Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 330 The Disintegration Curse, Quassare

On the fourth day, before dawn, Regulus woke up.

Outside the window, everything was gray and hazy. The clouds pressed in from the direction of the sea, layer upon layer, looking like a dirty cotton blanket covering the sky, with dark edges that let in no light.

The sea breeze was colder than the previous days, blowing from the west, whistling and swirling around the corners of the stone house, and a layer of condensation formed on the windows.

The glass roof of the distant greenhouse reflected no light, lying there darkly.

This kind of weather makes me not want to go out.

Regulus sat down at his desk, his wand resting beside him.

Everything is ready. The next step is to solidify the magic model into a spell that can be cast at any time.

The process is the same as the Disintegration Spell, requiring two things.

Latin roots provide voice anchors, gestures provide magic guidance, and both are bound to the internal model, allowing you to skip the manual crafting process and directly output the finished product by chanting incantations and waving the staff.

It took some time to adjust last time, so it should be faster this time.

He picked the syllables first.

A spell needs a word that can be memorized by the throat. When it is recited, the magic can flow along the model on its own without needing to be adjusted midway.

He recited a few Latin roots, putting each syllable in his mouth to slowly experience it, feeling the vibrations in his throat and tongue, while letting the magic flow rhythmically into the model in his consciousness.

Concutio, oscillation, shaking, causing repeated oscillations in a structure.

He picked up his wand, uttered a spell, and a wisp of yellowish-brown light emerged from the tip of the wand, dispersing in the air without coalescing.

The coupling between speech and model is insufficient. Concutio's semantics are biased towards rocking. Rocking is a continuous and reversible action applied by external force, which does not match the effect of collapse, which is a one-time disintegration from the inside.

Disrumpo, breakage, fracture, internal tear.

He uttered the incantation again, and the light at the tip of the staff condensed for a moment, forming an unstable ball of light that trembled a few times before shattering.

The semantics are closer, but Disrumpo focuses on the split, the final state, and lacks the oscillation transmission, superposition, and the process of disassembling from the inside layer by layer.

He separated the two word roots and ran the magic test on each to see the effect.

Concutio initiates the action, and magic begins to vibrate subtly in the syllable vibrations.

Disrumpo is responsible for the finishing touches; the magic is compressed at the release port and then ejected, creating a clear sense of breakage, but lacking the initial oscillation buildup.

Put the two parts together: Concutio starts with vibration and Disrumpo ends with breakage.

The magic began to tremble within the Lord, then traveled downwards, vibrating again at each fork in the road due to the accent of the syllables.

By the time it reaches the final release point, the syllable has been struck three times repeatedly, resulting in a much higher compression density than a simple Disrumpo.

However, the two words together are too long, and they are difficult to pronounce when casting a spell.

He superimposed two word roots, taking the tremor of Concutio and the crack of Disrumpo, and compressed them into one word.

Quassare, oscillating repeatedly until the structure completely collapses.

He recited it at different rhythms, first slowly then fast, and first fast then slow.

Try placing the emphasis on the first syllable, then the second, and then the third syllable, and see which rhythm makes the magic run most smoothly in the model and releases the most crisp action at the end.

Finally, it comes down to Quas—sa—re, three syllables, with the stress on the second one.

He uttered, "Quassare."

""

The yellowish-brown light at the tip of the staff condensed into a short ray, which lingered in the air for about half a second before dissipating naturally.

stable.

The magic flows into the main body in the first syllable, completes the oscillation modulation of all the branching nodes in the stressed syllable, and is released from the end outlet in the last syllable.

Each syllable corresponds to a step, no more, no less, precisely at the point in time the model needs, perfectly matching the shattering effect.

He recited it several more times, and each time the light at the tip of the staff took shape steadily. The density and duration of the rays were directly proportional to his magical output; more output meant brighter light, and less output meant dimmer light.

The incantation syllables are set; the next step is the hand gestures.

The gestures don't need to be complicated; the point is to inject magic into the target and let it find its own path of propagation. There's no need for overly complex trajectories.

