The dusk arrives, the sunlight splits the sky in two, half of the sky curtain immersed in dimly glowing light, while the other half remains in the faint ice blue of late winter.
The roar of cars and trucks in the distance, weakened by the distance, becomes blurred and sounds like a dream. The gentle stream nearby does not add much poetic mood or comfort. Sometimes, large shadows pass over the winding river, releasing a stench that envelops many residential areas.
"Surprisingly found it here—"
Looking down upon the central area of this vast and chaotic residential district, a chimney that stood out strikingly amidst the low buildings, piercing the sky, Amonasta couldn't help but laugh dryly.
"Have you been here, Mr. Brain?"
The Aurors had already prepared in advance, a region nearby has been established with a magical boundary, all phenomena within the boundary have been fixed externally, and the counter-cursing spell of illusory transportation makes it impossible to escape or enter here through illusory transportation.
Moreover, the Muggles' expulsion spell further restricts the boundary, causing some of the remaining Muggles who still live here to leave their homes in a rush and hurry to the bustling city.
Taking the target house as the center, several circles of Aurors stood on the roofs of nearby houses, inside and out. A crow mistakenly entered the barrier, but after sensing the ominous aura emanating from these humans climbing onto the roofs, it immediately gave out a terrified squawk and flapped its wings in haste to leave.
Goldstein watched as the last batch of Muggles exited their homes and moved away from the barrier, when he suddenly heard Amelie Brewen beside him say this.
"Oh, hehe, it might be over there - I don't remember clearly anymore --"
Amelie Brewer smiled happily and twirled around on the spot. Then, pointing in a direction, he said to Goldstein,
"This is southeast London, a town called Crockworth. This is the abandoned industrial area that was once prosperous, but as the Muggles shifted their development center and the nearby environment became heavily polluted, it gradually declined..."
Goldstein listened intently. Amelie Brewer thought for a moment before smiling and saying,
"Professor Severus Snape's residence in the Muggle world is right here. When I studied at Hogwarts, there was a summer vacation one year. Oh, I think it was my fourth year. I encountered some difficulties that I couldn't solve by myself, and I didn't have an owl at that time, so I went to his place according to the address he gave me in advance——"
"That's how it is..."
Goldstein nodded in surprise, "That's quite an interesting coincidence. I'm sure Professor Snape, as a wizard like you, would be proud of it."
"Perhaps..."
Amelie Brewer chuckled, looking quite content.
As the sky grew darker, dimly glowing electric light bulbs like those used in gas-lit rooms could be seen in many dilapidated houses within the chaotic residential district.
With a slap, the Auror who reported to the breaker bar earlier appeared next to Goldstein,
"The barrier has been reinforced, Mr. Brewen..."
Amelie Brewer nodded slightly, then asked after thinking for a moment,
"Did you find anyone suspicious near this person when you checked the Muggles' memories?"
"No, we didn't find anyone suspicious, Mr. Brewen..."
Egnaz shook her head and spoke respectfully to Amelie Brewer,
"We considered the possibility that the controller might be nearby, but there were no issues in the Muggles' memories."
Amelie Brewer pursed her lips and nodded again.
All Aurors, including Goldstein, on the nearby roofs had a look of being on high alert. However, Amelie Brewer appeared calm and composed, leisurely descending to the ground.
Splash!
With a violent shake of the space, the space where the target house was located was suddenly elongated, and the neighboring houses were pulled behind the advancing Aurors. The house with wooden boards covering the windows was isolated.
At this moment, Amelie Brewer finally fixed his gaze on the house. As his gaze deepened, he began to narrow his eyes and grow increasingly cold.
"Hold on..."
Under the lead of Goldstein, the Aurors were about to break into the house and drag out the people inside, but at this moment, Amelie Brewer suddenly stopped them from acting.
Including Goldstein, many Aurors frowned. Maintaining silence was crucial during an arrest operation because making noise could alert the criminals, leading to a failed secret operation and even casualties. If it wasn't Amelie Brewer who spoke, the Aurors might have turned around and fired a magical curse at him to shut him up.
"What's going on, Mr. Brewen?"
Goldstein quickly retreated to Amelie Brewer's side, still pointing his wand at the surrounded room with a faint glow.
"There's no living person inside the room..."
