Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 309 Desecrating Loyalty, Bella Goes Mad

On Bella's side, there was churning darkness; on Regulus's side, there was a roaring flame.

Black mist covered half the floor of the banquet hall, and flames burned a territory in the darkness.

The black mist corroded his flames, which he constantly replenished.

The flames could burn away some of the black mist, but they were also constantly being replenished from Bella.

Nobody is getting a free ride; everyone's burning through their magic power.

The two men, about ten meters apart, began firing at each other.

Bella's black arrows materialized from the thick fog and shot out, while Regulus's flames split into fireballs the size of human heads and hurled them at her.

After the fireball shot into the black mist, the black mist surged up and enveloped the fireball, consuming and weakening it.

It wasn't easy; the expansion and explosion of the fireball would blast the black mist apart, but it was fast enough to consume most of the fireball before it reached its target.

He then unleashed two more conventional spells, a piercing spell and a cutting spell, which shot through the flames toward Bella.

The black mist came forward, enveloping the beam of the incantation. The silvery-white light dimmed in the black mist and dissipated halfway through.

The few that managed to break through the black mist were completely absorbed by the black barrier as soon as they reached Bella.

A black arrow shot from the opposite side, and he directed the flames to meet it.

As the arrow passed through the flames, a layer was burned away, making it thinner and weaker, and the force of the arrow hitting the Ironclad Curse was reduced by half.

The power after penetrating was not great; the Ironclad Curse only flickered slightly.

It can block it.

Bella's magical fluctuations were doubly blocked by the black mist and the black barrier, making it impossible for her senses to penetrate.

He couldn't see her energy consumption, but judging from the output speed of the black mist and the density of the arrows, her magic was operating quite stably.

Regulus raised his wand again, gathering the metal fragments together.

This time the deformation was faster; the tungsten alloy metal spikes took shape in three seconds, shorter than the previous one, but denser.

It begins to rotate, the speed increases, and the tip becomes white-hot again.

Then he let the flames adhere to it.

A wisp of white-blue flame separated from the flame, wrapped around the spinning metal spike, and coiled along the spike from tail to tip.

The flames and the rapidly spinning metal merged into one, doubling the heat wave and turning the hum in the air into a shriek.

Bella witnessed this scene from deep within the black mist, and the slight relief on her face vanished.

Then the metal spikes shot out.

The flaming metal spike pierced through the black mist, which tried to envelop it and entangle the spike, but the flames burned it and the swirling mist flung it away. The black mist only managed to envelop it for a moment before being flung away.

Passing through the black mist, we crashed into the black barrier.

This time, the barrier withstood a much greater impact than before.

The explosion was larger, the flames were brighter, and the shockwave cleared away a large area of ​​the surrounding black mist.

The magic of the white and blue flames and the black barrier intertwined, and the high temperature burned a bright spot on the surface of the barrier.

The dark patterns on the barrier surface brightened rapidly as they absorbed the energy of the explosion, but this time, the absorption reached saturation.

The barrier shook, and a tiny gap briefly appeared in a small area, which is rapidly healing after the explosion subsided.

Regulus caught it.

The explosion blinded everyone's vision, and in that blinding white light, his wand pointed at the healing gap—the Piercing Charm.

The spell didn't travel in a straight line; the instant it left the tip of the staff, it entered the spatial passage, skipping the distance in between and the healing gap in the barrier, and struck Bella directly through the opening.

A pale beam of light pierced through her left shoulder, entered through her chest, and exited through her back, leaving a cloud of blood mist.

Bella staggered backward, her left foot slipped half a step, and her wand nearly slipped from her hand.

She glanced down at her left shoulder; the wound was bleeding, but only for a few seconds.

Black mist surged up from her feet, climbed up her legs, up her waist, up her shoulders, and seeped into her wounds, filling them in.

The mist fused with the damaged muscle tissue, and black filaments intertwined inside the wound to form a temporary filler, blocking the blood and filling the wound.

As the flames and debris dissipated, Bella's figure was revealed.

Her gaze pierced through the churning black mist, fixed intently on Regulus.

There was pain, surprise, and something new in his eyes: apprehension.

These two spells were personally taught to me by my master.

The black mist and black barrier—since she was able to use them, no one has ever been able to break them on the first encounter, causing her injury.

Whether they were Aurors from the Ministry of Magic or Mudbloods who thought they could resist, they all fell into the black mist, were corroded to nothing, and were nailed to the wall.

But Regulus was able to spot the flaw and exploit it within minutes.

He used that evil transformation spell imbued with malevolent flames to blast a crack in the dark barrier, then used a piercing spell to pierce through the crack and instantly pierce her shoulder.

Her master valued him for a reason, so she had to defeat him even more.

Her eyes turned fierce, and the dark light on her wand intensified.

Regulus stood in the flames, looking at her.

She was injured, her left arm was temporarily useless, but her right hand was still there, her wand was still there, the black mist was still running, and the gap in the black barrier had been healed.

She is still capable of fighting.

He also observed Bella's expression to gauge her emotions.

There was anger, there was fear, but there was also reason in her eyes.

