Newland and Sigefin had actually been granted authorization by Link long ago.
As people Link valued, the two of them had been permitted not to take part in this operation directly, serving only as remote commanders so their lives could be preserved for the future.
Everyone in the operation team knew this.
And everyone agreed with Link's decision.
After all, in terms of future potential and usefulness, Newland and Sigefin staying alive would clearly be of greater help to the British Ministry of Magic.
But it also placed tremendous pressure on Newland.
At this point, Newland even found himself blaming Link for giving him such a privilege.
If Link had ordered him from the start to fight to the death, he wouldn't have had to make such a difficult choice here.
"Newland, it's almost time."
Sigefin reminded him softly.
He had already drawn his wand. His expression was relaxed, without the slightest trace of tension or hesitation.
To anyone else, it might have looked as though Sigefin was relaxed because he didn't have to fight personally.
But Newland knew that Sigefin's attitude clearly meant he had already decided to join the battle.
Newland couldn't understand it.
He stared blankly at Sigefin, unable to understand how he could remain so calm.
Sky City held an extremely special meaning for Sigefin. It contained everything from his past, as well as his greatest pain.
His family was there.
His enemies were there too.
Now that Sky City had been occupied by the Shadow Men, all of that might already have been destroyed.
Newland felt that if he were in Sigefin's place, he probably wouldn't even have the courage to enter Sky City.
The horrifying scenes that might appear inside would probably drive him insane.
Yet Sigefin looked calmer than anyone else, as though he were simply going home for a visit.
Seeing Newland's expression, Sigefin smiled and said, "You actually know very well that although His Majesty Link Flamel gave us this privilege, deep down, he still hopes we'll take part and survive. I don't want to disappoint His Majesty Link Flamel. Don't forget, everything we have now was given to us by His Majesty Link Flamel. Without him, what would the two of us be right now? Where would we be hiding, and what would we be doing?"
Newland's body trembled.
Sigefin's words struck his heart like a giant hammer.
They smashed a huge hole through the shell he had built around himself in the name of pride.
Yeah.
What exactly was he, Newland?
Just a skinny boy from Spinner's Alley who had survived by breathing poisonous air and drinking filthy water.
Without Link's support, where would he be now?
Life in the magical world usually wasn't difficult. People generally didn't have to worry about food or survival.
But rising to prominence and living the good life he had now was still extremely difficult.
Unless...
You took the crooked path.
He had realized that back at Hogwarts.
And he really had planned to do exactly that.
If he had never met Link, he probably would have headed straight into Knockturn Alley after graduation.
He would have joined those Dark Wizards, taking on dirty jobs with high risks and high rewards.
Then, judging from His Majesty Link Flamel's reforms to the British Ministry of Magic over the past few years, a Dark Wizard like him would most likely have been caught and executed.
Of course, if he were unbelievably lucky, he might instead have been forcibly drafted into the Hit Wizard Corps, becoming the lowest-ranking officer, always charging at the front as cannon fodder.
So what exactly was he still hesitating over?
He had come from the mud.
And now that he had washed the mud off himself, he was suddenly trying to stay clean, unwilling to jump back into the mud to catch fish and shrimp for his master?
When had he become one of those "people above others," the kind he had always despised the most?
He slapped himself hard across the face, and the confusion on his face disappeared completely.
The look in his eyes, softened by years of comfortable living, became as fierce and vicious as it had been during his early years at Hogwarts.
Ignoring Sigefin's satisfied smile beside him, he raised his wand high.
"Fight! Kill!"
BOOM!
A dazzling crimson magical flare shot into the sky.
At the same moment, Newland roared and charged forward almost simultaneously with the flare.
That crimson flash, along with Newland's figure beside it, entered the eyes of every Auror in Jerusalem.
They were astonished.
Astonished that Newland had really dared to join the operation with them.
And that he had been the first to charge.
But after the surprise came a burning heat rising from their chests.
