Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 346 The Curse of Expansion

Orion didn't speak, his brows furrowed.

He knew Manhattan, an island on the east coast of the United States, the financial center of Muggles, part of New York.

MACUSA, the Magical Congress of the United States, and Woolworth Building are also in that area.

The pure-blood families of England weren't particularly enthusiastic about the magical influence in the Americas, but they did have a basic understanding of the geography. The Black family had businesses on the European continent, so they weren't completely ignorant of the situation across the sea.

But the Manhattan Project?

What plan?

He thought about it carefully, but couldn't recall it.

There aren't many things in the magical world that have anything to do with Manhattan. MACUSA has been operating in New York for over two hundred years, and occasionally news of bill changes or elections comes through.

But that's a matter for American wizards themselves, and has nothing to do with the British.

He slowly shook his head, his expression puzzled: "Never heard of it."

Regulus nodded, leaned back in his chair, and said calmly, "In 1945, Muggles created a weapon."

Orion looked at him but didn't interrupt.

"They found something," Regulus said slowly, trying to keep it simple: "countless times smaller than a grain of sand, the most basic structure of matter, which took Muggles decades to figure out what it looks like."

He continued, "They discovered that if you hit something smaller into this thing, it would crack open, and when it cracked open, it would throw out even more tiny things, and a whole bunch of energy."

Those small particles that are flung out will strike the surrounding matter, causing it to crack and fling out even more, releasing energy in the process.

Regulus looked at Orion: "One against one, one breaks apart, forming a chain. The chain moves forward on its own, and once it starts, it can't stop."

Orion listened quietly, and to be honest, he understood.

Regulus's description was straightforward, without jargon or Muggle words that he couldn't understand.

Matter breaks apart, releasing energy; this energy drives more matter to break apart, releasing even more energy, creating a continuous cycle that sustains itself.

He also understood the meaning of the chain; it was similar to a raging fire, which, once released, was no longer under control and would only stop when everything was burned away.

He could understand the logic, like an ever-expanding curse, but he didn't know what Regulus meant by it, or what it had to do with the Disintegration Curse.

He didn't ask, just nodded slightly and continued listening.

"They called this project the Manhattan Project," Regulus continued. "They gathered the smartest Muggles from all over the world and locked them up in a desert for three years."

They are not ordinary people, but the very best in this field in the entire Muggle world.

They call their field of study physics, the study of the rules governing the workings of everything in the world. Each of them is a top figure in that field.

Upon hearing this, Orion's lips twitched slightly, but he remained silent.

Three years, thousands of the smartest Muggles, doing only one thing.

His view of Muggles as a whole is similar to that of most pure-blood wizards.

A race without magic is inherently inferior in the eyes of a wizard; this needs no explanation, just as giants look down on goblins and dragons look down on pufferfish.

But he was not a blind, foolish pureblood supremacist.

He had read a few Muggle books when he was young, which gave him a general understanding of something.

The vast majority of Muggles are indeed mediocre, and the only difference between them and livestock is that they can wear clothes and talk.

But the very top few, those who truly use their brains to think things through, possess a depth and sharpness of thought that rivals even the best minds among wizards.

Admitting this wouldn't make him feel ashamed; he acknowledged the wisdom of Muggles who took something to the extreme.

Anyone who can push a skill to its limits, whether they are a wizard or a Muggle, deserves to be taken seriously.

Regulus's voice continued: "In three years, they built three of these weapons, the first of which was tested in the desert."

A glint flashed in his eyes: "At the moment of the explosion, the temperature at the center exceeded that of the sun's surface, and the sand within a radius of several kilometers melted directly, turning into glass."

The shockwave spread outward from the center, flattening everything that couldn't escape in time. A mushroom-shaped cloud shot into the sky, visible from tens of kilometers away.

Orion's fingers tightened slightly on the table.

Temperatures exceeding those of the sun's surface melted the sand into glass, leveling an area spanning several kilometers.

He quickly did the mental calculation.

The maximum kill radius of explosive spells is about tens of meters, while the range covered by fire spells is even smaller.

As for the Fiery Blaze, it doesn't follow a radius; it burns wherever it goes, but it takes time to spread, not just an instant.