He stood up, holding his wand in his right hand, and tried it on the stone wall several times.

When you cleave straight down, the direction in which the magic is poured in is too singular, and the vibration only travels in a straight line inside the object, resulting in a narrow transmission path.

When the magic was swept across, it forked upon reaching the target surface. The arc of the staff tip was too large, causing the magic to disperse into a single area, resulting in insufficient penetration depth and only a layer of stone powder being shaken off the surface.

He tried several wrist angles, from a 45-degree angle to a 60-degree angle. The penetration depth of the magic increased as the angle became steeper, but if the angle was too steep, it would easily get stuck at the release point and not be able to bounce out.

He twisted his wrist inward by half an inch, and the wand slashed down from the upper right to the lower left, twisting his wrist half an inch at the lowest point.

The rotation causes the magic to converge at the tip of the staff, transforming the large swings of the strike into a concentrated output the size of a needle tip, simulating the process of the willow branch narrowing, compressing, and releasing.

Reverse buckle type.

He swung his hand at the wall in the air.

With a downward slash and a twist of the wrist, the tip of the staff traces a tiny arc at its lowest point. A brownish-yellow light solidifies at the tip, then bounces off and strikes the wall, leaving a pinhole-sized white dot on the stone surface.

The force was too great; the wrist was twisted too much, causing the magic to spin excessively at the tip of the staff, resulting in a dispersed output.

Come again.

The staff cleaved down, the wrist twisted, and this time the wrist pulled inward, just enough to allow the magic to converge tightly at the tip of the staff, no more, no less.

The light at the tip of the staff became more concentrated, and the emitted rays were thinner and brighter.

Again, again, again.

After swinging it more than twenty times, the angle, speed, and rotation of my wrist became fixed and turned into muscle memory.

It doesn't require much effort; just control it with your wrist, let the magic swirl at the tip of the staff, and then release it at the lowest point of the strike.

He tried combining word roots with gestures once.

Quassare, the wand is reversed and brought down, the wrist twisting half an inch at the lowest point.

After practicing a few times, I found that the biggest problem was rhythm.

The syllables progressed too quickly; before the wand could even strike the ground, the magic had already exploded at the release point, turning the spell into a muffled tremor that struck the air.

Slow down the pace of the syllables, let the wand strike down completely, and then move on to the last syllable.

After a few tries, I found the best combination: keep my wrist relaxed during the first two syllables, and then accelerate and chop to the bottom half-inch on the last half beat, so that the magic is compressed and released at the end.

By noon, the incantation had stabilized.

A brownish-yellow ray of incantation shot out from the tip of the staff, striking the granite block in the corner with precision. After a delay of about 0.3 seconds, a series of fine cracking sounds emanated from within, and the stone shattered into uneven small pieces.

Single-point collapse complete.

He named it the Disintegration Curse, placing it alongside the Rupture Curse.

One decomposes, the other disintegrates; one follows the concept, the other the physics.

Regulus pushed open the door and Apparated to the seaside.

Under the gloomy weather, the seawater was grayish-black, and the waves were bigger than a few days ago, splashing white foam as they crashed against the rocks. The wind blew the water mist everywhere, causing his robe to flutter behind him and his hair to stick to the side of his face.

Large rocks are scattered along the beach, their surfaces smooth and rounded from centuries of seawater washing over them.

He picked out a piece of wood as tall as a person, raised his wand, and made the gesture: "Quassare".

A brownish-yellow incantation shot out from the tip of the staff and disappeared into the stone surface.

The stone surface was intact, but extremely fine cracking sounds emanated from within, like countless tiny fingers simultaneously snapping off withered branches. Cracks spread outward from the inside, forming a spider web on the stone surface.

The stone shattered, breaking apart from the inside out into dozens of uneven small pieces that rolled down the reef slope and splashed into the sea.

He looked down at the pile of rubble, but didn't blow it up.

The Explosion Curse produces a loud boom and sends debris flying everywhere, while the Shattering Curse turns the surface into powder that falls off.

