The Earth Fierce node went quiet.
Too quiet.
Theodore stood beneath the stands and watched the match continue above him.
The Quaffle passed between players.
The crowd shouted.
Lee Jordan made a dramatic comparison between a guest Chaser and a confused goose, which earned laughter from half the stadium and a sharp look from McGonagall.
Everything looked lively.
Everything looked normal.
That was exactly why Theodore did not relax.
The Ten Absolute Arrays had stopped wasting strength on the edges.
Four nails had pinned four routes.
Pitch center.
Scoreboard.
Underground water vein.
West passage.
The array had tested the crowd, the players, the corridors, the score, the water, and the evacuation path. Each attempt had failed. Each failure had cost it part of its structure.
If it still had intelligence, it would understand the truth now.
Attacking Hogwarts piece by piece was useless.
So the next target could only be Theodore.
Beneath the grass, the cracked eye stopped blinking.
Then it looked directly at him.
Theodore smiled.
"There you are."
The eye vanished.
A bad sign.
Predators did not close their eyes before giving up.
They closed them before pouncing.
In the west service passage, Hermione was still catching her breath when the talisman on the wall changed.
Return.
Harry read it aloud.
Ron stood at once. "Finally, a good instruction."
Filch looked at the damaged wall with reluctance.
"I should stay and guard the corridor."
The talisman changed again.
Bring them back.
Filch grunted.
"Fine."
Ron dusted off his robes and picked up the cabbage box. One cabbage still had rust flakes around its mouth.
"You're going to get stomach problems."
The cabbage snapped at him.
"You don't even have a stomach. That makes it worse."
Hermione glanced back at the pinned Earth Fierce stone.
It no longer pulsed, but the pressure around it remained heavy. The floor near it had changed color, as if something inside the stone had been forced to sleep with its eyes open.
She tightened her grip around the leaf talisman.
Theodore was not destroying these things.
He was making Hogwarts hold them.
That sounded brilliant when explained in theory.
Standing beside one made it feel much less comfortable.
Harry noticed her expression.
"You all right?"
"Yes."
Then she corrected herself.
"No. But I'm going."
That was good enough.
They hurried back toward the stands.
At the pitch, the game suddenly accelerated.
Not because the players had become better.
Because the field had become smoother.
Too smooth.
Brooms moved faster than before. Passes that should have missed landed perfectly. Bludgers curved at just the right angle to force spectacular dodges without hitting anyone. The Quaffle seemed eager to stay in play.
The crowd loved it.
Cheers grew louder.
The match became exciting enough to pull every eye toward the sky.
Dumbledore, seated high above, watched quietly.
His smile faded.
The pitch was entertaining the crowd.
That was not a good sign.
A formation that had learned to create excitement had also learned to harvest it.
Theodore felt the same thing.
The pitch core was no longer feeding on fear.
It was feeding on attention.
A cleaner, steadier source.
The spectators were not panicking now. They were enjoying themselves. Their focus gathered naturally, pouring toward the center of the field.
And all of that attention slowly bent toward Theodore.
Not openly.
Not as a curse.
As expectation.
Everyone had seen him step onto the pitch earlier. Everyone knew something strange had happened. Now, whenever the field shook slightly or a broom swerved too beautifully, a part of the crowd unconsciously wondered:
Would Theodore Snow act again?
That thought gathered.
The pitch core took it.
Turned it.
Sharpened it.
Theodore raised an eyebrow.
"Using reputation as a rope?"
Not bad.
The more the crowd looked to him, the more the array could use that collective attention to lock onto him.
Heaven's Extinction disturbed the timing around him.
Golden Light searched for his reflection in thousands of eyes.
Falling Soul tried to turn expectation into mental pressure.
Wind Roar gathered around his breath.
Earth Fierce waited under his feet.
Red Water crept through hidden veins, looking for any route to his roots.
The six exposed principles were moving together.
Still incomplete.
Still crude.
But dangerous enough to be interesting.
Theodore lifted his hand and gently tapped the willow root near his ankle.
"Let it come."
Willow Immortal's roots stilled.
The Wuzhuang foundation stopped resisting for one breath.
That one breath was enough.
The entire pitch core lunged.
No one in the stands saw it.
To them, the match continued. A Chaser scored. Lee Jordan shouted. The crowd cheered.
But beneath the surface, six killing principles compressed into a single invisible strike aimed directly at Theodore's soul, body, fate, and surrounding space.
A proper attack.
Finally.
Theodore did not dodge.
He opened his palm.
Heaven and Earth in My Palm unfolded inward.
The invisible strike entered.
Theodore's sleeve snapped in the wind.
A thin cut appeared across his palm.
Blood welled up.
One drop.
The willow root around his ankle tightened violently.
Across the pitch, Harry suddenly froze.
His willow branch trembled so hard it nearly tore through his sleeve.
Hermione, just returning from the passage, felt Huhu burn against her chest.
