Chapter 271: New Card – "Star-Colour"! Aurors: Maybe the Wizarding World Should Just Surrender Now
[…]
A low, rasping breath echoed from the depths of the wardrobe.
An indescribable pressure crushed down on everyone present from head to toe, including the dark wizards who had been cheering in delight moments earlier. They stared blankly up at the sky.
From within the wardrobe, a massive head slowly emerged. On either side of its skull jutted scythe-like pincers; its body, long and sinuous like a scorpion's tail, swayed gently. It was woven from countless iridescent stars, trailing a billowing mist of colour.
Two pairs of translucent wings unfurled behind it, like a dragonfly breaking free of its egg.
It was as if someone had knocked over a box of paint on the black canvas of the night sky.
One might even have called it beautiful.
With every movement, ripples ran through the shifting colours, making it impossible to look away. That warped, alien beauty pounded mercilessly against everyone's understanding of the world.
[Congratulations! By combining your paintings, you have successfully summoned the reflection of "Star-Colour"!]
["Star-Colour: Reflection" has been added to your Gallery.]
[Tier: Third Tier, Gold Legendary.]
[Description: The projected reflection of a high-order being from the deepest reaches of the cosmos.]
[Effect: Inflicts a devastating mental shock on all who behold it, forcibly driving them into madness; locks down the area, preventing Apparition; can strip colour from living beings and erase their existence.]
[Cannot be summoned again for a period of time after use.]
"Cough."
Ethan frowned and coughed, the taste of iron rising in his throat. The hand holding the brass telescope trembled slightly. His magic was being sucked out of him like water from a tank under a powerful pump, draining at terrifying speed.
If not for the red spider pendant at his throat constantly feeding power back into him, he would have been emptied dry before Star-Colour even appeared.
Even so, cracks spiderwebbed rapidly across the pendant's surface.
No wonder it was Third Tier, Gold Legendary. The cost was no joke.
Ethan clicked his tongue. Taking advantage of the height and the fact that no one could see clearly, he quietly downed several vials of Invigoration Draught.
It seemed the higher he climbed, the more painfully short his magic reserves would feel. Beyond raising his soul attunement, he would need other methods to expand his magical capacity.
Endurance was important too.
Still, the effect of a Third Tier Gold Legendary was spectacular—more than enough for Mr Lamp's debut to shake the wizarding world.
"I am Mr Lamp," Ethan said, lips curling as he spoke.
His voice, carried by the sound-bloom charm, rolled across the ground. "Look forward to it. I will open the door to a new world for you."
Below, all was chaos.
"Wh-what is that thing…"
The Aurors were shaking uncontrollably. In their eyes, stretched to their limits, swirled countless impossible colours that poured into their skulls and scrambled their thoughts. Tears ran down their faces even as their mouths twisted into uncontrollable grins.
Clatter, clatter.
Wands dropped one after another to the ground, hands no longer able to grip them.
"No… no!" Captain Connie Rosier whispered, her voice trembling. She tried to raise her thorn-whip wand, but her arm would not obey. Her lively, pretty face had gone chalk white, filled with terror.
She had not known the mastermind behind the attack was the man the Ministry classified as "high-risk personnel": Mr Lamp. She had certainly not known Mr Lamp was this monstrously powerful.
Connie stared at the creature filling half the sky. Its shattered skull held a single embedded blue eye. When their gazes met, she felt her nose burn.
Warm liquid flooded her nostrils and trickled into her mouth, leaving the sharp taste of blood.
Right now, she would rather be staring up at a Dark Mark.
"Does the wizarding world… really have anything that can fight this?" Connie felt her faith waver.
Inside the camp—
"Holy bloody hell," Ron muttered, his black umbrella sagging in his hand as he stared up with Harry and the others. The incomparable shimmering colours devoured the stars. Even the will to run was stripped away.
Harry shuddered. A strange thought flashed through his head: Why does this bizarre, terrifying monster look so much like Ethan's idea of beauty?
No, impossible.
…But where was Ethan?
A roar shattered Harry's racing thoughts.
"Over here! Harry Potter is over here!"
The man who had attacked Harry earlier was jumping up and down like a madman, face twisted with ecstatic frenzy, tongue hissing over his lips as if he could already see victory.
Mr Lamp, you really are my perfect partner, he thought.
In that moment, after witnessing the "ancient god," little Barty Crouch simply decided that Mr Lamp was his soulmate.
Bang!
He raised his wand. A jet of eerie green light burst into the air and blossomed into an enormous skull, a serpent coiling and writhing from its mouth.
"The Dark Mark!" Sirius's pupils shrank.
At any other time, a single Dark Mark would have been enough to plunge everyone into paralyzing fear. Tonight, against the backdrop of that colossal horror, the familiar symbol almost felt like a relief.
"They're after you after all," Sirius said. "No time to think this through. I'll Apparate us out—"
He grabbed Harry's shoulder.
And froze when he realised he could not Apparate at all.
"Damn it," Sirius breathed, real fear entering his eyes at last. "That thing has sealed the whole area."
What kind of creature was this? And what kind of being could summon such a thing?
Cold sweat trickled down his temple.
Voldemort had nothing on this.
Then Star-Colour, hearing Barty's call, slowly turned its monstrous head. The blue eye set in its fractured skull fixed on Harry and the others. It had found them.
Hermione's scream split the air as a tide of colour poured down.
For an instant, time seemed to slow.
Through his glasses, Harry watched the approaching flood. Skeletal, withered arms reached from within, countless geometries of resentment clawing to drag him down into hell.
Was it going to end here? Not even at Voldemort's hands, but at the whim of some unknown entity?
In his mind, he saw his mother dying again, and a fierce unwillingness surged in his chest.
But there was no way out.
"Harry!!!"
Whoosh.
A black umbrella snapped open in front of him.
Boom!
The torrent of colour crashed down—but did not break through the umbrella's barrier. Instead, it sheared off and scattered in all directions, like smoke hitting an invisible wall. The thin, grasping arms within shrieked and vanished.
Harry collapsed onto the ground, glasses askew, staring dumbly at the umbrella shielding him.
What just happened?
He turned to Ron, who was standing beside him, holding the black umbrella.
Ron looked just as stunned, clearly never having expected the umbrella to work like this.
After a few seconds of staring at each other, Ron said blankly, "Th-this is the umbrella Ethan gave me…"
Did Ethan… already foresee all of this?