Hogwarts Wasteland: The Witch from the Borderlands

Chapter 528 A Curse Originating from Humanity

The distant tremors reached deep into the mountainside. Krum and his elite troops steadied themselves and once again broke through the new defensive line formed by the fairies.

"The team with the brave warriors has succeeded!" a dark wizard said, turning his head.

"It looks like a node has been damaged; the entire Fairy Realm felt the tremors!"

Being in the pitch-black, scorching Svartalfheim, they had no way of knowing the latest information from the outside world, but that did not stop Krum from wanting to speed things up.

Even now, he's still thinking about his competition with Harry.

"Speed ​​up! We're already behind!"

Following his command, these elite members of the Fiery Army intensified the power of their spells, unleashing even more ferocious flames.

They all put on specially made gas masks, no longer trying to control themselves, letting the black flames burn everything inside the cave, letting the poisonous smoke that harmed living beings fill the entire mountainside.

But perhaps it was bad luck, because there were too many thick armor plates in Svartalfheim. The goblins were determined to defend it and completely sealed the cave entrance with metal plates, which made each of their breakthroughs take a lot of time.

Meanwhile, the experimental subject squad that raided Tirnano became the second to achieve a breakthrough.

Despite being the fewest in number and least expected to succeed, the children made the second fastest progress with Adam's help.

Previously, Hermione had given Adam the Unbreakable Lamp and the Viles Cursebreaker Sword to put Zorrian at ease, which ironically left him completely without a weakness.

Originally a product of high technology, under the protection of the Invincible Lamp, he can ignore most of the fairy's magic, and defensive barriers can be directly cut through by the Curse-Breaking Sword.

Coupled with the continuous and relentless laser fire network, this significantly reduced the difficulty of combat for the test subjects.

In the end, they decisively crushed the goblins' last line of defense, and the mountain-like golem smashed the core of Tiranano—the Cauldron of Dagda.

From this magical cauldron, treasures accumulated by fairies over generations also rolled out, and Levi retrieved a fairy sword that burned with flames and shone brightly.

"The Sword of Light," Adam said in a calm tone.

"One of the four treasures of the Danu tribe in Celtic mythology, symbolizing the supreme power of the god-king, held by the silver-armed Nuada."

Without a second thought, Levi handed the Sword of Light to Zorrian, believing that only his elder brother was worthy of it.

But Zorian shook his head: "You keep it. You are the hero chosen by the Goblet of Fire."

He was not happy about breaking through Tirnano, because the war for the experimental children had only just begun.

The bright and dreamlike wonderland began to darken, and the earth began to tremble.

"Now that the Trial of the Goblet of Fire is over, it's time for us to rescue Rice. That's our real trial!"

The second secret realm collapsed, the towering spire almost shook, and the dark red Holy Grail trembled, as if it would topple and explode at any moment.

"I must say, wizards, you are indeed more powerful than I imagined," Lanlock II said calmly.

"Even with the leak from Muggles, the fact that you were able to sneak into Rielland undetected and break in here at the crucial moment is far beyond my imagination."

At this moment, he didn't seem like a last emperor at the end of his rope, but rather like a villainous demon king who was confident and still had a backup plan.

"But you shouldn't have attacked the Seven Fairy Villages first." He stared at Grindelwald, the gazes of the two ambitious men meeting.

"Greed, when faced with the threat of extinction, is a fatal flaw."

He realized that Grindelwald was fully capable of shattering the Wish Cup immediately, but he chose a gentler way to cut off the energy supply.

"You want the Holy Grail, don't you?" he said.

"As you may think, the Seven Secret Realms are an important source of energy, but they are not the only one. You know, cutting them off will only force me to resort to countermeasures, leaving me in a difficult position."

He explained slowly.

"Ryland does not have enough energy to supply the Holy Grail and ancient magic."

"But drawing energy from the outside world is too conspicuous and too easy for you to discover."

"Therefore, we chose to use the Fairy Villages to secretly open seven channels, slowly and steadily supplying energy to the Holy Grail."

He turned to look back at the tower behind him, where the Holy Grail at the top seemed to be teetering on the brink of collapse.

"But now that you've discovered it, there's nothing left to hide."

He raised the demonic sword at his waist and pointed it at the sky.

Suddenly, a huge void, larger than the dark green vortex above the Seven Villages, opened up, tearing apart the false, brilliant starry sky. The dense green dust cloud of the real world outside was exposed to the wizard alliance's view. At this moment, the barrier between the Fairy Realm and the real world completely disappeared. The wizards even felt that they could use their own power to teleport to the outside world.

"Come on! Let's have a race of speed!"

Lanlock II laughed and flew even higher.

A vast, thick cloud of radioactive dust and curses was drawn from the outside world by an invisible force, twisting into a huge funnel-shaped vortex that flowed toward the Holy Grail.

"Come on! Let's see if you kill me first and destroy my kingdom—or if the Holy Grail will first accumulate enough power for me to vow the extermination of humanity!"

As he shouted, the seven villages in the distance began to collapse one after another. The warriors of the Goblet of Fire were destroying those secret realms one after another, but it was too late. Lanlock had abandoned the fairies and his people.

"The energy of the Cup of Fulfillment—is it a dust cloud?—No, not a dust cloud, it's the Winter Curse within it!" Hermione frowned.

She finally understood why, in recent days, there had been a feeling that the dust cloud was getting thinner and thinner.

It turns out that it wasn't an illusion, but rather the fairies were speeding up their absorption of the global winter curse!

The Winter Curse, developed by Lanlock II, capable of self-replication and stubbornly enveloping the entire Earth's atmosphere, was actually the Holy Grail's greatest source of energy!

As if sensing the realization in Hermione's eyes, Lanlock laughed heartily and dropped the pretense, explaining, "Surprised? The Holy Grail, which destroyed humanity, also draws its energy from humans!"

His eyes were full of malice: "Ancient magic, the most important legacy I found in my father's remains."

"Despair, hatred, sorrow, greed, infatuation, obsession —"

"The power extracted from these emotions of yours is boundless and incredibly potent!"

He swept his gaze across the wizards, then over the Muggles: "The winter curse that has spread across the globe is precisely because of your endless reproduction, your constant production of despair, that it has been able to expand and spread, allowing the Holy Grail's power to accumulate infinitely, enough to fulfill your vow to exterminate you!"

Nuclear war did not destroy humanity, but the survivors lived in endless sorrow and hunger.

Slaughter, strife, and death—human civilization with these as its main themes is the best nourishment for the winter curse.

In other words, as long as humanity survives, the winter curse will remain unsolved and will never dissipate!

A violent, dark green vortex spun in the sky, forming a terrifying storm comparable to a hurricane. Under the control of fairy magic, it was drawing in dust clouds and curses from all over the world at an absurd speed.

On the other side of the earth, the clouds and fog have even cleared, and even without a weather circle, the bright moon and stars have returned to the sight of all living beings.

Everything became clear.

"We must stop him! Now!" Hermione shouted at Grindelwald, her face ashen.