Chapter 348

Chapter 348: Chapter 348

Hagrid and Madame Maxime exchanged a glance.

"Isn’t it too dangerous to let Lynn face so many Giants and Death Eaters alone?" Hagrid asked.

Madame Maxime shared his concern.

Although Lynn’s performance in the Triwizard Tournament had been extremely impressive, confronting so many Giants and Death Eaters alone was still far too dangerous.

"You go help Lynn," Madame Maxime decided immediately. "I’ll follow Opal and deal with Karkus."

Hagrid nodded, grabbed the enormous crossbow nearby, and hurried in the direction Lynn had disappeared.

Meanwhile, Lynn arrived near the gathering place of the Giants in the blink of an eye. He stopped atop a large tree, balancing on one foot upon a slender branch.

From his lofty vantage point, he gazed down at the scene below.

Without Karkus there to lead them, the Giants had long since descended into chaos. They had even begun an all-out brawl.

It seemed they all wanted to compete for the throne of the Gurg.

Lynn was perfectly happy to let them kill one another. It would make dealing with the Death Eaters much easier.

He shifted his gaze away from the brawling Giants and toward the figures hiding in the shadows, dressed in black robes and hoods.

There weren’t many of them.

Lynn counted three.

The three Death Eaters were positioned in different locations, with several dozen meters separating them. They were close enough to support one another while remaining far enough apart to avoid being accidentally caught in the Giants’ melee.

Lynn reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metal sphere.

It wasn’t particularly large, only slightly bigger than a ping-pong ball. Its surface was smooth and silver-white, without any patterns or markings.

Lynn picked it up and casually tossed it downward.

Thud!

The metal sphere struck the ground, and a visible ripple instantly spread outward.

One of the Death Eaters was hiding behind cover and observing the Giants’ battle. Before he could even understand what was happening, he saw the ripple sweep straight through his body.

Am I going to die?!

The Death Eater was terrified. Opal’s sudden attack earlier had clearly frightened him out of his wits.

His face was pale, his lips had turned purple, and his hands were trembling.

Only a single thought remained in his mind.

It’s over. I’ve been cursed. I’m going to die.

He felt as though something had locked onto him.

Several seconds passed. When he realized that he hadn’t died, he anxiously felt around his body. After discovering that nothing seemed wrong, he released a long sigh of relief.

"Good, good. I’m still alive."

His voice was extremely soft, as though he were speaking only to himself.

"Oh~ Is that so?"

A mocking voice drifted down from the air.

The Death Eater looked up.

"Moo!!!"

He saw an enormous grayish-purple behemoth with two massive, curved horns plunging straight down from the sky.

Bang!!!

A muffled impact rang out, as though something incomparably heavy had crashed into the muddy ground.

The Death Eater was crushed into a bloody pulp beneath the immense force of the falling Graphorn.

Blood was squeezed from his body and sprayed in every direction, staining the snow dark red. His corpse no longer looked remotely human. All that remained was a flattened, mangled mess.

After completing its mission, the Graphorn projection slowly dissipated into the air.

Unsurprisingly, the commotion attracted the attention of another nearby Death Eater.

He poked his head out from behind his cover and looked over.

His first reaction wasn’t to flee, but to attack immediately.

"Avada Kedavra!"

The green light moved incredibly fast, shooting straight toward Lynn.

Lynn didn’t dodge to the side. Instead, he cast Crucio in the direction from which the Killing Curse had come.

The two spells crossed paths in midair.

The green light of the Killing Curse and the red light of the Cruciatus Curse passed each other like two unrelated travelers, each racing toward its respective target.

Just as the Killing Curse was about to strike Lynn in the face, he avoided it with a slight tilt of his head.

The Death Eater exchanging spells with Lynn wasn’t nearly as fortunate.

His reactions weren’t as fast as Lynn’s, his body wasn’t as agile as Lynn’s, and his luck certainly wasn’t as good.

The Cruciatus Curse struck him directly.

He immediately released an agonized wail.

The moment he collapsed to the ground, a thought surfaced in his mind.

This Crucio doesn’t feel quite the same as the Dark Lord’s.

He had been struck by the Dark Lord’s Cruciatus Curse more than once.

That pain had been pure and absolute—the kind of agony that made a person desperately want to die while refusing to grant them that release.

Lynn’s Crucio, however, was different.

The pain wasn’t pure. It was a mixture.

Aside from the agony that penetrated deep into his bone marrow, leaving him desperate to scream yet unable to do so, there was also an unbearable itch. It felt as though something were gnawing at him from within his own body, making every moment worse than death.

It was even more unbearable than the Dark Lord’s curse.

That thought swirled through his mind before gradually fading along with his consciousness.

If Lynn had known what the man was thinking, he definitely would have added something more.

Did this scum have any idea what it meant to weave another curse into Crucio?

Clap! Clap! Clap!

Just then, the sound of applause came from behind him.

Lynn turned his head and saw a tall, thin wizard with graying hair emerge from behind a broken tree. He appeared to be around forty years old.

"You’re... Avery?"

