Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 454 Thermal Explosion

The outer wall on the side of the main entrance has been completely gone from the foundation to the height of the third-floor windowsill, and rubble has filled most of the first-floor space.

The second-floor corner tower is tilted at a dangerous angle, the floor is cracked, the walls are collapsed, and it hangs precariously on the remaining load-bearing walls.

The upper floors are tilted in the direction of collapse, the exterior walls are covered with cracks, and several window frames have come loose from the walls and are hanging in mid-air.

But the main framework remained intact, and the structural reinforcement spell withstood the most devastating impact.

The walls on the fourth and fifth floors are cracked, half of the battlements have fallen off, and several stones on the corner towers have loosened but have not yet collapsed.

From a distance, the castle looks like it has been bitten in half, with jagged edges, rubble and dust still falling, and its internal structure exposed to the night wind.

The Anti-Apparition Charm, the Perception Interference Charm, and the Warning Charm all failed in the explosion.

Magic is attached to physical structures; if the structure breaks, the magic attached to it will naturally break as well.

The same applies to any traps inside the first floor. The trigger mechanism depends on the complete space. If the ceiling collapses, the walls crack, the stairs go crooked, the trigger lines and constraint boundaries are all torn apart, and no amount of spell configuration will help.

Regulus stood 150 meters away, and the shockwave had weakened into a blast of hot air by the time it reached him.

The silver light of the Constant Iron Armor Spell on his body flashed, and hot air whistled past his sides, blowing his long silver hair back.

He first assessed his own condition.

The magic consumption was considerable; two minutes of continuous high-intensity casting would have depleted the normal magic reserves of a standard adult wizard.

For him, it's about 20-30%.

Sweat was on my forehead, trickling down my temples; my breathing was deeper than usual; and my muscles were a little sore.

Two minutes of preparation—this was the longest preparation time he had ever taken for a magic spell.

The power is decent, meeting expectations.

He gazed at the castle ruins ahead, emitting wisps of smoke, his wand hanging at his side.

There's so much room for improvement in this combination spell.

Today's result was a stroke of genius. He only decided to infuse Betelgeuse into it during the power-building phase. Before that, he only wanted to tough it out with the Ironclad Curse.

If planned in advance, the compression ratio can be increased even further.

The protective will of Betelgeuse and the constraint of the Ironclad Curse are essentially the same thing: guarding the boundaries.

The burst of Betelgeuse and the release of the Flame Spell were merely for synchronized triggering; in the end, they were just ordinary flames.

If it were replaced by Fiery Blaze, and its tendency toward self-destruction were combined with Betelgeuse's explosive will at the moment of release, the energy peak would jump several orders of magnitude higher.

Going further down the line, with the intervention of deformation technology, the air itself can be replaced with a more ideal working medium to directly deform the air into a gas with higher heat capacity and a larger expansion coefficient within the sphere, doubling the compression efficiency.

It can even skip the compression step and directly deform high-temperature plasma inside the sphere, eliminating the need for the energy storage stage.

By then, preparation time can be reduced from two minutes to just a few seconds, yet the power will be even greater.

Magic manipulation is fundamental; the fifth tube of Betelgeuse is used for constraint, the fourth tube for release, and polymorphism is used to change the medium.

Each of the four lines, taken individually, has enormous potential for optimization; when put together, the upper limit of this magic is far from being reached.

He kept thinking about one thing: just how much of the physical world could magic influence?

It's not about turning magic into physics, but about making magic reach the pinnacle of what physics can do, and then surpassing it.

Today's thermo-explosive test was the first practical verification of this idea. He was satisfied, but not entirely satisfied.

Regulus snapped out of his thoughts; he'd think about these things when he got back.

The Star Orbit Meditation began to operate, with the six stars deep within the mind each in their proper place, and magic power rapidly flowing back from the meditation to replenish what was consumed.

He flicked the remaining blue-white sparks from the tip of his wand, shifting his weight onto his back foot, his posture relaxed.

He turned back to Dumbledore and Moody, grinning, "All done."

Moody's expression was priceless.

His grey-blue eyes darted back and forth between the castle ruins and the white-haired wizard. His lips were tightly pressed together, and the muscles in his cheeks twitched. The scar that ran from his forehead to his jaw twisted even more grotesquely on his twitching facial muscles.

He sensed something was wrong from the moment this guy started charging up. When the ball shrank to the size of a fist, he almost used Apparition to escape. Now he sees the result.

The front of the castle was destroyed by bombing.

A young wizard who looked to be in his early twenties used three basic spells to blow up a Death Eater stronghold in just two minutes while standing outside the battlefield.

He was an Auror for nearly thirty years, captured half of the dark wizards of Azkaban, and fought more battles than most people have eaten meals.

But I've never seen this before. A few common, basic spells combined together, how did it turn out like this?

His Adam's apple bobbed.

The face turned around, a smug smile on its lips, golden light still lingering in its amber vertical pupils, and its long silver-white hair was tousled by the blast wave.

Moody stared at him for a long time, then exhaled a breath from his nose.

Dumbledore, on the other hand, seemed to be in better shape.

The old man removed the earplugs and the barrier. His crescent-shaped glasses flashed in the afterglow of the explosion. His blue eyes looked at the smoking castle ruins in the distance, then at Regulus's grinning face.

It was pretty much as he had predicted.

The Ironclad Charm serves as the container, the Airflow Charm as the pump, the air as the ammunition, and the compression as the energy storage. The enhancement at the level of will pushes the compression to a limit far beyond the norm. The Ejection Charm projects the energy, and the Flame Charm detonates it.

