Chapter 1164: Immortal Lotus - The Trapped Characters and Contestant!

Nurmengard Castle,

Voldemort’s wrath echoed across the valleys as he fired a massive, red bolt of lightning while hovering midair.

The spell went past the ruined castle in a flash.

Before it could leave the peak where the castle stood, though, it struck an invisible wall.

A massive BOOM rang, the entire castle shaking under its might, loosely held stones and other structures getting closer to total collapse.

In the sky, a great ripple originated from the point where Voldemort’s spell had met the invisible wall.

The ripple streamed out, covering all directions.

With that ripple, the invisible boundaries of magic trapping the world’s greatest Wizards gained a hint of color.

Unlike the usual golden or blue hues that a Shield Charm of such scale assumed, the field possessed seven hues, seemingly layering over each other. Also, it wasn’t spherical, but seemed to converge at the top, like a multicolored dome.

If any of the four could look at this scene from outside, they would have seen a massive, transparent lotus seated on and around the castle, blooming with seven colors.

But, even if they couldn’t see that, they could easily see the six stars circling just above the lotus, shining with the six colors of the rainbow, the seventh color — indigo — barely visible as a mass of fog.

The Order of Immortal Lotus!

"Immortal Lotus..." Dumbledore spoke the name with such spite that even Voldemort looked down, disbelieving that he was the same old fool. "There will be... consequences..."

Next to Lord Black Phoenix, Ekrizdis and Yellow Warlock shared a glance.

Consequences?

It would be a miracle if Dumbledore left this ruined castle alive.

Donning the Cloak of Disguise, Meg knew that better than Ekrizdis, who didn’t even know that it wasn’t Yellow Warlock under the hood.

By now, her Master must have sensed the Order’s treachery, as the AI’s Echo within her mindscape had stopped conversing with her, as if going into hibernation.

That meant the Immortal Lotus Array around Nurmengard Castle was not only trapping them, but had effectively cut them off from the dimension entirely, with the Six personally watching over them.

Perhaps that’s why Timeline hadn’t sensed it coming before it was too late.

The Imperishable Artifacts, colluding with the Pillars, must have set the trap using textures or a space that didn’t exist under Her authority.

Meg turned around and saw the change brought about by Voldemort’s spell dying, the surroundings once again becoming normal.

Things were bad.

Not just bad, but they couldn’t have been worse.

First, for His Majesty not to sense the trap coming meant a deep involvement of the Pillar Timeline, along with the Six of the Order of the Immortal Lotus. Only that could have barely escaped his all-seeing AI and its conspiracies.

Second, with Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Ekrizdis trapped here, the world effectively lacked its strongest defense against an enemy who was bent on outright destroying it.

Third, and the factor that kept worsening the situation with every passing moment, was that her Master wouldn’t dare to use the full extent of his powers as the Yellow Warlock.

Because, in the Order and Pillars’ minds, the Yellow Warlock was trapped as well.

For His Majesty and Black to reveal the true extent of their powers to intervene anywhere against the Pillars would mean giving up on their secret identities.

The Six would already be fixed upon extracting Darcie from this mess, as she was the Candidate of the Indigo Seat. Even if she refused, they would still keep an eye on her, going as far as to forcibly take her away before any harm could come to her.

That meant His Majesty had no choice but to keep acting as the defiant member of the Order of the Black Phoenix, doing as much as he could in that form only.

Then there was Black.

Despite lacking in status and importance compared to many Characters, he wasn’t a nobody, either.

It was very likely that the Pillars would specifically target him to learn how he got his hands on the Ancient Magical Script.

And, no matter if these were the Pillars of the Harry Potter World, Black wouldn’t dare to fight them singlehandedly, especially with the threat of the Order finding out about his odd status and somehow linking it to Darcie.

Meg remembered her Master sharing these doubts before he had sent her here for the meeting.

But he hadn’t seemed overly worried about the Pillars appearing in the timeline en masse.

The current Timeline was on the verge of becoming a Pillar, he had explained.

Which meant more and more Minor Characters, who didn’t even exist before, would start becoming a part of the timeline.

In case of an attack, Timeline could impart great powers to such Minor Characters, turning them crucial to the storyline.

That’s what differentiated a Mirror from a Pillar, to begin with.

Characters.

With Pillars being the Characters of the same Bubble, and with such a little difference between the true Pillar Timeline and the current Mirror Timeline, the two forces would be almost equally matched, resulting in enormous casualties on both sides.

No matter how desperate the Pillar Timeline was, It would never take that risk.

Unless...

Meg remembered that "unless", as it had appeared on His Majesty’s lips, making him frown.

Unless the Pillars sought external help... from outside the Harry Potter Bubble.

Now, trapped with the three most significant Characters of this timeline, Meg couldn’t help but realize that the worst that could have happened had indeed happened.

The point was...

If His Majesty had already thought of the "unless", then he must have prepared for it as well.

He hadn’t sent her for this meeting out of his habit of using her as a proxy, Meg knew.

Which meant no matter how unlikely it was, he must have known that there was a possibility of the Pillars colluding with the Order to attack the four members of this meeting, even if he hadn’t known about the exact way they would go about it.

Then, in the absence of Voldemort, Dumbledore, and Ekrizdis...

... how was His Majesty Kai aiming to save the world from this doom?!

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