Although Lynn had never met him before, he identified the man through intuition alone.

"Oh~"

Avery drew out the final syllable.

"To be remembered by the youngest recipient of the Order of Merlin, First Class, in the wizarding world—I am truly honored."

Lynn nodded approvingly, but the words that followed were far from polite.

"But knowing that someone like you remembers me makes me feel rather disgusted."

Avery’s eyes narrowed.

"So, are you attempting to oppose the great Dark Lord?"

"I always have."

The moment the words left his mouth, Lynn raised his wand and cast Crucio.

This time, however, the spell failed to inflict the expected damage.

Avery had already transformed into a cloud of black mist and vanished from where he stood.

It was a spell commonly used by Death Eaters and had most likely been invented by Lord Voldemort. It was extremely fast and useful for both pursuing enemies and escaping from them.

Lynn had already [Engraved] the spell, but he had never used it.

The reason was simple: it wasn’t as fast as his own method of flight.

Lynn could fly much faster than the cloud of black mist.

Moreover, the spell had a fatal weakness—its user couldn’t attack while moving.

That was why Lynn never bothered using it.

He preferred fighting while flying, not flying toward his enemy, stopping, and only then beginning to fight.

In any case, Avery had already appeared behind Lynn.

The cloud of black mist condensed behind him and returned to human form. Avery had already raised his wand and aimed it at Lynn’s back.

He was just about to attack when Lynn reacted as though he had eyes in the back of his head.

Lynn spun around so quickly that Avery saw only a blur.

By the time Avery realized what had happened, Lynn’s hand was already clamped tightly around his throat.

The force of his grip instantly compressed Avery’s throat to its limit.

Avery’s face changed from white to red, then from red to purple, and finally from purple to an indescribable color. At a speed visible to the naked eye, he began to look like a man on the verge of death.

Lynn stared at him, the corner of his mouth curling upward.

"Your master couldn’t even successfully ambush me, yet you thought you could?"

Lynn sneered.

"Save yourself the embarrassment."

With that, Lynn hurled him away with tremendous force.

Avery’s body traced an arc through the air before plunging headfirst toward the ground.

His head struck the earth, and his body remained sticking straight up in a perfect nosedive.

Standing nearby, Lynn heard the clear, crisp sound of bones breaking. It sounded like someone snapping a dry branch.

Crack.

Then came another.

And another.

Perhaps his cervical vertebrae had shattered. Perhaps his collarbones had broken. Perhaps—

It no longer mattered.

"I thought you were supposed to be tough. Is that all you’ve got?"

"The Master will not let..."

Avery failed to finish his final sentence before breathing his last.

Lynn yawned and turned toward the Death Eater who had been struck by his Cruciatus Curse and was still lying on the ground in agony.

The man was still alive, though his body continued to twitch. The movements had already become very faint.

He was frantically waving his wand, desperately attempting to Apparate away.

However, the metal sphere Lynn had thrown down at the beginning was specifically designed to prevent Apparition.

"Have you waved your wand enough?"

Lynn’s voice sounded beside the Death Eater’s ear.

The Death Eater immediately felt as though he had fallen into an icy cavern.

His body stiffened. Like a petrified statue, he remained kneeling there, completely motionless.

"Spare—"

Zzz—Boom!

He didn’t even manage to finish pleading for mercy before Lynn’s violent lightning blasted him into charcoal.

Only after Lynn had finished dealing with everything did Hagrid finally arrive, panting heavily.

"Oh, Lynn! It’s wonderful to see that you’re all right."

Hagrid straightened and carefully examined Lynn from head to toe, then from toe to head.

Lynn nodded before turning around and watching the brawling Giants with interest.

They were still fighting.

Some had been knocked unconscious and lay on the ground, where the other Giants trampled over them as they charged into the fray. Others had already been beaten to death and lay motionless in pools of blood, never to rise again.

Their roars were deafening.

Their footsteps shook the ground, and every fist that struck a face produced a dull, drumlike thud.

Lynn watched for a while before finding the spectacle somewhat boring.

He decided to add a little excitement to this "Gurg War."

He raised his wand and lightly waved it.

A ball of fire sprang from the tip of his wand and landed around the area where the Giants were fighting. The flames spread rapidly, forming a blazing ring around those still engaged in the brawl.

The fire wasn’t particularly high, only reaching the Giants’ calves.

However, it was bright, scorching hot, and—blinding.

The sudden appearance of the flames startled the Giants, causing them to stop fighting one after another.

Lynn hadn’t expected this simple move to trigger such an intense reaction.

The Giants abandoned their fight and began running back the way they had come, howling wildly. Their arms flailed through the air as though they were desperately trying to drive away something invisible.

They wanted only to return to the place they knew best—their original home.

Lynn watched as the Giants fled farther and farther away before finally disappearing into the depths of the forest.

He lowered his wand and dusted off his hands.

Then he turned his head and looked toward the distant sky in the direction Opal had flown.

Opal should have lured Karkus far away by now, and Madame Maxime should have caught up with them.

However, Lynn had no idea how their battle was progressing.

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