Each step involved basic spells, and the use of willpower wasn't particularly advanced, but the idea of ​​combining physics and magic was something even he hadn't considered.

During his trip to France, he witnessed the boy's vast knowledge, including principles of flight, aerodynamics, and Muggle-like scientific thinking.

He felt gratified at the time, because this young man was not limited by the inherent framework of the magical world, knew what he wanted, and knew where to find it.

However, there is a gap between knowledge reserves and practical application.

In those two minutes, this child bridged that chasm.

He smiled slightly, his blue eyes showing surprise, admiration, and a slight headache. He shook his head, his white beard swaying slightly.

With such a commotion, wizards within a radius of several thousand miles should have sensed it. The Ministry of Magic will probably send someone to investigate tomorrow.

But who cares? It's none of his business.

On the ruins of the castle, rubble was still rolling down, and the air was filled with the smell of burnt lime and scorched earth.

Regulus's magical perception spread out, passing through the smoke and rubble, sweeping across the interior of the ruins.

Beneath the pile of rubble lay three or four sources of magical energy, chaotic, weak, and intermittent, yet still pulsating.

Two figures lay sprawled on the surface of the ruins, the silver fragments of the Ironclad Curse slowly dissipating from their bodies, their magical states in complete disarray.

One coughed up blood bubbles that stained the rubble in front of him a dark brown, his mask was half broken, and another was bleeding from all seven orifices, curled up in a ball, unable to move.

There was another one standing there, swaying violently, holding his wand with the tip drawing circles in the air, his eyes unfocused.

They're all still alive, at least for now.

Further into the ruins, a surge of energy, stronger than any other source of magic, appeared—rapid yet stable.

Antonin Dolokhov.

He emerged from behind the pile of rubble, his stance relatively steady, wand in hand, breathing rapidly, his chest heaving violently.

Blood was seeping from his mouth and nose, and his face and neck were covered in bloodstains. His robe was tattered and hung on his body, and the sleeve of his left arm was torn off, revealing a forearm covered with tiny cuts and bruises.

The magic state is okay, but there are mostly superficial injuries.

To be able to stand firm in the face of an explosion of that magnitude shows considerable strength.

Regulus looked at the scattered figures in the ruins and a slight smile appeared on his lips.

That's good. He kept his word about not killing people, just like the old man said.

That last shot was a deliberate, targeted shot aimed at the stone arch above the main gate of the castle.

The mechanical support point of the exterior wall is destroyed. Once this point is removed, the exterior wall will collapse due to loss of support. Most of the energy of the shock wave will be spent destroying the building structure, with only a limited amount reaching people.

If you throw that ball directly in through a first-floor window and detonate it in the enclosed space, then no one will be able to stand up.

The superimposed overpressure in the confined space has nowhere to dissipate, and all the energy is thrown at the people inside. Even the Ironclad Curse cannot withstand it; it will shatter everyone's lungs.

He didn't do that; he had to give the old man face.

Looking back, there were some reliable Death Eaters who reacted quickly enough; the Ironclad Charm held up before the impact arrived.

Behind him, Dumbledore's magical aura suddenly vanished from his senses.

Just like that time at the werewolf camp, even though I could see him standing there with my eyes, I didn't get any feedback from my magical perception.

The old man erased himself from the realm of magic, existing but not perceived, visible but intangible.

The old man remained still, keeping a close eye on the overall situation; Moody's magical quality was quite clear.

Rough, heavy, intense, as unkempt as his scarred face, but sharp enough.

A crisp cracking sound exploded at the edge of the ruins.

Moody appeared at the edge of the battlefield, on the boundary between the castle ruins and the open area.

The anti-Apparition spell was long gone, and the castle's defenses were completely destroyed after that explosion.

The Pwett brothers must have realized this as well.

The second-floor corner tower is leaning badly; if you stay up there any longer, you'll be crushed to death by falling rocks.

The two brothers had just climbed out of the corner tower, covered in dust, and were sliding down the pile of rubble.

Fabian slipped on a stone slab and nearly fell, but Gideon grabbed his arm.

The brothers' magical energy fluctuations were already chaotic, and they became even more unstable after the explosion, but the Ironclad Curse and the Bubble Head Curse prevented them from suffering any real damage.

They didn't run far, landing on an open area a few dozen meters outside the castle.

Moody was positioned just between them and Dolokhov, and also outside of Dolokhov and Geralt.

The wand was held in his hand, hanging down with the tip pointing to the ground, not raised.

A standard deterrent stance.

Dolokhov glanced at Moody, and his lips twitched.

Regulus didn't rush to make a move; he watched first.

Dolokhov pulled several small, dark-colored vials from the inside pocket of his torn robe and tossed them to the Death Eater who was still standing there, but looking dazed.

"Pour it down their throats."

The man caught the bottle, paused for a moment before realizing what was happening, and then staggered toward his companion who was lying on the ground.

Dolokhov opened a bottle and drank it down, then wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.

Then he took two steps forward, blocking his men and facing the unfamiliar white-haired wizard.

Regulus looked at him.

His amber vertical pupils gleamed with two cold lights in the night, his expression calm.

There was no laughter or provocation, just quiet observation; the silence at that moment was more oppressive than any threat.

In the wilderness, smoke rises from the ruins of the castle, and two people face each other across a pile of rubble.

Occasionally, coughs and the sound of rubble rolling could be heard from deep within the ruins.

Moody stood in the shadows by the stone wall in the distance, his wand hanging at his side, his grey-blue eyes fixed intently on everyone on the field.

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