The domain collision violently tore through space; everything within a radius of ten kilometers shattered, torn apart, crushed, and exploded.
It resembled the explosion of a nuclear bomb; a magnitude 10.1 earthquake spread from the epicenter.
Fortunately, Asterion was within Rose's Domain Expansion, so he was unaffected; otherwise, he would have turned into a seasoned tomato sauce with his internal organs.
Rose, sensing the collision, smiled with a crazed grin and infused even more magical energy into the domain expansion. When it came to magical energy, she was proud to say she wasn't afraid of running out!
"Let's see who runs out of magical energy first," she exclaimed with an excited look.
Herpo began to sweat coldly at the sight; he hadn't expected his own words to turn against him. Asterion and Rose weren't underestimating him and Voldemort; it was he who was underestimating these thirteen-year-old kids.
They forced him to use his Domain Expansion only to defeat him more easily when he ran out of magical energy.
"Very well..." Herpo gritted his teeth and spoke. "I thought my arrogance had disappeared over two thousand years, but today I see that was not the case."
Feeling he could no longer bear the drain of the Domain Expansion, Herpo knew he had lost this battle but not the war.
Snapping his fingers, an explosion reverberated in the air; a specific part of Hogwarts had been blown up!
This made the victorious smile on Rose and Asterion's faces change dramatically.
Rose gradually retracted her Domain Expansion, and Herpo did the same.
Looking at Hogwarts, which had nearly a third destroyed in the explosion, Asterion glared coldly at Herpo. He gritted his teeth and spoke.
"You planted bombs in Hogwarts!"
"Coward!" Rose glared at Herpo with fury, but she didn't move. Who knew how many bombs he had planted in Hogwarts? If they exploded, all the students inside would likely die.
"Do you remember when I appeared in front of you in the cafeteria?" Herpo didn't care about being called a coward. "Before that, I took a stroll through certain places in Hogwarts, leaving some gifts in those specific places."
"Could you kindly remove the barrier around that space?" Herpo spoke with a gentle smile. Seeing the grim faces of Asterion and Rose made him feel that all the anger and punches he had endured today were worth it, especially after gathering countless pieces of information about Rose.
Rose clenched her teeth and closed her hand tightly.
Herpo's face remained indifferent as he felt the space around him compressed. If she continued to compress the space, this body would die.
Considering the consequences of continuing, Rose opened her hand; her blue eyes practically gleamed with the anger she was feeling at that moment.
Feeling the space return to normal, Herpo's lips curved into a gentle smile, and without any hesitation, he apparated away. Today was a truly relevant day for his future plan. He not only gathered enough information about Rose but also about Asterion, especially the pale monster that could adapt to any attack and action.
Voldemort, who was still trying to kill Mahoraga, felt the confinement in space disappear. He apparated away without hesitation, leaving a still-living Mahoraga, although already adapted to his Domain Expansion.
Another loud pop, similar to a car's exhaust, sounded not too far away, making Asterion's face even darker.
Herpo and Voldemort had fled!
Rose was also not happy at this moment.
Today, she learned that you shouldn't let your guard down until the opponent is dead, especially with opponents as cunning as these.
Rose and Asterion exchanged glances and vowed to themselves that when they next encountered Herpo and Voldemort, they would kill them as quickly as possible.
Suddenly, the faces of Asterion and Rose became solemn as they looked towards the barriers where Dumbledore and Grindelwald were fighting.
Even at this distance, the heat wave spread, causing the grass still alive after so many battles to burst into flames instantly..
"This war is over." Sensing Grindelwald's magical aura disappear, Asterion murmured, though obviously he didn't think Grindelwald had died. Killing a powerful seer was incredibly difficult.
As expected, a serious-looking Dumbledore emerged from the barrier and walked towards them with firm steps.
The man seemed in perfect condition, but both Rose and Asterion noticed that his face had a sickly pale tone. Obviously, he had been injured during the fight against Grindelwald, but to avoid causing panic or fear in England, the man had to remain strong and intact.
Looking at the devastated terrain around Hogwarts, as if a war had occurred, Dumbledore's eyes grew cold, especially seeing the ruins of Hogwarts atop the hill.
This was his home, which he would give his life to keep safe. Seeing it in this state deeply hurt his heart.
