At Hogwarts, in the Quidditch Stadium.
All the wizards and witches were in complete silence watching the exorcism of a Special Grade Wizard. Whether man, woman, child or elderly, all eyes were fixed on a single screen, all other fights completely overshadowed by the scene before them.
Seeing the explosion that could easily destroy a city, they all had the same question in their minds.
Can humans really fight against a being capable of destroying entire cities with one attack?
How had they survived after so long?
Their answer came in the form of a black-haired, red-eyed boy, under their watchful eyes, the Special Grade Cursed Spirit was completely beaten without being able to fight back. A being they had assumed to be invincible was killed as if he were no different from any other Cursed Spirit. Destroyed, torn apart and devoured as if it were nothing more than an insignificant being.
"Damn, is that what my nephew fights?" Sirius spoke with a completely shocked tone, it wasn't just him who was shocked, Narcissa and Andromeda were equally shocked at the power of the Cursed Spirit.
Although Narcissa had witnessed Asterion and Voldemort's fight, she had only seen the attacks when both sides weren't focused on causing destruction, but on causing damage to each other, so seeing such destruction still caused a shock to the former Lady Malfoy.
Knowing that Asterion was fighting these monsters and returning home calmly after his missions made Narcissa frown. She felt a little guilty for not seeing that he might be tired after the whole mission.
Not that she didn't before, but since Asterion was always so relaxed after missions, she assumed it was an easy mission, so she never did anything to make him relax after a mission. Now it seems she was wrong.
Ophelia, Gina and Astoria looked at the screen with wide eyes full of admiration for Asterion, unlike the adults, the three of them were amazed at the strength Asterion showed, especially when he summoned the gigantic dog with hundreds of eyes, which swallowed the Cursed Spirit's attacks.
"Incredible." Astoria spoke with an extremely bright look of admiration, how could she not, everyone admired the strong, it was something natural in the world and even stronger in the Wizarding World where death was not a rare occurrence in missions to exorcise cursed spirits.
Gina and Ophelia agreed with Astoria's words, it was a side of Asterion they hadn't seen before. Staying close to Asterion while he relaxed and chatted casually with them made people forget that he was a Special Grade Wizard, the pinnacle of humanity.
The state of wonder and awe was not exclusive to the three girls, the whole of Slytherin was equally full of admiration, they respected strength above all else and Asterion embodied everything the English Nobility wanted, a powerful English nobleman.
However, Daphne was more upset than surprised, instead of watching in awe, she wanted to be by his side fighting this kind of monster, especially after seeing the horrible injuries he had suffered. Seeing Asterion's condition like that made her almost cry and want to run and hug him.
Even after she had recovered in an instant, she still couldn't get the image of Asterion so badly injured out of her mind. She would perhaps never forget seeing him so badly hurt for the first time in her life.
"I want to be strong too." Daphne muttered to herself, the sense of helplessness only growing inside her as she watched the Special Grade Cursed Spirit being exorcised by his fiancé.
In the Vip Grandstands, something that everyone was in awe of, the six Special Grade Wizards in the place weren't surprised, although Cursed Spirits were powerful, they had little intelligence and couldn't leave their place of origin, which made it easy to contain and damage surrounding property with a simple Barrier.
But they saw something that all the hundreds of thousands of wizards and witches in the stands didn't see.
"Is it just me, or does it seem like the Special Grade Cursed Spirit was strange?" Benjamin, President of MACUSA, spoke with an uncertain tone. A look that was shared by all the Special Grade Wizards and Witches in the room.
Even Dumbledore frowned, remembering the actions and how the negative magical energy of the worm-shaped Cursed Spirit worked. When he checked the city in the desert, which was discovered by wizard archaeologists, he definitely didn't sense any Special Grade Wizard on the site.
But like all the other wizards on the site, he also noticed something strange, the workings of the negative magical energy were more like a natural process than magic itself. It resembled the natural process of eels that were able to release electrical discharges. Although the concept was different, the purpose was the same.
This made him suspicious of things he hadn't wanted to believe were real before. He wanted to believe that mere myths written by an amateur writer wanting to cause chaos, unfortunately, possible proof that the book was correct, lay before him.
