Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Muffled thuds began to echo around the ruins. (Subsequent chapters can be viewed at: ww#8203w.de#8203qixs.#8203o#8203rg!)

Twenty or thirty figures in black robes, vassals of the Black family, simultaneously moved from the outer arc-shaped formation towards the ruins.

Without shouts or commands, and without any further communication, the closest few Apparated directly to the edge of the ruins, their boots crushing the brittle stones. The moment they stood firm, their wands were already raised, followed by the sound of flesh and bone breaking.

The light of the incantations began to flicker in the night: silver-white cutting spells, orange-red blasting spells, and lightless binding spells shot into the ruins one after another.

Someone poked half their body out from behind cover and flung out a green light. Before the green light could go far, three spells were cast from different directions at the person's location. Rocks were blown away, and the person was blown away as well. Before they even hit the ground, they were gone.

Silas Croft walked in front, when a Rohr wizard sprang out from behind a pile of rubble, pointed his wand at him, and released a dark red spell. A crimson light, accompanied by a scorching vortex, crashed down, burning a layer of black crust onto the ground in its wake.

Silas shifted half a body to the side, the spell grazing past his shoulder, while simultaneously holding his wand less than two feet in front of the other's chest, casting a silent tearing spell.

The wizard's body split open from the sternum to both sides, his ribs broke in the middle, and white bone fragments pierced out from the torn robe, while hot flesh and blood leaked out of his chest cavity.

His expression remained ferocious as he cast the spell; before it could switch to pain, he collapsed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Two more wizards suddenly sprang up from underground, one casting a fire spell upwards and the other a ground-burrowing spell downwards, both employing reckless tactics to try and keep the largest target in the middle stuck in place.

Silas accelerated forward, leaving a dark shadow trailing behind him as he passed through the angle between the two spells. He casually unleashed a black energy blade, and blood spurted from the crack, hitting the fire spell above and creating a cloud of blood mist.

He continued walking forward, his feet never stopping, as others came to his left and right to fill in, driving back the enemy who tried to provide support.

On the other side of the battlefield, a jet-black beam of light came slanting down from behind the ruins. Silas didn't even turn his head, just raised his hand to block it. His upper body didn't move, but his feet left two deep marks.

The next second, he vanished from his spot and reappeared ten meters away beside a broken wall. He swung his wand down, and a deep red light blasted the man to pieces.

From the flank, two Black family vassals set their sights on a burly man who was still standing.

The man was covered in wounds, his robe soaked in blood, yet he continued to cast poisonous curses with incredible speed, the trajectory of the incantations twisting and turning as if they were consciously following the man around corners.

The two Black lackeys didn't dodge at all. One rushed forward at full speed, using a series of shattering spells to force the opponent to defend, while the other circled around to the left rear, throwing out a polymorph spell to turn the rubble under his feet into thin slices that spun rapidly and cut towards the man's calf.

The opponent's defenses were breached. The first stone blade sliced ​​open the back of his neck, the second tore off half of his ear, and the third pierced through his armpit, emerging with a white tendon attached.

Before he could even kneel down, the person charging ahead fired a red beam of light from the front, piercing his throat and pinning him to the crumbling wall behind him. His limbs twitched for a while before he finally stopped moving.

On the other side of the ruins, a Rohr family vassal, still struggling, was kneeling on the ground with one leg crushed but his upper body intact. He threw a Bone Crusher spell at a Black family vassal about twenty meters to his left. The dark yellow light hit his left shoulder precisely, shattering his collarbone and causing his arm to hang limply.

Just as the Roel family was about to finish him off, a piercing spell pierced his ribs from the side. A deep blue cone of light pierced through his robe and flesh, emerging from his other back, bringing with it a cloud of black blood mist.

Rolfe froze, and his wand fell from his hand.

The Black family vassal who had been hit by the Bone Crushing Curse used his intact right hand to cast an Explosion Curse on his head. The sound was not loud, but the effect was great. His head was gone, and the area above his neck turned into a pile of shattered pieces that splattered on the ground.

Elsewhere, a Rohr vassal emerged from the ruins, covered in blood, his left hand severed, but his right hand still clutching a wand, and cast a Crucifixion on the nearest Black vassal.