Despite the fight reaching this point, her reaction wasn't one of losing control; instead, she became even calmer.

The attacks are more ruthless, the spells are stronger, and black magic has been switched, representing a significant upgrade, but in essence, it's still a tactical upgrade.

Her emotions were still under control.

The problem remains the same: it's not crazy enough.

Bella, being rational, uses dark magic; it's powerful and troublesome, but that's about it.

Bella's madness and use of dark magic are exactly what he needs.

He needed her to lose her judgment, needed her to act recklessly.

The next moment, Bella moved.

The black mist surged and expanded instantly, no longer lying close to the ground, but expanding simultaneously from all directions, rising upwards and spreading outwards.

The fog spread from the ground to the dome, from the ruins of the walls to every broken stone pillar, filling the remaining space of the banquet hall with black mist.

Darkness swallowed all light except for the flames.

People outside can't see anything anymore.

Orion's barrier was covered by black mist, leaving only a small patch of light on the inside of the silver barrier, blocking the spreading black mist from entering.

Sirius's hand clenched tightly on his robe. Narcissa took a step closer to Lucius, who held his wand horizontally in front of him.

Volbuga gripped Orion's hand tightly, his hand trembling slightly.

Only two lights remained in the banquet hall.

A ball of white and blue flames rolled around Regulus, burning in the darkness and illuminating an area of ​​several meters in radius.

The other light was a dark glow from the tip of Bella's staff, gleaming in the darkness a dozen meters away.

Regulus's lips twitched slightly.

It's completely covered; people outside can't see inside.

well.

He instantly activated the Sidestep Spell and the Sprint Spell, switching between them in quick succession, leaving a straight trail of flame in the black mist.

He moved swiftly through the darkness, passing through the churning black mist, and arrived directly two meters away from Bella's barrier.

Bella saw the flames approaching and assumed he was about to attack head-on. She raised her chin slightly, but her mouth wasn't fully open in a grin.

A ball of light exploded outside the barrier.

With a slight flick of his other hand, he created a spatial warp, opening a tiny window—the size of a pinhead—on Bella's black barrier for less than 0.3 seconds.

enough.

The light shone through the window.

Bella saw the light.

Her eyes were illuminated by the white light in the darkness, causing her pupils to contract instantly and the darkness on her irises to be diluted.

The essence of light source magic is information writing.

Light enters the retina, which transmits signals to the brain. While processing the visual signals, the brain receives the information embedded in the light.

The Ironclad Curse cannot block light; it does not filter information from light. A black barrier may or may not be able to.

But Regulus, seeking the best of both worlds, decided to accept it.

In a very brief instant, the information was sent in.

It's a very simple thought: your master doesn't need your loyalty.

Bella's brain processed the thought as her own within a fraction of a second.

A voice deep within her mind was saying, "He doesn't need you."

Then she saw a scene that her own brain automatically generated in response to that thought.

She saw her master sitting in a high-backed chair, and she knelt at his feet, just as she had done countless times before. She was speaking, reporting, and expressing her loyalty.

The owner didn't look at her.

The master was looking elsewhere, out the window, at the wand in his hand, in any direction, but he wasn't looking at her.

Then the owner, with his back to her, was talking to someone whose face she couldn't see.

The person's voice was flat, so flat it was almost contemptuous—

she?

Her loyalty was worthless.

The owner did not refute.

She called out, "Master."

no respond.

She called out again, this time louder and more urgent.

still none.

The image disappeared; the whole process took less than half a second.

Bella's eyes widened suddenly.

Her body froze there, the wand still pointing forward, but her fingers were still, her breathing stopped, and she was completely still.

Then she realized that the thought wasn't hers; she couldn't possibly have had that thought.

Her loyalty to her master grew from her very soul; it was the sole reason for her existence, her identity, her faith, and the meaning of every morning when she opened her eyes.

The statement "Your master doesn't need your loyalty" is not hers.

Someone has messed with her mind.

Someone, in a way she didn't know, slashed the most sacred bond between her and her master.

This bond is everything to her.

Her loyalty to her master was not a choice, an attitude, or a stance.

That is her; that is the very definition of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Someone touched this thing.

Someone left a mark on this thing.

Bella's face changed.

The smile froze on her face, then became distorted, and finally transformed into something she couldn't control.

Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. The muscles in her throat were spasming, her teeth clenching and loosening, loosening and clenching again.

The muscles above my cheekbone started twitching uncontrollably, pulling my right eye upwards along with it, but my left eye didn't follow suit, making my whole face look asymmetrical for a moment.

Something shattered in her eye.

blasphemy.

Someone has desecrated her loyalty.

"How dare you—" her voice was forced out of her throat, distorted by rage: "How dare you touch that!!"

Her magic exploded.

Dark magic surged from her body, shattering the black barrier as the magic spiraled out of control. Fragments bounced outwards, piercing through the black mist she herself had spread out.

Regulus looked at her, at the black mist churning uncontrollably around her, and at the light in her eyes that was completely different from before.

She was furious, completely out of control, and finally went mad.

This is exactly what he wanted.

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