Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 312 Voldemort, Beauty

After the dome shattered, the light of Fiendfire shot up from the breach, illuminating the sky hundreds of meters above Lestrange Manor.

The entire estate resembles a carved-out volcano, with the orange-red light turning the surrounding tree canopy a deep bronze color.

A colossal beast materialized from the flames, emerging from the collapsed rooftop, while a giant serpent coiled around the half-collapsed west wing tower, the flames between its scales opening and closing.

The dragon spread its wings and swept across the only remaining wall on the north side. The wall melted and collapsed where the wingtips passed, and a large section of it disappeared in just a few seconds.

Chimera emerged from the ruins, his six legs crushing the porch pillars with each step, each step accompanied by a dull thud as the ground cracked.

The guests had long since disappeared.

The fight was quite loud before, but at least it was kept inside the banquet hall.

The wall is there, the roof is there, the sound can be heard, and the gravel doesn't fly far.

Now the dome has collapsed, the walls have crumbled, and a behemoth of fire with its own consciousness has crawled out of the building.

The structural solidification spells failed layer by layer at this temperature, and the magical protection that had lasted for more than two hundred years was peeled away like paper.

Even if you've never seen Li Huo or read about him in books, you should understand what's going on now.

The heat of the flames could be felt from dozens of meters away, but what truly made one's legs go weak was what emanated from deep within the flames.

It presses down on you, making you want to back away, to leave, as far away as possible.

The aura of destruction itself.

Li Huo, strictly speaking, is not fire; fire is merely its manifestation.

Essentially, it is a cursed creation endowed with destructive tendencies.

Once out of control, it develops its own consciousness, or rather, instinct.

It devours, spreads, and burns everything until there is nothing left to burn, or until it runs out of energy itself.

A few of the bolder guests glanced back near the iron fence at the entrance to the manor, then ran even faster.

The dome of the banquet hall was mostly broken, revealing the night sky above, with the moon hanging in the western sky.

The light of the raging fire mingled with the moonlight, casting the ruins in a flickering glow.

Regulus stood in the center, with Bella lying on the gravel at his feet.

Fiery flames surged around him, but he maintained the most basic connection; the flames neither touched him nor Bella.

He looked into the darkness.

The giant snake's tail swept across the area, then retracted halfway, coiling its body and squeezing to the other side.

The dragon's wings had just spread out, but before the wingtips even touched the ground, they snapped back, and the entire dragon tilted to one side.

As Chimera raised its front leg to step down, it suddenly veered to the side, its six legs tripping over each other, and its massive fiery body crashed onto the ruins, creating a sea of ​​fire.

The three giant beasts huddled together in the farthest corner of the manor, burning the remaining building materials.

They were burning it very seriously, without even looking back.

Li Huo was afraid.

This judgment instantly formed in his mind.

He still retained the most basic connection with Li Huo; he had long since given up on closing it, but the perception remained.

The out-of-control Fiendfire has a tendency to be autonomous and is driven purely by destruction.

It burns and devours everything, including the caster of the spell; nothing can make it actively avoid it.

But now it's avoiding it.

The desire to go in that direction was forcibly rewritten from the outside; something directly suppressed its will, telling it that it couldn't go that way.

There is only one condition for this to be possible: the opponent's magic power must far exceed his, and the opponent's will must be able to suppress the Fiery Blaze.

A figure emerged from the darkness, ruins at his feet, moonlight and firelight shining upon him simultaneously.

Regulus only glanced at it before getting a full view of the face.

The face still retains the outline of a human, the features are still features, and they are all in their proper places, but they have begun to deviate.

Waxy skin covered the entire face, and the veins could be vaguely seen beneath the skin, like twisted vines climbing at the base of a white wall.

The nose is so flat that it is only two narrow slits, and the nostrils hardly move when breathing.

Her lips were extremely thin, dark purple, and almost indistinguishable from her skin; when she pursed them, they resembled a shallow wound.

The eyes were dark red, with a narrow pupil standing upright in the iris, slowly contracting in the firelight.

The long, pure black robe, its fabric clinging to the body yet appearing loose, had an open collar, as if it had been casually slipped on.

His robe trailed on the gravel, and as he walked, the hem slid silently past, making his movements appear as if he were floating.

One glance is enough; anything more would be impolite.

During this period, Voldemort was already undergoing self-transformation, his appearance evolving into a non-human form.

Regulus quickly analyzed the situation in his mind.

The ultimate form of a pure-blood wizard? The complete elimination of Muggle blood? A snake totem close to Slytherin's?

It probably gets a little bit of everything.

But there was one thing he hadn't expected.

This face should be uncomfortable, it should be weird.

If a person's facial features deviate in a non-human direction, according to normal aesthetic standards, they should be considered ugly.

But at the boundary between the firelight and the moonlight, as he watched this person walk over, he saw a self-consistent order.

Those inhuman features—flat nose, vertical pupils, waxy white skin—each of them, taken individually, deviates from the realm of humanity.

But when combined, each piece is in its proper place; adding one more piece is wrong, and removing one piece is also wrong.

The arrangement of the scales resembles those of a snake; it's neither particularly beautiful nor ugly, but it makes sense.

Perhaps it is the result of human intervention, or perhaps it is the natural transformation of magic into a certain form after it has reached its deepest point.

