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According to a report from The Australian on December 26th, a massive explosion occurred in the early hours of the morning in the northeastern region of Victoria, Northern Territory. The suspected cause of the explosion was the accidental ignition of highly flammable and explosive gases accumulating in underground mineral veins. No casualties were reported.
On the same day, The Australian Wizarding Times also covered the incident, warning wizards not to approach the area. Residual toxic gases remained in the blast zone. The Ministry of Magic had already sealed off the region and was cooperating with the Muggle government to handle the aftermath.
Although the official statements downplayed the event and glossed over the details, those in the know—especially the current Minister for Magic—were nearly scared into cardiac arrest upon hearing the true implications.
Eight elite Auror squads, over 180 Ministry researchers under strict confidentiality oaths, and even a master-level alchemist were present at the site. After the explosion, not a single person—nor even a single identifiable bone fragment—remained.
What devastated the Minister most was the loss of a magical relic site that had been on the verge of yielding results. Magical relics of such high caliber were exceedingly rare across the globe, and the one they had discovered was a wholly intact structure—unlike the shattered ruins usually found.
But with a single deafening boom in the middle of the night, everything was reduced to nothing.
Hellfire, by nature, could not have caused the detonation. Hellfire consumes anything flammable—and this was a nearly depleted magical iron mine, its energy long since drained. There was no possibility of a natural explosion.
And yet, this incident was undeniably connected to Harry.
Within the underground chamber engulfed in Hellfire, one survivor remained—the elderly professor who had not dared to move an inch the entire time. He'd been so still and silent that Harry had no excuse, even in passing, to kill him.
After Voldemort was reduced to an unburnable pile of ash and utterly obliterated, the professor did not hesitate to seize his only chance at survival.
"My only dream is to study these things! I'm useful—I'm highly skilled in alchemical research on magi-mechanical constructs. Please give me a chance. I'll swear an Unbreakable Vow, a vow that guarantees I'll never betray you, never defy you!"
"Please… give me this chance, child."
As their hands—one old, one young—clasped together, Fleur, standing witness, completed the secret pact between them.
The black iron armor remnants were dismantled, especially the most crucial component—the Black Emperor's magic core. It was the most precious artifact at the site, a treasure no amount of gold could ever replace.
At this point, the elderly alchemist revealed his name: Williams Bellomo. He had been recognized as a Master of Alchemy at the age of eighty-seven, forty years ago. Though his body had begun to decline, his knowledge and wisdom remained sharp.
He offered to take full responsibility for the cleanup operation. Over the course of an entire day, he meticulously reconfigured the still-functional alchemical arrays. With Harry's assistance, he linked them to the dormant alchemical network left behind by the original owner of the tomb. Together, they drained the last vestiges of natural magical energy from the local vein.
Then, they triggered a blast equivalent to six Little Boy atomic bombs—utterly obliterating any trace of what had been left behind.
Even the massive Black Iron City above ground was melted into molten metal by the terrifying explosion, splattering across the open plains.
He abandoned his former name and took on the new identity of Wilhelsen, entering Harry's service as the head of research and logistics for the warband. After all, it would still be some time before Fred and George completed their training, and having a highly competent old master around lent this ragtag group a touch of legitimacy, making them seem a bit more like a proper army unit.
In the wizarding world, there was no real concept of a centralized registration system. Identification documents only existed in a few large magical governments. Changing one's name and starting over was relatively easy in this realm.
Because arrangements had to be made for the old man's new workplace and daily living conditions, Harry was reluctantly forced to cut short the Christmas vacation he had just begun with Fleur. Upon learning that Harry had recruited a master alchemist, Grindelwald didn't ask many questions. Instead, he simply approved a top-tier alchemy lab for Harry—though it came with a steep rental fee of four million Galleons per year. The cost made Harry's heart ache; he half-jokingly wished he could just carry off the Federal Reserve's gold vault beneath Manhattan.
Still, the expense was worth it. Grindelwald's side clearly offered much better resources than what the Australian Ministry of Magic could provide. Once the Black Emperor's magical core had been transported to the new lab, the old professor patted his chest and assured them that, given a year or two—no more than three at the most—he would achieve a breakthrough substantial enough to prove his research's value. The energy hidden within this "ancient engine" was staggering. In fact, the Black Emperor had been quite unworthy of it—like putting a V12 engine inside a budget van. Sure, it could run, but it could hardly tap into the full potential of such a powerful core.
That, however, suited the Black Emperor's original identity as a "toy" perfectly. The Awakened predecessor had never even regarded these constructs as weapons.
Harry did preserve the central banquet hall of the Black Iron City. Using the Extension Charm on an enchanted trunk, he was able to store the entire hall inside it. After all, this was a place full of cherished memories for the elder Awakened. That hall contained the only known "group photo" of all the Awakened together. The city could be lost, but this held real value and sentiment.
As the Christmas break came to a close, students began returning to school in droves. The once-empty campus grew lively again. Of course, there were some who had returned in a panic to finish homework, but most were too busy sharing exciting tales of their holiday adventures.
Fleur, however, wasn't ready for the vacation to end so soon. For most students, the end of break simply marked the beginning of a new academic year. But for her, it meant a lengthy separation.
The warband team would be participating in a rare opportunity—a winter training camp. This was no leisure trip. They were headed toward the most mysterious, dangerous, and revealing location in the magical world—
The Abyssal Battlefield.
Though the main gates to the Abyss had long been sealed by the Awakened, several unstable rift remnants still allowed demonic entities to manifest. This battlefield was the most resource-rich "mine" in the magical world—and simultaneously its most perilous war zone.
Demons were not merely enemies of wizards; they were a threat to the magical world as a whole—an existential enemy that had to be eradicated.
Their innate hunger for magic, which they devoured to evolve, had doomed them to eternal conflict with wizards. The two sides were fated never to coexist in peace.
And now, it was time for these young mages to witness firsthand the deepest, darkest secrets the magical world had to offer.
The Durmstrang airship roared overhead, carrying the trial team to a city just south of the Arctic Circle. This city, barely known even among Muggles, was a desolate northern outpost where spellcasters and non-magical folk lived together. It was under military control by the Muggle government and directly supervised by the International Confederation of Wizards.
All other rifts that had once led to the Abyssal Battlefield had been destroyed and sealed. Only this place remained—the sole entrance to the battlefield that connected to the Abyss.
People called it—
The Gate of Hell.
(End of Chapter)