Chapter 1138 The "darkness" before dawn

Although the British Ministry of Magic is hidden underground in London, its offices are not arranged entirely from top to bottom.

The main hall is located on the eighth floor underground. All visitors and officials of the Ministry of Magic will pass through here every day when entering and exiting the Ministry of Magic. In a practical sense, this is the main entrance of the Ministry of Magic, or the real "first floor" of the Magical Government Administration Building - in fact

, most people think so too.

And if divided based on the location of the "main entrance", the Ministry of Magic is obviously divided into two areas: the "upper level" and the "lower level".

As if following some unwritten rules, each floor above the main hall is distributed in order of increasing importance:

The seventh floor underground is the Department of Magical Sports and Sports, the sixth floor is the Department of Magical Transport, the fifth floor is the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and so on, followed by the Department for the Management and Control of Magical Creatures, the Department of Magical Accidents and Disasters, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and the

The underground floor is also the top-level office of the minister and deputy minister... Of course, there is also a magic logistics office that assists the ministers in allocating resources and handling daily chores.

Generally speaking, 90% of the daily activities of Ministry of Magic employees occur here, and many people will not go beyond the eighth underground floor until they retire.

However, everyone knows what is under the main hall.

The seat of the Ministry of Magic's top secret agency, the Department of Mysteries, is located on the ninth floor underground of the Ministry of Magic.

And the bottom floor, which no one wants to go to and there is no elevator directly to, is the Ministry of Magic's courtroom and temporary cells.

As the only "academic research and development" department of the Ministry of Magic, the Department of Mysteries is responsible for various secret research. Most of the content of this department is highly confidential. Even if a serving member of the Ministry of Magic breaks into this area without reason, it may be

Sentenced and even imprisoned in Azkaban.

The Department of Mysteries studies many mysteries in the world, such as love, space, thought, time, death, etc.

Wizards who work in the Department of Mysteries are called silent people because their work is highly confidential. Only a few wizards in the Ministry of Magic know what is in this department. However, since someone knows the content of the work, there is no such thing.

One hundred percent confidentiality. After all, compared to the Succubus City and Academy City's personnel entry and exit management regulations, the Ministry of Magic's so-called top-level confidentiality work is really too immature and amateurish.

After receiving the order to clear the area from Kurt Meyer, the "Death Eaters" returned to the temporarily repaired elevator behind.

The leading wizard raised his wand and knocked on the ninth button. The fence door slammed shut, and the elevator began to descend. The chain made a clicking sound, which sounded like gears that had been in disrepair.

People are a little worried that it will suddenly get stuck in mid-air.

"Honestly, couldn't you have fixed it better while you were repairing it——"

Albert Downey shook his head and said, he was originally a member of the permanent guard group of the Succubus City.

However, due to the talkativeness of some old guys, he was transferred from the guard regiment to the field department of the black organization. As one of the top three potential newcomers of the Tianming Group last year, he was quickly promoted to the deputy leader of the third action group, responsible for a

A standard tactical team of fifteen people.

According to the mission instructions issued by the "eldest lady", their mission tonight is to "clean up" the Department of Mysteries.

"Stop complaining about this, this thing is always like this. This is the Ministry of Magic, how advanced do you expect it to be?"

Next to him, a tall and thin young wizard shrugged, "Besides, the Magic Maintenance Department has to leave something for itself, right? But I guess there will be a lot of replacements after tonight. After all, we

Before I leave, I still have to come up with something that is not easy to forget—"

Albert glanced at the young wizard beside him, raised his eyebrows, and said nothing.

To be honest, he really didn't understand how, as an active member of the Magic Maintenance Department of the Ministry of Magic, the guy next to him had such great interest in damaging and destroying the internal facilities of the Ministry of Magic... But if he thought about it carefully, the man on Succubus Island

The maintenance staff seem to be similar. If there is a problem with any facility, the Succubus Island side is more likely to tear it down and rebuild it instead of repairing it on the original basis.

While the two were talking, the elevator stopped.

"Mystery, Affairs, Department." A noisy and harsh female voice said, which sounded like a damaged tape.

Obviously, the fourth team of Tianming in charge of the temporary site did not try their best to repair the elevators. After all, these elevators will be attacked by all wizards for several rounds in the end - according to the description of the mission goal, at least it must be so that "restoration as before" cannot be used

Easily restored state.

The fence door slid open slightly, and the torch fixed on the wall was swayed left and right by the air flow stirred up by the elevator.

They came to the corridor outside, where several wizards were studying a black door.

"How about it? Is there still no way to break the curse here?"

"No, we tried physical cutting to terminate the magic, but it seems to be connected to all the rooms behind it, and there is no way to simply cut it open. However, the content shown in the data is still useful, as long as we keep it on, the rest of the room will

The room will not rotate."

One of the wizards raised his head and pointed at the black door that seemed to be between stone and wood, feeling helpless.

"We speculate that it is not a door made entirely of real matter, but a mixture formed by the magical power of the room behind it."

"Okay, I understand - then record more experimental data and let it stay here for now..."

