Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 387 The Increment of Light and Darkness

Graybuck remained standing in the same spot, his chest heaving less than before, but his shoulders were still stiff.

Yellow eyes stared at Regulus, pupils shrinking back and forth in a narrow vertical slit, like a wild beast cornered trying to figure out what its predator would do next.

From the moment Graybuck approached to provoke him until now, after testing his bestial instincts, only a few minutes have passed, and the group of werewolves around them are still either crouching or standing, watching from a distance.

Seeing that Regulus didn't seem to be finished, Lucius narrowed his eyes slightly and then waited quietly.

His gaze darted back and forth between Graybuck and Regulus before returning to a fixed point ahead.

Regulus raised his eyes, staring directly into Graybuck's eyes, ignoring the fur that was about to bristle, and focused his attention directly into them.

Without any intention of being polite, the first three blows had completely intimidated the wolf, who now dared not even move. If he wanted to watch, he could just watch.

His will was like a wedge, driven deep into Graybuck's spirit.

Graybuck tried to resist, but his body suddenly stiffened, his yellow eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to howl, but only a choked sob escaped his throat.

His mind instinctively erected a wall, rough and hard, all brute force built from that bit of bestiality.

But this wall was no different from paper in the face of Regulus's will.

Regulus's spirit pressed down, and the wall cracked open, shattering into pieces that were pushed to both sides.

Greyback let out a muffled groan outside, his whole body swayed, and his legs almost gave way.

This wolf had probably never been leged up before and didn't know what it felt like, but now he did.

It felt like a hand was reaching into his brain, with fingers pressing outwards from the inside of his skull, making his eyeballs swell. Then, a sharp pain shot through his head, as if someone was using a wedge to chisel his way down from the top of his head.

His primal instincts exploded, causing his body hair to stand on end, but the explosion stopped halfway through as reason prevailed over his instincts.

I dare not move, I dare not move at all.

He just stood there, his two claws clenched tightly, letting Regulus rummage through his mind.

Regulus's spirit passed through the outer layer, and a jumble of chaotic images surged up.

Moonlight, running, biting, blood, screams, terrified faces, prey killed, night roads chased by Aurors, and the corpses of their own kind devoured when starving.

More often than not, there were images of biting, one after another, new and old mixed together.

Everything Graybuck did in his life is here: bloody, violent, cruel, but tedious, dull, and boring.

Regulus continued rummaging through, but these were useless.

What he wanted to see was the underlying structure, the mental framework, how humans and beasts were connected, which part humans occupied, which part beasts occupied, who was pressing down on whom, and who was next to whom.

His will bypassed that layer of memory, flipped to the very bottom, and then he saw it.

Graybuck's mind was layered.

Its animalistic nature is on the outside, covered by a thick, dense shell, as hard as keratin that has been compressed hundreds of times, completely encasing its spiritual core.

In my perception, this shell is covered with rough textures, like old tree bark or parched mud, each texture oozing outwards a bloodthirsty restlessness and malice toward living things.

Regulus exerted a little force, his spirit penetrating the depths, and saw the inner layer: humanity.

Humanity is still there, but it is not resisting, not struggling, and not being suppressed; it is still there.

Regulus's will paused outside that layer of humanity.

The person inside was quiet and still.

It's like a house that still has a nameplate, but no one lives there anymore.

The door was locked, the windows were closed, and a thick layer of dust covered the room. The tables and chairs were still in their original places, untouched and unlikely to be moved again.

There were no signs of a struggle, no signs of breaking in, and no one had struggled, shouted, or banged their head against the wall inside.

It wasn't breached; it's more like the inhabitants left on their own.

Even animalistic instincts couldn't crush humanity; there was no war in this room.

Human nature itself turned off the lights, locked the door, and retreated, leaving not even a sound of resistance.

Then, the animalistic instincts surged up from the outside, layer by layer, enveloping the entire empty room in a shell.

Regulus stopped there, something in his mind being touched.

This reminded him of something else he had been doing all along.

For the past six months, he has been in the containment room, dealing with dark revelations.

The filter layer, the isolation zone, and the whole set of structures all have one purpose: to keep the dark things out and prevent them from coming out, and even more so, to prevent them from coming into contact with the light.

Betelgeuse, Star Orbit Meditation, and the Little Soul Man are his core elements, which he must protect and keep separate from the darkness, each in its own territory, without interfering with each other.

He was afraid they would bump into each other, afraid they would fight if they did, and afraid the darkness would pollute the light, so he implemented isolation.

Greyback, that wolf, was also isolated inside.

His people and beasts were separated into two distinct layers, one inside and one outside, not mixed together, and kept very separate.

The person who had gone inside quietly left the scene.

Regulus did not equate Graybuck with his own light and darkness; they were worlds apart.

Graybuck's ideas are insufficient to address such a grand theme as light and darkness.

Its humans and beasts were bitten out, forced into their bodies by external viruses—passively and filthily.

His light and darkness are two branches growing from the same root, originating from his own soul; active and clean.

These are two different things, one is as big as heaven and the other as small as earth, but they are the same in terms of isolation.

He was afraid of a fight between the two sides, so he isolated them, and the interior of Graybury was also isolated.

But the result of the quarantine was an empty house.

