Chapter 195: Battle in the Sunken Vault
The death eater took a step forward, surveying the room and the remains of the cursed core. When his gaze settled on James and company, the tension in the room intensified.
"Looks like we've arrived just in time," the Death Eater's voice said in a cold, calm tone.
"How did you find the entrance? Your minions shouldn't have gotten information," James said, speaking for the first time. By minions, he meant Lucius and the other students, who were following the Death Eater's orders.
"Oh, you don't seem very nervous," the Death Eater commented with some amusement and curiosity, watching James. The boy who had so many incredible rumors and feats behind him.
The death eater watched Sirius and the others, and they looked tense. Very different from James, who kept a calm expression. However, that didn't mean he wasn't nervous at such a prospect.
"Lucius and the others left a lot to be desired. It took them a while to find what we asked for, but in the end, they succeeded," the death eater said. From what Lucius informed him of their defeats against James and company, the Death Eater deduced that James and the others knew of someone wanting to find the vaults.
"You may wonder how they did it, when not even once did they manage to beat you and take information from you. That's thanks to you guys happily going off on the fourteenth of February to have fun on Valentine's Day," added the death eater with a faint smile behind his mask.
'Valentine's Day,' thought James, clicking his tongue internally. He already knew his mistake.
They left his dormitory unprotected. Lucius and someone else must have infiltrated the Gryffindor common room and pilfered his dormitory. Where they had the information about the vault and so on.
How did they manage to infiltrate another house's common room? There were several ways James could think of. Especially if you were a talented sixth-form student like Lucius.
James, Lupin, and Sirius infiltrated the Slytherin room in the first year. Others could do the same. It wasn't an impossible feat.
"If they stole the information from our dormitory, why the masks? Professor Eustace, Ivan, Victor, and Volker," James commented with a slight smile. He would at least try to rattle these dark wizards a bit.
The four dark wizards only growled coldly. They didn't like at all that their identities had been exposed. It was better to be hidden.
"Haha, the rumors don't exaggerate, James Potter! You are different from wizards your age and above. Not even Lucius is your equal," the death eater laughed.
James did not respond. He scanned the room. He was looking for objects to use as weapons with his telekinesis. However, the room was spotless. There were no stones, no vines, nothing.
If he took out his wallet, it would take him a while to pull out a weapon for combat, and when he was doing so, he would be attacked by the five adult mages.
'Best to use telekinesis like against the Grindylow or the centaur,' thought James.
"A great pity! With your talents, you would make a great companion. However, your ideals are very different from ours. For that reason, the Dark Lord wants your head," said the death eater, shaking his head.
Everyone, including James, was shocked at this statement. The Dark Lord, the person causing all the chaos in the British community, had taken notice of James with no favorable motives.
"Oh, I shouldn't have said that," said the death eater. "Well, never mind. The Shafiq girl and the smaller Black boy, come here. We won't hurt them," he added, moving on to the next topic.
Gwen and Regulus were surprised by this order, but they did not obey. The last thing they would do would be to follow this person.
The death eater was doing this because Regulus and Gwen were children of important families, and from the information he had, they were both supremacists. Although Gwen was known to be close to James, it would not be good for her to die. She is the only daughter of the Shafiqs, two death eaters. Marcellus is a powerful wizard; they don't want to turn him against them.
As for Regulus, he is the Black's son who will inherit the position of leader of the family. Although Sirius is older, everyone knows he is a black sheep. Pro-muggle and against supremacist ideals. As for Regulus, he is the perfect heir. They can't kill him under any circumstances. It would be very bad to have the Blacks against them, especially Regulus' side of the family.
He didn't know why Regulus would cooperate with James when they were supposed to have very different ideals. He would have to look into that later.
"Teenagers are tricky... Well, what's the difference," the death eater said as he saw Regulus and Gwen not even responding and giving him unfriendly looks.
"Well, you know, don't hurt those two-
As the Death Eater was about to finish his sentence, a large amount of smoke came out of James' wand and covered the room within seconds.
"It's no use!" growled Eustace angrily, casting a Ventus that dispelled all the smoke quickly, but James bought the time he needed. He had placed several weapons on the floor. Ready to be used.
Even a sword was already headed for the neck of the death eater, who quickly defended himself with a Protego that repulsed the blade.
"Oh, that was a good attack. Two spells nonverbally at a great speed" praised the death eater, unnerved at facing teenagers.
For the death eater, James used a Leviosa Wingardium nonverbally to send the sword flying at him.
'Incendio!' thought Snape, waving his wand at one of the dark wizards. Since they weren't paying attention to him, the best thing to do was to attack them. The best way was to conjure a fire that could become dangerous because of its temperature. On the other hand, spells like Expelliarmus or Immobulus are unlikely to reach their destination. With a simple non-verbal protego, they would defend against it.
Sirius, Lupin, and Gwen also acted and launched one Incendio after another. A similar attack to the one they performed against the forest troll.
