A man with his hands cuffed behind his back and his ankles bound in shackles was shoved stumbling out from within the pitch-black archway.
His long hair hung down to his back, but there was nothing beautiful about it—greasy, tangled locks made his head look like an abandoned bird's nest, and many strands had already turned dry, lifeless gray-white.
His face was terrifyingly pale. Blood scabs and wounds covered the area around his protruding cheekbones, while red-black bloodstains marked the corners of his mouth, as though something had forcibly torn them apart.
It was a face tortured to the absolute limit, yet his sunken, protruding eyes were terrifyingly bright. What they held was neither resolve nor some ethereal dream. There was no despair in the bloodshot whites of his eyes. Blood and fire seemed to burn together in his gaze, leaving only the most primal, naked fanaticism.
It was the gaze possessed only by the most terrifying religious zealots, even though this man had just been thrown into an unknown realm of death.
Sean, watching from the side, could not stop himself from swearing. He had never expected to encounter this person here.
Barty Crouch Jr.
The most loyal Death Eater, without question—back when Sean had impersonated Voldemort and "brainwashed" him, he had followed Sean with unwavering loyalty.
Of course, whether Barty Jr. had realized that the master he followed was actually Sean was something only he himself knew.
Sean had not never considered rescuing such a "loyal" subordinate. However, the Sean-version Dark Mark on Barty Jr.'s body had later been erased by Voldemort, leaving Sean with no way to contact him even if he wanted to.
He had guessed that Barty Jr. was being held by the Returners, but even after the Returners in the real world had nearly