A ghostly green flame suddenly burst open in mid-air, and the temperature around the street dropped several degrees.
First, a black trouser leg emerged from the eerie flames, followed by the man's pale, gaunt face, and finally his entire body.
As the trailing hem of his robes disappeared from the space behind him, the dark flames quickly dissipated into the air.
The man's expression was cold, his face as pale as a sheet.
He swept his aggressive, brutal gaze across the surroundings.
There were only a handful of pedestrians on the street.
Hogwarts had started its new term, and Diagon Alley, which had been bustling for the past two days, had fallen silent once again.
"Who are you?! The use of Apparition here is against the rules! Such an abrupt appearance will cause a panic!"
A wizard in a black uniform shouted at Lord Voldemort while raising his wand.
He was clearly an Auror responsible for patrolling the area.
"Put down your wand and come with me to the Ministry of Magic to register first."
"You are the first person to attempt to persuade the Dark Lord to surrender his wand without using either magic or threats."
Lord Voldemort chuckled sarcastically.
The sky darkened.
Dark-green vapour gradually gathered above the clouds. Its colour became increasingly saturated and vivid before eventually forming several enormous, glowing green skulls.
Lord Voldemort dragged his robes behind him, revealing his pale face without any attempt to conceal it.
The pedestrians on the street were drawn towards the strange man.
As they stared at him, an inexplicable fear suddenly arose within them, and they instinctively wanted to flee.
The tall Auror's face turned angry.
He was clearly furious that this man was challenging his authority.
Apparently, he had never seen Lord Voldemort's portrait or photograph.
"You—!"
Before the Auror could even finish the incantation, a green flash pierced his skull.
Bright-red blood flowed out.
The Killing Curse did not necessarily need to strike the head to take effect.
Lord Voldemort's actions were, of course, deliberately intended to create panic.
Blood was extremely effective.
The few pedestrians still on the street began screaming.
Although rumours of Lord Voldemort's return had been spreading everywhere, this was the first time many of them had directly witnessed it.
Such a powerful and terrifying scene was extremely rare.
"The Dark Mark!"
"You-Know-Who!"
The glass windows of the surrounding shops suddenly shattered.
Broken shards scattered across the ground.
"The Dark Lord…"
Lord Voldemort did not immediately begin slaughtering everyone.
He enjoyed the atmosphere of pervasive fear.
There was still plenty of time, wasn't there?
The shopkeepers hurriedly pulled down their shutters, although such barriers were practically useless against the Dark Lord.
For the moment, they escaped because Lord Voldemort was not interested in them.
Some Werewolves had already begun waving their claws and pounding against the iron gates.
Even so, facing a Werewolf was still preferable to facing the Dark Lord.
Lord Voldemort quickened his pace and walked straight down the cobblestone street.
Until now, they had only been searching for ancient relics and had not appeared publicly.
At the far end of the street behind him, Vampires concealed beneath dark cloaks revealed their fangs.
There were also several pedestrians dressed in black leather jackets.
Their bodies rapidly swelled.
Their clothes burst apart, tearing open to reveal powerful muscles beneath.
Black scraps of fabric scattered across the ground.
They raised their heads and howled at the sky.
Their mournful wolf howls echoed through the streets and alleys, mingling with the terrified screams of ordinary wizards.
"Notify the Aurors immediately! Werewolf attack!"
Even now, many people still did not know who the leader of these creatures was.
Lord Voldemort had not appeared publicly since his resurrection, and ordinary wizards were unfamiliar with his distinctive pale face and nostrils that consisted of nothing more than two narrow slits.
At first glance, some might even mistake him for a pitiful wizard whose face had been horribly disfigured.
Unfortunately, the wizard who felt sorry for him was usually about to become rather "pitiful" himself.
They soon discovered that a symbol that had not appeared for many years—a green skull—had suddenly exploded in the sky.
Piercing screams continued to come from behind him.
