Chapter 328: The Bladed Vision and The Emerald Blast

Orion stood alone in the center of the silent vault, looking down at his empty hands. He let out a slow, steady exhale, centering his mind through his Level 2 Mind Arts.

The pieces were in place. The prize was secured. Now came the art of destruction.

"Inventory," Orion whispered.

In a flash of digital blue light, the rough-hewn, thorny length of the Blackthorn wand materialized in his right hand. Simultaneously, his left hand summoned a small, hovering object that looked like a pulsating cube of pure, azure-blue holographic data.

The Foci Transmuter.

"I have to admit," Orion murmured, a faint smirk touching his lips, "a lot of my hoarded inventory items are seeing the light of day today."

He brought the hovering blue matrix against the blackened wood of the wand.

The reaction was seamless. The cube did not shatter; it dissolved like liquid light, sinking directly into the grain of the Blackthorn. The dark wood absorbed the energy, glowing with an intense, steady sapphire resonance that hummed straight into Orion’s bones.

"Activate," Orion commanded softly.

He closed his eyes, engaging his perception. He did not visualize a thin, twelve-inch stick of wood, nor did he picture a traditional, blunt wizard’s staff.

He visualized power, elegance, and theatrical malice.

He pictured a weapon of cosmic arrogance.

The Blackthorn wand shifted in his grip. The wood softened, stretching and elongating with a low, metallic hum. The dark timber transmuted into a gleaming, polished alloy of dark gold and midnight-black metal, extending until it stood nearly five feet in length.

The shaft was sleek, etched with microscopic geometric runes that channeled kinetic force. Near the top, the metal curved outward into two wicked, razor-sharp crescent blades that swept upward like the horns of a predator, one blade larger and longer than the other one, framing an open, empty circular cradle in the center.

While the metal was still shifting, settling into its new physical law, Orion accessed his grid once more.

Retrieve: Prismatic Marble.

The small, perfectly polished glass sphere materialized in his left hand.

Orion reached up and pressed the marble directly into the bladed cradle at the crown of the scepter.

CLICK.

The mechanical and magical bindings fused instantly. The mundane marble flared to life, its internal crystalline facets catching the ambient magic of the Thunderbird core beneath it. The sphere didn’t project rainbow party lights; it began to emit a deep, rhythmic, hypnotic pulse of iridescent, shifting cosmic luminescence—glowing with a mesmerizing, pale golden-blue radiance.

Orion twirled the newly forged scepter in a smooth, sweeping arc, cutting through the air with a vicious whoosh, before resting the bladed head lightly against the stone floor.

"Magnificent," Orion whispered, his eyes gleaming behind the dark masquerade mask. The focus was perfectly balanced, vibrating with raw, compliant power.

He turned toward the trunk which flung open immediately.

Raising the scepter, Orion flicked his wrist.

A thick, towering stack of confiscated Ministry files, ledgers, and extortion documents rose smoothly from the upper cargo compartment, floating through the air. Orion directed them across the vault, scattering them haphazardly across the existing shelves, mingling them with the official ledgers of Vault 162.

When the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Gringotts curse-breakers eventually descended upon this crime scene, they would find every single piece of Dolores Umbridge’s illicit corruption, her private financial crimes, and her blackmail archives laid bare for the entire Wizengamot to see.

Next, Orion flicked the scepter toward another set of items inside the trunk.

Two heavy, ancient leather-bound tomes—salvaged from the Room of Hidden Things by his clone days ago—floated out. He threw them with careless precision onto the flagstones directly beside the slumped, unconscious form of Dolores Umbridge.

One was an archaic text detailing forbidden Blood Summoning and Otherworldly Manifestations.

The other was a grimoire regarding the Subjugation and Breeding of Class XXXXX Beasts.

The narrative was now airtight. The investigators would find an illegal summoning circle, dark ritual tomes, creature-taming manuals, and the Minister’s Senior Undersecretary unconscious at the center of it all. They would spend the next six months chasing circles around cooked up theories.

Orion tapped the master trunk with the bladed tip of his scepter.

The hatch snapped shut, the brass latches locking with a heavy clack.

"Inventory," Orion commanded. The massive trunk vanished into the void, leaving zero physical evidence of his presence.

He turned to face the entrance.

Through the narrow gap in the heavy granite door, he could see the silhouette of Bladehurl still sprawled motionless across the stone bridge. Inside the vault, Umbridge remained slumped against the wall.

Orion raised the scepter high above his head, the iridescent stone at its crown pulsing brightly.

"Finite Incantatem," he cast twice, the kinetic language rippling through the air in twin pulses of white magic.