Ron's cabbage box went completely still.
Filch stopped mid-step.
Dumbledore stood.
On the field, Theodore looked at the blood on his palm.
Then at the cracked ground beneath his feet.
The pitch core had cut him.
Only a shallow wound.
But it had cut him.
Theodore laughed.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just once.
A quiet, genuine laugh.
"Good."
The pitch core froze.
That reaction was strange enough that even the formation seemed confused.
Theodore closed his bleeding hand.
Wutu Divine Light surged down.
Yimu Divine Light followed.
The blood on his palm did not fall to the ground.
It turned into a red-gold thread and sank into the folded space inside his grasp.
The strike that had entered his palm tried to escape.
Too late.
It had entered Theodore's space.
It had touched Theodore's blood.
It had given Theodore a path back to the one hiding behind the pitch core.
Theodore's eyes sharpened.
For the first time, he saw beyond the visible array.
Not the nodes.
Not the pitch.
Not Voldemort.
Deeper.
Behind the embryonic Ten Absolute Arrays, something vast and blurry shifted in a place that was neither dream nor reality. It did not have a face. It did not need one. Countless threads stretched from it into the formation like fingers dipped into water.
A will.
Ancient.
Patient.
Hungry.
Theodore's smile widened.
"So it's you."
The hidden will immediately tried to cut the connection.
Theodore did not allow it.
He raised two fingers with his uninjured hand.
Fuxi Divine Heaven Resonance sounded.
No one heard it clearly.
The students only felt their cheering pause for a heartbeat.
The professors felt their magic steady.
Willow Immortal's leaves rustled across the grounds.
Beneath Hogwarts, the four nails lit up at once.
Pitch center.
Scoreboard.
Water vein.
West passage.
The stolen fragments answered the sound.
The invisible strike in Theodore's palm stopped struggling.
Its rhythm changed.
Then Theodore drove it into the ground.
The fifth nail formed.
This one did not pin a node.
It pinned the connection.
A sound like a snapped string echoed under the pitch.
The crowd heard only a dull thump.
The players thought someone had hit a Bludger too hard.
Dumbledore heard more.
So did Voldemort.
In the Headmaster's office, the turban jerked violently.
Voldemort's voice burst out in anger.
"No!"
Quirrell screamed.
Fawkes flared with phoenix fire, forcing the darkness back into the chair.
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed.
"Someone else was connected."
Theodore had found it.
Not fully.
But enough to wound its hand.
The pitch core convulsed.
For a moment, every red line beneath the field appeared at once, glowing through the grass like veins under skin.
Students gasped.
Madam Hooch blew the whistle.
"All players down!"
This time nobody argued.
The players descended quickly.
Hermione ran to the lower stand.
"Theodore!"
He looked up and shook his head once.
She stopped.
Not because she wanted to.
Because she trusted the signal.
Harry reached her side, face tense.
Ron came next, breathing hard.
"Is he hurt?"
Hermione saw the blood on Theodore's hand.
"A little."
Ron looked horrified.
"A little? Theodore bleeding is not little!"
Filch arrived with his peachwood sword and stared at the pitch.
"Do I paste talismans?"
"Not yet," Hermione said.
She did not know how she knew.
Maybe because Theodore had not ordered it.
Maybe because the whole pitch felt like a trap about to snap shut.
At the center of the field, the red lines kept shining.
The pitch core had been injured.
The hidden will had been touched.
But instead of retreating, the remaining nodes began pouring strength into the center.
Desperate.
Angry.
No longer cautious.
Theodore flexed his wounded hand.
The cut closed slowly.
He looked down at the pitch.
"Now you're in a hurry."
Beneath the Black Lake, the ancient golden eyes opened again.
The old voice rumbled through the chains.
"You pricked it."
Theodore answered through the roots, "Only slightly."
"It will bite harder."
"I know."
The ancient being was silent for a moment.
Then it laughed.
A low, rusty sound.
"Yuxu disciples."
Theodore ignored the complaint.
Above the pitch, the sun dipped behind a cloud.
The stadium dimmed.
Every banner stilled.
The fifth nail had pinned the connection, but it had also forced the hidden will to make a choice.
Retreat and lose the formation piece by piece.
Or descend harder and risk exposing more.
Theodore already knew which choice it would make.
Pride was not unique to Voldemort.
The grass at the center of the field split open.
This time no eye appeared.
A gate did.
Small.
Red-black.
Covered in incomplete array patterns.
The professors raised their wands.
Students began to panic again.
Lee Jordan opened his mouth, then closed it, for once unable to find words.
From inside the gate came a cold wind that smelled of old battlefields and dead stars.
Theodore looked at it calmly.
"Finally willing to show the door."
The gate opened a crack wider.
Something pressed against the other side.
And beneath Hogwarts, the Wuzhuang foundation tightened around all five nails.
The next exchange would decide whether the Ten Absolute Arrays stayed a trap…
or became an invasion.
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