Before the crimson light left the tip of the staff, Silas appeared directly from behind, pressing down on the man's nape with one hand while simultaneously using his knee to push against the man's lower back, causing him to arch backward.

The man's scream was muffled in his throat, turning into a few short, low growls. Silas' wand hung at his side, and without even using a spell, he used his other free hand to twist the man's neck, his knuckles sinking in. Then, with a twist, the man's head tilted to one side, and his entire face froze.

Silas released his grip, letting the body slide to the ground.

The Black family's vassals outnumbered the Roll family in both quantity and quality, but this battle was far from easy.

Someone was burned on half of their body by black flames that bounced off the rubble, fell into a large pit, and was buried under the falling rocks.

Another person had a bone spur piercing their calf from the ground and was using a cutting spell to cut their leg.

Two others were hit head-on by the Crucifixion Curse, collapsing to the ground convulsing, foaming at their mouths mixed with blood, their bodies contorted into unnatural shapes.

On the distant hills, the scene became far from quiet as the sound of explosions and towering flames rolled over the spot where the spectating wizards stood.

The crowd was filled with low gasps and suppressed screams. When someone fell, they pulled down those around them, and people staggered backward, their footsteps clattering on the grass.

Dozens of armor spells lit up simultaneously, and silvery-white light spots stretched along the hills. In addition to the armor spells, many strange and unusual protective gears began to take effect.

A bone talisman hanging around someone's neck glowed with a murky orange light, and wisps of light smoke emerged from the bone, climbing up the neck and stopping at the mouth and nose, blocking the dust that was spreading in.

Some people have lenses with a pearly luster that expand and contract every few seconds. They are anti-glare goggles coated with mercury film, which can suppress distant flashes of light into a blurry gray fog.

Others held up monoculars with slices of salamander cornea embedded in the tube, which could turn the magical particles floating in the firelight into deep red dots, flying one by one, like watching lava splashing from a volcano.

Everyone is watching.

In the center of the ruins, there was an area that everyone deliberately avoided, because it had not completely collapsed into a flat surface.

Broken stones and metal components were held together by something, forming a semi-circular low wall, about two meters high and five or six meters long.

From a distance, it looks like the remains left behind by chance after the Disintegration Curse, but upon closer inspection, something seems amiss.

The walls were a damp, deep red, gleaming in the moonlight with a luster that didn't belong to minerals. The surface was uneven, with some parts bulging and others sunken, and the texture was nauseating to look at for too long.

Those are vein patterns, capillaries spreading like a spider web between the stone and the metal, some of the thicker ones still pulsating.

The filling between the gravel is a dark red gel. Occasionally, something wriggles under the gel, pushing up a small bulge on the surface, like countless tiny throats breathing.

The ruins seemed to come alive, reorganizing their internal organs.

A crack appeared in the middle of the low wall, and dark red glue rolled outwards from the edges of the crack. Steam was rising from the exposed section. Dag Roll walked out of the crack.

He was severely injured; the skin of his entire left forearm, from elbow to wrist, was torn off, revealing dark red muscle, with several white tendons hanging diagonally on the inside of his wrist.

Three fingers on the left hand were severed from the second joint, the cut was black, and the bone tips were exposed. A deep gash ran from the right shoulder to the chest, and half of the broken collarbone could be seen between the two pieces of torn flesh.

The skin and flesh from the right cheekbone to the jaw were completely shattered, with broken skin and fat rolled up on the cheek. The roots of the teeth could be seen at the corner of the mouth. The entire eyeball drooped downwards, and the eye socket bone was broken into three pieces, barely holding up around the eye socket.

With each step, a stream of black blood mixed with bone fragments gushed from the wound, soaking the pebbles beneath his feet.

It's no wonder he was injured like this. Regulus's Disintegration Curse was aimed at him. He was the most obvious target, standing so straight. It would be a shame not to shoot him.

He continued walking forward, carrying several human skins in his right hand. They were wet and soft, still warm, and their shapes still revealed human outlines. The scalp was still attached to the hair, the face was shriveled up, and the shoulders were empty, with the entire skin hanging down from the middle, swaying precariously.

