Chapter 677: 677: Who is Justice, Who is Evil?

At Silverhand Manor.

John rubbed a finger over his ring.

He did not understand.

"Grindelwald, what exactly are you doing?"

A cold light filled his eyes.

He closed them, then opened them again.

All the black disappeared from his eyes, replaced by a layer of murky grey.

John saw Gringotts being attacked.

He saw the fanatical Acolytes.

He saw death.

Death everywhere.

He and Grindelwald would fight sooner or later.

The grey haze faded from John's eyes, returning them to normal.

"Why? A coincidence?"

John found it difficult to believe something like this could happen.

He had only just begun promoting the Magic Card, and then Gringotts suffered a crisis of confidence.

Wizards lost trust in Gringotts and began moving their Galleons into the Second Dynasty.

The Second Dynasty was now involved in far too many aspects of wizarding life.

Wizards could make purchases directly on the strength of the Second Dynasty's credit.

Even if something happened to the Galleon, as long as the Second Dynasty continued recognising the Magic Card, everything would still function normally.

It could be said that the trouble at Gringotts had accelerated the growth of the Second Dynasty.

Wizards in other countries might still hesitate, but British wizards had almost limitless trust in the Second King.

Without hesitation, they withdrew their Galleons and deposited them into their Magic Cards, exchanging their heavy wealth for one small card.

The werewolves were the first to do it.

Mr. Chudai trusted this seemingly absurd idea without hesitation. He led the entire werewolf community in placing unconditional faith in John.

Even though John had never asked him to.

It could be said that if John ever collapsed or something happened to him, the entire werewolf community would go bankrupt.

"This kind of trust is almost overwhelming," John murmured. "You're starting to make me afraid of failing."

More frightening than any attack was trust so heavy it could suffocate a person.

John's failure would no longer be merely the failure of the Second King.

He now carried far too much on his shoulders.

Pushing those thoughts aside, John looked at the latest newspaper.

Gringotts employees lay miserably across the steps.

Nearly half of Gringotts had been emptied out, while the remaining half had only stayed because the goblins had stubbornly clung to it.

"They can't even guarantee the safety of people's property."

John glanced at the newspaper and tossed it aside.

At this point, Gringotts was basically an empty shell.

But that was not enough.

John wanted more than that.

Numbers on a ledger were convenient, but physical currency still needed to exist.

So he intended to bring goblin currency minting under public control.

Just like before, except the goblins would lose the right to hold deposits and retain only the right to mint currency.

And even the minting process would need to take place under Ministry supervision.

He was waiting.

Waiting for the goblins to submit.

...

The Acolytes shouted about justice, using sacred fire to cleanse filthy goblins and corrupt money.

They wanted to create a new world, and everything that currently existed could be destroyed.

The Ministries of Magic moved to stop these acts of madness.

The month was not even over, yet more than twenty Acolytes had already been arrested.

And those people were all sent to Britain.

John threw them straight into Azkaban, turning them into fuel for magic.

The magical furnace ran at full speed, and the Acolytes became fuel to fight the Acolytes.

He searched every one of their minds.

Surprisingly, none of them contained any trace of Grindelwald.

"He prepared for this a long time ago," John murmured. "That tower has disappeared. He remodelled the entirety of Nurmengard."

John had no idea when Grindelwald had begun preparing.

Perhaps he had never stopped after losing that duel.

Remodelling the tower through one man's power alone...

The difficulty was no less than altering the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts.

John rubbed his brow, frowning deeply.

"My Lord, tea."

Tommy walked over and set down a cup.

"Thank you, Tommy."

John drank the freshly brewed black tea.

The corner of Tommy's mouth twitched.

It had been brewed with water that had only just come off the boil.

"Grindelwald isn't Voldemort," John said without changing expression as he set the cup down. "He knows how to hide himself, and he has the ability to see the future."

"Hiding himself somewhere the future can't see. Clever."

To be honest, John was genuinely curious how Dumbledore had defeated Grindelwald back then.

That way of thinking alone was far beyond normal, not to mention the fact that he also possessed prophetic talent.

"Then how do we defeat someone who can see the future?" Tommy's gaze darkened.

