Chapter 214: The Art of Admitting Defeat
As the highly mocking words exploded in the air, they also exploded in the hearts of those underground who had lost their sense of security.
Only the Director hadn't lost hope. He continued to maneuver. "Honorable Wizard, you are not a bloodthirsty person; otherwise, my subordinates on the surface would have suffered countless casualties by now. It would be absolutely impossible for them to hide in the dense forest under the coils of your fire python."
"A mistake has been made, so naturally compensation must be paid. Please, Mr. Wizard, name your price. Anything you need."
In the dense forest.
One by one, broken bodies lay on beds made of water. Most injuries were superficial; the lightest was a bloody gash across the chest and abdomen that hadn't penetrated the inner layers.
The most severe injury belonged to the unfortunate soul who had taken a few bullets when captured in the basement. He had suffered massive blood loss from the impact site. If not for the emergency first aid administered on the way to the Swimming Pool, he would have bled out long ago.
Even after the first aid, his breathing was shallow, more air leaving than entering.
Thus, Dumbledore personally used a healing spell, forcefully snatching the severely injured unfortunate from the embrace of death.
With a single spell—the simplest Vulnera Sanentur (Wounds Heal)—Dumbledore achieved a miracle. Ordinarily, St. Mungo's Healers wouldn't bother with this minor spell because it was thankless work: casting it with great effort yielded minimal results, and even casting it with increased power only had average effects. It was usually better to just use Dittany.
But the spell cast by Dumbledore seemed to rewrite the definition of death, redefining vitality as death energy and transforming death energy into vitality.
Consequently, a visible speed of self-healing appeared on the severely injured man. Countless granulations wriggled, merged, and regrew at the wound site.
In just a few breaths, not only was the severely injured man fully healed, but the other Magi-Metal Wizards with superficial wounds also became lively and energetic, showing no trace of their previous dying state.
"Deathly Hallows? Master of Death?" Ryan muttered softly. Legends are always abstractions of facts—take the Deathly Hallows, for example.
Most believed the Deathly Hallows were top-tier items crafted by powerful alchemists. As for what specific concepts were smelted into them, that was just speculation, unproven.
Perhaps the legend that gathering the Deathly Hallows makes one the Master of Death contained another meaning: each Hallow contained a certain concept related to death, which only manifested when they were gathered together.
If Dumbledore's own understanding of life and death wasn't that profound, then he must have just used Transfiguration to graft the concept hidden within the Elder Wand, thereby achieving such astounding results.
Because in Ryan's perception, the spell was ordinary, mobilizing very little magic, yet it produced incomprehensible effects. Not only Ryan, but others also found this power hard to understand. The revived Magi-Metal Wizards had never even heard of such power.
Maxime took a deep breath. She realized that going to Dumbledore today was a mistake.
Because this was simply setting the stage for Hogwarts to display its military might! Look at what Dumbledore and Ryan, master and disciple, had done!
It was repeatedly crushing Beauxbatons' worldview, repeatedly striking blows against non-Hogwarts wizards!
Maxime thought of the Communicator game Academy Kill, often complained about by students. Her students frequently wrote complaint letters to the operators, saying the Hogwarts faction was too overpowered and needed nerfing.
They claimed that Gryffindors from Hogwarts could play dozens of "Attack" cards in one turn, and characters from other schools couldn't withstand it at all.
She had originally laughed it off; after all, it was just a virtual game.
But now she was actually experiencing this emotion in reality: The Hogwarts faction is too overpowered! Why hasn't this version been nerfed yet? There's zero fairness in this game; is it even playable?
Fleur and Quirrell didn't know much about healing magic. Moreover, the school nurses they encountered were all exceptionally skilled, leading them to believe this level of healing was normal and not worth surprising over.
"The people down below are asking you a question. How do you plan to answer?" Dumbledore, having saved the people, stood aside with his hands in his sleeves.
"That guy is still trying to trap us... truly a talent. If he and the current French ministers had even half the loyalty to the French people that he claims in his words, Martin and the others wouldn't have been living in poverty and dissatisfaction before returning to the wizarding world."
Ryan said, admiring this kind of person more and more. After all, not everyone could deceive themselves while deceiving others. If it were him, he absolutely couldn't say such high-sounding words with a straight face.
The reason he said the Director was still setting a trap was that the Director specifically mentioned asking the wizard to make a list and write down whatever they needed.
On the surface, this looked like a bottomless plea for peace, willing to please the wizard at any cost. But this Director's ability, the energy he could mobilize, and his international reputation were obviously not comparable to a certain Empress Dowager Cixi.
Cixi had no one above her, her subordinates protected each other, she was surrounded by sycophants, and her IQ was only maxed out for palace intrigue. Moreover, her faction was a pool of rot under layers of oppression and exploitation.
But look at this Director. Although being in a high position for a long time and his desire for power made him prone to misjudging the unknown, it couldn't be said he had no brains—just that his brain wasn't flexible enough yet.
His faction was an old giant on the decline under the white feather, with extremely slack males who excelled at surrendering, and lacking a short foreign girl leader. But a giant is still a giant; international prestige and global influence remain. With substantial evidence, he could easily hasten the birth of the alliance Ryan had been avoiding.
After all, he was an intelligence chief with ambitions to become President. If he got a list of wizard demands, heaven knows what waves he would stir up internationally to further his own career.
Maybe before the night was over, the French Prime Minister and President would arrive, hold an overnight parliamentary session, place this list before all MPs and ministers, and discuss how to use soft tactics, hard tactics, or both.
Then the next day, the heads of state who mattered would gather for a secret meeting.
Things would evolve into the situation Ryan had worried about when facing the giant bat.
One might say these political creatures are senile and incompetent, unable to solve real livelihood issues, which is of course true.
But when faced with power and territory they can grasp, these senile political creatures instantly turn into lions patrolling their territory—brutal, bloodthirsty, and dictatorial.
Facing the blue ocean of politics that is the wizarding world, which no one has ever set foot in... no political creature could resist. Just as the power-holders in the wizarding world would rather puncture the Statute of Secrecy to push Ryan aside, making him afraid to step in to protect the Magi-Metal Wizards.
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