If even a brat like Newland had the courage to charge first, how could old veterans like them show weakness?
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
One magical flare after another shot into the sky.
Almost at the same time as the first flare, they exploded overhead, forming dozens of enormous red British Ministry of Magic emblems above Jerusalem.
The Auror teams also rushed out from the smoke left by the exploding flares, their wands raised high.
"First probing attack. Confirm the location. Everyone in position. Prepare. Three... Two... One... Fire!"
Sigefin's voice sounded once again through the communicators on their shoulders.
His voice remained emotionless, calm, and rational.
Following his command, the tips of every wand in the sky, including Newland's, erupted with huge fireballs.
The fireballs shot toward the heavens like meteors, then exploded midway, turning into countless orange-red sparks that linked together and nearly covered half the sky above Jerusalem.
Naturally, flames like these had little killing power.
But they still accomplished their intended purpose.
As the flames surged upward, the phantom outline of a gigantic city flashed through the sky.
"Now! Use the Space Locks!"
Newland roared at the top of his lungs.
The metallic spherical Space Lock in his hand had already been hurled forward with magic.
The other Aurors around him did the same.
However, Sky City's reaction was clearly faster than theirs.
"Buzz—"
A violent hum echoed across the sky.
Dense magical lasers suddenly appeared out of thin air, forming a curtain of rain that swept toward Newland and the others.
Nearly half of the Aurors on the scene were killed instantly, falling toward the city below amid sprays of blood.
Nearly a third of the Space Locks they had thrown were destroyed.
The remaining Space Locks successfully reached the area around the phantom of Sky City that had been detected by the flames and suddenly unfolded spatial barriers.
Where the powerful spatial force passed, the surrounding space, along with Sky City itself, was instantly locked in place.
The spatial barriers were like massive anchors, firmly hooking onto Sky City and binding it within this stretch of heaven and earth.
Not only that, but every Concealment Charm covering Sky City was stripped away, allowing its true appearance to be revealed before ordinary people for the first time in history.
"Whoosh—"
Jerusalem below immediately erupted into chaos.
Countless people looked up at the enormous city that had suddenly appeared in the sky, shouting helplessly beneath the shadow it cast.
After a brief silence, loud and urgent bells began ringing from churches and temples throughout Jerusalem.
But in the next moment, the remaining curtain of laser rain crashed down into the city.
Large sections of buildings were blasted apart. Smoke and dust mixed with blood shot into the sky, and the screams and bells throughout the city came to an abrupt halt.
Newland and Sigefin continued directing the Auror teams to throw Space Locks at Sky City.
At the moment, Sky City had not yet been completely secured.
If they couldn't use the force fields generated by the Space Locks to fully envelop Sky City in a short time, it would still have a chance to break free.
As for what was happening in the city below, neither Newland nor Sigefin cared.
Jerusalem was a special city.
It was precisely because of its special nature that they had chosen it as the place to intercept Sky City.
Its uniqueness lay in the fact that there was no Ministry of Magic within Jerusalem.
At the same time, it was also the "Holy City" of countless Muggles.
The former meant that even Sky City had no interest in the place. It was only passing through, so Newland and Sigefin didn't have to worry about innocent wizards becoming casualties.
As for the latter,
it was enough to make the vast majority of wizards around the world ignore the deaths of the Muggles in the city.
After all, the witch hunts that had continued for hundreds of years had drastically reduced the wizarding population. If wizards still felt any goodwill toward religion under those circumstances, there had to be something wrong with their heads.
So compared to the Muggle casualties below, Newland and Sigefin cared more about the losses within their own team.
The laser barrage fired from Sky City had never stopped.
These dense, rapid attacks might have been nothing more than annoying scratches that a legendary wizard like Link could block with a casual wave.
But to the Aurors,
they were a living hell of death.
Watching his companions fall one after another, Newland nearly ground his teeth to pieces.
Fortunately, despite suffering such heavy losses, none of them forgot their mission.
