After killing seven werewolves, three vampires, five Corpse Demons, and two giants in succession, Tris finally crawled through another pipe and emerged somewhere different.
It was clearly a basement chamber, but its scale was far beyond anything ordinary.
The vaulted ceiling stood over ten meters high, allowing even giants to stand upright or jump. Its floor area exceeded that of a Quidditch Pitch. If this basement lay beneath the manor they had been in earlier, it must have occupied nearly half the estate.
At the far end of the chamber stood a throne that looked as though it had been welded together from countless broken swords. Voldemort reclined on it, his narrowed eyes fixed on Tris and the others.
More than thirty figures stood behind him. Some were Death Eaters, including Bellatrix, Lucius, and the others who had stood beside Voldemort earlier.
Only the monk and Dolohov, whom Tris had killed, were missing.
Another dozen or so were vampires and Corpse Demons; not a single werewolf remained. Farther back in the darkness, several shadows shifted, though it was impossible to tell whether they were giants or something else.
What made Tris narrow his eyes was the twenty-seven X-shaped wooden frames standing before Voldemort's throne, each with a person bound to it.
Judging by their clothing, they belonged to the allied Ministry of Magic forces. Among them, Tris spotted two Aurors from Britain's Ministry of Magic, as well as... Amelia Bones.
Some of the allied fighters hanging there were covered in horrific wounds, their bodies drenched in blood and utterly motionless. They were clearly dead.
Others still breathed faintly, seemingly not quite dead yet. Madam Bones was clearly still alive, though she had fallen into a deep coma.
"Madam Bones?" Kingsley noticed her at once and cried out.
By now, Tris