He would never give up on avenging his friend, but Grindelwald was simply too abnormal.

"Maybe we should change our approach." John raised an eyebrow and said in a low voice, "Start with the Muggles."

The fact that Grindelwald had thought to obtain weapons from Muggles already put him far ahead of the Dark Lord of the past.

But if he had contact with Muggles, then he would leave traces behind.

"I only hope our tracking master can give me a lead."

John already had someone in mind.

Unfortunately, that person was still pregnant.

Nymphadora Tonks.

A Metamorphmagus.

Fortunately, John had another master tracker.

He was not a Metamorphmagus, but he was well suited to the job.

He was simply rather expensive.

"The Ministries of Magic are gradually stabilising, but the transfer of power hasn't gone smoothly. At a time like this, outside intervention is necessary."

John tapped his fingers against the table.

The Bhutan incident had killed twenty Ministers for Magic and more than three hundred officials.

With so many positions suddenly left vacant, any Ministry that failed to fill them quickly would collapse.

So cutting through the mess decisively was the best option.

A large-scale reshuffle was carried out directly.

For departments that had been wiped out entirely, retired former employees were rehired to return to their posts and train new personnel.

Only through measures like these had the various regions gradually stabilised.

This time, Grindelwald had nearly crippled the wizarding world.

The impact he caused directly surpassed Herpo the Foul, placing him at the top.

Even Voldemort would have to call him the boss.

After all, Voldemort's greatest achievement had only been nearly taking over Britain. Grindelwald, on the other hand, had directly attacked the International Confederation of Wizards.

"Either he dies, or I do."

The ending between John and Grindelwald was destined to come down to one defeating the other.

...

Evil and justice were not so easily defined.

At least in the eyes of the Acolytes, they were the righteous ones, the representatives of magic itself.

To ordinary wizards, however, they were nothing more than a group of lunatics.

The threat brought by Muggles had pushed wizards, already prone to extremes, even further toward extremism.

Even among wizards, the definitions were still blurred.

Let alone between Muggles and wizards.

On a farm in the Muggle world,

All the livestock had died.

The owner was dead as well.

Yet strangely, investigators could not determine the cause of death.

It was as though death itself had simply descended without warning. The entire healthy family had not even suffered so much as a cold.

The autopsy found no trace of poisoning.

It was utterly baffling.

Mycroft looked at the corpse, which appeared no different from that of an ordinary person.

He raised an eyebrow and looked toward the elderly forensic pathologist nearby.

"What was the cause of death?"

"Nothing." The old pathologist shook his head. "It's very strange. It's as if they died simply because they were dead."

"Died because they were dead?"

If Mycroft had not possessed such extraordinary intelligence, he probably would have needed a moment to process that statement.

"No wounds, no disease, no poisoning." Even the old pathologist found it absurd. "This is the second time I've encountered something like this."

"Second time?" Mycroft's thoughts stirred. "Where was the first?"

"That would've been more than fifty years ago, in Little Hangleton. The Riddle family, one of the local upper-class families, died there."

The old forensic pathologist recalled, "I was only a teenager at the time. I'd never seen corpses that strange before."

"They looked as though they were merely asleep, still wearing the clothes they'd had on at dinner."

"At the time, people said the gardener had done it. The poor bastard was thrown into prison."

Mycroft looked toward the police officers behind him and ordered, "Bring me the case files on the deaths of the Riddle family, along with the statements and witness reports from that time."

The fat police officer wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, nodded repeatedly, and hurried off to make the arrangements.

Mycroft turned to another subordinate. "Send people to Little Hangleton."

The man asked, "What level of deployment?"

Mycroft paused, his gaze deepening.

"Level One."

"We may be dealing with those mysterious wizards," Mycroft said calmly. "And there is a strong possibility they are hostile wizards."

He still did not fully understand what wizards were like.

But he knew one thing.

They were dangerous.

Temporarily classifying these people as "hostile" was simply human instinct.

No one greeted the unknown by immediately calling it good and righteous.

Use a Level One deployment.

If even that could not capture a single wizard, then humanity might as well stop resisting and surrender outright.

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