A drizzling rain blanketed most of Paris, as though someone had pressed pause on the city.
Whatever they had been doing before, the Muggles now stood where they were with vacant eyes, staring up at the sky.
In the Seine River, the Fiendfyre that had whitened the sky continued to vaporize all the moisture from this stretch of the river in an instant!
Even the steel of the iron tower built by Muggles could not withstand Fiendfyre's temperature. In moments, nearly ten thousand tons of steel melted into molten iron beneath its blaze, then vaporized as well!
Yet though the steel had melted, the outline of the flaming giant did not collapse.
Fiendfyre, born with the frenzied urge to destroy everything, instinctively maintained its colossal form!
Roar!
The surging flames around the Fiendfyre giant rolled backward, and grotesque magical beasts—fire dragons, Basilisks, Venomous Tentacula, and the like—began to take shape.
Boom, boom, boom!
The thousand-foot Fiendfyre giant threw back its head and unleashed a roar that tore through the air. Then, step by step, it strode toward the riverbank, leaving enormous, horrifying flaming footprints in the riverbed behind it!
"Stop it! We have to stop it!"
"At any cost!"
On the riverbank, old Hope and Alastor, the two commanders who had hastily reorganized the surviving forces, roared with bloodshot eyes.
But compared to the furious roar of the Fiendfyre giant, their cries were pitifully weak.
The wizards had all gone mad!
Hundreds, thousands of Charms descended upon the Fiendfyre giant like the barrage of Muggle machine guns. Yet most spell-light dispersed at a single roar from that demon come into the world. The remaining Charms that struck it not only had no effect, but instead fed the Fiendfyre giant's mountain-like body!
Even battle-hardened wizards like old Hope had fallen into