The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 724 Mist
During the two-hour journey, Ryan had dinner with the puppets who came to support him. The rest of the time was spent analyzing and planning what to do in the next battle.

"Our destination is an open space in central Hampshire." The dining table had been cleared and a 3D map was projected on it. Ryan used his magic wand as a pointer to point out the details. "This open space is northeast of Portsmouth and is now a nature reserve."

"As for the wizards, I have checked some of the Ministry of Magic's information before, and I can confirm that no wizards have lived here for 300 years. As for the connection with the magical world, the only thing related to magic in this area is that there are several very common magical herbs growing in the woods. And these herbs are not unique to this area, nor are they the best in this area.

"That is to say, you don't know why the enemy set up the battlefield here." As the think tank among the puppets, Canary crossed her arms and said, "It is actually very disadvantageous for you to let the enemy choose the battlefield. By the way, can you lure the enemy out?"

"It's very unlikely." Ryan shrugged. "I have to destroy the evil magic ritual prepared by the group of dark wizards, and they know about it. In this case, I don't think they will abandon their preset positions and run out to fight me."

"That's terrible." Canary muttered, then lowered his head to look at the map and said seriously, "If this is the case, you can only fight head-on, but such a large area is simply too bad for the attacker. By the way, can you call for more help?"

"Mobilizing helpers is indeed a good idea. Let me think about what we can mobilize--" Hermione was talking when suddenly an owl brooch on her body vibrated slightly. Seeing this, she immediately left the room. A few minutes later, she walked in with a grim look on her face.

"What happened?" Ryan asked, and the puppets in the room all turned their heads to look at Hermione. Under the crowd's gaze, Hermione took a deep breath and said, "The one who contacted me just now was Penelope. She told me that the mysterious man appeared and defeated a seven-man Auror team outside Hogsmeade. Now the entire town of Hogsmeade is on the highest alert."

"Are you sure it's him?" Ryan asked. He didn't dare to be careless at this time. "Also, who is the mysterious man with? Is it the Death Eaters?"

"The You-Know-Who went out alone today, without any Death Eaters." Hermione frowned as she spoke, because this behavior was completely different from her previous habits. In all the previous battles, it was a group of Death Eaters who played the vanguard, and Voldemort himself came out at the end to make the final decision. She had never seen Voldemort's tactics of going into battle alone.

"I guess this could be a diversion." Canary suddenly thought of a possibility. "If the Dark Lord is alone, he has enough mobility to put tremendous pressure on the surroundings."

"You're right." Ryan nodded. "Under this situation, Professor Dumbledore and the people defending Hogsmeade cannot leave their posts at all. Even if they can be mobilized, there won't be too many people. Asking them to come here is not helping, but sending them to their deaths."

"But we are not short of manpower," Canary said. "This floating castle stores 1500 alchemical robots. Although they are much inferior to the wizards, we have an advantage in terms of the number of human resources. Among these human resources, only a few of us in this house can be considered human beings."

After nearly an hour of discussion, Ryan and his team came up with a plan to deal with the situation. After all, they had too little intelligence this time, and they didn't know how to prepare for many things.

At 8:40 pm, the floating castle finally arrived 5 kilometers away from the agreed location. Standing on the edge of the castle, Ryan could only see a large area of ​​woods covered by white fog.

"Passive magic detection can't see what's inside, and active detection magic is likely to alert the people hiding inside and make them hurt the hostages or take early action to destroy Zhixing's plan to mass-harm ordinary people." At this time, Hermione came from behind him and said, "There is good news, that is, it is now basically certain that the jumping pot is inside, because we can feel a strong magic fluctuation in the core area of ​​this place, which should be caused by some powerful alchemical item." At this time, Canary also flew over and said, "Rose Crystal and the sisters are on standby, as long as you give the order, we will rush over. A distance of five kilometers is just a matter of flying for more than a minute for us."

"Then I'll leave this place to you." Ryan said, and he and Hermione jumped down. When they were close to the ground, they summoned their wings to slow down, and finally landed on the ground silently.

"This is definitely not something that is naturally formed." After landing, Ryan looked in the direction of the target, and found that the milky white opaque mist stood in front of them like a wall, as if there was a transparent wall dividing the place with strange mist and the normal place into two parts.

"But we still have to go anyway!" Hermione looked a little helpless. "Even if this is a trap for us, we can't just turn a blind eye to those innocent people."

"You're right, let's go in." Ryan smiled. "It's quite possible that we'll get a jumping pot this time, because I think the mysterious man knows that I can't be fooled by a defective product. To be precise, his plan to turn ordinary people around into Inferi is real. This way, we can be sure that we fall into the trap exactly as he planned."

After stepping into the invisible wall, Ryan suddenly felt that the surroundings became quiet, and the visibility suddenly dropped to no more than 20 meters. The fog absorbed all the sounds around him like cotton, making everything around him hazy.

"Did you find anything?" Hermione asked after walking a distance forward. "I found that the range of my magical reconnaissance has been greatly reduced, and there don't seem to be any animals or insects active in the area I've been investigating."

"There's a big problem with this place." Ryan stopped and put his hand on a tree. After more than ten seconds, he put his hand down and said to Hermione. "It feels like all life has been taken away. Normally, these trees should give me some feedback after I cast a spell, but now there is nothing. But the abnormal thing is that they are still alive."

After saying that, Ryan looked at Hermione with a puzzled look and explained, "Although plants don't react as obviously as animals when stimulated by magic, they do have some feedback to natural magic. But now, they have no reaction to the magic I just cast."

"What about the contact with the outside world?" Hermione asked nervously, as if she had suddenly thought of something. "Especially, are the contacts with the little puppets on standby in the floating fortress still normal?"

"It's still normal for now." Ryan said, "Because when I built the floating fortress magic tower, I prepared some magical communication methods that have never appeared in this world, so the communication with the floating castle is still normal. But other than that, the alchemical props I used to communicate with Lupin and the guerrillas have become ineffective. These mists may have a shielding effect."

"Damn! It's such a terrible feeling to have no idea what's ahead." After complaining, Hermione cheered up and continued to walk deeper into the jungle with Ryan.

(End of this chapter)