The Disintegration Spell causes the inside to break first, and the outer shell to collapse last. The whole process is much quieter. The loudest sound is the sound of the broken stones falling to the ground and rolling into the sea. The spell itself does not make any noise.

He put away his wand.

Like the Disintegration Spell, once it solidifies into a spell, its effects go beyond simply extracting magic power for direct use.

Previously, the extracted magic drop stones only had minor cracks, and it took several applications of the drops to completely crack them.

After being invoked, the magic is solidified into an optimal structure.

The entrance angle, the bifurcation node, the two and a half loops, and the narrowing ratio of the end release port—every parameter is compressed to just be able to penetrate into the target.

The total amount of magic power hasn't increased, but efficiency has. With the same amount of magic power, you can do more.

The single-hit test is complete; next up is continuous output.

When a branch of the "Hitting Willow" strikes its target, the shockwave is instantaneous and it's over in a flash.

Therefore, it needs to continuously tap the same point to accumulate the cracks. The second tap steps on the cracks of the first tap and continues to drill in. The third tap steps on the cracks of the first two taps and then goes in.

But he uses a wand to cast spells, so the magical output can be continuous, without needing to do it one spell at a time.

Once the spell hits its target, as long as the wand remains pointed at that spot, magic continues to flow from the tip of the wand into the target, and the vibrations continue to circulate inside.

Each layer of oscillation overlaps with the remnants of the previous layer, stacking up deeper and deeper. The longer the time, the more layers are accumulated, and the deeper the damage.

The caster controls two variables: output intensity and duration. Intensity determines the power of each layer of oscillation, while duration determines how many layers can be stacked.

He chose a larger one, five or six people tall, standing at the end of the rocky beach. Its bottom was carved into an inward-curving arc by the sea, making it look like it had stood by the sea for thousands of years.

He walked over, raised his staff, and cast a spell.

The yellowish-brown rays struck the stone surface, and this time they didn't stop, continuing their attack.

The stone surface was intact, but after 0.3 seconds, a series of fine cracking sounds came from inside, and cracks began to appear on the surface.

In 0.6 seconds, the cracks spread, and several main cracks extended from the inside to the surface, with stone chips flying out from the cracks.

Less than a second later, a low cracking sound came from inside, and the stone split open from the inside, shattering into powder and fragments that mingled together and collapsed downwards.

He put away his wand, looked at the scene before him, and quickly thought.

The effect is the same as hitting the same spot three times in a row with the Willow, but the difference is that the Willow requires three independent hits, and each time it must hit the same spot again. He only needs to keep his wand steady and continue to output damage.

However, the effectiveness of continuous output depends on the material of the target itself.

The granite block, which was five or six people tall, shattered in less than a second because of its tight structure. When the vibration penetrated it, it bounced back and forth inside, with each layer pushing the crack forward a little further.

The harder and denser the material, the higher its conductivity; looser materials are different.

He pointed his wand at the beach, where there was a piece of driftwood that had been soaked and rotted. He cast a Disintegrate Charm on it, and it stopped immediately. Only a few cracks appeared on the surface of the wood, but it did not shatter completely inside.

After the oscillation is injected, the energy is dispersed and absorbed by the pores inside, and no path for continuous rebound can be found, so it cannot be superimposed.

Conductivity varies with the material; this is a physical law, not a matter of the applicability of a spell.

The spell itself is not picky about materials; it will vibrate whatever it enters, and it won't stop working just because the target is a piece of driftwood.

The difference lies not in the spell, but in the caster.

The caster must lock the target into a whole in their mind, without analyzing what it is composed of, and must directly ignore its composition.

A spell doesn't need to know where its weakness is; it will find it itself.

Once you understand this, the magic within the target will know how to operate.

Like the Disintegration Charm, the Disintegration Charm also has its conceptual threshold.

The Disintegration Spell requires understanding decomposition, which makes the whole no longer whole; in a sense, it is a philosophical concept.

The threshold for the Disintegration Curse is more straightforward: if something is placed in front of you, regardless of its internal structure, material, or number of layers and surfaces, it is simply a thing.

The internal complexity is irrelevant to the caster; simply shatter it and that's it.