Endless streams of black lightning struck hammering the small mountain of rubble piled in front of Thanatos's position.
The tremendous power contained within those unnatural thunderbolts made even the air itself go hazy and distorted. A colossal, blurred shadow as massive as a mountain range seemed to cross over from another dimension, gradually forcing its way out from the very air itself.
An overwhelming pressure permeated the entire atmosphere.
Under this immense, suffocating pressure, even those giants who had completely lost control and been rampaging destructively through the streets fell completely silent for the first time since arriving.
With stupid, wooden expressions frozen on their brutish faces, they stared blankly up at the black shadow that loomed enormously tall even from their own perspective!
ROAR!
A piercing, shrill howl rang out like a massive boulder hurled into still water, and the air itself rippled violently in visible waves across its surface!
"This is... what is this thing?"
Black lightning continued to flow and crackle across the surface of the enormous, menacing skeleton that had fully emerged from the rubble.
The eye sockets burned with ominous black flames that radiated a bone-chilling cold. To look into those flames was to feel your very soul recognized and judged. The emanating presence made people's hearts tremble with instinctive fear that bypassed all rational thought.
When this superhuman skeleton radiating overwhelming pressure slowly lowered its massive skull to look down, both Sirius and Moody, caught within its gaze, found their breathing involuntarily frozen in their chests!
"This... this is just too—"
The heavy pressure forced both Sirius and Moody to slowly descend to the ground. Sirius cast an incredulous look at Thanatos, who was bent over and gasping violently for breath and spoke.
"This is... an Ancient Giant. A Titan from those old stories. Where in the name of Merlin did you get access to this thing, Norus?!"
"You were actually hiding this kind of ace up your sleeve the entire time!"
Tafir, who had also been 'deceived' into coming to this disaster of a mission, looked toward Thanatos with an expression mixing resentment and admiration.
"Hmph!"
Thanatos managed to let out a proud, cold snort despite his distress.
He tried to straighten his chest and stand tall with dignity. But he only managed to hold the posture for two or three seconds before his waist bent forward again, and he was reduced to gasping desperately as if completely exhausted.
'It seems I'm still far from adequate control!'
The image of the Golden Viper surfaced in Thanatos's struggling mind.
That incomprehensibly powerful person could not only defeat and destroy this skeletal frame of a Titan giant, but could also completely erase the violent, hostile consciousness that resided within these bones.
By comparison, merely inscribing his own magical mark upon this skeleton that harbored such tremendous power had taken Thanatos a full year of dangerous experimentation and several near-death experiences.
"Kill them—kill them all—the giants—"
Thanatos arduously raised his staff with trembling arms, speaking between desperate gasping breaths. He could feel the magic power within his body draining away each passing second at a flood-like pace, pouring out of him to maintain the Titan's presence and animation.
BOOM!
The Titan giant took one single step forward, and the earth where its massive foot landed immediately cracked and fractured with horrifying, spreading fissures. Deep crevices opened in the stones, running for dozens of feet in all directions like a spiderweb of destruction.
One regular giant caught directly in the impact zone was swallowed completely by the opening ground!
WHOOSH!
The Giant Skeleton stirred up fierce, howling winds with every casual gesture of its enormous arms. It bent down slowly and its two terrifying bone-white hands, each one as large as a wagon, closed together.
Those massive hands grasped another giant standing nearby in the street, lifting it off the ground as easily as a human might lift a doll!
CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!
The restrained giant hammered away frantically at the fingers holding it. But this desperate resistance could not prevent its own tragic fate from unfolding.
The Giant Skeleton raised its bone hand high above its skull, lifting the struggling giant to a tremendous height. Under the absolutely dumbstruck gaze of numerous surviving wizards and the other giants scattered across the battlefield, in the next second, it hurled the captured giant away with tremendous force!
The giant flew through the air like a cannonball.
Terrified roars echoed across the entire battlefield from both sides of the conflict. Wizards and giants alike simply stared in stunned, paralyzed silence as the giant flew over their heads in a long arc, finally crashing down heavily more than half a mile away in the distance.