His pale blue eyes then focused on Rose and Asterion. His gaze softened, and he spoke. "Well done, Rose and Asterion. If it weren't for you, Hogwarts would have been destroyed, and the students would have died."
"No need to thank us; they mainly attacked me, I just retaliated." Rose shook her head, her tone slightly guilty.
In her eyes, all this destruction and death were caused because of her. If she hadn't been at Hogwarts, none of this would have happened in the first place.
"Don't blame yourself, child. People kill each other for the stupidest reasons," Dumbledore said, his tone gentle and weary.
Asterion didn't want to talk to Dumbledore at the moment; he simply apparated to Hogwarts. He wanted to see how Daphne was after participating in a battle of this scale.
"At least we killed one of the Special Grade Wizards who invaded," Dumbledore remarked indifferently, watching the lifeless body of the Archbishop of the Aurora Society.
"It was Asterion's Cursed Spirit," Rose replied with a wavering gaze.
Seeing Asterion disappear, Rose showed a complicated look and turned her attention back to Dumbledore. Her eyes grew firm and determined, as if she had decided something important.
"I accept your proposal," she said, looking at Dumbledore, her voice as serious as it could be.
Dumbledore's lips curved into a gentle and genuinely happy smile.
He had found a successor!
-
Looking at Vinda Rosier holding a black box in her hands, a smile appeared on Aurelius's lips.
Raising his arm, Aurelius clenched his fist, signaling to all his comrades.
"The pure world is coming, Minerva." Then, Aurelius apparated away, followed by all of Grindelwald's acolytes.
Before Minerva could respond, in the next moment, she saw a boy with black hair and red eyes appearing in the middle of the battlefield.
With a simple movement from him, all the fanatics of the Aurora Society had their bodies torn apart by a huge crimson serpent that emerged from a dark portal beside him. Red blood from dozens of people splattered across the ground and walls of the courtyard, blood and organs painting the scene like a painting worthy of being depicted in hell.
The teachers were indifferent to this scene, but the students, both older and younger, all showed disgusted expressions; some vomited up everything they had eaten today.
Covered in blood, Asterion walked up to the blonde teenager and held her face, looking directly into her eyes.
"You did very well, Daphne," Asterion said with a satisfied smile on his lips.
Daphne nodded and remained silent; she had killed at least five people today. Although trained to kill without hesitation, she was still processing that she had taken five human lives.
Asterion naturally knew what Daphne was feeling at the moment. He wasn't a psychopath who felt nothing when killing; he felt the weight of every person whose life he took. But he killed those dozens of people in an instant not because he enjoyed killing, but out of necessity.
He would live with all those deaths until the end of his days, and if necessary, he would answer for each death.
After a while, Daphne recovered from the emotion of killing and looked at Asterion with concern.
"You're covered in blood," Daphne didn't mind the pungent smell of blood on his body. She used her thumb to try to wipe the blood off his cheek, although it only made things worse, spreading the blood even more.
Asterion laughed at her attempt and held her hand, kissing her fingers tenderly despite the blood staining them.
Suddenly, a teasing voice sounded beside them.
"You only care about your little girlfriend, Asty!"
Asterion looked at Tracey as she approached him. The girl had a pale face, though she still teased him, showing that she had a good mindset despite the bloody scene earlier.
"Yeah, yeah, we're your friends too," Theodoro approached with Zabini beside him.
Even Draco and Dorea approached Asterion; any resentment they had towards him seemed to have vanished at that moment. Both twins looked tired and quiet but much more mature after experiencing something like this.
"Seven Special Grade Wizards fought at Hogwarts today; one died, and the other three fled," Asterion said, looking at them as he spoke about the details of the war.
Asterion didn't hold back, and his voice was heard by everyone in the courtyard.
The teachers fell silent; they knew Special Grade Wizards were fighting outside, but they didn't expect there to be seven!
And a Special Grade Wizard had died!
-------------------------------
Support me to write more and read chapters ahead of all regular readers!
P-atreon.com/HPSCB
(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)
My new fanfic > Mythological Tales: Ruler of the Golden Order.
