Staring at the small black gemstone door that was slowly opening, Long and the others turned pale, every hair on their bodies standing on end.
It was a kind of indescribable fear, one that came straight from the marrow.
Don't think that just because they were here to kill Grindelwald this time, they weren't afraid. Deep down, they still held extreme wariness and terror toward him.
They were afraid of what dangerous thing might be seen behind that black gemstone door.
They were also afraid that, once the door opened, they might have to face Grindelwald himself without any preparation at all.
Yet when that small door finally opened, what appeared before them was not what they expected, but instead a narrow, dark passageway stretching inward.
Two small lizards that looked somewhat like geckos, covered in armor-like sharp spiked scales, were slowly crawling along that passage toward the square.
Long and the others stared blankly at the two lizards. After quite a while, they finally let out a long breath and relaxed, they couldn't sense even the slightest trace of danger from those strange-looking creatures.
Then, a sharp, grating laugh came from Beckman.
Beckman laughed hysterically, as if mocking the cowardice and weakness of the scoundrels before him.
"Shut your mouth! You damned bastard!"
Old Hartmann viciously pressed his wand against Beckman's forehead, his expression twisted and ferocious.
Not far away, both Long and young Schwartz glared at Beckman with rage.
If it hadn't been for Beckman's earlier scare tactics, they would never have acted so shamefully. And now, Beckman still dared to laugh at them?
The green light at the tip of old Hartmann's wand began to gather, growing stronger and denser, just like the murderous intent surging in his heart.
At that moment, he truly wanted to kill Beckman right then and there.
After all, they'd already come this far; it wouldn't be difficult to find some excuse later to explain Beckman's death.
Besides, they might even be able to compete with that Link Flamel for a share of the Beckman family estate.
But just as Hartmann steeled himself to strike, Long pressed down on his wand and stopped him.
"Killing him would be a waste."
He pointed toward the dark passageway. "Let him be useful one last time, have him go ahead and scout the way for us."
"At a time like this, you still want to use him as a pathfinder?" Hartmann roared in disbelief.
"Didn't you see what happened every time we sent him to scout before? There's something strange about this old man! He clearly knows all the traps and mechanisms here, but he never says anything, he's deliberately using them to drain our strength!"
Long ignored Hartmann's furious shouting. He stared fixedly into the darkness of the corridor and spoke in a trembling voice,
"My spiritual power is far stronger than any of yours, so my sense for mysterious omens is also sharper."
"And that strange dark corridor, it gives me a very bad feeling. I can't explain it, but I can tell you for certain that, unless someone scouts ahead, I'm absolutely unwilling to go in myself."
Long leaned closer to Hartmann. "Now, I won't go first, and Beckman can't go scout either. So tell me, who do you think should go first?"
"You? Young Schwartz? Or perhaps those expendable underlings you brought?"
At those words, both Hartmann and Schwartz's gazes flickered.
The two surviving Hartmann family wizards, who had been ready to step in and help when they saw Long's attitude toward Hartmann, now went pale. They raised their wands defensively and began to back away.
They understood very well, they were the best candidates for scouts. After all, as Long said, they were cannon fodder.
Hartmann's face turned very ugly. He understood perfectly well, Long's long speech was meant to push him into sending his two remaining men to die as scouts.
Yet Long refused to say it directly, acting as if, "I never said that, it was your own idea."
It was disgusting.
These two were his last and strongest subordinates. Though not particularly loyal, with the Imperius Curse he could still force them to obey. But damn it, why was it that everyone dying along the way belonged to his family?
For a moment, Hartmann felt deeply unbalanced.
He glared fiercely at Long, outwardly angry at his words, but inwardly already calculating how to use the deaths of these people to secure himself a greater share of the rewards from this operation.
"I'd say, you might not need to think about sending scouts anymore."
Beckman's sudden voice broke Hartmann's thoughts. Everyone turned to look at him in confusion.
"After all," Beckman said with a laugh, "you're all going to die here today anyway. What's the point of discussing it?"
Ignoring the wand once again pointed at him by Hartmann, Beckman smiled and gestured toward one direction with his chin.
In the strange tension that followed, Long and the others turned simultaneously to look where he was pointing.
There, they saw the two surviving Hartmann family wizards who had been quietly edging toward the square's exit, along with the two small lizards at their feet.
The two wizards seemed completely unaware of the creatures by their boots. When they noticed Long and the others looking their way, they grew nervous and raised their wands.
The two lizards, however, seemed fascinated by the boots, tilting their almost cute little heads for a moment, then swiftly crawled up and wriggled right into the wizards' pant legs.
Next came a scene so horrifying it made everyone's scalp tingle.
The pant legs where the lizards had disappeared began to swell, glowing from within with an orange-red light. Even more horrifying, that glow and swelling were rapidly spreading across the wizards' bodies at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Only now did the two wizards realize something was terribly wrong.
They screamed frantically, trying potions and all kinds of spells to halt the spreading glow, but it was useless.
Despair completely drove them mad. They began lashing out wildly at everything around them.
But soon, as the excruciating pain overwhelmed them, all they could do was roll and shriek on the ground.
Finally, as their screams faded, the horror reached its end.
