Poveglia Island was collapsing.
Muggle tourists could only see a thunderstorm in the distance, but in areas beyond their notice, hurricanes and thunder carved meters-deep trenches in the earth, and waves of fiery flames churned, turning the ground into scorched earth.
Among the crackling electric light, small crow antennas constantly emitted death rays, which were quickly scattered by tornadoes formed from seawater.
Walls sculpted by spells, only to be destroyed by other spells, stood between the combatants, with countless magics intersecting in the air, the flashes of light and electrical fire were blinding, and the explosions deafening.
It was a battle of just four people, yet it seemed as though a war had erupted.
The fight had been going on for over ten minutes. The shaman's magic limited the effectiveness of ordinary spells in this environment, weakening Dumbledore and Grindelwald's power. However, Dumbledore's combat style didn't require much magical support; he used transfiguration to turn the ground into walls, shields, swords, spears, even whips to entangle his enemies, and cages to trap them.
He also varied the seawater at his command, using it to scatter crow antennas, block Murphy's attacks, and shield against Murphy's thunder and Grindelwald's fierce fire.
Compared to Dumbledore's defensive and supportive combat style, Grindelwald was much more straightforward. His mastery of Fiendfyre pushed Murphy's crow antennas to scatter as electric light several times, and he seemed to always predict Murphy's attack position at critical moments, thus avoiding several near-death crises for both himself and Dumbledore.
Still, their magical power was nearing its limit. Without their seamless cooperation, they might have already fallen.
Murphy was also struggling.
His setup was originally designed for a two-on-one against Dumbledore. Now with Grindelwald added, the power gap was bridged. He thought he could rely on his strong physical strength and lightning-fast speed in his transformed state to launch physical attacks and catch them off guard.
He was indeed close to snapping Dumbledore's neck and had once shot several feathers through Grindelwald's shoulder.
But that was all.
Maxim the Great Shaman wasn't adept at combat, only providing battlefield control buffs from afar, suppressing the opponents' magical abilities, and occasionally throwing in a few elemental spirits to assist in the fight.
The frontal battle was basically Murphy against two, and even with the support of the Great Shaman in his transformed state, it was difficult for him to kill his opponents given their coordinated efforts.
Dumbledore's control over various elements seemed effortless, and Murphy's speed was so fast it was impossible for the human eye to react, but Dumbledore's surrounding water and rocks still seemed to defend autonomously as if they had their own consciousness.
Grindelwald's peculiar precognitive ability made even Murphy's feints ineffective, forcing Murphy to maintain a full offensive stance. Though he kept pressuring them, he couldn't inflict further damage under their cooperation.
Moreover, as the transformation continued, the discomfort in his body was growing exponentially.
He now felt his condition was not merely physiological but more like a curse—a balance between his power and life force, as Nicolae had said, life and magic cannot coexist.
Continuing this way, even if he drained both of their magic, he would be severely ill.
Just as he was preparing to drain the "batteries" through the mental network for another round of intense computation to increase the crow antennas' attack frequency several times.
Suddenly, he perceived an unusual fluctuation.
A voice seemed to come from a great distance, intermittent and unclear, as if blocked by something, but Murphy still discerned some information. The fluctuation seemed to come from a few crows he left in Arkaim.
It was then he suddenly realized all his crows in the Soviet had lost contact.
In the heat of battle, he hadn't noticed this detail, but now a sense of unease surged within him.
What was happening? The Holy Wall shouldn't block the mental network.
As he pondered, a roar from Maxim the Great Shaman came from above, "The Ancestral Burial Chambers!"
He descended on his giant eagle, forcing Murphy to halt his attack.
"Murphy! Arkaim is under attack! It's a trap! I must return!"
Murphy was stunned, immediately recalling the priest seen in Nurmengard.
The Holy Mother hadn't appeared here but had attacked Arkaim while he borrowed the Holy Wall?
But why? Simply to stop him from using the Soviet witches for the National Laboratory Project? If so, it would have been easier to attack the Soviet government directly.
Arkaim was possibly the city with the most wizards in the world, almost the largest magical force. Unless all the world's wizards united, Murphy couldn't see how it could be breached.
The forces the Holy Mother needed to mobilize for such an attack were unimaginable. If it had that much power, why not kill him directly instead of resorting to such a roundabout plan?
No, perhaps the Holy Mother's action wasn't aimed at him at all.
After all, Murphy didn't know the Holy Mother's purpose or why it opposed him, not even what it was or if it was anything at all.
But now wasn't the time to ponder these questions. He sighed, looking at the somewhat battered Dumbledore and Grindelwald, realizing he no longer had a chance to kill them.
"We're leaving."
The next instant, the transparent dome was retracted, returning to Maxim's hands as a vase-shaped object.
Then, they vanished from the island.
Grindelwald breathed a sigh of relief, feeling as if he had escaped from death.
Then he frowned, his left shoulder pierced by several lightning feathers. Fortunately, the electric light cauterized the wounds, so he didn't bleed much.
"Use this," Dumbledore handed him a potion, "Cloud Misting Elixir? Isn't this..."
"Yes, made by Murphy, the medicinal version, highly concentrated, more effective than ordinary Dittany," Dumbledore said with a complex expression. "The French Ministry of Magic left these after investigating the local Umbrella Corporation, gave me a few bottles."
Grindelwald raised an eyebrow, poured the potion on his wound, and soon his arm regained sensation.
Dumbledore looked at the ravaged ground; Old Harry Rock was completely collapsed. In fact, the coastline retreated tens of meters backward, the white chalk cliffs shattered by the terrifying magic and fell into the sea.
Grindelwald sighed, "It seems difficult for us to kill him alone. He almost killed us. The wizard said it was a trap, that's why he left. What do you think, Albus?"
Dumbledore pondered for a while, "We were used, Gellert."
"We were bait, but now I don't know who the real target is."
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