Next Chapter: Chapter 80 - Heir of Salazar Slytherin (1), Chapter 81 - Heir of Salazar Slytherin (2), Chapter 82 - Heir of Salazar Slytherin (3), Chapter 83 - Salazar's Heir Slytherin (4), Chapter 84 - Sequels, Chapter 85 - Civil War (1), 86 - Civil War (2), 87 - Civil War (3), 88 - Civil War (4), 89 - Civil War (5), Chapter 90 - Civil War (6), Chapter 91 - Battlefield (1), Chapter 92 - Battlefield (2), Chapter 93 – Conflicts on the Battlefield (1), Chapter 94 – Conflicts on the Battlefield (2), Chapter 95 - The War Intensifies (1), Chapter 96 - The War Intensifies (2), Chapter 97 - The Death of Voldemort (1), Chapter 98 - The Death of Voldemort (2) And end of the first volume.
Next Chapter Second Volume: Chapter 99 – Decision (1).
In the Forbidden Forest, Asterion observed the cave entrance with a calm gaze. It had been a week since the attack on Hogwarts. The incident became famous worldwide, known as the Seven Powers War. After all, it wasn't every day that seven special-grade wizards faced off in battle.
The tremors of the fight were felt in almost forty countries, with gigantic lights observed in the sky within a forty-kilometer radius. Some even assumed a nuclear war was happening. Which wasn't entirely far-fetched; each strike from a special-grade wizard was almost equivalent to a nuclear bomb.
Another thing was the Death of a special-grade wizard that shook the minds of many, especially in Italy, which had its only special-grade wizard killed! The identity of the Archbishop was soon discovered. Asterion watched with satisfaction as the Italians came to retrieve the dead body of their protector. They all displayed grim and ugly expressions, almost knowing they would have to pay an exorbitant price for damages caused in Hogwarts and foreign territory.
Asterion left these matters to the vultures of the Wizengamot, to gain more benefits and power. Those people were like hyenas seeking carrion to satisfy their hunger, never missing an opportunity to take another bite at the dying corpse.
But not everything was rosy. Hogwarts had twenty-one casualties in this short and deadly battle, all of whom were students, almost all from the Sixth and Seventh years. Asterion saw Dumbledore speaking with the parents of each student, delivering the cruel news that their sons and daughters would never return to them.
Some of these parents cried, others cursed, one mother even struck Dumbledore, but the old man remained unmoved as the mother's weak fists collided with his chest.
The atmosphere at Hogwarts that week was tense; all the students seemed on edge, as if expecting an attack at any moment. Fortunately, the expected attacks never came, gradually easing the tense atmosphere, and everyone returned to classes as best they could.
With the help of magic, Hogwarts was quickly rebuilt, after long hours of spellwork and repairing walls with Reparo. The world's most famous magical castle rose from ruins even stronger. Dumbledore was the main architect of the castle; he took advantage of the castle still being in the reconstruction phase and refurbished it, giving it a more modern and beautiful look, especially by reformulating and updating Hogwarts' defenses and adding others.
The Hogwarts Core was also successfully built thanks to the notes left by Rowena Ravenclaw. Her diaries about the core's construction were essential for the reconstruction of the new core, although the main crystal of the core had changed.
This week, Asterion sent all his cursed spirits specialized in surveillance, espionage, and probing towards the Forbidden Forest. He scoured every hole in that eerie forest.
And finally, after three long days, Asterion successfully located where the Chamber of Secrets had been moved by Voldemort. He didn't rush in carelessly; it was almost certain that Voldemort had left traps to prevent him from successfully reaching the heirloom's location, though these measures were somewhat futile against a special-grade wizard.
There were few things capable of claiming the life of a special-grade wizard, especially poisons. It would take a large enough dose to kill an elephant to even begin affecting the body of a special-grade wizard. But no one would stand still as a large dose of poison entered them, so there were few special-grade wizards who had died from poison throughout history.
Still, Asterion didn't enter the cave imprudently. He wouldn't risk his life for something as trivial as assumptions and data over a thousand years. So, like any person with a bit of intelligence, instead of entering the cave and taking unnecessary risks, Asterion sent dozens of cursed spirits of grade 4 and 3 to trigger all the traps so that he could enter the cave safely.
Voldemort would be disappointed if he saw how Asterion handled things. Asterion didn't act as he expected, behaving like a reckless and arrogant teenager because of his power.