Within a radius of several kilometers.

None of the spells he knew, including those lost war magics, could accomplish this.

"The second one," Regulus's voice was flat, "was thrown on top of a city."

"Hiroshima, with a population of over 200,000, was hit by a single bomb, which exploded a few hundred meters above the ground. A white light, brighter than the sun, shone through, and the temperature directly below the epicenter reached millions of degrees."

Everything below—buildings, streets, people—evaporated instantly. Before you could even feel anything, it was all gone, leaving not even ashes behind.

Within a kilometer of the epicenter, nothing was left; two kilometers outward, all buildings collapsed, and the fire burned for several days.

Regulus held up one finger: "Hundreds of thousands of people died that day, and tens of thousands more died in the following months—burns, radiation sickness, and starvation."

A city, over two hundred thousand people, and one seed—gone.

Orion's brows furrowed tightly, and his breathing slowed.

He recalled the Ministry of Magic's war archives, which recorded another medieval war magic effect.

The entire army was swallowed up by the black mist in an instant, and the castle walls collapsed within seconds. The spell cast by dozens of wizards could change the course of a battle.

But those are all legends, the records are vague, and the effects have been amplified and passed down from generation to generation, so the truth is long gone.

Moreover, it requires the coordinated casting of spells by dozens of people, time for preparation, and specific celestial phenomena and geographical locations.

The thing Regulus was talking about, one, instantly, hundreds of thousands of people.

"The third one, three days later, was thrown in Nagasaki," Regulus said without stopping.

"Another 70,000 or 80,000 people died, and a few days later, the Muggle war ended."

The study was quiet for a while, then the fire in the fireplace crackled.

Orion didn't say anything.

Regulus was silent for a moment, then continued.

"Muggles don't have magic. They found another way. They dismantled something to the very bottom, smaller than a grain of sand, smaller than dust, until it couldn't be dismantled any further."

Then they discovered that at that scale, matter contained locked power, locked for billions of years, locked inside since the day the planet was born.

They opened it and then let it explode on its own.

He raised his hand and pointed his fingertips lightly towards the fireplace.

"The way to open it is to put a smaller thing inside, one after another, and the chain will start and run on its own."

They only provided the initial burst; the rest, the matter handled itself. From detonation to detonation, the entire process took less than a second.

Regulus withdrew his hand and looked at Orion.

"Thirty years have passed, and they have built bigger and bigger, more and more of them."

The current Muggle stockpile is estimated at around 50,000, some of which are worth dozens of times more than the Hiroshima bomb, enough to turn the Earth's surface upside down several times over.

Orion remained silent for a long time.

Regulus didn't say anything more, leaning back and waiting.

The flame in the fireplace flickered again.

Orion wasn't unaware that Muggles could wage war.

He knew that there were large-scale wars among Muggles, and that the last war that swept across the entire Muggle world was three thousand years ago.

Knowing that Grindelwald had once used the chaos of that war to advance his greater interests.

In 1945, Grindelwald was defeated by Dumbledore, and in the same year, the Muggle Wars also ended.

The wizarding community knows something about that war; they know it was brutal and that many people died.

But he was unaware that Muggle weapons had developed to this extent.

There were indeed some rumors that year that Muggles dropped something on an island, destroying the entire city.

But the pureblood community never cares about Muggle matters; they hear about them and move on, and no one investigates them further.

He didn't take it seriously either.

Now, hearing Regulus speak of it with numbers, details, warmth, and scope, it's no longer just a rumor.

Hundreds of thousands of lives are an impossible number to achieve in any wizarding war.

The Killing Curse requires killing one by one, the Cruciatus Curse requires torturing one by one, the Fiendfire needs time to spread, and the Black Death curse needs a carrier to spread.

Wizards have countless ways to kill, but each one comes at a cost.

And this thing, one grain per second, hundreds of thousands, can wipe out a city.

But he was not alarmed, much less fearful. As the head of the Black family, he had seen far too much to be frightened by a single fact.

A single green light can save a life, and a single bullet can wipe out a city; the result is death, and the difference in quantity will not cause him to lose his composure.

He brought his thoughts back and began to make a calm assessment.

