"Diggory, do you have anything to say?" Ryan asked with a frown.
"I… I don't know." Cedric took a deep breath and said, "I swear on my wand, I have no idea why Wade is doing this… I can't judge whether Miss Amina is telling the truth or not."
Amina flew into a rage: "You think I'm lying? You think I'm trying to trick you? Look me in the eye and say that!"
Cedric: "..." He silently turned his gaze aside.
Alright… Amina truly didn't seem like she was lying. But Wade was his fellow housemate…
Cedric sighed inwardly, tightening his grip on his wand, ready to act at any moment.
Even though one against five left him with almost no chance of winning…
Ryan raised a hand to stop Asada Chinatsu, who was about to cast a spell, and said to Cedric: "Leave, Cedric."
"Go the other way. If you're capable, handle the rest on your own and secure a golden egg to bring back."
In such a narrow passage, if they suddenly fought, it would likely cause casualties among their own group.
Ahead lay the ever-watchful Wade Grey and countless traps, and behind them more champions were streaming in. If they started fighting here without even having seen a golden egg yet, it would only benefit others.
But they couldn't possibly continue traveling alongside Cedric either—because once they encountered Wade, the person standing right beside them would instantly change from ally to a hidden landmine within their ranks.
So Ryan repeated: "Let's not attack each other. Please take the other path, Cedric."
Fleur pressed her lips together, Asada Chinatsu's expression remained blank, Diego's eyes betrayed a restless desire to strike, while Amina…
She was still caught in a storm of humiliation and fury, her teeth clenched and her eyes blazed with fire.
Cedric glanced around at them all, then gave a wry smile. "Alright… I hope you can succeed in taking a golden egg from Wade."
He slowly backed away down the passage. When he turned a corner and the stone wall cut off their line of sight, both sides let out a breath of relief at the same time.
"Let's go." Ryan turned back to the others. "Be careful. Wade Grey is an alchemist—there might be even more traps waiting for us ahead!"
Suddenly, Asada Chinatsu let out a soft "Huh??"
"What is it?" Fleur asked.
"Look over there…"
Asada pointed toward a shadow at a fork in the passage. Its posture hung eerily in the air, like a puppet suspended by invisible strings.
Asada whispered, "Doesn't that shadow look… like a person?"
…
While Cedric and Ryan's group were in conflict, three more figures appeared near the compass.
The trio from Salem Academy had all faced dragons at roughly the same time. So after Abby Williams was the first to charge into the chamber, she patiently waited a while longer and soon saw the other two transported in one after another.
Hope crouched on the ground and moved her wand as she softly chanted. Intersecting footprints glowed faintly across the floor.
Another contestant, Samuel, bent forward with his hands on his knees and glanced down. "Looks like most of them went into the right-hand passage. The group ahead should be five people strong."
"All chose the right path…" Hope lifted her head slightly, her eyes peering through strands of hair as she murmured softly, "Does that mean something terrifying is waiting down the left one?"
"I don't think so—it's probably just a coincidence. The ones before us didn't use a Tracking Charm like you did." Samuel looked up at the red-haired girl and asked, "Abby, what do you think?"
"Left path," Abby said decisively.
Not long after the three of them entered, they ran into Viktor Krum coming back their way. Both sides froze for a moment, then quickly drew their wands and cast Protego at the same time.
Invisible shields formed in the air, collided, guarded against nothing, and then dissipated almost simultaneously.
They froze again.
Seeing that the other side's first reaction was defense rather than attack, both parties gained a thin layer of mutual trust.
Krum was the first to speak: "I only took one golden egg. There should still be six or seven left inside—you can search for the rest."
Samuel shot back: "And how do I know you're not lying?"
"No need to." Krum's expression was stone-faced. "I'm leaving soon anyway. Taking more would break the rules."
Samuel felt unwilling to let this man walk away with the honor of being first. His arm twitched, wand hand itching to act—until Abby pressed down on it.
"I believe you're not lying," Abby said to her teammates. "Let him pass."
The passage here wasn't very wide. Krum moved along one wall, while the three from Salem pressed against the other. They slowly passed each other, so close they could hear the leather buckles on his armguards scraping sharply against the stone.
Then they separated, each group continuing on its own way.
…
"Kill him… kill him…"
Amina's roar echoed through layers of stone, warped into a strange, howling wail.
Wade shook his head. "Looks like someone freed her. But is there really any need to be that angry?"
Beside him, a crab-shaped doll clacked its pincers, its "click-click" sounds expressing wholehearted agreement.
As they spoke, Wade had already solved the last puzzle and taken the golden egg hidden inside a chest.
The insect-shaped dolls were light and nimble; they could find the eggs' locations but couldn't disable certain mechanisms, so they had to bring Wade to handle it himself.
By now, all eight golden eggs on this path had ended up in Wade's possession.
He slipped the one he needed into his pocket, then casually conjured a stone pedestal and piled the other seven eggs on top of it.
This was a cavern of more than a hundred square meters, once inhabited by a ghoul. From not far away came the sound of rattling chains.
A ghoul, with gray skin and patches of sparse hair on its head, dragged its chain as it paced back and forth. Pus-filled sores and rotting flesh covered its body, giving off a nauseating stench. Its long arms swung loosely with its claws looking wickedly sharp.
Now and then it craned its neck to let out a low growl down the tunnel; other times it leaned against the wall, emitting pitiful groans.
Though dim-witted, ghouls were very dangerous dark creatures. They often ambushed travelers in the dark or wandered among graveyards, with an insatiable hunger for human corpses—and sometimes they even preyed on the living.
They were originally human, but after years of eating corpses and flesh, they gradually degenerated into monsters.
Of course, to wizards like the Weasleys, a ghoul was nothing more than a noisy, ugly sort of pet. But to Wade, this one could at least serve as a half-decent guard dog.
Amid the ghoul's racket, Wade calmly finished arranging the cavern and then waited for the champions who sought golden eggs to step inside.
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