The limbs were shriveled into long, limp strips, with complete fingernails still embedded in the fingertips. The topmost one was still bulging, with something churning inside the inner wall of the sac, pushing against the skin surface and arching upwards, as if some living creature was crawling inside.

Dark red liquid, carrying visible heat, overflowed from the pores of the skin, flowing along Old Luo's fingers, across the back of his hand, into the raised bluish-black veins on the back of his hand, and up his wrist, disappearing into the depths of his sleeve.

The skin that had been torn off Old Luo'er's arm was growing back, and the gash on his chest was closing up.

Foreign flesh and blood push out from deep within the wound, first filling the gaps between the muscles, then layering on top, covering the fascia, and the skin pulls inward from both sides of the tear, making a slight pulling sound.

The severed finger is also regenerating. The charred and peeled-off surface reveals the bone fragments underneath. Then, the white finger bone begins to extend from the bone fragments, growing outward segment by segment.

Tendons wrap around the bones, muscles fill the gaps between the tendons, enveloping the skeleton, and skin covers the fingers from the base to the tip, with nails being the last to grow.

The missing piece of skin on my face has been replaced. The new flesh is embedded in the old skin, and its color is darker. The texture is completely different from the surrounding skin, and it doesn't quite match my face, but it has definitely taken root.

The leather pouch in his hand deflated completely, the last bit of its contents drained, and it floated lightly to the ground, crumpled into a ball.

He was completely unharmed, standing in the center of the ruins.

The next moment, the gravel underfoot began to turn black, spreading outwards. Within a few meters, rocks, grass, corpses, and everything else were oozing foul-smelling black water.

A burnt, bitter smell began to fill the air, like burning hair, flesh, and bones.

Moonlight shone through gaps in the clouds, and the ruins contained numerous broken stone walls and molten metal pipes, which were being blown away by the wind.

The night wind carried the air far away, and on the distant hills, someone was hit by the smell and bent over to dry heave.

Regulus's magic power has returned to about 60%, still far from his full strength, but it should be enough for one battle.

He opened his eyes, and the ruins beneath his feet were laid out with extreme clarity in his new level of perception. The location of every piece of rubble, the movement trajectory of every person still fighting, Silas was advancing from the northwest, and the signal in the core area had been fully restored.

He teleported directly from a hundred meters in the air and landed on the ruins, forty or fifty meters away from Old Luo. The distorted air and echoing sounds were drowned out by the surrounding explosions, and no one paid any attention.

The two were separated by a fissure in the ground, created by the Disintegration Curse. It was about a meter wide and pitch black at the bottom, with a howling wind blowing up from it.

The two people looked at each other from a distance.

Old Rohr remained motionless, his brown eyes peering out from the shadows. He was silent and expressionless, like a stone unearthed from the wasteland, his body stiff and carrying something ancient, a mixture of blood and earth, and earth mixed with hatred.

Regulus didn't speak either; his gray eyes appeared very faint, almost transparent, in the silvery-white light of the Constant Armor Spell.

The contract war has already said everything that needed to be said three days ago, and there's nothing more to explain now.

Everyone will analyze the true purpose of the war afterward and feel that the reasons written in the contract are too weak, not enough to justify the Black family wiping out one of the Twenty-Eight Holy Clans.

The Seller Potion incident at the welcome party and the behind-the-scenes maneuvers in the Belmont lounge are considered low-level stunts in the pureblood community. If someone dies, it's not a big deal; if no one dies, it's just some pushing and shoving under the table.

Using this reason to initiate a contract creates a stark contrast between the strength of the action and the justification.

The Black family's purpose must be something else entirely. As for what it is, everyone has their own guesses, and no one guesses completely correctly or completely wrongly.

This suspicion is valid, but the reasons are certainly insufficient. They are for the program's use; contract magic recognizes them, Wizengamo recognizes them, and the pureblood ancient law recognizes them.

But if one person kills another, and two families fight to the point of extinction, what reason is needed for that?

The current fact is that the contract has been activated, the magic has taken effect, and the 28-day time limit hangs in the balance. Only when one party dies completely will the contract close.

Old Raoul had been in this business his whole life, and he knew this better than anyone. So now, standing on these ruins, there was no need for him and Regulus to exchange any unnecessary words.

A gust of wind blew between the two of them.

Let's get right to it.

(End of this chapter)