This weapon is far more powerful than any spell, there's no point in arguing about that, but the wizard's strength doesn't lie in that; the wizard's advantage over Muggles has never been in firepower.

The Muggle Banishment Charm can cover every corner of the magical world.

From Diagon Alley to Hogwarts, from the Quidditch pitch to every pure-blood manor, Muggles would walk right up to them and not see them, then suddenly remember they had urgent business to attend to and would turn around and leave.

The Unmapped Charm prevents magical structures from ever appearing on Muggle maps, making it impossible for them to take even a single photograph of them—whether from the sky, the ground, or the water.

Apparition allows wizards to instantly escape from any location where they are attacked; they are gone before the attack even arrives.

The Curse of Unwavering Loyalty is even more thorough; the secret is sealed within a person's soul, and no amount of means, magic, or torture can uncover that address except through the secret keeper's own words.

That's how number 12 Grimmauld Place was hidden; the house number jumps directly from 11 to 13, and the building in between has vanished from the memory of this world.

For a Muggle to use a weapon, they first need to know where the person is.

They can't even find the entrance to the magical world, and they can't even cast a spell in a wizard village, so what are they going to use to throw that thing?

Where should I throw it?

The wizard told the Muggle shell that it didn't exist. How could you fight a non-existent target?

Tens of thousands of them are enough to turn the Earth upside down several times. Let it turn upside down, the only ones who will die are the Muggles.

So, for wizards, this kind of weapon is ultimately someone else's business; it may be powerful, but it has nothing to do with the magical world.

Lan Ryan went through these thoughts, then stopped, suddenly realizing something.

He looked at Regulus.

Regulus wouldn't spend so much time in the study explaining a Muggle weapon that has nothing to do with the magical world.

So he told him all this not to say how great Muggles are, nor to promote any Muggle threat theory.

He was referring to the Disintegration Curse.

Manhattan Code, Muggle Weapon, Disintegration Curse, Expansion Curse.

Lan Ryan's back left the chair.

He had been thinking about Muggles, because Muggle weapons couldn't hit wizards, since wizards could hide.

But what if it's a wizard fighting a wizard?

A spell of unwavering loyalty can hide a house, but it cannot hide an entire city.

The Muggle Expulsion Charm only works on Muggles, while the Unmapped Charm only protects against Muggle maps and photographs.

If a wizard could cause that level of destruction, all they would need to do is know which area you're in and wipe the entire area away—

The house protected by the Mantra of Loyalty is still there, but everything within a three-kilometer radius of the house has evaporated, and the soil beneath the foundation has been burned into glass. Where are you hiding?

Lan Ryan's breathing was heavier than before.

If the Disintegration Curse can achieve this level of power, then all his calm assessments about the wizard's advantage, under the premise of wizard versus wizard, would have to be overturned.

He stared intently at Regulus, his voice no longer steady: "You can do it? The Disintegration Curse?"

Regulus met his father's gaze and shook his head: "I can't do it, there are a few hurdles to overcome."

Lan Ryan paused for a moment, then slowly leaned back in his chair and exhaled.

He realized he had just lost his composure. For a Black family patriarch to become so restless after guessing a single idea was unlike him.

But it really is—

If this is true, what does it mean?

The wars between wizards have always been wizards against wizards, spells against spells, conflicts involving hundreds or so people. Seeking scriptures is considered a large-scale conflict.

At his peak, Grindelwald commanded thousands of men and shook the entire European wizarding world, in what is known as the greatest wizarding war in centuries.

But Grindelwald never managed to destroy a single city.

If wizards could achieve the effects of that weapon, one wizard, one spell, one city—

He suppressed the thought.

It's normal not to be able to do it.

That kind of thing took the smartest minds out of thousands of Muggles three years of working together to develop. He didn't know the specific process, but he could imagine that it must have required a huge amount of government funding.

Regulus is only thirteen years old, yet he has already reached a level that most wizards cannot even dream of. If he can reach that level directly, it will not be a matter of talent.

Then he realized that Regulus said he couldn't do it, but there was another sentence after that: there are a few hurdles to overcome.

Then it's not that it can't be done.

Where there are obstacles, there is direction; where there is direction, there is a path.

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