The person is at Hogwarts, but the system is in Middle-earth!

Chapter 94 The group separates, advance, Ring-bearers!

After turning a corner, the space ahead suddenly opened up.

"What's that?" Harry pointed ahead, his voice suddenly tightening.

In the darkness, a huge, green thing lay there, like a still hill, reflecting an unsettling phosphorescence in the faint light of the wand.

Lockhart let out a short scream, covered his eyes, and nearly collapsed to the ground: "It's there! It's sleeping! We have to run!"

The three ignored him and cautiously approached. As they drew closer, they realized it wasn't a living creature, but a huge molted snake, coiled up in the center of the tunnel, like a dead dragon.

"My God." Ron stared at the snakeskin, which was thicker than his entire body, swallowed hard, and his legs went weak. "How...how big is this? It's at least twenty feet long!"

Luo Wei stepped forward and reached out to touch the cold scales. They felt hard and rough, like a layer of ancient armor.

[Object Identification: Smaug's Remains]

[Description: Traces left by an ancient dragon. This proves it is growing and extremely dangerous.]

[Material Value: Extremely High (Can be used to craft anti-magic leather armor/epic alchemy material)]

[Warning: This is what it looked like a long time ago. It's much larger now.]

"What a waste." Rowe shook his head, his tone tinged with regret. "Such fine leather, just left here like this. If we get out of here alive, I'll definitely come back and haul it away. It's enough to make a suit of armor for the entire Hufflepuff Quidditch team, and even a briefcase for Professor Sprout."

"You're still thinking about this?" Harry looked at him incredulously. "That thing could jump out of the darkness and eat us at any moment!"

Lowe shrugged. "Relax, you shaman. Fear won't soften the basilisk's teeth."

Suddenly, an unexpected change occurred.

Lockhart, who had been cowering in the back, suddenly erupted. Fear overwhelmed his reason, but it also gave him desperate courage. He lunged at Ron, who was closest to him.

Give me the wand!

Caught off guard, Ron was knocked to the ground. Lockhart struggled like a madman, snatching the duct tape-wrapped wand from Ron's hand.

"Don't move!" Lockhart scrambled to his feet, panting, wand raised, pointing at Harry and Rowe with a morbid ecstasy on his face. "Don't move! Or I'll..."

"Put down that wand, Grimma." Rowe turned around. "You can't control that power."

"Shut up!" Lockhart screamed hysterically, his hands trembling, but the madness in his eyes grew ever stronger. "This is the last chance! I'll use this wand to cast a forgetting spell on you, to tell everyone you were terrified by the monster! And I, Gilderoy Lockhart, tried to save you but failed! I will be a hero! I will receive the Order of Merlin!"

"Goodbye, Potter! Your story ends here!"

Lockhart raised his wand high and shouted with all his might the spell he knew best: "Obliviate!"

At that instant, a red high-risk alert popped up on Luo Wei's system interface.

[WARNING: Unstable energy core detected]

[Judgment: Spell Backfire]

[Prediction: The Fury of the Fire Demon is about to erupt]

"Get down! That's a bomb!"

Rowe roared and lunged at Harry, pinning him to the ground and shielding his head with his body and the frying pan.

"boom!!!"

A deafening roar shook the heavens and the earth, as if the entire underground world was howling.

The broken wand didn't fire a spell; instead, it exploded in Lockhart's hand like a grenade. A massive shockwave swept through the entire tunnel.

The entire underground stone chamber was shaking violently. Rocks rained down from above, and huge boulders crashed to the ground with deafening roars, raising clouds of dust.

"Cough cough...cough..."

After a long while, the dust slowly settled.

Luo Wei pushed away the rubble that was pressing down on him, shook his head, and felt a ringing in his ears. His sunglasses were askew, and there were several dents on his frying pan, marks left by the rubble.

"Harry? Are you alright?"

"I'm alright..." Harry crawled out from under Rowe, his face covered in dust and his glasses cracked. "Ron? Ron!"

Before him stood a massive wall of rocks, blocking their way back. The tunnel had completely collapsed. Ron and Lockhart were trapped on the other side.

"I'm here!" Ron's voice came from across the stone wall, muffled and choked with sobs. "I'm alright! But that damn Lockhart... he seems to have been hit by the spell and is now grinning like an idiot, saying something I don't know."

"Who am I? Where am I? Who is this bird?" Lockhart's incoherent voice came through, sounding completely dumbfounded.

"The road is blocked."

Luo Wei looked at the thick stone wall and reached out to touch the cold rock.

[Terrain Scan: The Bridge to Qazadoom is Broken]

[Status: Team Separated]

[Current Mission: A Do-or-Die Battle]

"Listen, Ron!" Rowe suddenly shouted at the stone wall, his voice both tragic and impassioned, "Hold on there!"

If that traitor tries to escape, smash him over the head with a stone! You're the rearguard, Sam! You're responsible for guarding our retreat!

"I will! But what about you?" Ron cried, his voice trembling with tears. "You're all alone up ahead!"

"We must keep going." Rowe took a deep breath, straightened his tattered mithril armor, and gripped his wand tightly again. "This is the fate of the Ringbearers. Listen, Sam! If we don't come back..."

He paused for a moment, his tone becoming extremely deep.

"Take my sword back to Gondor! Tell the Regent of Gondor that Loree Baggins fought to the very last moment! Tell the Hufflepuff kitchens that I can no longer sneak out for midnight snacks!"

There was silence for a few seconds on the other side of the stone wall.

"Love," Ron's voice sounded somewhat exasperated, even a little amused and exasperated, "we're just separated by a wall, and you guys are just going to kill a snake... Can you stop talking like you're already writing your will? Besides, you're Hufflepuff, not Gondor!"

"It's all about the ritual!" Rowe muttered under his breath, somewhat annoyed that Ron had ruined the atmosphere. He turned to look at Harry.

The tunnel ahead was deep and silent, like the throat leading to hell. Countless eyes seemed to lurk in the darkness.

"Let's go, Frodo." Lore adjusted his sunglasses, holding a frying pan in his left hand and a wand in his right. "The road ahead is only for the two of us. This is the final trial."

Harry nodded, wiping the dust off his glasses. His eyes no longer held fear, only resolve. He knew that whatever lay ahead, he had to face it.

The two walked side by side into the depths of darkness.

After rounding the last bend, a solid wall appeared before them. Carved on the wall were two intertwined stone snakes, their eyes inlaid with huge, glittering emeralds.

[System Summary: Prerequisite storyline completed]

[Final Dungeon Unlocked: The Showdown in the Secret Chamber]

[BOSS Warning: The Slytherin monster (Basilisk) is awakening.]

[Advice: Don't look into its eyes unless you want to turn into a stone statue.]

Harry hissed again. The wall cracked, and the two halves slowly slid apart and disappeared into the distance.

They went inside.