"Everyone grab onto something sturdy nearby. It's about to get bumpy."
The group of students behind the control panel in the train's engine room also heard these words.
"We're saved... right?"
Harry heard an older girl with curly brown hair murmur before her body went limp, collapsing like a deflated puppet.
The rest of the students in the engine room also wore looks of ecstasy.
At the back of the group, color returned to Hermione Granger's snow-white face. Ron, who was only standing upright by leaning against a snake-like pipe, stopped trembling so violently. Even Neville, who had practically crawled into the engine room, began trying to stand up.
Harry heaved a huge sigh of relief himself!
Judging from the professor's words, he obviously had a way to stop this runaway express train from taking everyone to hell!
But—
When Harry turned his head to look out the observation window, his slightly relaxed face tensed up again!
The train was still speeding like lightning, and the scenery outside remained a blur... but some things were visible.
In the direction the steam engine was heading, under the dim sky, a massive object stood silently on the earth like a terrifying beast!
The train wasn't heading straight for the mountain, but its path was slightly off, seemingly intending to skirt around the side of it.
But that was where the problem lay!
Harry didn't know magic, and his science grades in Muggle school were mediocre at best, but he had at least some common sense!
"It's going to flip."
Harry's lips moved, his voice audible only to himself.
"Hurry up... Professor—if you're planning to do something..."
What Harry noticed was quickly picked up by the other students in the engine room—there was no avoiding it. The mountain was too big to ignore, and under the slanting light of the setting sun, the train had already entered its shadow.
Such intense speed combined with a sharp turning radius subjected the Hogwarts Express to unimaginable centrifugal force. The train was about to capsize...
The students in the engine room were the first to feel the train begin to tilt. They were pressed against the wall, unable to move!
A shrill, piercing scream instantly spread through the carriage. It was Hermione screaming:
"DO SOMETHING, PROFESSOR!!!"
The moment her voice fell—
CLANG!!!!!
---
Ares took a step into the twisted void. In the next second, he appeared on the train tracks under the shadow of the mountain.
Above, the sky was dyed with red clouds, glorious as blood!
In the ravine, the wind howled like the roar of gods and demons!
In the fierce wind, Ares's black hair danced wildly. He turned to face the Hogwarts Express a mile away.
It was less an out-of-control steam engine and more a giant beast roaring freely after breaking its bonds!
In the blink of an eye, the train had crossed half the distance, now only half a mile from Ares.
Ares's expression turned stern. Deep within his profound black pupils, two golden sparks faintly appeared... flickering like candlelight, yet clear and unextinguished amidst the intensifying roar of the airwaves!
There wasn't a perfect solution.
Ares took a deep breath.
Larry Gaspard's magic hadn't just dissolved all the defensive enchantments on the train and the spells ensuring passenger safety; it had also made the train uncontrollable, impossible to slow down by normal means.
There were indeed spells that could stop the train, but they couldn't negate the inertial force of the passengers inside... Hundreds of students in the carriages would be crushed into meat patties by the instantaneous force!
One thousand feet...
Eight hundred feet...
Five hundred feet...
Ares took a half-step back, held his breath, his gaze sharp as a knife.
Three hundred feet...
Two hundred feet...
He could almost hear the screams masked by the roaring noise.
One hundred feet!!!
Suddenly, Ares raised both hands and pressed them toward the engine face that was now right in front of him!
CLANG!
Following the massive, strange boom was an ear-splitting screech of grinding metal sharp enough to tear the world apart!
Ugh!
The sudden deceleration sent an unprepared Harry crashing headfirst into the dashboard. But he had no time to lament his bad luck. The ensuing screech made him... made everyone on the train instinctively cover their ears and curl up in pain!
Crack, crack, crack!
The piercing screech soon evolved into the crisp sound of thousands of pieces of glass shattering—still nauseating, but no longer as painful.
The train was slowing down!
Harry, collapsed under the control panel, could feel this clearly. He wiped his bloody face, struggling against the forces of deceleration and the turn, and slowly stood up.
Then, he understood where the sound of shattering glass was coming from.
He stared dumbfounded out the side of the train, lips moving, unable to find words to describe what he was seeing!
Countless pieces of "glass"... Harry knew it wasn't glass, of course, but he couldn't find a better adjective.
The space inside the tracks where the train was moving had turned into a massive, thick sheet of glass. The space outside the tracks was another sheet... Two infinitely thick crystal sheets were grinding against each other, sending countless shards flying!
So... it wasn't the train that was slowing down, but... the space the train occupied was slowing down???
Harry knew his description might be clumsy, but who could clearly describe a scene that looked like a miracle?!
The speed was stabilizing; moving around wasn't so difficult anymore.
Someone stumbled up behind him, holding onto the wall for support—it was Hermione Granger.
Hermione opened her mouth but made no sound. Her bright eyes were wide, staring straight ahead... Harry thought the blood on his face had scared her.
But soon, Harry realized Hermione's focus wasn't on him, but directly in front of the train. So, he turned his head to look!
Hiss!!!
Aside from sucking in a cold breath, Harry couldn't make any other reaction!
What was he seeing?!
There was a person in front of the train. It was... the professor from the last compartment!
"Oh my God..."
"Merlin's beard..."
"By the Gorgons..."
Harry heard many whispers behind him. Presumably, they had all discovered it.
Harry himself was muttering exclamations in gibberish. His green eyes bulged, his vision filled only with that unnamed professor.
The professor was floating about ten feet off the ground, body tense, sliding backward along with the space. His black hair and robe hems danced wildly in the gale.
He leaned forward, hands raised and pushing out, struggling with all his might to stop the Hogwarts Express. The space between his palms and the front of the engine was compressed into a high-purity crystal concave lens!
Slap!
In the dead silence, someone slapped themselves to check if they were in an absurd dream.
Neville Longbottom also came to the very front. Mouth agape, he stared blankly at the professor. After a long while, he slowly turned his face to look at the comically stunned Hermione, his lips moving.
"He can't be a scammer who sells fake medicine, Hermione."