Newland and Sigefin stared at the now completely empty cavern in front of them, utterly dumbfounded.
They simply couldn't figure out how, in just a few minutes, a position that had been bustling with people had suddenly become deserted.
While they still had time to stand there in a daze, the Australian Opaleye, imprisoned for who knew how many ages, could no longer suppress its longing for freedom.
"Roar!"
A massive dragon's roar echoed through the cavern.
It forcefully stretched its tattered flesh wings, lifted its head, and spat several bright fireballs into the air before shooting upward.
Perhaps it had been too long since it last flew, or perhaps the cavern was simply too cramped, its flight was clumsy and unsteady.
As its body repeatedly scraped against the rock walls, its flesh was torn open and turned bloody. The chains that had fused into its flesh and bones and could never be fully removed dragged along the stone, throwing off long trails of sparks.
But the Australian Opaleye didn't care.
Through the thick rock layers above, it could smell something called freedom.
That scent drove it nearly mad and stripped it of fear, to the point that it completely ignored both Link and Voldemort, who were radiating terrifying magical fluctuations nearby.
Seeing this, Link, still in his spiritual-body state, was instantly delighted.
He'd been worrying just moments ago about how to escape, and now an opportunity had arrived on its own.
Seizing the gap right after Mike and Voldemort finished another head-on clash, Link released the spiritual power that had been coiled up tight. Driven by Occlumency, it surged out of the mindspace and wrapped itself around Mike's spiritual form.
As expected, Mike's spiritual body began struggling frantically.
Under normal circumstances, this would make the process of Link regaining control of the body extremely difficult.
After all, Link had already reached the theoretical time limit for staying in the "Mike transformation state."
At this point, Mike's spiritual body should have been growing more and more fused with the flesh through the constant cycle of damage and regeneration during combat, making the two increasingly inseparable.
That was what Link's past experience suggested.
But during this transformation, Mike had displayed exceptionally high combat quality.
As a result, the damage sustained by the body was far lower than expected, and his degree of fusion with the body had grown more slowly than usual, indirectly extending the transformation time.
Therefore, despite Mike's frantic resistance, he was still dragged back into the mindspace by Link and locked once again inside the Cage of the Mind.
At the same time, Link's physical body entered a brief state of loss of control as Link and Mike struggled over authority.
The magic power surrounding him dispersed instantly, his muscles went slack, and his entire body began falling downward.
Voldemort, of course, wouldn't miss such an opportunity.
He opened his mouth like a snake, stretching it to an exaggerated degree. A black-and-red blood-colored lightning beast shot out, lunging toward Link at a speed almost impossible to follow with the naked eye.
But just then, a bright fireball suddenly thrust itself between Link and Voldemort, colliding head-on with the lightning beast.
In a split second, the fireball was torn apart by the blood lightning beast, scattering into a sky full of sparks.
At the same time, although the lightning beast still retained its power, it lost its precise direction and brushed past Link before slamming into the rock wall behind him, blasting up a spray of shattered stone.
Voldemort immediately followed up with another attack, but it was precisely because of that brief delay that light returned to Link's previously vacant eyes.
Link's consciousness... had returned.
The ebony wand reappeared in his hand. Without any hesitation, Link adjusted his posture and began swinging the wand.
The surrounding moisture instantly condensed, forming a towering column of water beneath Link's feet.
A powerful upward force struck him, rapidly altering his falling trajectory and once again allowing him to evade Voldemort's pursuit.
"No!!"
Voldemort roared in fury. Just as he was about to continue attacking, the massive body of the Australian Opaleye blocked the narrow cavern passage leading downward completely.
Voldemort was on the verge of madness.
Spell after spell slammed relentlessly into the Australian Opaleye, drawing scream after scream from it. Its hard scales shattered like paper, flesh and blood flying everywhere.
One blood-red lightning bolt even struck directly on its head, shredding most of the flesh there along with a horn and one eye, exposing large chunks of scorched bone.
And yet, even after suffering such devastating damage, this Australian Opaleye, normally not particularly brave, still refused to retreat, struggling onward toward Voldemort.