Large numbers of Space Locks had already been thrown around Sky City, and the force fields they deployed finally enveloped the entire city.
Only then did Sky City finally realize something was wrong.
The reason Sky City, despite possessing powerful spatial abilities, had fought Newland and the others for so long without teleporting away was simply because it regarded them as no threat and wanted to conserve energy.
But now, the Space Locks thrown by Newland and the others had bound the entire Sky City above Jerusalem.
Once things reached this point, even the stupidest person would realize something was wrong.
BOOM!
Every cannon beneath Sky City retracted.
In their place, enormous deployment ports appeared before Newland and the others.
The sudden sight caused both Newland and Sigefin's expressions to change dramatically.
"Quick! Hurry! Deploy the spatial force field and send the coordinates back to headquarters! The enemy's spatial attack is coming! We can't let them completely shatter this area of space, or the main force won't have anywhere to arrive!"
Sigefin's anxious voice came through the communicator.
Including Newland, the Aurors immediately stopped throwing Space Locks and gathered together.
One group began using Space Locks to deploy spatial force fields for defense, while the others started setting up the spatial coordinate receiving point.
At the same time, large numbers of oval-shaped Spatial Shatter Devices were launched from the deployment ports beneath Sky City, falling rapidly in a web-like formation.
Unlike what had happened above Kraków, the surrounding space shattered much faster this time.
As the devices fell faster and faster, the space above Jerusalem melted and broke apart like butter sliced by a hot knife, turning into black shattered space filled with tremendous suction.
Meanwhile, beside Newland and Sigefin, after the spatial coordinates had been transmitted back to the British Ministry of Magic, a huge circular teleportation array slowly unfolded.
Its appearance greatly boosted the Aurors' morale.
Not only did they deploy the spatial force fields even faster, but some who had already used up all their Space Locks even began reinforcing the force fields with Shield Charms.
But it was obviously futile.
Because the Aurors weren't the only ones who saw the teleportation array.
The instant it appeared, a series of deafening alarms like the roars of ancient beasts sounded throughout Sky City.
Immediately afterward, even more Spatial Shatter Devices were deployed.
Unlike before, these devices no longer descended together in a web.
Instead, they transformed into one razor-sharp spatial blade after another and slashed downward.
BOOM!
Though launched later, the spatial blades arrived first, striking the Aurors' spatial force field with perfect accuracy.
Without fixed amplification devices, the spatial force field supported only by the Space Locks was clearly not very strong.
In an instant, several outer layers of the force field were cut apart.
That in itself wasn't a serious problem.
The spatial force field wasn't a balloon.
When it had been designed, this possibility had already been anticipated, so its structure had deliberately been modeled after something like a Shield Charm.
A few breaches wouldn't affect the existence of the entire force field.
But the problem now was that there were simply too many spatial blades.
As countless spatial blades carved strange trajectories through space before striking the force field, tearing hole after hole into its surface, the outermost layers of Newland, Sigefin, and the others' spatial force field finally shattered.
And even worse, the far more terrifying web-like layer of shattered space was about to collide with their spatial force field.
———
[British Ministry of Magic, Teleportation Hall]
The allied forces, having regrouped and changed into matching uniforms, had assembled here.
Link still remembered that when this Teleportation Hall was first being built, the Head of the Department of Magical Transportation had complained more than once, through all kinds of indirect hints, that there was no need to build such an enormous hall.
After all, the permanent military force of the British Ministry of Magic could never exceed ten thousand.
The Teleportation Hall they were building, however, could easily accommodate twenty thousand people.
Now, the Teleportation Hall that had once been mocked as excessively large was packed to the brim with the allied forces from various countries and all the equipment required for this operation.
It even felt somewhat crowded.
Yet despite so many people gathered together, the atmosphere wasn't noisy in the slightest.
Instead, it was unusually heavy and tense.
Because everyone present was staring at the battle unfolding within the teleportation array beneath their feet.
Newland and the others' battle.