Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 451 Regulus has a sudden inspiration

Regulus walked forward.

The castle crouched in the night, its five-story stone walls outlined in a cold, hard silhouette by the moonlight.

He walked slowly, thinking as he went.

Any wizard with a sound mind, who seizes a castle as a stronghold, will first and foremost plant traps inside.

Triggered, area-based, directional—anything is possible. Anti-phantom teleportation and sensory interference are just the outermost shell; the real killer moves are inside.

As Moody said, the Prewitt brothers came after Lukwood.

The fact that the people from the Bureau of Mysteries met with Dolokhov in such a place indicates that this place is useful to them.

Moody didn't say how the two brothers got involved, but reconnaissance missions don't require direct confrontation.

They probably followed Lukwood all the way here, saw the people enter the castle, followed them in, and stepped into the trap.

Traps should be a standard defensive setup, applicable to anyone who comes, targeting all possible uninvited guests.

The Order of the Phoenix, Aurors, Ministry of Magic investigators—whoever steps through that door, is immediately greeted with hospitality.

The brothers' problem was that they were too reckless. When they found the contact, they acted impulsively and followed the other party into their territory.

The reconnaissance mission turned into a direct confrontation, a common problem among young people: they lose their sense of proportion when their enthusiasm gets the better of them.

Moody arrived after receiving a call for help. When he arrived, he did not rush in but squatted outside to observe while calling for Dumbledore.

Asking for help is rational; rushing in is foolish.

Regulus took about ten steps, his boots rustling as they stepped on the dry grass.

He won't step in; being reckless and impulsive are not the same thing.

Having confidence in your own abilities and knowingly walking into a trap are two different things.

I don't know what the Pwett brothers were thinking at the time, but their strategy of diving headfirst into the fray and then calling for help when they couldn't handle it is really puzzling. In any case, they wouldn't let themselves get into a passive position.

The opponent occupies a favorable position. The layout of the castle, the location of traps, and the spell configuration are all unknown. The only certainty is that entering will put you at a disadvantage.

Then don't go in.

After taking a few more steps, I had an idea.

He stopped and turned around.

The wind blew through the cracks in the stone wall of the shepherd's trail, and with a whoosh, long, silvery-white hair was blown behind her shoulders.

Dumbledore was looking at him.

The old man stood by the stone wall, his blue eyes gleaming slightly in the twilight, half-moon shaped glasses perched on his nose, his expression a mixture of doubt and interest.

Regulus grinned, a golden light flickered in his amber pupils, and scorching magic surged from his body, his eyes full of interest.

Dumbledore blinked when he saw the smile.

In Raven and Violin, this is the expression on the child's face after dipping gingerbread in mead and finding it so unpalatable that his tongue burned.

He had the same expression before he knocked down the thick-robed wizard with a single punch at the Wasteland Tavern.

He opened his mouth, about to say something.

Regulus spoke first, a grin spreading across his face, the wind carrying his words to the two men: "Tell them to prepare the Ironclad Charm."

Then he tilted his head and thought for a moment, then added, "Let's have a 'bubble head curse' too."

Moody's brows furrowed, and his scarred face turned toward Dumbledore, his grey-blue eyes filled with distrust.

A white-haired young wizard of unknown origin made a decision after walking a dozen steps, without even explaining the specific plan, and then gave a nonsensical instruction.

The Ironclad Curse makes sense, but what's the Bubble Head Curse for? To protect your breathing?

He'd seen far too many guys who were all talk and no action.

His mouth opened as if he wanted to say something.

Dumbledore looked at Regulus, remained silent for a while, and the doubt in his eyes had not completely disappeared, but was now mixed with a bit of helplessness.

Then he withdrew his gaze, gently raised his wand, and a silver light shone from the tip. A silver phoenix spread its wings from the light, silently swept across the wilderness, through the night, and disappeared into the stone walls of the castle.

A few seconds later, two lights appeared behind the corner tower's window: the silver of the Ironclad Charm and the pale blue of the Bubble Charm.

Moody shut his mouth, stared at the light in the corner tower window for a moment, then turned to Dumbledore, his voice rough and clearly displeased: "Albus, who is this guy?"

Dumbledore looked away, glanced at Moody, and smiled.

He said everything he needed to say: don't kill, don't escalate the situation, and Regulus listened.

But his intuition told him that the kid was planning something big; he could sense it.

"Geralt," Dumbledore's tone became lighter, and his smile widened, "the adventurer."

Moody stared at him, his grey-blue eyes appearing particularly sharp on his scarred face, and the corners of his mouth turned down.

The fact that a seemingly capable young wizard was personally taken in by Albus, with an attitude so relaxed it was almost casual, speaks volumes.

Okay, since this person is usable, let's keep an eye on him for now.

But adventurers?

What a damn profession.

He looked away, placed his hand on the wand handle at his waist, and stood still.

Regulus stopped about 150 meters from the castle, beside the stone wall of the shepherd's path, with withered grass and gravel under his feet.

The distance is about right.

The wand was raised, tip pointing upwards, and a silver light shone forth—the Ironclad Charm.

An extremely thin layer of silver light spreads out directly in mid-air, without enveloping the body.

The silver barrier extends outward from the tip of the staff, curves into an arc, and converges to form a complete sphere half a meter above the tip.

It is about 1.5 meters in diameter, about the same width as his outstretched arms.

The sphere's walls are so thin they are almost transparent, allowing a direct view of the castle's outline and the dark silhouette of distant hills.

