything, Link's expression grew grim.
He didn't even look back. He just flicked the Cloak of the Vampire Bat behind him and kept sprinting forward.
Buzz!
The thin black-red lightning twisted and slammed straight into the cloak.
Down below, Scrimgeour, Krell, and the others felt their hearts clench at the sight.
If Link went down, then both their groups were doomed today.
But strangely, when the blood-lightning struck the cloak made from the Vampire Bat, nothing happened.
There wasn't even an explosion, there wasn't even a trace of escaping energy.
Link's movements were still just as nimble, showing no sign of having taken a direct hit from Voldemort.
He even used the impact of Voldemort's attack to suddenly boost his speed again, widening the distance between them.
It was as if… Voldemort's attack had been swallowed by that black cloak.
And in fact, that was exactly what happened.
The Vampire Bat possessed extremely strong energy-absorption and nullification abilities.
It was precisely because of this powerful trait that Vampire Bats were immune to almost all spells except the Patronus Charm, an existence that practically had no counters.
But only Link knew the truth, blocking that strike had not been as effortless as it looked.
Because the moment the blood-lightning hit, he had heard a sharp, miserable scream coming from the Vampire Bat.
For a creature whose vocal organs had already degenerated to almost nothing to scream like that… one could imagine how much damage the blood-lightning had done.
It's just that… what did that have to do with Link?
Unlike Arkam and Yoyo, the Vampire Bat was a pure dark-magic creature with no emotions.
It could never be "raised" or bonded with.
It stayed with Link only because it was drawn to the strange energy in his bloodline.
Link knew this well, so he didn't care whether the Vampire Bat lived or died.
Just like now, Arkam and Yoyo also wanted to come out and fight.
Especially Yoyo, this aerial battle was exactly the kind of field it excelled in.
But Link refused to let them out.
In a high-intensity fight like this, amid raging magical currents, they would almost certainly die.
As for the Vampire Bat, being blasted once by Voldemort, or even being killed outright, Link wouldn't bat an eye.
Link and Voldemort weaved continuously through the surging magical currents.
Link tried to counterattack whenever he could, but most of his spells ended up blocking incoming attacks and couldn't get anywhere near Voldemort.
Meanwhile, under Krell's command, the dragon-hunter team kept pouring bolt-fire all around Voldemort.
And not just them.
Scrimgeour, seeing how dangerous Link's situation was, also directed the Aurors to shift their main aim toward Voldemort.
Their interference was the only reason Link had managed to last this long.
Finally, after being hit head-on by a dragon-hunter bolt one more time and missing his chance to grab Link, Voldemort grew furious.
He turned his head, locking onto the Aurors and hunters below. With a violent swing of his arm, countless black-red fire-arrows arced beautifully across the sky like a meteor shower, raining down on the ground below.
"Use Protego Totalum! Block it! You must block it!"
Krell screamed wildly. The sheer loudness of his voice made it hard to believe it came from such a small body.
The hunters around him immediately gathered around the Old Saints. The Aurors who had been hiding to the side finally rushed over as well.
Everyone raised their wands, and a semi-transparent shield rose from the convergence of their magic.
Because the area covered was smaller, the shield was much thicker than before.
But in the face of overwhelming power, this meant nothing.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions thundered relentlessly across the shield.
Under the terrifying assault, the shield, and the entire ground, shook violently.
The hunters beneath the shield fared even worse. Their faces turned pale as the magic left in their already-depleted bodies surged out like a bursting tide.
Seeing that his attack was actually being blocked, Voldemort grew even angrier.
The golden slits of his eyes began to glow blood-red as he snarled viciously, "Insects!"
A huge blood-lightning bolt, several times thicker than before, struck down like a hammer. It obliterated the shield instantly and turned a dozen Aurors and hunters beneath it into dust.
Newland and Sigefin's expressions were beyond what human words could describe.
Back in school, they had firmly believed they could give everything, including their lives, for their ideals and convictions.
But now, confronted with this horrific scene, they began to waver.
War had always been brutal.
Were they really prepared?
The same thought echoed through both their minds. They stood frozen where they were, unable to react.
Above them…
Without the protection of the shield, the falling fire-rain finally reached the ground.
Explosions erupted across the battlefield, harvesting the lives of hunters and Aurors one after another.
A red flash suddenly shot from the side, splitting in two mid-air. It slammed into Newland and Sigefin, knocking them flying and forcibly helping them avoid a black-red fireball.
The piercing pain finally snapped them awake.
They looked in confusion toward the source of the attack, only to see a sweat-soaked Emily give them a cold glance. Her lips moved twice before she turned away and continued counterattacking upward.
Sigefin had studied lip-reading, so he understood what she said, "Useless."
"So I'm just useless, huh."
