Mysterious Figure

Although the Order of the Phoenix had tried its utmost to keep it secret, news of Dumbledore's injury had inevitably reached Skylar's ears. After all, Skylar had three spies within the Order of the Phoenix: Nymphadora, Snape, and Hestia Jones.

According to the intelligence Jones had sent back, Dumbledore had displayed tremendous might in the Fishein Wilderness, standing alone against two Grand Sorcerers. Yet in the end, a moment of carelessness had allowed Morgan le Fay's "Hellfire" to burn his left hand.

Afterward, Snape had also informed him through a secret letter—Dumbledore had sought him out for treatment, but the wounds inflicted by those flames were exceptionally strange and sinister. Though Snape had done everything he could to treat them urgently, he had been unable to completely purge the unnatural force within them. He could only barely contain the injury and keep it from worsening.

Having personally experienced that move before, Skylar knew full well that Hellfire, said to be demonic flames summoned from hell, was an ultimate bloodline magic combining incineration, curses, and causality. Apart from a very few fortunate exceptions, it was essentially impossible to heal completely.

If he had not relied on the life-saving secret art known as the "Snake-Shedding Technique" to strip away all the skin across his body that had been burning with hellfire, he likely would not have escaped unscathed either. Like him, Dumbledore was a man burdened by immense worldly causality. It was foreseeable that Dumbledore's current condition was anything but optimistic.

Skylar could almost certainly conclude that Dumbledore's full strength would be significantly affected. From this point on, without Dumbledore, Skylar could no longer expect that group from the Order of the Phoenix to contribute much to the coming war.

Fortunately, though the price had been steep, the intelligence said the other