Entering the cave, Asterion observed that what he thought was a cave, were enormous pipes capable of easily accommodating five people side by side. For a thousand years ago, Hogwarts indeed had pipes worthy of making Rome jealous.
As he traveled through the maze of pipes with a Lumos spell on the tip of his wand, Asterion noticed a long shadow standing in one of the corridors.
Approaching without fear, he raised his wand and the Lumos intensified. Then, Asterion saw the origin of the shadow—it was a colossal shed skin of a snake-like animal, but proportionally large, nearly forty meters long.
It stood a little over three meters tall, enough to eat anything, including humans.
It was the shed skin of the Basilisk; the movie really didn't convey the feeling of oppression, there was no feeling of oppression and terror seeing such a large monster — but it was entirely different to see it in person.
Of course, that was for ordinary people. Asterion, who possessed even more gigantic cursed spirits, remained unchanged in expression seeing the shed skin of the Basilisk.
But he had to admit, Harry was brave to face such a monster at thirteen years old, relying solely on physical strength without using a single spell. Not that it would have worked anyway; Herpo the Foul created the Basilisk to be almost immune to magical damage. There were few spells capable of killing an adult Basilisk.
But locating the shed skin of the serpent, the Black Heir knew he was close to the Chamber of Secrets.
Walking for a few more minutes, Asterion passed through a circular door and entered what seemed like a chamber. The floor was covered in smooth ceramic, majestic pillars supported the entire chamber, matte green details adorned the walls, and a long ceramic path crossed a lake suspiciously colored in mossy green.
At the end of the path, a huge face that Asterion presumed to be Salazar Slytherin's, stared at visitors with a cold and arrogant look. Suddenly, Asterion noticed a rancid and putrid smell in the air, a hissing sound reverberated, dangerously echoing in the shadows.
The sound of something heavy dragging reached Asterion's ears; he didn't need to be a genius to know that the Basilisk was approaching. If possible, Asterion didn't want to kill the Basilisk; after all, the serpent could petrify anything, including special-grade wizards! It was a great weapon to catch his future enemies off guard.
But to conquer the serpent, one had to be a Parseltongue, that is, to speak the language of snakes. This Asterion didn't know if he had, as he tried and never succeeded in speaking it. This indicated that he didn't possess the talent for speaking with snakes, like his ancestor – Salazar Slytherin.
Asterion hoped that a moment of stress would awaken this hidden talent. Otherwise, unfortunately, the Basilisk would have to go to the snake heavens.
Then, Asterion heard the sound of heavy stones moving; he saw the mouth of Salazar's face opening, and from it emerged a long greenish serpent with backward-pointing horns. The yellow eyes seemed half-closed, almost as if the serpent had just woken up.
Anyone would be upset at being awakened, let alone a huge serpent just roused from a sleep of over fifty years and hungry. This was bad news for Asterion, who wanted a new exotic pet, like those rich people in Los Angeles.
But he wouldn't give up; having a Basilisk as a pet was something he wanted, and he would have it, even if he had to teach this ancient serpent a harsh life lesson.
Strength was always the most civilized dialogue in the world!
------------------------
Support me to write more and read chapters ahead of all regular readers!
P-atreon.com/HPSCB
(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)
My new fanfic > Mythological Tales: Ruler of the Golden Order.
Next Chapter: Chapter 81 - Heir of Salazar Slytherin (2), Chapter 82 - Heir of Salazar Slytherin (3), Chapter 83 - Salazar's Heir Slytherin (4), Chapter 84 - Sequels, Chapter 85 - Civil War (1), 86 - Civil War (2), 87 - Civil War (3), 88 - Civil War (4), 89 - Civil War (5), Chapter 90 - Civil War (6), Chapter 91 - Battlefield (1), Chapter 92 - Battlefield (2), Chapter 93 – Conflicts on the Battlefield (1), Chapter 94 – Conflicts on the Battlefield (2), Chapter 95 - The War Intensifies (1), Chapter 96 - The War Intensifies (2), Chapter 97 - The Death of Voldemort (1), Chapter 98 - The Death of Voldemort (2) And end of the first volume.
Next Chapter Second Volume: Chapter 99 – Decision (1), Chapter 100 – Decision (2), Chapter 101 – Decision (3).
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