Regardless of the type, once it reaches that level, it possesses a beauty based on the power itself.

Distorted, inhuman, yet perfectly logical.

Regulus also noticed a detail: he walked without making a sound.

The ground was covered with gravel and broken stone slabs; there should have been a sound when you stepped on them, but there was none.

The sound was swallowed up, or rather, the sound around him disappeared automatically; it was as if something covered him, absorbing all the extraneous sounds.

Then comes magic perception.

Regulus's magical perception was instinctive; it was always active and had long since overlapped with his line of sight. What he saw was what he sensed, and his magical perception automatically covered the area his line of sight reached.

When he met Lemaître in France, he deliberately spread his senses to test him, but he was exposed.

From then on, he understood that he couldn't actively explore a wizard of this level, but passive perception integrated with his vision was fine.

I'm just looking. Seeing is perceiving; it's not offensive, it's just existence.

He watched Voldemort approach, his vision provided feedback, but his magical perception was absent.

It's empty there.

What his senses had just detected were changes in the surrounding space, traces left by the passage of magic, and lingering images of something being drained.

But he never touched the magic itself.

Now that the person is standing in front of you, all traces have vanished, leaving only a clean, empty space.

His vision told him there was someone there, but the magical perception superimposed on his vision returned a blank space; there was no magical signal in that direction.

Completely different from Dumbledore.

Dumbledore's magic is like a sea; standing on its shore, you can feel its vastness and depth.

It provides feedback that is clear and consistent.

Dumbledore could certainly make himself undetectable, as was the case outside the Shrieking Shack. He didn't want to be discovered, so Regulus couldn't find him until he wanted to reveal himself.

That was a deliberate restraint, a master wizard's perfect control over his own magic.

But most of the time Dumbledore is perceptible; he chooses to make himself perceptible.

It was a gesture, and also a gesture of goodwill.

On Voldemort's side, even the traces were indirect, as if he never intended for anyone to touch him directly from the beginning.

This sense of contradiction made Regulus's scalp tingle; his sensory systems were fighting each other.

Vision tells you it exists, while the sense of magic tells you it doesn't. The two signals flood the brain simultaneously, but they can't be pieced together.

It's like trying to capture a four-dimensional existence with three-dimensional perception; the tools themselves are simply insufficient.

But other things reacted besides the magical perception.

The body is responding; signals are being sent from deep within the bones, as if the deepest structures of the body are responding to the presence of the outside world.

Blood flow under the skin is increasing, but the heart rate is not accelerating. These two things should not happen at the same time, but they do happen at the same time.

There were no abnormalities in the limbs, but in the bones, starting from the spine and spreading along the ribs to both sides, there was a continuous tremor, slight but clear.

It's like standing next to a huge low-frequency sound source; you can't hear the sound, but your bones are listening for you.

His soul was telling him that there was something there, something that his senses couldn't reach, but it was there.

This was Regulus' first experience with an existence of this level. Dumbledore could certainly have made him experience these things, but he didn't.

These thoughts swirled in his mind for less than a second before he pulled himself back to think about more important matters.

There's no way to run away, and there's no need to run.

Voldemort himself was standing right in front of him; Apparition would be suicide.

Lemaître's metal ball and Fox's tail feathers are usable, but not quite there yet.

Moreover, if Voldemort really intended to kill him, because of Bella's matter, or something else, a Killing Curse would have been enough.

No need to walk over, no need to show up, it can be ended remotely from the manor.

But he came over.

Orion and the others were outside; they couldn't leave until the very last moment.

Then I thought again, why did he run? What did he do?

It was just a fight with Bella; it was a family conflict, and at worst, it was just a dispute between the Black and Lestrange families.

Besides, Bella cast the Unforgivable Curse first, so he has the right to be afraid.

This was all part of the design; we thought it through before we started, and this was the situation we were trying to prevent.

As for fighting, it's not an option at all. It might be okay in the future, but it's absolutely not okay now.

Then we'll deal with it.

Voldemort's arrival must have been for another purpose.

Regulus's first thought was to win him over.

During this period, Voldemort was still accumulating power. The core of the Death Eaters had taken shape, but the periphery was still expanding.

Pure-blood families are his base. The Black family is one of the oldest pure-blood families in Britain, with a seat in Wizengamor and influence in the Ministry of Magic. Their prestige in the pure-blood circle surpasses that of most families.

He is the heir to the Black family, and his talent has long been known in the pure-blood circle. Voldemort wanted to win over pure-blood families, and he was a target worth coming to see for himself.

Moreover, the Black family had already sided with him politically and had chosen their side long ago.

Voldemort doesn't even need to confirm his loyalty now; he only needs to confirm his value. Loyalty can be gradually won over over time and with power, while value is right before his eyes.

There may also be an acceptance test.

It's been half a year since the Dark Enlightenment was sent out. He wanted to see how much it had been corrupted, whether it had withstood the corruption, swallowed it whole, or been dismantled and used.

Bella was beaten up just now because of something he gave her; this result deserves his personal verification.

Or the reason is simpler: he was already at the manor, and the commotion here was too great.

His house was demolished, and Li Huo came out. He came to take a look.

There should be both; regardless of which one, the conclusion is the same.

It can be handled.