Life trapped underground had been far too unbearable.
It would rather die on the road to freedom than return to that cavern and continue enduring the goblins' torment.
Of course, another crucial reason for its reckless bravery was that Link below was now fully releasing the pressure of Dragon Slayer.
Under that overwhelming force, whether it wanted to charge or not, it had no choice but to charge!
BOOM!
Link slammed heavily onto the rubble-strewn ground. His feet stamped repeatedly as he bled off the recoil, twisted his direction, and sprinted rapidly toward Newland and Sigefin.
These two might be a bit slow-witted, but they had still helped him secure an opportunity to escape.
As long as conditions allowed it, Link had to save them.
Link reached out and grabbed Newland by the collar.
As for Sigefin, Link hooked an arm, using magic to firmly pin him against Newland.
"Roar!"
The deafening dragon's roar rang out once again.
But unlike before, this roar was laced with endless sorrow and regret.
The three of them instinctively looked up, only to see that the Australian Opaleye had begun plummeting rapidly at some point.
Its chest had been ripped open.
Filthy blood and entrails poured down like a torrential rain.
Newland and Sigefin both froze.
They had intended to use the Australian Opaleye as a tool in battle, but deep down they had also harbored hopes of letting it regain its freedom.
Yet now, less than a minute after it had appeared, it had been reduced to little more than a mass of shredded flesh.
Both of their eyes reddened.
Link, on the other hand, had no room for such messy emotions.
The dragon's fall didn't affect his casting in the slightest.
With his free arm, he raised his wand and swung it sharply, sending rippling waves of spatial distortion outward from himself.
At the same time, a parchment scroll tied with thin golden thread flew out from his chest.
This was the spell scroll Dumbledore had given him before he went to Germany.
Inside it was sealed a Disappearance Charm cast at Dumbledore's full strength.
The scroll had originally been intended for a potential clash with Grindelwald, but various accidents had prevented it from ever being used.
Now, using it to teach Voldemort a lesson wasn't a bad choice.
After all, it was close to its expiration date anyway.
Snap!
The golden thread broke. The parchment scroll hovering in midair suddenly exploded, unfolding into a huge and intricate magic array in the air.
An immense suction force followed immediately.
Due to the earlier fighting, the concentration of magic in the surrounding air was already so high it was almost condensing into luminous magical mist.
Now all of that magic began surging like a tide toward the array in the sky.
Sensing the abnormal flow of magic below, Voldemort, who was preparing to stop Link and the others from escaping, had his expression change drastically.
He abruptly halted his downward dive and, in several rapid flashes, sped toward the cavern entrance.
At the same time, the brief charge-up finished.
BOOM!
A massive milky-white pillar of light shot straight into the sky, piercing through more than half of the Australian Opaleye's body, the thick bedrock, and the Gringotts building itself. It blasted straight into the heavens and instantly dispersed the Dark Mike hanging in the sky.
At that moment, countless people looked up.
The terrifying phenomenon and overwhelming magical pressure left every witness staring slack-jawed.
A few seconds later, the light pillar slowly faded.
All that remained at the ruins of Gringotts in the center of Diagon Alley was a gigantic, bottomless pit that seemed to connect heaven and earth.
At the bottom of the pit, Link, Newland, and the others were already nowhere to be seen.
The dying Australian Opaleye lay helplessly on the ground.
Its entire lower half had completely vanished, yet strangely, not a single drop of blood flowed from the wound.
This was the terror of the Disappearance Charm.
As a high-level spell within Transfiguration, the Disappearance Charm essentially caused an object to completely "disappear" at the molecular level.
Sunlight poured down the channel carved by the light beam, falling upon the Australian Opaleye, as if trying to warm its gradually cooling body.
Its eyes, now degraded to an ashen white, sparkled with brilliant, iridescent colors under the sunlight.
This was the beauty it should have had all along.
Yet cloudy tears flowed continuously from its one remaining eye.
This was the natural reaction of eyes exposed to sunlight after so long in darkness.
Though the sunlight burned painfully, it still refused to close its eye, choosing instead to stare directly at the sun it had not seen for so long.