The impact, even from that distance, produced a massive thudding sound that everyone felt through the ground, kicking up a column of smoke and dust that rose hundreds of feet into the air!
"Gulp—"
In the suddenly deathly silent battlefield, the sound of multiple people swallowing nervously in unison arose from the wizard defenders.
The Ministry actually had such a formidable, terrifyingly powerful wizard hidden away in their ranks?
Sirius's lips pressed together in a tight line as he gazed at the gasping, struggling Thanatos with new eyes. His expression revealed several clear measures of respect and reassessment of the man's capabilities.
RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE!
The Giant Skeleton strode forward again with ground-shaking steps.
First, it stomped down hard on the giant that had just fallen into the ground fissure and was struggling to climb out. The massive bone foot drove the creature back down deep into the earth, burying it completely.
Then the Titan walked with great strides toward the other remaining giants scattered throughout the ruins.
Even though Sirius didn't understand the language of giants, he could clearly hear that the successive roars rising and falling among the giants were filled with fear of this massive skeleton that stood more than twice their height.
Some giants unconsciously backed away from the approaching Titan to distance themselves. They seemed to completely lack the courage to contend with it.
But just then, from the far end of Diagon Alley, a particularly large giant wearing what appeared to be a goblin's ceremonial helmet as some kind of trophy suddenly let out furious, commanding roars that cut through all other sounds.
It appeared to be the leader of this entire group of giants. The local giants immediately stopped their retreat and dared not meet its burning gaze.
Seeing that even after repeated urging and commands the other giants still dared not advance against the Titan, the giant leader's roar shook the very skies with its rage.
It suddenly threw away the massive club it had been wielding and charged directly toward the Giant Skeleton from that far end of the street like an out-of-control dump truck!
When the two massive beings were separated by only thirty feet or so, the giant leader suddenly leaped up with shocking agility for something so large. Carrying reckless wildness and mad courage, it crashed heavily into the Titan giant's exposed ribcage with its full weight and momentum!
BOOM!
The impact sounded like the explosion and thundering roar of a meteor striking the earth. The Giant Skeleton came crashing down. The resulting blast wave and clouds of wafting dust obscured everything in sight!
Several wizards nearby, including both Sirius and Moody, were blown away by the tremendous shock wave before they could even think to react or shield themselves.
However, within the turbid space shrouded completely in smoke and dust, the rumbling sounds of combat had not ceased at all.
One could still hear the muffled, heart-pounding sounds of repeated pounding impacts.
CLANG!
A hair-raising sound like twisting, tortured steel rang out clear followed immediately by roars that mixed victorious triumph.
The giants scattered throughout various positions in Diagon Alley became excited once more. They abandoned the wizards they had been tangling with and rushed en masse toward where the Giant Skeleton had fallen, eager to pile on while it was vulnerable!
"Damn it..."
Thanatos forcefully pushed aside the rubble pressing down on him and staggered to his feet.
In the recent impact, a large piece of flying debris had smashed his concealing mask. Since Moody had already shouted out his real name anyway for everyone to hear, Thanatos no longer had any reservations about secrecy.
He yanked off what remained of his broken mask and threw it aside. He wiped roughly at the blood flowing from beneath his nose. After a furious roar that expressed all his frustration and desperation, he raised his staff once more with trembling arms.
The surface of the crystalline orb at the staff's tip became suddenly immersed with eerie, ghostly light that pulsed and swirled.
As Thanatos swept the staff through the air in a wide arc, tangible ripples of dark energy spread out in all directions like water waves disturbing a still pond. Within the howling wind that rose around him, piercing wails could be faintly heard mixed in.
The soul-shaking, deeply uncanny roar dispersed the thick smoke and dust permeating the air. The Titan skeleton, revealed now with more than a dozen giants clinging desperately to various parts of its body like parasites, struggled to stand up once more under Thanatos's control.
CRACK!