Sigefin whispered bitterly to himself.
He felt that Emily's description cut straight to the bone.
If he had to make any revision to her judgment, it would probably be, "useless and self-important."
A wave of despair spread through Sigefin's chest.
But at that moment, he caught a glimpse of Newland out of the corner of his eye, running like a madman, scrambling and stumbling across the ground.
"Ah… so you're becoming a deserter?"
Sigefin muttered softly, only loud enough for himself to hear. Strangely, there was no hint of mockery on his face this time.
Smiling bitterly, he looked toward the direction Newland was running. Then his expression froze.
Because Newland wasn't running toward some hidden escape route or a fortified vault, he was running toward the cave where the Australian Opaleye was.
Sigefin's mouth slowly fell open.
As if realizing something, the dullness in his eyes suddenly lit up again.
"Wait… kh-kh… I'm coming too!"
With a sudden roar, Sigefin pushed himself up with his iron sword and began running after Newland.
———
[On the Other Side of the Battlefield]
Scrimgeour swung his wand to deflect a fireball headed for his subordinate.
He didn't bother with the terrified young Auror stuttering his thanks. Instead, he lowered his head and pulled from his pocket a porcelain teapot tied up with fine silver threads.
This was a Mysteries Department artifact.
A special Portkey.
It was also the culprit behind a massive magical disaster in the past.
From the moment it was created, it had crazily devoured everything within a three-kilometer radius, including its own creator.
The Memory-Erasure Command Center and the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad spent two full weeks cleaning up the aftermath.
There was no denying, it was a source of catastrophe.
But at the same time, it was an absolutely broken-level artifact.
As long as its lid was opened to just the right degree, it could carry at least twenty people across an ultra-long-distance random teleport, completely ignoring all spatial restrictions.
The only problem was, with something this unstable, it was nearly impossible to define what "the right degree" actually was.
And if the lid was opened even a little too far, the disaster at its creation would repeat, space turbulence would rampage out of control, shredding everything around it.
Scrimgeour's expression was incredibly complicated.
He looked at the teapot in his hand, then at the hunters and Aurors dying in the fire-rain around him. The hesitation in his eyes slowly hardened into determination.
Even though it wasn't fair to the "bandits" who had spared them at a crucial moment…
Even though abandoning comrades in battle was shameful…
For the sake of the Auror Office's survival, he had no choice.
Whoosh!
Taking a deep breath, Scrimgeour flicked his wand, pulling the remaining ten or so Aurors to his side with a powerful force so that they were pressed tightly together.
Then, the silver threads binding the teapot snapped apart.
Scrimgeour pressed his thumb heavily down on the lid, opening it just a sliver.
After a moment of silence, an invisible, eerie force instantly enveloped the entire area around them.
It felt as if someone had taken a pair of scissors and cut that chunk of space right out of the world.
Then the area around them began twisting around the teapot.
Space collapsed, compressed, and finally, everything, including the teapot itself, was sucked into the slit of its slightly opened lid.
A few seconds later, above an unnamed beach, thousands of kilometers away, Scrimgeour and the surviving Aurors appeared out of thin air.
They fell like dropped stones onto the rocky shore.
Sharp rocks cut their skin and split their flesh. Blood spread quickly beneath them.
Yet even so, none of them moved.
They lay twisted and trembling on the stones, vomiting uncontrollably, the horrible teleportation of the forbidden teapot had completely destroyed their sense of balance.
Scrimgeour was in the best condition among them.
He was at least still conscious, conscious enough to keep the teapot lid pressed down, preventing the worst from happening.
After a long time, Scrimgeour finally managed to crawl upright.
Shaking, he put the teapot away, then pulled a shard of rock embedded in his cheek, before looking around at his remaining subordinates with a bitter smile.
The loss… was far too great.
Even though they had used the forbidden teapot correctly, by some miracle, the unstable turbulence mid-teleport had still killed eight Aurors.
Now, fewer than ten remained alive beside him.
And after experiencing a battle this horrific, how many of them would still be willing to continue fighting as Aurors?
The Auror Office was… essentially finished.
Scrimgeour's laughter grew louder and louder, becoming more and more wretched.
As he laughed, murky tears slipped from the corners of his eyes, mixing with his blood, like bloody tears.
More than ten years of effort destroyed in a single day. The feeling was indescribable.
But the next moment, his hysterical laughter abruptly stopped.
"I can't give up yet!" Scrimgeour rasped, speaking to himself. "I have to return to the Ministry. I have to rebuild the Auror Office. I have to… report that Voldemort has been resurrected!"
With that, Scrimgeour seemed to regain his resolve.
Hands trembling, he pulled out a pile of potions from his coat, first splashing one on his own face. Then he bent down and began checking the injuries of each surviving Auror one by one…