The one who released this curse was Cole, who'd been observing from not far away!
He'd noticed that Dudley hadn't used any killing moves against the basilisk, seemingly waiting for the right moment, so he also hadn't used particularly powerful spells at the start.
Just now, after Dudley displayed that strange ability, he knew the time had come and boldly made his move.
The green light attracted everyone's attention. Through mirrors and water reflections, they clearly saw that brilliant green heading straight for the basilisk.
At the same time, Voldemort sensed something was wrong and immediately controlled the basilisk's body to dodge.
However, at this moment he couldn't escape by crawling and could only choose to twist his body to avoid the incoming spell.
"Distortion!" Dudley's eyes narrowed as he spoke quietly in Hermes.
The next moment, the body that was preparing to twist left seemed to have gotten its direction wrong and swung right instead, meeting the Killing Curse head-on.
The green light penetrated the basilisk's body. Its originally violently thrashing body immediately lost power and quickly stopped completely.
The Killing Curse's terrifying power was fully demonstrated at this moment. Even a basilisk with high magical resistance still couldn't resist the curse's death.
The basilisk's eyes dimmed, and the dark red light disappeared.
The entire hall fell into dead silence.
"The basilisk... is dead?" Harry asked hesitantly.
They still didn't dare raise their heads to look at the basilisk's condition. They only saw through their mirrors that the basilisk had completely stopped moving.
"What about Voldemort? Is he dead too?" Hermione asked in a trembling voice.
Cole's Killing Curse came so unexpectedly that no one thought such a powerful basilisk would be killed in an instant.
This gave them an illusion—was the basilisk that easy to kill?
It only took one spell to easily solve it.
But the next moment, they suddenly realized this wasn't because the basilisk was easy to kill, but because Dudley had done extensive groundwork before Cole struck to kill the basilisk.
The effect of those strange prohibitions had even exceeded the effect of the Killing Curse itself.
"Finally dead!" Borgin breathed a sigh of relief. He felt the basilisk's aura disappear and immediately relaxed.
This battle made Borgin scared just thinking about it.
A powerful basilisk plus Voldemort's soul gave the originally mindless killing beast intelligence—for them, this was literally a hell-mode start.
Fortunately, Dudley had many trump cards. Otherwise, when Voldemort appeared, Borgin might have already fled.
"The basilisk is dead, but..." Dudley's gaze fell on the basilisk's abdomen. "Voldemort isn't dead!"
"What?" Everyone who'd just relaxed tensed up again. The wands they'd lowered were raised again, pointing at the basilisk.
"The Killing Curse just now killed the basilisk's soul, but Voldemort escaped at the last moment. He should be hiding in the diary," Dudley said.
He slowly walked toward the basilisk.
After the basilisk died, its eyes no longer had the effect of killing. Even if Dudley looked directly at them, there was no impact.
Glancing at those huge yellow vertical pupils, Dudley still felt oppressive force coming at him.
Anyone being stared at by such enormous eyes would feel uncomfortable all over.
"So what do we do now?" Cole limped over.
He'd been directly hit by the basilisk's tail earlier. Although he'd blocked part of the attack with a defensive spell, he was still inevitably injured.
"Let me." As Dudley spoke, he slightly raised his right hand, and the basilisk's mouth immediately opened.
"Accio diary!" Dudley directly cast the spell.
The basilisk's abdominal muscles began wriggling. Soon, the black diary flew out from the basilisk's mouth, falling toward Dudley's hand.
Seeing the diary covered in slime, Dudley frowned and immediately withdrew his outstretched hand.
Smack.
The diary hit the ground.
Everyone's mouths twitched slightly.
"Aguamenti." Clear water appeared out of nowhere, washing away the slime on the diary's surface.
"Scourgify." Then another cleaning spell. After thoroughly cleaning the diary, Dudley bent down to pick it up.
"Is Voldemort's memory still inside?" Harry carefully came over and asked.
"Yes," Dudley nodded. "However, that shouldn't just be memory but part of his soul. Otherwise, he couldn't possibly have such powerful strength."
After speaking, Dudley turned his hand and threw the diary into the Mirror of Erised, placing it together with the Trunsoest Brass Book.
Originally, he'd wanted to directly destroy the diary, but after discovering Voldemort seemed very afraid of the Trunsoest Brass Book, he changed his mind and pressed the diary under the brass book.
Perhaps later, when needed, he could get some useful information from this fragment of Voldemort's soul.
In any case, the current Voldemort couldn't cause any major trouble.
"Just don't let him out again. Really scary," Ron couldn't help complaining.
At this point, everyone finally completely relaxed.
"The basilisk's corpse is preserved quite well. It should sell for tens of thousands of Galleons!" Borgin said, looking at the mountain-like basilisk corpse before him.
"I'll take its eyes. As for the rest, you handle the sale," Dudley said directly.
"All right, no problem," Borgin quickly said.
The eyes were the most valuable part of the basilisk, but if Dudley needed them, they must first satisfy Dudley's needs. Borgin didn't dare say anything more.
"In Slytherin's Chamber, besides this basilisk, is there nothing else?" Ron simply sat on the ground to rest, though his gaze still occasionally looked around, trying to find the legendary Slytherin treasure.
"Don't be silly. What treasure is there? It's all lies. Besides, Slytherin built this Chamber to cleanse Muggle-born wizards. There couldn't possibly be treasure," Hermione said.
Ron wanted to refute but knew Hermione was probably right.
There were no other spaces here. Unless they were willing to check all those sewer-like passages around them, but obviously, even if there were good things, they probably wouldn't appear in those places.
"Don't worry, there might really be something Slytherin left behind here," Dudley suddenly spoke.
His gaze fell on Slytherin's statue. The basilisk had come from the statue's mouth earlier, which also indicated there should be a huge space behind the statue.
"Harry, use Parseltongue to open the statue!" Dudley said to Harry.