The two professional Cavendish family members carefully placed the substantial wooden supply crate on the forest floor with practiced efficiency.
"These represent the items you successfully requisitioned," one stated clearly in formal tone. "The crate contains uniform upgrade kits—each usable precisely ten times before complete depletion. Remember carefully: each individual uniform can only accept a single upgrade application total."
Fleur nodded understanding with obvious satisfaction.
The Cavendish operatives didn't linger unnecessarily. They turned smoothly and vanished back into the Forbidden Forest's concealing shadows through coordinated Apparition.
The precise moment they disappeared completely, the excited girls immediately swarmed the opened supply box, tearing into its contents with barely restrained enthusiasm.
It was packed absolutely to capacity with valuable magical tactical gear.
Fleur moved with characteristic decisive efficiency, rapidly distributing the varied items and systematically arming everyone before selecting one of the mysterious upgrade kits for herself.
After brief examination and experimentation, she successfully figured out the activation mechanism.
She applied the upgrade kit to her own uniform first as a test subject. A brilliant flash of concentrated purple light immediately enveloped her entire form.
Fleur gasped audibly at the sensation—the enchanted fabric felt noticeably tougher and more resilient, somehow imbued with a distinct surge of enhanced physical strength beyond normal human capability.
"Wizarding genius," she murmured with genuine stunned admiration. "Erwin must have invested ages of dedicated research developing this particular enchantment."
She didn't waste additional time marveling at the craftsmanship. Methodically and efficiently, she upgraded each remaining team member's uniform in systematic succession.
A continuous stream of distinctive violet light flickered repeatedly across the assembled girls until the supply box stood completely empty of upgrade kits.
Fleur clapped her hands together with satisfaction. "Perfect results. Now, let's actively seek out the other Cavendish family operatives. With these comprehensive upgrades, our complete item loadout has become genuinely flawless. If we encounter any competing school delegation again, we'll crush them decisively."
The girls nodded eagerly, their collective spirits soaring with renewed confidence. They felt genuinely battle-ready and formidable.
While both Hogwarts and Beauxbatons were making substantial strategic gains, Durmstrang was experiencing an absolutely miserable day.
Hogwarts had successfully looted their hard-won spoils, and they'd catastrophically lost a mountain of precious supplies in the failed engagement.
The burly students stomped through the Forbidden Forest with visible frustration, faces dark with barely restrained rage and humiliation.
But they remained fundamentally powerless to change circumstances. They simply couldn't defeat the Hogwarts team in any direct sustained confrontation.
If they genuinely possessed that capability, they would have immediately taught Charlotte's group a painful lesson about casually taking what didn't belong to them.
For now, they were forced to resume desperate scavenging for additional supply crates, hoping somehow to reverse their progressively worsening losing streak.
The four competing delegations had settled into a tense, constantly shifting competitive equilibrium.
Meanwhile, deep within the ancient hidden temple far from Hogwarts, Erwin sat in deep meditation surrounded by the progressively accumulating shattered remnants of depleted magic crystals.
Though he was actively channeling and manipulating divine power directly now, he still required converting it through conventional magical energy as an intermediate step, and the abundant crystals provided absolutely vital buffering capacity.
Without their stabilizing presence, safely handling the two immense conflicting divine powers being systematically released and absorbed from the King's Sword would prove essentially impossible.
Though the original owners—Merlin and King Arthur—remained absent from direct involvement, their residual energies proved remarkably potent and resistant.
Erwin was compelled to expend truly significant sustained effort to progressively bind and dominate them.
Given the fundamental power disparity between active divine practitioner and passive residual energy, however, ultimate victory remained absolutely inevitable. The only genuine question was precisely how long the complete process would require.
Time crawled by with agonizing slowness.
Outside the sealed temple, Ebony stood faithful guard with unwavering dedication.
With the systematic absorption of concentrated divine power occurring inside, his natural sensitivity to magical force fluctuations had dramatically sharpened.
He clearly sensed four distinct energy signatures within the temple structure: two unmistakably belonged to his master's now-familiar power patterns, while two represented completely alien and unknown sources.
Ebony possessed sufficient intelligence to correctly deduce his master was methodically dismantling and absorbing the foreign divine powers, so he maintained his vigilant position without attempting interference.
He absolutely couldn't risk causing any dangerous distraction during such delicate work.