The other Ministers of Magic who weren't Special Grade seemed confused by the sudden change in atmosphere.
-
"By the way, this city really did remain intact in the face of such a powerful attack. Its composition is really different." Leaving aside the artificial creation of cursed spirits, Rose commented with an admiring look at the ancient city.
Just as Asterion was about to answer Rose, he looked up and saw a small black dot rapidly approaching them. In addition to the dragon, he sensed a familiar magical aura.
"She's finally here." Rose said, looking up at the sky to see the silver-blue dragon getting brighter and brighter in the distance. It was a very beautiful dragon, although not as beautiful as Antipodean Opaleye, it was more beautiful than her and Asterion's dragons. Both dragons were stronger and more ferocious than beautiful.
Under Asterion and Rose's eyes, the dragon with the short snout landed near them and an elven-looking girl without long ears jumped off the dragon and fell to the ground with surprising grace.
It was Luna, and by the look of her, the girl hadn't had an easy ride so far, Asterion noticing wounds on her dragon while Luna's clothes were blackened in places, showing that she had fought in the battle.
"Looks like you had a good time." Rose commented, looking at Luna's appearance, there was a hint of envy in her voice. Asterion had fought four enemies while Luna had also taken part in a battle, only she hadn't fought so far.
She wondered if there was some conspiracy around her. Although the number of competitors was actually smaller than in the King's Game, there were at least twenty-five wizards and witches, it was as if they were all avoiding her.
"If having fun is escaping from three other dragon riders, then yes, I had fun." Luna commented in a tired voice, her dragon wasn't Ancalagon, who could fight four dragons at once, there was nothing special about her dragon and in a group fight, the one with the most hands is almost always the winner.
Luna's almost silver-blue eyes looked at the city with a touch of curiosity, he could see Egyptian architecture mixed with Mesopotamian culture and something even more, a culture she didn't recognize.
"Let's go, I want to finish this damn race as soon as possible." Asterion spoke, his voice calm but somewhat helpless. The tournament was getting more and more complicated, he felt that in the last test, he would be thrown into a damn scary labyrinth full of monsters and a poisonous fog.
"The other participants could also arrive at any moment." Rose, standing next to him, also spoke with a touch of seriousness in her eyes. Even if they were powerful, the dragons couldn't take on too many dragons at once, it was suicide. And once the dragons died, the knights would automatically be disqualified from the Second Trial of the Tournament.
"You don't have to worry about that, they're not stupid enough to come this way in a short time." Luna commented in a carefree voice as she tried to make her scorched clothes look good.
Asterion and Rose looked at Luna in confusion.
Rolling her eyes, she looked at them both wordlessly and replied in a strange voice. "Do you think everyone is a Special Grade Wizard or Witch? Only a fool would run into a special grade Cursed Spirit. No Grade 1 Wizard or Witch would be crazy enough to carry out such a suicidal attack. Besides, you have to be a Semi-Special Grade Wizard to try to exorcise a Special Grade Cursed Spirit."
"You seem to lack common sense among the wizards and witches of the world." Luna finished, looking at them both with a reproachful gaze.
Asterion and Rose took notice and it was as Luna had said, no one would really go up against a Special Grade Cursed Spirit if they were weak. Although it was common sense, it was something that Asterion and Rose did all the time, after all, they were Special Grade, so unconsciously, they assumed that everyone would do the same as them.
"Still, let's go, the further we get, the safer we'll be. I don't want to underestimate the determination of the other participants. The Japanese team especially, kamikaze attacks are really problematic." Asterion commented with a frown, remembering that he had knocked out the Japanese Team Captain in the previous fight.
Luna and Rose nodded and everyone went to their respective dragons. Once in the air, all three dragons passed through the golden ring in the shape of the sun. The moment they crossed, green flames consumed them and they disappeared from the desert.
When Asterion opened his eyes again, he found himself in front of an immense blue, above him, lightning ransacked the sky and the deafening sound of thunder rumbled in the sky.
He was at sea in front of a gigantic storm.
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Author's Thoughts: Sorry for the lack of updating, for some reason I felt discouraged about writing, but I relaxed for two days without doing anything and felt my body become lighter and my mind clearer. There will be another chapter later today.
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