A very faint silver sheen flows on the surface, giving it a metallic texture. It disappears when you shake it, and reappears when you shake it again.

He maintained the output of the Ironclad Spell, with magic continuously flowing from the wand into the sphere, keeping the nearly transparent shell in shape and strength.

Next is the air extraction.

With a flick of the tip of the stick upwards, a tiny hole, no bigger than a pinhead, silently opens on the top of the sphere.

He silently chanted the mantra, Ventus, the airflow mantra.

A wisp of magic emanated from the tip of the staff, slid up the outer edge of the sphere, and drilled into the tiny hole, forming a continuously rotating miniature vortex at the opening.

The vortex rotates inward, drawing air in from the outside.

For the first few seconds, you could hardly feel any change, then the wind picked up.

The surrounding air began to move, and the nearby withered grass fell in the same direction, all facing the sphere.

Dust and grass clippings rose from the ground, flew along the airflow channels toward the sphere, and were bounced off near the sphere's wall, forming a slowly rotating gray dust band around the sphere.

Her long, silvery-white hair was pulled towards the sphere, the ends of her hair fluttering forward. The hem of her short vest also moved, the fabric clinging to her waist and being pulled forward.

Regulus stood motionless in the wind, his wand firmly held in his hand. The Ironclad Charm continued to be cast to maintain the strength of the sphere, while the Flow Charm operated in sync to draw in air.

The two spells each followed their own paths, without interfering with each other. Both originated from the tip of the staff, one following the structure of the sphere's wall, and the other following the opening at the top.

The magic control that operates in parallel on two lines requires a high degree of precision.

The Ironclad Charm requires a uniform, constant, and unwavering output of magic power to maintain the sphere's wall. If the magic power density at any point deviates, the sphere's wall will thin or even crack at that location.

The airflow manipulator needs to continuously and steadily rotate the orifice vortex. If the rotation speed is too fast, the air intake will exceed the capacity of the sphere wall, and if the rotation speed is too slow, the air extraction efficiency will be low.

The magical channels of the two spells are squeezed out of the same wand and cannot flow between each other.

For an ordinary wizard, this is already the limit of multitasking.

For Regulus, it was a normal performance.

After a dozen seconds, the air density inside the sphere visibly increased.

The originally transparent sphere began to emit a very faint bluish-white light, which swirled slowly inside the sphere's inner wall, creating a misty atmosphere.

Air under ultra-high pressure has such a high molecular density that it begins to scatter light.

Regulus stared at the light, his magical senses spreading out in sync.

The air molecules inside the sphere are accelerating and colliding with each other, causing the density to continuously increase.

With each increase in air pressure, the frequency of molecular collisions doubles. The air pressure inside the sphere is currently several dozen times that outside, and it is still rising.

Twenty seconds, thirty seconds.

The negative pressure around us became more and more obvious, the wind blew from further away, the pebbles on the grass began to roll, and the dust storm rose half a meter up from the ground.

A dozen meters away, along the stone wall of the shepherd's path, withered grass and leaves were uprooted and rolled towards the sphere.

The whistling sound grew louder and louder, a deep hum, as air blowing from afar was compressed into a pinhole-sized opening, producing a sharp and piercing sound.

Forty seconds, fifty seconds.

The bluish-white mist inside the sphere grew brighter and brighter, transitioning from bluish-white to pure white, churning and boiling inside the sphere's walls, its light illuminating the entire sphere.

He continuously outputs magic.

The airflow spell pumps in streams of outside air through a pinhole-sized opening, while the armor spell restrains the sphere from expanding, creating a two-way conflict.

The more air is pumped in, the greater the reaction force on the sphere's wall.

The Ironclad Curse was feeding back pressure; with each additional bit of air added, the load on the sphere's walls increased.

The current air pressure inside the globe is about two hundred times that of normal atmospheric pressure, and it is still steadily increasing.

The 1.77 cubic meter volume was filled with more than 350 cubic meters of air. If Ironclad Curse were to loosen his grip now, the gas released instantly could overturn a wooden house.

But that's not enough power; it's several orders of magnitude less than overturning a wooden house or collapsing a stone fortress.

Sixty seconds later, the ball wall began to tremble.

An extremely faint buzzing sound emanated from the direction of the sphere, at a very high frequency, and the silver metallic luster flickered erratically during the vibration.

The conventional constraints of the Ironclad Curse have reached their limit.

If you stuff more air inside, the sphere will shatter under pressure, and the high-pressure gas inside will be ejected in all directions.

The power wasn't concentrated enough to penetrate the stone fortress walls; it would only explode in front of him, covering his face in dust.

Regulus's expression remained unchanged, the golden light in his amber vertical pupils dazzlingly bright.

That's the limit, just right.

He narrowed the opening of the airflow spell slightly, slowing down the rate of airflow and maintaining it at a critical point where the sphere's walls wouldn't collapse.

......

On the first floor of the castle, at the west-facing window, a masked Death Eater frowned and glanced out.

The magical fluctuations outside are a bit strange. They are very directional and concentrated on one point, but it's unclear what they're doing.

It's too far, only 150 meters away. All I can see is a white-haired wizard standing by the shepherd's path, holding his wand and doing something to the air.

There seemed to be something nearby, transparent and round? It was faintly shimmering.

The wind blew in his direction, and all the withered grass around him bent in one direction.

A gust of wind? Playing in the wind there?

He muttered something under his breath, shrank back from the windowsill, and leaned back against the stone wall at the top of the stairs.