Could it be that this Soul Invigorating Potion could substantially increase a wizard's spiritual power? Could it help them cross that final threshold to becoming a true Saint/Magus?!
Bryan was still swaying from the profound shock and rising excitement of his racing speculation, when a sharp, ominous crack suddenly rang in his ears like breaking glass. The sound pierced through his thoughts instantly, causing his expression to change from wonder to alarm in a heartbeat.
He immediately spun around to see the emerald barrier that had been persistently holding back the weight of lava suddenly transform into a vivid stream of green light. Like a dying star, it collapsed inside before plunging helplessly into the lava lake that lay dangerously close at hand, few feet away!
What exactly was Slytherin trying to accomplish? What was his plan?
These sudden, inexplicable changes left Bryan completely disoriented and off-balance, utterly unable to fathom Salazar Slytherin's true intentions or the purpose behind this mechanism.
Was this a test? A trap? A lesson?
But he had little time to consider the reasons or puzzle out the mystery. After the protective barrier shattered completely, dissolving into nothing, the massive volume of lava outside began pouring eagerly into the vault like a hungry beast that was finally released.
The protective golden sun of flame around Bryan's body appeared once more in an instant as he prepared to leave the vault. But the very moment he stepped forward, the solid ground beneath his feet suddenly began to shake, springing like a living thing trying to throw him off.
The absolutely heart-stopping, deafening roar emanating from the agitated lava outside, a sound like the Earth itself screaming, made Bryan's face turn completely pale.
This wasn't supposed to happen!
...
After Bryan had descended into the magma, only Amelia and Bogrod remained waiting on the cliff-like steep rock wall, standing on their platform hundreds of feet above certain death.
This human witch and aged goblin had absolutely no desire to chat with each other, no common ground for conversation. Their cultural differences and the strangeness of their situation left them silent.
Both simply stared down intently at the lava lake far below, which emanated a magnificent and terrifyingly fierce aura, watching the churning, boiling surface in silent stupor, each lost in their own thoughts.
Amelia's face was full of worry. Though she had personally witnessed Bryan's extraordinary power on multiple occasions and fully believed he wouldn't act rashly or recklessly, that he must have sufficient confidence and careful planning to venture into the lava, she simply couldn't control the anxiety gnawing at her heart.
What if something went wrong?
Bogrod shared Amelia's deep concern for Bryan Watson's safe return, though his reasons differed greatly from hers.
The small cart they had just ridden to reach this depth had slid irretrievably into the lava, melting instantly. Their current stone platform was positioned in an awkward location, neither properly here nor there in terms of access to escape routes.
If something catastrophic happened to Bryan Watson down there, who could possibly lead them out of this hellish lava-filled place? They'd be trapped until they eventually died of thirst or starvation.
Time passed, second by excruciating second. The continuous rumbling of the agitating lava below and the violent sounds of it occasionally crashing against the rock walls tormented Amelia's mind relentlessly. Her fists clenched tightly as she struggled desperately to overcome the rising impulse toward panic-stricken fear and complete psychological collapse.
'Stay calm,' she told herself repeatedly. 'Stay calm.'
"How long has it been now?"
Her sense of time had become completely blurred by stress and fear. Amelia couldn't accurately determine how long she'd been waiting in this nightmare. In her perception, at least several hours had crawled past!
The waiting was torture.
"Five minutes," Bogrod said unemotionally, wiping the accumulating sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
Bryan Watson's protective magical barrier excellently shielded them from the worst of the heat's physical harm, preventing them from being cooked alive, but his fear of death made Bogrod intensely nervous nonetheless. His hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"Five minutes? Only five minutes?"
Amelia took several heavy, shuddering breaths, trying to steady herself. Her dry, pale lips trembled visibly as she spoke in a daze, shocked that so little time had actually passed.
"We'd better pray earnestly that Mr. Watson returns safely and soon, or we're both finished," The goblin said in a low, resigned voice.
"The defensive magic deep within Gringotts' prevents both goblins and wizards from Apparating from this depth. The cart system can't reach our current position, there's no track here. We can only rely on him now. Our lives are in his hands."
This was indeed the harsh truth, but the goblin's blunt words and his obviously selfish motivations made Amelia distinctly uncomfortable. She shot him a disapproving look.
The only reason this goblin named Bogrod even cared about Bryan's wellbeing was purely because only Bryan possessed the power to transport him away from here safely.
It was completely self-interested concern.
But you couldn't really blame Bryan for this situation, could you? It was Gringotts' own irresponsibility toward their clients' vaults, their negligent failure to monitor conditions, that had forced Bryan to take this terrible risk in the first place.
Amelia's gaze had turned cold as she looked at Bogrod with disapproval.
"What's that! Do you see it?"
She was about to say something critical about his attitude when Bogrod, whose anxious eyes had never once left the lava lake below, suddenly cried out in alarm. "I saw a green light flash across the lava lake's surface!"
"A green light??"
Amelia was somewhat confused by this claim, uncertain what it could mean. She was about to ask for more details, but suddenly—
BOOM!
As if a nuclear bomb had just detonated in the underground cave, as if the world itself was ending, Amelia and Bogrod discovered in absolute horror that everything in front of them suddenly began to shake aggressively.
The entire mountain trembled. The amplitude of the tremors grew increasingly ferocious with each passing second.
In this continuous, catastrophic shaking, the lava pooled at the bottom was like water sloshing in a half-filled glass, swaying wildly and chaotically with the tremors.
Most critically and terrifyingly, under the influence of some unknown malicious force, ferocious roars continuously erupted from deep beneath the lava lake's surface. Massive streams of scorching lava were suddenly flung high into the air, lashing out like whips or tentacles at everything within reach!