The comatose enchantments broke. Outside, the goblin teller groaned faintly, his fingers twitching against the cold flagstones. Inside, Umbridge let out a soft, confused whimper, her eyelids fluttering.

Orion didn’t wait for them to compose themselves.

He swept the bladed scepter across the vault in a violent, devastating horizontal arc.

DEPULSO!

A colossal shockwave of pressurized kinetic force erupted from the crown of the weapon.

The air detonated.

The neatly stacked shelves of Ministry documents exploded outward, millions of parchment sheets tearing through the air like a paper hurricane.

And directly behind him, the immense, ten-foot-tall pyramid of gold Galleons violently collapsed. The kinetic shockwave hit the mountain of wealth, sending hundreds of thousands of heavy, solid gold coins erupting into the air like shrapnel, clattering, cascading, and crashing against the walls in a deafening, chaotic metallic landslide.

Before the dust could settle, Orion pointed the scepter at the floorboards of the summoning circle.

"Fumos."

A dense, thick, billowing shroud of dark, pitch-black magical smoke poured from the tip, completely enveloping the center of the room, cloaking him in an impenetrable, swirling vortex of shadows.

Outside on the bridge, Bladehurl scrambled to his feet, rubbing the back of his sore neck. The deafening crash of collapsing gold and exploding parchment instantly shattered his grogginess.

"What in the depths—?!" the goblin barked, drawing a short, serrated silver dagger from his belt.

He charged through the ajar door of Vault 162.

The sight that greeted him was absolute, catastrophic pandemonium.

The floor was buried under knee-deep piles of loose gold coins. Thousands of official Ministry documents were fluttering through the air like snow. Slumped against the far wall, covered in parchment and groaning weakly, was Dolores Umbridge, her eyes glassy, blinking in pure, disoriented confusion.

And in the center of the room... was a glowing, crimson summoning circle.

Bladehurl raised his blade, his breath catching in his throat.

Inside the swirling vortex of black smoke, the iridescent light of the scepter flared.

With a slow, dismissive wave of the golden blade, Orion dispelled the smoke entirely.

The dark mist shredded away, revealing the intruder.

Bladehurl froze.

Standing in the center of the unholy ritual circle was a figure of cold, terrifying royalty. He wore a high-collared, gold-embroidered tunic beneath a majestic, midnight-blue cape that billowed softly without a draft. His face was obscured by an exquisite, dark metallic masquerade mask that shifted with hypnotic, unreadable reflections. And clutched in his hand was a towering, bladed scepter of dark gold, crowned by a pulsing, cosmic gem.

Orion did not speak.

He played the part of an ancient, summoned entity to absolute perfection.

He slowly, deliberately raised his free hand to eye level. He turned his wrist, inspecting his own fingers, flexing his knuckles with a slow, detached curiosity, as if marveling at the novelty of possessing a physical, flesh-and-blood vessel.

He let his gaze drift across the ruined vault, taking in the scattered gold and the groaning woman, before slowly, smoothly turning his head toward the entrance.

His eyes, burning through the mask with an intense, calculated glare, locked squarely onto the trembling goblin teller.

Bladehurl took a terrified step back, his boots crunching against loose Galleons.

"Who... who are you?!" the goblin demanded, his gravelly voice cracking with high-pitched panic. "You are an intruder! You are not allowed to be in this sector!"

Orion’s lips curved into a slow, razor-sharp, terrifying smirk beneath the edge of the mask.

"Oh, really?" Orion purred, his voice dropping into a deep, melodic, otherworldly timbre.

He leveled the bladed scepter directly at the goblin’s chest.

For the first time since he had learned to manipulate the kinetic language of magic, Orion tapped into his customized visual perception. He did not envision a standard, concussive red blast.

He envisioned the color of lethal, unapologetic malice.

Depulso.

A blinding, brilliant, crackling beam of intense emerald-green energy erupted from the maw of the scepter.

To any wizard or goblin in Britain, the spell looked indistinguishable from a Killing Curse.

The green beam crossed the room in a microsecond, slamming directly into Bladehurl’s chest.

The kinetic force was immense. The goblin let out a strangled shriek as he was violently launched off his feet, rocketing backward out of the vault entrance, sailing through the air, and crashing heavily onto the stone bridge twenty feet away, rolling across the flagstones.

Orion stepped forward, his boots crunching effortlessly over the sea of gold.

He paused at the threshold of the vault, looking out across the vast, subterranean canyon.

In the distance, the terrifying roar of the Hebridean Black dragon echoed off the cavern walls.

Orion rested the bladed scepter against his shoulder, his dark blue cape flaring behind him in a majestic, high-velocity billow.

"Let us see," Orion whispered into the darkness, his eyes blazing with pure, chaotic triumph.

"How much defense Gringotts can mount against me."