Now, they had turned into two swollen, human-shaped balloons glowing with violent orange-red light from within.
Through their semi-transparent skin, everyone could clearly see that all their flesh and blood had turned into that same orange-red, glowing substance.
And the two strange little lizards were now swimming contentedly inside that glowing mass, feeding.
"W–what the hell are those things…" muttered young Schwartz blankly.
He was really starting to regret coming into Nurmengard.
Unlike Hartmann or Long, he had never worked for Grindelwald. He didn't carry those deep sins.
Old Hartmann looked even worse, he could barely speak, stammering out, "H-hey, those things… they look like they're getting bigger!"
At his words, Schwartz finally noticed it too. As the lizards kept devouring the orange material, their bodies were visibly swelling larger and larger.
Long's eyes narrowed. Without hesitation, he fired off a crimson Explosive Curse that blasted through the two human-shaped balloons.
A flood of orange-red liquid spilled out from the ruptured corpses, and the two lizards, now noticeably larger, tumbled out with it.
"Graaah!"
Interrupted mid-meal, the lizards screeched at them angrily, in a surprisingly cute voice.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Having witnessed their feeding earlier, Long's subordinates showed no mercy, immediately firing Killing Curses.
At the same time, Hartmann and Schwartz finally snapped out of their shock and joined the attack, raising their wands.
But to their shock, the lizards didn't even try to dodge the deadly spells. And when the curses hit, they had no effect, just a burst of orange-red light mixed with the spell's hue, which faded away instantly.
It was as if the lizards had absorbed the magic.
The attacks hadn't hurt them, but they had definitely enraged them.
Before everyone's terrified eyes, the lizards began to expand at an incredible speed, growing into two monstrous, dragon-shaped creatures dozens of meters tall.
"GRAAAH!"
Their roars thundered again, but now, there was nothing cute about them.
What followed was a storm of tail whips, bites, and claw strikes. The claws and teeth glowed with orange-red light, and it was clear that anyone struck by them would end up just like those two pitiful Hartmann wizards, turned into orange-red human balloons.
"Expelliarmus! Protego Maxima! Repello! Avada Kedavra!"
Long truly lived up to his reputation as the group's combat expert.
In his rapid, slurred incantations, countless spells shot from his wand, constantly restraining the monsters' movements and buying time to dodge.
Hartmann and Schwartz followed his example.
Though they couldn't fight as fluidly as Long, they still took advantage of the opportunities he created.
Soon, the entire square was filled with flashing spelllight and the monsters' furious roars, it was chaos.
Meanwhile, outside the door through which Long and the others had entered, Link and his group were calmly watching everything unfold through a Clairvoyant Charm.
"Another new kind of hybrid magical creature, and such a powerful one too. It seems Grindelwald had quite the talent for forbidden bloodline fusion," Link remarked, watching as one of the dragon-like lizards smacked Long, shield fully raised, straight into a wall with its tail.
"Indeed. These two monsters clearly carry the blood of fire dragons, poison-horned rhinos, fire salamanders, and a few other unknown magical beasts. And that dementor-like creature earlier was also impressive," Krell nodded.
"We'd better try to capture at least two of them alive later. It'd do wonders for our magical creature research."
Hearing his eager tone, the hunters behind him exchanged looks, faces pale. They had just seen what those lizards could do. And now he wanted them to catch one alive?
Snape didn't look pleased either. He jerked his chin toward the doorway. "I don't think this is the time for that talk. Link, your grandfather's about to die."
Link froze, then turned toward the scene Snape indicated.
Sure enough, under the lizards' relentless assault, Long was beginning to falter. He blasted Hartmann and Schwartz away with a wave of his hand, using them as distractions, then sprinted desperately toward the exit where Link and the others stood watching.
But at that moment, Beckman moved.
His wand had long been taken from him by Hartmann's group, yet he lunged forward, grabbing Long's leg and using his own body to stop him from escaping.
"Damn it! Beckman, are you insane?! You'll die too!"
Long roared, flinging him off balance. As he scrambled up, green light flashed from his wand, he didn't hesitate, pointing it straight at Beckman.
But facing death, Beckman only smiled brilliantly and caught Long's wand hand tightly.
"Heh. I told you, you're all going to die here today."
The two struggled fiercely.
"Oh! That coward Beckman's actually showing some courage for once!" Krell said in surprise.
Then, with a sly grin toward Link, he added, "Heh, young master, since Beckman's so eager to die, why not grant his wish? The Unbreakable Vow's already signed, his family's basically ours now. Once the old man dies, you inherit everything!"
Snape's brow twitched slightly, and he turned to glance at Link.
That tiny gesture didn't escape Link's perception, his heightened sensing spell was already at level five.
Feeling the inquisitive look from Snape, Link shook his head expressionlessly.
Even aside from maintaining the good impression Snape had of him, he couldn't let Beckman die here.
After all, Durmstrang was still waiting for Beckman to take up a professorship there.
"Come on. Let's go in and finish this."
Link said calmly, pushing open the stone door and stepping inside.
Behind him, the Flamel family hunters, long eager for action, let out excited, furious roars.
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
[email protected]/AmbitiousTranslator
🥳Joining P@treon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰 You can access upto 20 advance chapter through P@treon.