Even with the spell cast, the residual stench in the air remained thick.
Hermione, who had a slight obsession with cleanliness, was on the verge of not being able to endure this foul environment.
"It should be right here."
Harvey channeled his magic to carefully sense his surroundings, especially underground.
Wisps of invisible magic seeped deep into the subterranean crevices.
Two minutes later.
Just as Hermione was about to lose control and cast Fiendfyre to burn this trash-filled alley to the ground.
Harvey's face looked grim. "Why can't I find it?"
Even though the time for the dragon bone's appearance wasn't now, it shouldn't be so completely untraceable, right?
Or does the dragon bone simply not leak the slightest trace of its aura while sealed?
"Can you even do this or not?" Hermione asked in a muffled voice while pinching her nose.
When it comes to a man's pride, how could Harvey admit he couldn't get it up and do the job?
"Looks like I'm going to have to make a big scene to break the dragon bone's seal."
Saying that, Harvey solemnly drew his wand. Magic surged wildly from within his body as he aimed at the ground and cast Transfiguration.
The hard concrete ground was forcefully split apart, revealing a pitch-black, bottomless tunnel right before their eyes.
Seeing the foul-smelling sewage flowing down the opening as well, Hermione swore with a face full of utter disgust:
"There is no fucking way I am going into that sewer!"
Harvey cast the Bubble-Head Charm, enveloping both of their heads in transparent bubbles that looked like upside-down fishbowls.
"Let's go. The dragon bone should be right underground. Don't you want to save Professor Dumbledore?"
The Bubble-Head Charm worked perfectly, completely isolating them from the foul air around them. But Hermione still hesitated as she looked down the pitch-black hole that seemed to lead straight to hell.
"We aren't going to fall in and never come back out, are we?"
Harvey couldn't be bothered to dawdle any longer. He cast a Levitation Charm, bringing Hermione with him as he flew straight down into the hole.
"Ahhhh—!"
After a scream of absolute terror.
In the pitch-black environment where she couldn't even see her hand in front of her face, a terrified Hermione hugged Harvey's waist tightly.
"Lumos!"
A bright light source appeared, illuminating their surroundings.
This was a place resembling an underground karst cave. The damp soil on the walls appeared yellowish-white, and there were several narrow tunnels leading to who knows where.
Harvey also noticed a layer of accumulated dust on the cave floor.
Clearly, this deep underground cave had existed for a very long time.
Coupled with a faint, unidentifiable sense of oppressive energy in the surroundings, he suspected he might have found the right place.
Hermione, half-hanging onto Harvey's waist, realized they had stopped falling. She cautiously opened her eyes to observe her surroundings. "Where is this?"
Feeling the little witch's soft, supple body so intimately close in his arms, Harvey suddenly felt a burning heat stirring in his chest. While silently chanting a calming mantra to keep from getting hard, he explained:
"This should be the sealing site of the dragon bone. Legend has it that tens of thousands of years ago, the Celestials and the Earth's pantheons engaged in a brutal war."
"In this unprecedented war of gods, a divine dragon with power nearing Skyfather-level unfortunately perished."
"Its skeletal remains after death were sealed by ancient Qi refiners from K'un-Lun using secret arts."
"Because the dragon bone contains the cosmic laws comprehended by the divine dragon, it retains immense power even after countless eons."
"Only the legendary heart of Shou-Lao can serve as the key to open the sealing ground of the divine dragon's remains..."
Hermione's pretty face was still a bit pale. As she listened, she suddenly realized her actions were far too uninhibited. She hurriedly, and awkwardly, straightened her legs and stood back on the ground.
She then pretended as if nothing had happened and asked, "But we don't have the key. Do you have a way to open the seal?"
Although he could see the little witch was a bit shy, Harvey didn't tease her. Instead, he gently raised his wand, pointing deep into the tunnel as he said:
"There's a famous saying that fits this situation perfectly: In the face of absolute power, all problems crumble in a single blow!"
A light breeze stirred up out of nowhere inside the deep cave.
Harvey continuously cast Sectumsempra. Invisible blades slashed through the air with a "swish, swish, swish", continuously slicing and widening the narrow tunnel on the left.
When he saw a flash of mysterious iridescent light appear deep within the widened tunnel.
"We're in luck. It seems the sealing ground is deep within this tunnel."
Harvey took the little witch's warm, jade-like small hand and walked toward the left tunnel.
Hermione didn't resist; the broad palm made her feel much more secure inside.
The two of them curiously arrived deep inside the tunnel, only to discover a semi-transparent protective barrier formed by brilliant, flowing neon lights.
"Step back a bit. I'm going to forcefully break the seal," Harvey warned.
Hermione naturally took two steps back, waving her wand to cast a transparent magical shield over herself.
Once they were both ready, Harvey aimed his wand at the resplendent protective barrier and silently chanted.
"Fiendfyre—Descend!"
As magic continuously surged out from the tip of his wand, the temperature inside the narrow tunnel rapidly spiked.
Bursts of cyan-green flames materialized out of thin air, forming fire dragons that crashed against the iridescent barrier.
"Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle..."
The ultra-high-temperature flames baked the tunnel walls into molten rock, and steaming, crimson magma flowed freely across the tunnel floor.
But the iridescent barrier didn't react at all under the continuous assault of the flames.
"Fuck!" Harvey cursed under his breath.
Since they were deep underground, rashly using powerful offensive spells could very well trigger a massive sinkhole collapse.
He didn't want to be buried alive under hundreds of tons of dirt.
After a moment of thought, Harvey lightly tapped his wand, ceasing the Fiendfyre curse.
With his left hand facing the barrier, he opened a portal the size of a fist.
He used spatial power to slice through the barrier.
When the edge of the golden portal touched the barrier.
The surface of the iridescent barrier exhibited extremely violent fluctuations.
Semi-transparent ripples rippled outward from the point of intersection.
The barrier quivered continuously, teetering on the verge of collapse for ten minutes, but it still hadn't been breached.
Losing his patience, Harvey channeled a Kamar-Taj mystic art to connect with an unknown dimension.
He pushed both hands out.
A beam of deep blue energy shot out rapidly.
"Sizzle..."
The energy beam continuously wore down the barrier, and the semi-transparent iridescent protective layer shuddered more and more violently.
Until, with a pop, the barrier completely vanished.
Only then did Harvey nod his head in satisfaction.
"Let's go. We'll go inside and take a look."
Hermione followed Harvey, stepping across where the protective layer had been and into a gloomy cavern.
"Lumos... mos... mos... mos~"
The sound of Hermione casting her spell echoed endlessly within the cavern, creating overlapping echoes.
Moreover, the light source at the tip of her wand only illuminated a small patch around them; vast stretches of the cavern remained in total darkness.
Seeing this, Harvey waved his wand, casting "Incendio" to summon over a dozen fireballs to act as light sources, and controlled them to fly off in all directions.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"
As the sound of the fireballs tearing through the air at high speed rang out, more than half of the cavern was finally illuminated.
"Merlin's beard!"
The two of them gasped in unison.
A massive, gargantuan dragon skeleton, roughly a hundred meters tall and four to five hundred meters long, appeared before them.
The dragon bone emitted a faint red fluorescence, with starlight faintly twinkling inside the marrow.
And the eye sockets of the dragon skull just so happened to be looking down directly at the two of them, projecting an invisible, oppressive sense of intimidation.