Werewolves attacked pedestrians indiscriminately.
Some people were forced into corners with nowhere to escape, while others desperately ran away.
Lord Voldemort did not care about those who managed to slip through the net.
What he wanted was a return so shocking that it would make everyone tremble with fear and cower in terror.
What if he failed to make the Elder Wand completely submit to him?
He was still the most powerful wizard in the world.
He was simply not quite perfect yet.
A huge shadow appeared before the Dark Lord.
He walked towards the front of a towering building.
Gringotts.
The bank of the wizarding world.
It possessed the strongest protections in the entire magical world.
However, those seemingly impregnable defences crumbled rapidly before the Dark Lord.
His long, pale fingers merely pointed forward.
He did not even raise his wand.
The first bronze gate, which served as a protective barrier, suddenly collapsed.
Stone fragments flew everywhere.
It was like a building made of blocks being dismantled by removing a single piece.
The entire structure crumbled in an instant.
Lord Voldemort slowly walked down the corridor.
The second door stood open.
The silver door bore an engraved warning advising greedy people not to covet wealth that did not belong to them.
But it was obviously useless against this man.
The idea that Lord Voldemort would heed a warning was practically a joke.
He was greedy by nature, yet he lacked the strength to protect his wealth from the Goblins.
A truly greedy person would never stop simply because of a few lines of warning poetry.
Lord Voldemort stepped onto the solid floor and scanned his surroundings.
The marble floor was decorated with simple patterns of circles and triangles, forming strange arrays nested within one another.
Alternating shades of black, white, and grey stretched all the way to the far end of the hall.
Eight towering stone pillars supported the ceiling and the entire structure.
The pillars were somewhat mottled, with fine cracks visible everywhere.
Some imperfections resembled black lines of dirt, giving the hall a desolate sense of age and decay.
The hall was silent.
There wasn't a single Goblin in sight.
Normally, around a hundred Goblins would be sitting behind the long counter, hurriedly making entries in enormous ledgers.
Some would be weighing coins on scales.
Others would be examining gemstones through eyepieces.
Each workstation's pure-white lampshade would emit a faint glow.
But now, they had all scattered like birds and beasts.
At the centre of the hall, countless dazzling magical crystals hung from the magnificent chandelier.
But they remained unlit.
Their light had completely disappeared, leaving the hall dim and gloomy.
His snake-like eyes narrowed into slits.
His gaze suddenly sharpened and focused.
Then he raised his head.
A blinding light suddenly illuminated the dark room.
With a loud bang, one of the counters exploded.
The lamp upon it shattered instantly, and fragments scattered across the floor.
The bronze scales were overturned, producing a sharp metallic clang.
A somewhat obese Goblin was cowering behind the counter.
His hands covered his head, his arms shielding his face, while his knees remained pressed against the floor.
His entire body trembled.
It seemed his size had slowed his escape.
It vividly illustrated the principle that, when running from a bear, you did not need to be faster than the bear.
You only needed to be faster than the people running alongside you.
Lord Voldemort stroked his long, slender fingers and smiled with satisfaction.
"I need to go to a vault."
His tone was somewhat urgent.
"Yes, yes!"
The obese Goblin hurriedly replied.
His fat face jiggled as he displayed an extremely ingratiating expression and quickly climbed to his feet from the cold marble floor.
This might have been the fastest he had ever moved in his life.
"Honourable sir, please follow me."
Trying desperately to control his trembling legs, the Goblin led Lord Voldemort towards the passage leading to the vaults.
They passed through the doors of the main hall and entered a narrow stone corridor.
A narrow railway track stretched ahead, leading into a winding passage.
"You should sit in the cart…"
The Goblin explained ingratiatingly.
Lord Voldemort merely glanced at it before dismissing the suggestion with disdain.
The Dark Lord, sitting in this dilapidated little cart?
It was a truly bizarre and almost comical image.