BANG—
A lava column that exploded beside their platform frightened the goblin literally out of his wits. He shrieked like a child. Even Amelia couldn't help but let out sharp brief screams of terror.
The scattered molten rock instantly emitted a blinding, agonizing brilliance as it arced through the air. It crackled and hissed as it struck the milky-white magical barrier Bryan had erected, testing its strength.
Fortunately, the magical barrier Bryan had left behind protecting them was reliable and robust enough that nothing catastrophic went wrong.
It held firm.
But for how long?
"It's going to collapse," Bogrod suddenly said out of nowhere, his voice came as hollow and defeated.
"What?"
Amelia shouted loudly to be heard over the chaos. She quickly looked where the goblin's trembling finger pointed, and her face, already pale with fear, lost all remaining color.
Under the tremendous impact of that lava column explosion just moments ago, a desperate, widening gap had appeared in the rock wall on one side of their platform. The stone was fracturing. And this growing gap was spreading steadily toward the platform itself in the endless tremors!
If they continued waiting here passively like this, even if Bryan's protective magic could somehow withstand the attack, the physical platform beneath their feet absolutely couldn't!
They'd fall.
Amelia immediately pointed her wand with focus at the spreading fissure, hoping to take some remedial measures, to somehow repair or stabilize the rock. But the mountain's shaking, the chaotic magical turbulence in the air interfering with her spells, and her own overwhelming fear prevented her from successfully casting even the simplest spell after several frantic attempts.
"Let me try! Let me do it!"
Bogrod shouted over the noise, stepping forward with surprising courage. But just as the goblin pinched its fingers together, beginning the gestures for goblin magic, another massive lava column struck the wall with devastating force—
CRACK—
Rubble and broken stone poured down around them like deadly rain!
Heart-stopping fissures immediately appeared, running from top to bottom in the mountain's body, splitting the rock face. The platform tilted, and Amelia and Bogrod were suddenly thrown into the air, tumbling helplessly!
WHOOSH!
A surging wave of malicious, superheated wind followed them down, and the intense, overwhelming heat made both Amelia and the old goblin Bogrod mentally disoriented within just a few seconds of exposure. Their minds began shutting down.
'Is this death? Is this how it ends?'
Just as Amelia had this resigned thought, accepting her fate, the tormenting heat suddenly receded as quickly as it had come. A blessedly cool sensation quickly restored both her and Bogrod's fading consciousness, pulling them back from the brink.
After a momentary blur in her vision, Amelia and Bogrod found to their shock that they had somehow appeared at the edge of a tunnel embedded in the rock wall at the very top of the massive underground cave, far from where they'd been.
Bryan stood in front of them, breathing hard.
"You two stay here—"
Gazing down grimly at the flame columns dancing wildly far below and the rapidly rising lava lake that seemed ready to fill the entire space, Bryan's expression was extremely solemn, more serious than Amelia had ever seen.
He twisted the wrist holding his wand and lifted his foot to step forward toward the edge, preparing to go down once more.
But Amelia's hand shot out and grabbed his robe desperately, holding him back.
"Don't go, Bryan, please! It's too dangerous!"
With several strands of hair stuck to her flushed cheeks by sweat, her pale face now red with exertion and emotion, Amelia looked absolutely frantic with worry. "What's happening here? What's causing this?"
"The lava is raging out of control. The specific reason is hard to say—"
Bryan's voice was grave and brief, coming as urgent. "But I must go deal with it immediately, or Diagon Alley above us is finished! Everyone up there will die!"
Leaving these words behind him, Bryan firmly broke free from Amelia's grasp and flew down toward the chaos once more. He finally came to hover steadily above the seemingly boiling magma.
The underground cave was as vast as a world unto itself, the scale was difficult to grasp. Compared to its immensity, Bryan was as tiny as a speck of dust, an insignificant speck. Yet now, he had to stop the rampage of nature's most primal forces with his personal power alone.
CRACK!
Massive bolts of lightning appeared. They struck down repeatedly at the lava lake that was continuously throwing out tentacle-like massive lava columns in all directions. In Bryan's magical vision, he could perceive that the ambient magic saturating nature was agitating the lava below in a wondrous but terrifying way, causing it to erupt with power similar to solar storms.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
Bryan swung his wand with large, sweeping movements. Golden torrents of flame continuously appeared beside him like from nothing. They rushed directly at the lava columns thrown by the lake, meeting them head-on and neutralizing them with controlled explosions.
In the vast underground space, booming roars that could literally shake the space itself and incredibly intense explosions constantly erupted in sequence, it was like a symphony of destruction. The battle was epic in scale.
Facing the true might of nature directly, Bryan's expression had never been more grave or focused in his life.
He did his utmost to eliminate those lava columns that posed immediate threats to the underground space's structural integrity, destroying them before they could damage critical support pillars. But he couldn't actually stop the lava lake's surface from steadily rising.
If this continued unchecked, it wouldn't be long before the lava filled the entire enormous underground space completely.
When that happened, the enclosed space would further catalyze and concentrate the lava's destructive power, and all of Diagon Alley on the surface might be destroyed in a catastrophic eruption of magma!
But stopping the lava from rising, preventing that outcome—
That would mean directly resisting nature itself. The current Bryan, despite all his power and knowledge, simply didn't possess such overwhelming strength. Unless he could truly cross to that legendary level, rise above his current limits, it might become possible!
"Cross the barrier... wait!!"
Overwhelmed and increasingly frantic as he seemed to fight a losing battle, Bryan suddenly froze mid-motion. His wand stopped moving. Then his face showed profound shock and doubt!
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