Albert Downey nodded. If there was enough time, they might be able to move the entire Ministry of Magic.

However, time is limited, and they must make a choice. Magic buildings such as the door and hall of the Department of Mysteries cannot be taken away at the moment. Record the experimental data and various parameters and return them to the Tianming Group to be studied by professionals. This is also the purpose of their trip.

One of the mission indicators.

"Hurry up, we are going to start 'general cleaning'. There may be a lot of noise inside later, so don't worry."

Albert shook the shorthand notebook in his hand, walked towards the door, and strode across the threshold into the darkness.

Just like the "intelligence" description they had received before, the structure of this floor of the Department of Mysteries is different from the other floors.

After passing the "black door", they appeared in a large circular room.

Everything here is black, including the walls, floor and ceiling. There are some branch-shaped candles dotted between the walls. The flames are blue, and the swaying cold light is reflected on the shiny marble floor, making people feel like they are not walking under their feet.

Instead of stone slabs, it was dark water condensed into ice.

There were many identical black doors inlaid on the surrounding walls. When they first entered, they all had no marks or handles.

However, just like the wizards at the door, there are now several black-clothed wizards standing inside to guard the hub.

"The containment work here in the Brain Hall is almost over. Do you have any other instructions?"

"The door to the Hall of Love still can't be opened. We've tried the left and right spells, but they can't leave any traces on it——"

"We tried to capture the stars in the Planet Hall, but they seemed unable to be brought out..."

"There is good news over at the Hall of Death. Although magic cannot have an effect on that layer of curtain, we can cut the stone platform. In a quarter of an hour at most, we can pack and move the thing as a whole. The only problem is that it

It seems that it cannot be put into the space bag."

As Albert walked into the central rotunda of the Department of Mysteries, the wizards reported to him one after another on their latest progress.

"Well, after the stone platform of the Death Hall is cut, is there a way to transport it into the elevator?"

"It's a little bit reluctant, mainly because it's easy to accidentally fall into the curtain during the transportation process——"

"Inform Ike and the others to temporarily modify the elevators, open up the two elevators, and transport them to the minister's office on the top floor at the same time. It will be easier and safer to transfer from there using magic. Let's take action! The containment work in the Brain Hall is over.

If so, the 'carriers' will first gather in the main hall to prepare for evacuation. Two people will go to the Hall of Death to help with the cutting. The remaining people will go to the Time Hall with me. We will start cleaning..."

Albert Downey gave orders in an orderly manner and glanced at the black doors marked with various magical characters.

The Department of Mysteries restrains many magical forces born from nature, and preserves and records most of the research data of the British Ministry of Magic, but all of them belong to the Destiny Group. Compared with the systematic and standardized foundation and the Destiny Group, here

The research is really too original.

As he spoke, he pushed open the black door marked with the magic words "Time + Prophecy".

The next moment, a beautiful, diamond-like dancing light lit up in front of Albert's eyes.

A few seconds later, after his eyes adjusted to the dazzling light, various clocks appeared in front of him.

They range in size from grandfather clocks to travel clocks, hanging between bookshelves or standing on tables as long as the entire length of a room.

There was a bright light on the clock face, and there was a continuous and busy ticking sound everywhere, like the sound of thousands of tiny footsteps marching in order. And the diamond-like bright jumping light came from a tall person at the end of the room.

The towering bell-shaped crystal glass jar looks like thousands of tiny feet walking around. What emits the beating, diamond-like light is a tall bell-shaped crystal glass jar located at the end of the room.

In the sparkling airflow inside the bell-shaped crystal jar, floating in the air, is a small, jewel-like bright egg.

It floated and cracked in the cover, and a hummingbird appeared and was lifted to the top of the cover. But when it hit the airflow, its feathers became dirty and wet; when it was returned to the cover

When it reaches the bottom, it is wrapped in the eggshell again... everything repeats endlessly inside.

Behind the bell-shaped crystal jar is a tall closet, and the wall where the closet is located is covered with various hourglasses.

"It's time——"

Albert Downey sighed with some awe.

He gathered his thoughts and looked around at the wizards who were recording and counting the structural parameters of the Time Hall.

"Start packing the boxes. Take away all the items that you are unsure about. Remember to handle them with care - take away all the time turners. Be careful not to let them deflect. If you are involved in the time turbulence, it may be up to you.

Are you lucky? Let's get started."

Under the command of Albert Downey, the wizards who temporarily turned into investigators breathed a sigh of relief and raised their wands and waved them.

Compared to recording and counting the internal research parameters of the Ministry of Magic, they prefer this simple and crude sweep mission.

"Okay, attackers gather here at my place——"

Albert Downey continued, walking non-stop to the end of the Time Hall and pushing open the only door.

This is a huge, cold room, as high as a church. It is lined with towering shelves filled with dusty little glass balls. The shelves under each glass ball are covered with yellowed small

Label. The candlesticks arranged along the shelf are flickering with blue firelight. Like the outermost hall, some small balls emit mysterious flowing light, while others are blurry and dark, like extinguished light bulbs.
To be continued...