Two jets of water shot out of Ivan and Victor's wands and extinguished the joint fire of Gwen, Snape, Sirius, and Lupin. That was not all. The water jets continued their march until they hit the four of them, drenching them and pushing them back several feet.
'Shit,' Sirius thought with a sore back, quickly scrambling to his feet. He didn't think there would be that much difference in power between the adult wizards. The other disadvantage was that they had to shout their spells, and that made it easier to counter them.
'Murum Faber!' thought James, waving his wand as fast as he could. He pointed it at the cobblestone floor.
As his spell hit, a selected area of the ground began to rise, rearranging itself into layers that formed a stone wall separating them from the dark wizards.
The wall rose just in time to block the spells Eustace and Volker had cast at Sirius and company.
"Nice transfiguration spell, but it's not enough!" exclaimed the death eater as an orange flash shot from his wand.
The flash hit the makeshift stone wall, setting off a powerful explosion that demolished the wall without difficulty. Fragments of stone flew everywhere. James managed to roll a moment earlier, but several stones grazed him, leaving small cuts all over his body. The same was true for the others. Except for those who had been pushed by the water jets.
The one in the worst condition was Peter. He was lying on the ground, hiding his head in his hands, shivering. Toby managed to get Peter to stand up and move. Luckily, they were not being targeted.
"Resistance is futile," the death eater said in a cold tone and with a smirk, seeing the stupid resistance these students were putting up.
"If they want to die a painless death, hand over the treasures. I will give them a painless death, and then the Dark Mark appears to let everyone know that Death Eaters get everywhere. There is no place that the hand of our lord will not reach," he added in an eloquent tone.
'I'll kill his friends first,' Eustace thought hatefully. He did not want to kill James so easily. He knew he cared deeply for his friends. As the death eater spoke, he attacked Sirius by throwing a Bombarda Maxima nonverbally.
Sirius, who was paying attention to the Death Eater's ramblings, turned his head and looked at the orange flash with an ugly expression. Luckily for him, a second before he was hit, a wind pushed him over, making him stumble, but safely.
BOOM!
The flash hit one of the walls of the room, causing a huge explosion that shook the whole place.
Snape sighed in relief when he saw that the blast missed its target. His Ventus arrived just in time to push Sirius away.
'Tsch, Bombarda Maxima!' thought Eustace, casting the same spell again; this time his target was Lupin, who luckily had already noticed this wizard's malicious intentions and managed to dodge the spell by ducking at the last moment.
BOOM!
'This shit is dangerous,' thought Lupin, feeling his heart beating a mile a minute. He watched as the flash grazed his hair. He came within an inch of taking a full blast to the face.
"Hey, calm down!" shouted the death eater towards Eustace. The room was shaking; several pieces of stone and dirt fell from the ceiling. They were in a bloody cave under a huge lake. He didn't want to be crushed to death.
James wasted no time. He reached out his hand towards the five enemies, concentrating all his energy. A tremor of pure telekinetic force emerged from his palm, an invisible wave that swept everything in its path. The same energy he had used to confront the Erklings was now unleashed with unrelenting fury.
The dark wizards barely had time to register the change in the air before they were struck by the telekinetic wave. It was as if a colossal beast was ramming them with all its wrath. They were thrown through the air like rag dolls, crashing violently against the cold stone wall.
Without giving them time to recover, James waved his wand with determination and shouted at the top of his lungs, "INCENDIO!"
A gargantuan fireball erupted from the tip of his wand, advancing with ferocious speed. The sphere of flame headed straight for the five wizards, who were lying on the floor against the wall. Upon reaching its target, the fireball exploded in a devastating eruption, engulfing the enemies in a column of infernal flames. The flames devoured the air, creating a wave of searing heat that filled the cave with a hellish roar.
When the fire finally dissipated, James showed no mercy. Among the clouds of smoke and ash, he saw a figure still faintly moving.
Without wasting any time, James used one of the swords he had previously taken from his wallet. The sword rose from the ground and flew with great speed towards its target.
Victor, the dark mage targeted by the sword, saw a shadow floating towards him at high speed. He could not discern well because of the ashes and dust generated by the explosion.
The man wanted to move his wand to cast a Protego, but his movement was slow because of the injury suffered seconds ago. The blade slammed into his stomach, piercing him and pinning him against the wall behind him.
'What the hell was that attack?' thought the death eater, casting a Ventus to dispel the cloud of black smoke created by the fiery explosion. He was a little surprised by the sheer power of James' Incendio, but that didn't worry him much.
The fire barely burned a part of his tunic. What hurt him the most was the invisible force that engulfed him and sent him flying. He barely had time to see the change in the air. He was indeed distracted by Eustace, but it would have been difficult to defend himself from that attack that was barely visible. There was only a slight perception in the air. The bad thing is that he did not see what James did. If he moved his wand or what exactly he did.
When the Ventus cleared the air, the dark wizards, including the death eater, were surprised to see Victor with a sword stuck in his stomach in agony.
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