His stomach rumbled painfully—a hollow, demanding ache of genuine hunger—but he determinedly curled into a tight defensive ball, stubbornly ignoring the physical discomfort.
He wouldn't abandon his assigned post. Not until this was finished.
The sun had already risen and set twice since Erwin entered. Ebony would wait as long as necessary.
Back at Hogwarts, the second major test phase of the Four-School Championship was rapidly approaching its inevitable conclusion. The final comprehensive assessment would begin imminently.
After spending multiple exhausting days within the Forbidden Forest's demanding environment, the contestants from all four competing schools felt utterly physically and mentally spent.
Erwin's specially designed enchanted team uniforms had proven absolute lifesavers for the wizards with naturally weaker physical constitutions. Without those enhancements, they quite literally wouldn't have lasted this extended duration.
Even the Kunlun students, additionally bolstered by their own traditional gear and conditioning, felt progressive exhaustion inexorably creeping into their bones.
Sunny Finch wiped accumulated sweat from her forehead, squinting upward at the dappled sunlight managing to pierce the dense forest canopy overhead.
"We absolutely cannot continue dragging this engagement out indefinitely," she stated with obvious strain in her voice. "I genuinely feel like my head is spinning from sustained exertion."
The other Kunlun practitioners nodded with grim shared agreement.
"Let's deploy the reconnaissance item," Sunny decided decisively. "Scout for any hostile forces in our immediate vicinity."
A student from the Kunlun contingent nodded understanding and retrieved a small wooden eagle carving from his storage pocket. He activated the enchanted artifact with a focused spark of channeled magical energy.
A piercing cry echoed through the trees, and the carved eagle's eyes suddenly lit up with brilliant internal illumination. The activating student's perspective was instantly and dramatically yanked into the aerial viewpoint, his consciousness soaring high above the concealing treetops.
The sensation proved profoundly disorienting—like experiencing a sudden out-of-body consciousness transfer.
But the underlying spell mechanism itself wasn't particularly obscure. It represented a shared-vision charm that Erwin had successfully unearthed from Hogwarts' Restricted Section archives.
Originally developed during the early catastrophic Wizarding Wars, the spell had been specifically designed for taming messenger birds and conducting aerial reconnaissance operations.
However, it had been systematically abandoned centuries ago because wild birds proved far too inherently difficult to reliably control for consistent military applications.
For virtually anyone else attempting revival, the ancient spell represented an impractical failure.
But for Erwin, who seemed to share some inexplicable natural rapport with diverse magical creatures, it functioned essentially perfectly. He'd even successfully refined the basic concept into a genuinely practical tactical tool.
"Focus your attention," Sunny snapped sharply, forcefully pulling the distracted scout back from his fascinated reverie. "You can gawk at the technical achievement later. The spell effect only sustains for two minutes maximum. Don't waste a single second."
The student immediately tore his wandering attention back to the urgent reconnaissance task. The forest terrain blurred beneath his borrowed aerial perspective as he systematically scanned for movement.
Two precious minutes vanished in what felt like mere heartbeats.
The external perspective abruptly snapped back to his own physical body with jarring suddenness. He blinked repeatedly, swaying slightly from the disorienting transition.
"Well?" Sunny demanded with obvious impatience. "What did you observe?"
"The trees remain far too dense for optimal visibility," he reported somewhat breathlessly, catching his equilibrium. "Visual clarity was significantly poor, but... I definitely observed movement toward the east. Vague shapes and figures. Almost certainly people rather than wildlife."
Sunny nodded with immediate acceptance. No further detailed questions proved necessary.
These were her fellow peers from Kunlun, raised together and trained in identical methodologies. She trusted their observational instincts and judgment completely.
"East it is," she declared with hardening expression and renewed determination. "Let's discover who's hiding in that direction. If they appear to represent easy prey, we engage for elimination. We're sitting on three ace-level golden cards in our collective possession, but we possess no reliable intelligence on what the competing delegations are currently holding."
The Kunlun team had genuinely experienced remarkable fortune throughout the competition.
Not only had they successfully secured the legendary Fiendfyre Pathfinder—the devastating golden-tier item originally dropped by a Cavendish operative—but they'd also intercepted and defeated two additional family operatives in separate engagements.
They'd emerged victorious from both skirmishes, successfully seizing two more powerful golden artifacts in the process.
They were effectively sitting on a substantial stash of devastating trump cards.
And they were absolutely ready to play them.