Amelie Brewer's expression was calm, but what he said puzzled Egnaz. She was about to explain to Mr. Brewen when she suddenly heard Amelie Brewer say in a calm voice,
"There's no living person inside the room; only a wraith."
"A wraith?!"
Goldstein's lips tightened. His eyebrow was raised, showing a mix of surprise and anger.
"Not a soul tie spell?"
Aurors were not unfamiliar with wraiths, but even so, the surrounding Aurors showed shock. Since Voldemort's fall, black magic creatures made from human bodies had fallen out of favor and hadn't been seen for a long time.
"I'm confident I'm not mistaking..."
Amelie Brewer's tone was grave, and she let her wand slide into her hand. She waved it towards the house.
Like a disassembled cardboard box, the four walls of the house opened along the seams, gently laying on the floor. The scene inside the house finally came into view before the Aurors.
The chaotic room was not worth much attention, but the overpowering smell that filled the air made the Aurors feel as if they were being suffocated. They furrowed their brows and looked at the bed inside the room.
Clink! Clink!
The dim fields suddenly rang with an urgent electrical bell, an unexpected interruption that surprised Amelie Brewer. Her eyes darted, and she looked towards the foot of the bed. There was a storage box there, and a black wire was emerging from a gap. After wrapping around one of the bed legs that supported the bed frame several times, it crawled into the dark underbed space.
The Aurors all turned their gaze towards Amelie Brewer, seeking instructions on what to do next.
The crisp bell rings carried an urgency and anger, as if the emotions of the person on the other end of the phone, through the phone line, were transmitted.
After thinking it over, Amelie Brewer stepped out of the crowd and walked towards the storage box that was ringing anxiously. As his foot touched the spot where the original walls of the house were located, an abrupt change occurred!
Crash!
Having always been lying on the bed, closed and stiff, the numerous wraiths suddenly sprung up in the Aurors' shocked gaze. The powerful and evil magic from the wraiths' cold bodies suddenly emerged, causing a sudden gust of wind to lift the storage box at the foot of the bed and throw it away. The wraiths, under the influence of this strong magic, were suspended in mid-air and looked down at Amelie Brewer and the other Aurors from a high position.
"Watch out!!!"
Goldstein only had time to roar out the word, and he watched as the eyes of the wraith that had risen from the bed and hovered in mid-air changed from dark green to a deep black, as if plunging into a abyss!
At the same time, the wraith's entire body, now completely gray and white, made a rustling sound as numerous red bumps sprouted all over it. In just a moment, it had transformed from a human form into a terrifyingly monstrous blob.
The turbulent magic that was like a volcanic eruption gave all the Aurors a sense of impending doom. In the moment before the explosion, instinctively, every Auror began to retreat. They watched helplessly as the red ball got larger and larger with each contraction and expansion like a breath.
Dozens of pale beams of light burst through the red skin of the meatball from the inside out, eager to ignite the darkness!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Too close!
In the instant of the explosion, Goldstein seemed to see the sun rising in front of him. Although he and his men had begun to retreat as soon as they noticed something amiss, they were still too close compared to the impending explosion that was about to flatten everything.
Goldstein's forehead was throbbing with veins, and a feeling of boundless regret filled his heart.
He was not afraid of sacrifice, but the nearly half of the elite forces at Auror Office were here. If they were all sacrificed...
At this moment of life or death, everything happening around Goldstein slowed down in his eyes. He could even see the fiery ball expanding inch by inch, feel the temperature of the air next to his skin rising rapidly, and hear the wild vibration of the air shaking his eardrums. Just as he was waiting for death with a dead heart, he gradually dimmed his gaze to look at Amelie Brewer, Brechin's Brett.
Everything around Goldstein seemed to slow down, but Amelie Brewer's actions were completely normal. Goldstein saw Amelie Brewer reach out and pluck the Muggle telephone that had rolled out of the overturned storage box from mid-air, picking up the phone with his left hand and pressing it to his ear. With his right wrist, he conjured a wand that shot out a surge of milky white light straight towards the cracked meatball.
"Hello?"
In the fierce gale, a hand firmly suppressed the waves of the explosion, and Amelie Brewer answered the phone with a casual tone, tilting his head.
(Chapter complete)
