The appearance of Kael and the others caught the Death Eaters completely off guard; perhaps in their view, it was simply impossible for Auror Association reinforcements to arrive here in such a short time, so from the start they hadn't really paid much attention to their backs.
Taking advantage of their distraction, some shopkeepers reacted quickly, switched from defense to offense, and likewise launched attacks on the Death Eaters.
The original situation was overturned in an instant.
"Stupefy!" Kael blasted another Death Eater away and was just about to switch targets when he suddenly noticed a wisp of oddly colored smoke drifting past him.
At the same time, an indescribable stench shot straight up from his nose to the top of his skull, as if the whole world suddenly became crystal clear!
"Ugh…"
Kael forced himself not to throw up his dinner, immediately gave up on continuing to deal with the Death Eaters, and instead cast the Bubble-Head Charm on himself.
After doing that, he took two deep breaths; he instantly felt much better.
"Fred, George!" Because of the layer of bubble around his head, Kael's voice sounded a bit muffled, but the anger in it was obvious. "Can't you use some slightly more normal means?"
"This is perfectly normal!" Fred blinked in the haze, looking utterly innocent as he said, "As the owner of a joke shop, using some Magic Tools in a fight—what's wrong with that?"
"And we can advertise our shop while we're at it," George, also unaffected by the smell, said with a grin. "You know how bad things are right now; our shop hasn't opened for ages."
With that, the two waved at Kael and once again dashed toward the area with the most Death Eaters, taking out even more Dungbombs.
Seeing this, Kael could only hurry over to Mr. Weasley, who still hadn't figured out what was going on, and remind him to quickly use the Bubble-Head Charm to protect himself.
As more and more Dungbombs exploded one after another, the stench quickly began to spread through Diagon Alley, and as the prime culprits behind all this, Fred and George immediately became the two most unwelcome people around; everyone backed away from wherever they passed.
It wasn't just the Death Eaters; even the shopkeepers on their side subconsciously started running toward places farther away from them.
They had no choice—the smell was too strong, simply unbearable.
...
Thanks to Fred and George's utterly unsporting behavior, the battle ended in a rather dramatic fashion.
All thirty-three Death Eaters failed to escape; every last one of them was trussed up and tossed aside.
It wasn't that they were too proud to run—it was that they really couldn't.
The stench spread too fast; once the wind blew, it filled the whole street, leaving nowhere to hide.
More importantly, under the influence of that smell, it was almost impossible for an ordinary Wizard to concentrate; unless you had iron willpower and self-control, there was no way to perform Apparition.
And among the people present, no one had that level of self-control.
As a result, the Death Eaters' combat effectiveness was cut in half on the spot, maybe more, and then Kael and Mr. Weasley took them down one by one as if calling roll.
There were also a few who tried to flee, and without exception all of them left something behind… a leg for one, half an arm for another.
One poor sod had it even worse: his body Apparated off while his head stayed put. Since they didn't know his destination, even if Kael wanted to help put him back together, he had no way to do it.
Of course, it's not like he wanted to. If he remembered correctly, when those shopkeepers were being attacked just now, this was the guy laughing the loudest, looking like he was having the time of his life.
This outcome suited him just fine. If the man's body managed to make it back before the Protective Magic of the Apparition Charm wore off, there was still a chance to reattach his head.
If it didn't… tsk tsk, that scene would be a bit on the gory side.
Kael made another round, and to his disappointment, none of these people were familiar faces; neither Barty Crouch Jr nor Bellatrix was among them.
It seemed the Death Eaters hadn't all acted together. After leaving the Ministry of Magic, those elite members vanished without a trace, leaving only this numerically superior rabble here to draw most people's attention.
The reason for doing so was very likely that they wanted to conceal something… for example, divert attention for an injured Voldemort.
This thought had occurred to Kael the moment he saw Dumbledore.
What he could be sure of now was that Dumbledore had definitely been injured, and quite badly at that—his entire arm had almost been ruined. Only Voldemort could have done that.
But all Voldemort could do was that much; just like two evenly matched Quidditch teams, if one side wants to win, it's impossible to do so without paying any price at all.
The most likely scenario now was that Voldemort and Dumbledore had fought each other to mutual injury in Austria.
Of course, this was all just Kael's speculation; it was also possible that those elite Death Eaters were busy somewhere else.
After all, the United Kingdom is so big, and Diagon Alley isn't the only famous place around.
Likewise, this was also why the battle here ended so quickly. To be fair, aside from having numbers on their side, their fighting ability really wasn't much. Even without Fred and George's secret weapons, Kael was confident he could have finished them off within half an hour.
It's just that in that case, they definitely wouldn't have captured as many as they had now.