So the beast didn't kill the person; the person left the arena on their own, turned off the lights, and made room.

This discovery made Regulus's idea, which he had been holding in his mind for more than half a year, waver.

He used to think that the most difficult part of the coexistence of light and darkness was how to prevent them from fighting.

His entire design of the containment chamber was geared towards this goal.

Later, during Voldemort's encounter, he witnessed another possibility.

That time, Voldemort's Legilimency was amplified, triggering the core of the Dark Inspiration, and the dark things surged outwards, threatening to break through the barrier.

But Betelgeuse didn't suppress it, nor did it block it with light; it just shone for a moment.

Both sides are alive, both are in that space, and neither side went to kill the other.

That time he understood that meeting each other doesn't necessarily mean fighting.

But at the time, he only understood half of it.

He knew that isolation wasn't the only solution, but he hadn't figured out how those two things should coexist after isolation was lifted. This gap remained open, and he hadn't filled it.

Now Graybury has given him a failure scenario he never expected, and the worst one at that.

Coexistence may fail, but failure is not limited to fighting to the death of one side. There is another way: without fighting, one side simply disappears quietly without a sound, leaving no trace of the battlefield.

The other side thought it had won, believing it was powerful enough to devour the other, but in reality, it had won nothing.

It simply moved into an empty room, all by itself, and turned off all the lights.

This is the third form of failed coexistence, and it is also the least noticeable one.

Even if a fight ends in death, at least there's movement, blood, and struggle, which everyone can see.

This one doesn't exist; it's silent and unnoticed, and by the time it's discovered, no one is inside anymore.

Regulus continued thinking along these lines.

His old approach—isolation, everyone staying in their own place—would just waste time on both light and darkness.

If the two sides are too far apart, neither side can touch the other. Over time, it's hard to guarantee that one side won't slowly fade away like the person in the head of Graybury, quietly leaving the scene.

Quarantine may seem safe, but it actually hides a potential problem.

This road is impassable.

We cannot isolate ourselves, nor can we afford to waste time, and we certainly cannot do what Greyback did, allowing one side to push the other back.

So what should the right one be like?

He didn't know; he could only guess.

That's the kind of situation where both sides have to survive, both have to have strength, and both have to occupy their own territory, with neither side shrinking, neither retreating, and neither giving up any space.

But we can't just occupy the land and live our own lives.

A vague idea popped into his mind.

Two things, side by side, close together, interlocking at their boundary.

If one side gains a little, the other side loses a little; if one side gains an inch, the other side yields an inch.

Back and forth, advance and retreat, they are alive, they are fluid, they are a little of me in you, and a little of you in me.

The strong may contain the seeds of weakness, while the weak may contain the strength to turn the tide.

Neither can devour the other, nor can the other exist without the other. The two things go around in circles, waxing and waning, and together they form a complete and living entity.

The light burned, and the darkness surged. When the light was at its peak, the darkness did not die; it merely held back, waiting.

Even as the price rose in the shadows, the light didn't leave the stage; it simply stepped aside, gathering its strength.

Using each other's strength, they pushed and spun around.

He stopped thinking about this; it was just a guess.

He couldn't verify it, or even explain how to build it in this way.

But compared to before, he understood one thing.

At least we know which path is a dead end: isolation is a dead end, laissez-faire is a dead end. Once the dead ends are blocked, the right path will always be among the remaining ones.

I haven't figured it out yet, but it's something that can be used. I'll think about it slowly later.

He hadn't expected to see this before he came. He was just here to help Lucius and check out the werewolves, but he ended up running into a living specimen that directly addressed his own core thesis.

Many of the important things in his life happened by chance, unexpectedly, while he was doing other things.

This trip was worthwhile.

Regulus ripped his mind out of Graybuck's head, as if it were driven in without hesitation.

Graybury jolted awake, his whole body swayed, and he almost fell over.

He stretched out his paws to brace himself against a broken wall beside him, a muffled sound coming from his throat, and the excruciating pain in his head from being ransacked slowly subsided.

This series of events, including three different ways to die, plus the forceful entry that pierced right through his skull, completely stunned Greyback.

He couldn't explain what had just happened in his mind.

It felt as if something had broken into the innermost part, a place it had never even entered before, searched it thoroughly, and then withdrew without any mercy.

His spirit was forcibly pried open, only to be left behind.

But he still dared not move, much less run.

A wild beast, guided by its purest instincts, sensed that the smaller creature before it was the larger predator.

His scars, his teeth, and the territory of thirty or forty wolves meant nothing to this little brat.

Regulus withdrew his gaze.

Greyback the wolf had seen enough, seen everything he needed to see, and thought everything he needed to think. He had gained far more than he had expected before he came.

His gaze swept past Graybuck, who had his tail between his legs, into the depths of the ruins, landing behind a broken wall.

The werewolf who squatted there and looked up at him briefly when we entered the village, as if he recognized him, and then quickly lowered his head again, is still there.

Regulus looked at him and tilted his head slightly.

The werewolf paused for a moment, then tapped his chest with his finger.

Regulus withdrew his gaze and stopped looking at him.

The young werewolf stood up, hesitated for a few steps, then lowered his head and walked around from behind Graybury.

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