The Titan skeleton's massive bone hand grasped firmly around a giant that had managed to climb all the way up onto its skull. The fingers closed around the giant's torso. Then both of the Titan's hands came together, squeezing with force.
With a sickening, teeth-grinding sound of breaking bones and rupturing organs, the giant was actually crushed to pieces directly between those hands!
Splattered blood and pulverized flesh was falling down like grotesque rain, coating the Titan's bones in eerie red!
In the gloomy sky far above, the dense cloud layer that had been shrouding Diagon Alley began to roil more violently, churning and moving in unnatural patterns. Occasionally it flashed with bright lightning that illuminated the carnage below.
The brutal death of one of their own completely aroused the remaining giants' most savage ferocity. They no longer cared even slightly about their own survival or safety, throwing themselves at the Titan as if possessed by demons. They pounded away frantically at every accessible bone of the skeleton, trying to break it apart piece by piece through determination!
However, rage and determination could not bridge the gap in strength and power that separated them.
One giant after another was either slapped to the ground by the Titan skeleton's massive hands or grabbed and thrown hundreds of feet away through the air, crashing down somewhere in the ruins with barely a thread of life remaining in their broken bodies.
As for the giant leader wearing the distinctive goblin helmet, it met the most terrible fate of all.
It was directly pierced through the waist by the Titan giant's closed bone hands. Its blood gushed out in torrents, thoroughly staining the white skeleton a deep red!
"Nicely done, Norus!"
Moody's prosthetic leg had fallen into a deep crevice during the chaos, and it had taken him considerable awkward effort to pull it out and reattach it properly.
Just in time, he witnessed the giant leader hanging impaled on the Titan's hands and shrieking miserably as the life drained from its eyes. He looked toward Thanatos with great approval.
"Call me Thanatos, you insufferable bastard Moody!"
Thanatos spoke between gasps, his breath was coming uneven and ragged. His face had gone deathly pale from magical exhaustion. Suddenly, without warning, his expression completely froze.
His Titan skeleton also seemed to have been struck by some kind of petrification curse. It stopped moving completely, becoming utterly still mid-motion.
"What's happening, Thanatos! What's wrong?"
Tafir, who had been wisely hiding behind a large stone slab while observing the battle from relative safety, stuck his head out cautiously and looked toward Thanatos with alarm. He shouted loudly to be heard over the dying sounds of combat.
"Those giants are nearly wiped out—just hold on a bit longer!"
Thanatos turned his neck stiffly as if it were rusted solid. He glared at Tafir with what might have been resentment or perhaps just despair. In the next second, his face having gone pale as paper, he suddenly coughed up a massive mouthful of red blood!
The blood splattered across the ground at his feet.
THUD!
The very instant Thanatos collapsed to the ground, a spreading black mist immediately began shrouding the Titan skeleton.
When the black fog dispersed moments later, the Titan skeleton that had just performed so magnificently and single-handedly destroyed most of the giant force had also vanished completely without a trace!
RUMBLE!
Before Sirius could even recover from this sudden turn of events....
The sky suddenly darkened.
Moody's face changed drastically. He jerked his head up sharply, his magical eye was immediately fixing on and tracking the rapidly descending dark clouds!
The pitch-black dense clouds were now roiling violently in completely unnatural patterns. Gray flowing clouds were trailing distinctive black-gray 'tail flames' as they peeled away from the main cloud mass!
From within these flowing clouds came various insane laughter of different tones and colors. They circled above the ruins in a mocking spiral, rendering this already devastated place into something resembling a ghost land!
BANG, BANG, BANG—
After many muffled explosions, dark wizards revealing ferocious smiles appeared in their true forms before Sirius!
"Hiss—"
Even the battle-hardened Moody couldn't help but draw in a sharp breath at the sight of an army of dark wizards numbering in the hundreds before him!
"Well, well, well... did you miss me, dear cousin?"
And Bellatrix's sharp, utterly insane laughter made Sirius's face completely darken!
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