Perhaps, for this Australian Opaleye, being able to look at the sun one last time at the end of its life was already enough.
Sadly, the sunlight didn't last long.
The Dark Mike, which had been blown apart, began to reform.
The giant serpent emerging from the skull writhed wantonly across the sky, blocking out the sun and casting an inescapable shadow over the hearts of everyone who witnessed it.
As the sunlight vanished, the Australian Opaleye's eyes forever lost their living sparkle.
In the next instant, several thunderous blood-red lightning bolts crashed down along with a terrifying figure, blasting the Opaleye's corpse into pieces.
Voldemort stood amid the mangled gore, roaring in madness as he vented his fury.
A massive gap had also opened in his waist and abdomen.
That dreadful Disappearance Charm, used by surprise, had nearly torn him in half.
The Death Eaters who had scattered earlier now gathered back around him.
But they only dared to kneel trembling at a distance.
They knew their brutal master far too well.
Approaching him now would only get them torn apart by the enraged Voldemort.
After a long time, the furious roars finally subsided.
A young Death Eater cautiously lifted his head a little, trying to check Voldemort's movements with a sideways glance.
But the moment he moved, his gaze met Voldemort's bloodshot, crimson eyes, red from extreme rage.
After just that single glance, the young Death Eater froze as if turned to stone, and a strong smell of urine slowly spread from beneath him.
"Useless trash, can any of you tell me," Voldemort stretched out his arms and enunciated every word, "why things turned out like this?"
The scene was utterly silent. No one dared to answer him.
And Voldemort didn't really expect an answer from them anyway.
After all, he himself couldn't answer that question.
Was he supposed to admit that his own power wasn't strong enough?
Taking a deep breath, Voldemort turned to the passage leading to the other underground vaults and said slowly,
"Find the Flamel family vault. I want everything inside it."
The moment he said this, the atmosphere finally became lively again.
The Death Eaters scrambled to their feet and rushed into the passages in a flurry.
This was their chance to atone.
———
"Is all the wealth the Flamel family had stored at Gringotts here?"
Inside the newly opened underground chamber of Flamel Manor, Mrs. Flamel looked at the mountain of gold before her and asked Beckman.
"In fact, it's not just the Flamel family," Beckman said. "All of the Beckman family's wealth was also moved here in advance."
Mrs. Flamel's beautiful eyebrows twitched.
She turned her head and looked at Beckman with a complicated expression, her lips parting as if she wanted to say something.
Beckman smiled faintly and said to her, "No need to feel sorry for me, Leoni. This was always meant to be left to you and little Link."
Mrs. Flamel's eyes finally reddened.
Not wanting Beckman to see her lose composure, she quickly turned her head away.
This made Beckman's smile grow even brighter.
He felt that the relationship between father and daughter had repaired quite well.
At the very least, Mrs. Flamel was now moved by something as simple as how he addressed her.
But just as he began feeling pleased with himself, he heard Mrs. Flamel choke out, "Link! My poor child! He never should have left you here to protect me, he needs people more than ever right now! Oh! This is far too dangerous!"
Hearing this, the smile on Beckman's face froze completely.
Even so, he still pulled a pocket watch from his chest and comforted her, "Leoni, you don't need to worry too much. Link's plan was flawless. And according to the original plan, they should be back any moment now..."
Before Beckman could finish speaking, a strong wave of spatial distortion rippled in from beside them.
Beckman's face lit up as he continued, "... See? Aren't they back already?"
As his words fell, Emily, Krell, and the rest of the Hunters instantly appeared inside the chamber.
Mrs. Flamel and Beckman hurried forward to check on them, but before they could get close, a thick stench of blood and burning washed over them.
A sense of dread instantly rose in both their hearts.
Mrs. Flamel slapped away the arm Beckman had extended to support her.
She ran into the crowd, frantically searching through the wounded, groaning Hunters for Link.
But as her search continued, her face grew paler and paler.
Krell limped over, only to be grabbed by the collar and lifted up by her, "Where is my Link?!"
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