Leonard ignored them. Unhurriedly, he removed the magazine, pulled out another one from who knew where, slid it into the pistol, racked it, and remained as calm as an old hunter.
"William, you're not seriously planning to fight them head-on, are you?" Lupin asked.
"No. I just don't think you're getting out of here," Leonard said. "They're already here."
Before the last word had even fallen, the ground began to shake. The roof of the Shrieking Shack was torn open, and a massive figure thrust its head inside. Its face was covered in scales and feathers, with a long neck like a serpent's.
It was Raichel.
"You're not getting away." His voice boomed like a bell as one hand reached down to seize them.
Faced with that enormous hand, Lupin and Sirius could not even summon the will to resist. Only then did Lupin fully realize that none of the Raichels had ever been easy to deal with. Even the bird-serpent Raichel he had once killed had only died because there had not been enough space.
A bird-serpent Raichel with enough room to move was so huge it inspired pure despair.
They stared blankly as the hand descended, like marmots waiting to die.
Leonard raised the pistol in his hand and aimed it at that hand.
"You think the weapon in your hand can hurt me? Planning to use it to scratch my itch?" shouted a Raichel with wings on his back and scales all over his body, laughing wildly.
Mocking laughter rang out from every direction. One Raichel after another, all in different forms, appeared around the Shrieking Shack, surrounding the group under attack by the bird-serpent Raichel. At a rough glance, there were at least twenty or thirty of them.
As far as they were concerned, the ending was already set. No one here was getting out of their grasp.
Leonard remained unmoved. Facing the descending hand, he pulled the trigger.
A silver-white casing flew out, and a glowing green bullet wreathed in fire struck Raichel's palm.
Neither Lupin nor Sirius had any expectations for that bullet. In their eyes, Leonard's earlier barrage had failed to kill even the invisible Raichel. Against this giant bird-serpent Raichel, it probably would not even count as a tickle.
But to everyone's surprise, including Raichel's, the moment the bullet struck the huge palm, it changed.
Its glow suddenly flared, turning into a green sphere of light. The sphere dissipated almost at once, but as it vanished, it took away most of the flesh from the giant palm.
Blood gushed from the wound, and the bird-serpent Raichel's massive face twisted in pain.
A cold smile appeared on Leonard's face as he shifted the muzzle toward the other Raichels.
He had changed magazines, after all. This one was fully loaded with [Ephemeral] bullets.
One bullet after another swept through fragile lives like Death's scythe.
No matter what bloodline a Raichel possessed, whether it was a Ghoul with tenacious vitality and high magic resistance, a Salamander with terrifying regeneration, or the eerie, elusive Lethifold, under the effect of [Ephemeral] they all rapidly disintegrated.
Aside from the giant bird-serpent, all bloodlines were equal before it.
That performance immediately made Lupin and Sirius look at Muggle weapons in a completely new light. It even made them think they ought to get one themselves.
Unfortunately, Leonard's pistol could only hold seven bullets. Counting the one that hit the giant hand, it could only kill six Raichels.
A Raichel with a scorpion tail and a mane growing across his face, together with another Raichel covered in scales and breathing fire from his mouth, charged in and grinned at them viciously.
The fleshy growths on their faces writhed with their expressions, making them look revolting.
"A Manticore and a Dragon!" After fighting so many Raichels, Lupin had already figured out his ability. The bizarre traits on his body were clearly characteristics of dangerous magical creatures.
The two Raichels that had rushed in both carried extremely dangerous bloodlines. There was no need to explain a Dragon. It was an XXXXX-class magical creature, and its danger was obvious to everyone.
A Manticore was the same class of dangerous creature. It was rarer than a Dragon, but although the two shared the same classification, a Manticore was even more dangerous.
People still hunted Dragons from time to time, but Manticores were different. According to the records, one of them once bit a man to death and was hunted for it, but escaped punishment because no one could catch it.
Lupin looked at Leonard, hoping he would pull out that powerful weapon again and instantly kill these two monsters as well.
Instead, all he saw was Leonard shrug at him and put the pistol away.
"Sorry. Those bullets are hard to make, and I only brought one magazine," Leonard said regretfully.
Lupin felt despair wash over him. He looked at Sirius, who was standing ready to fight to the death, then at Tonks, who was still lying there peacefully unconscious. Gritting his teeth, he let his body swell and transformed into a Werewolf.
He had taken a near-perfect Wolfsbane Potion, which meant he could transform at will for the span of a month.
"Sirius, take them and go. Leave this to me." Lupin's voice grew rougher with the transformation.
"What? Remus, are you joking? Do you take me for that kind of person?" Sirius roared. "I should be the one staying behind."
"Enough. Do you want to die here with that lifetime of infamy still hanging over you?" Lupin stared at the steadily approaching Raichels. "Don't forget, you're Harry's only family. You still have to clear your name."
Sirius fell silent, struggle written all over his face.
"Don't bother. Not one of you is getting away. You'll all die here." The bird-serpent Raichel laughed loudly, and his other uninjured giant hand reached down toward them.
Despair appeared on Lupin's face. He extended his claws, intending to leave at least a few wounds on Raichel before he died.
Then he heard Leonard's calm voice.
"Everybody get down."
Lupin froze for a moment and looked at Leonard. He found him wearing a helpless expression as he pulled out some strange rod from who knew where. One end of it was fitted with an odd spindle-shaped object.
Silver-white patterns had been engraved across it.
Lupin shuddered. His Werewolf senses let him feel, from that bizarre object, something infinitely close to death.
This was something even more terrifying than the weapon that had just killed Raichel instantly.
"Get down!" Lupin immediately repeated, dragging the Sirius who had been about to charge in down to the floor, then pressing Tonks beneath him as well.
Leonard did not even spare them a glance. Warning them once was already more than enough. If they were careless enough to get killed by the aftermath, that was their own problem.
Leonard stepped back, aimed at the bird-serpent Raichel's head, a complicated mix of pain and excitement flashing across his face, then resolutely pulled the trigger.
"R! P! G!"