Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Regulus stood in the moonlight, his left hand pressed against his left rib, his palm damp, his robe soaked through, clinging to his skin, cold and sticky.

His breathing became heavy, his chest heaved, his shoulders slumped down a little, and his hair was a mess from the sweat and the night wind, with a few stray strands sticking to his forehead.

A hole was torn in the left side of the silver-patterned battle robe, the edges of the fabric were charred and curled, revealing a white shirt soaked in blood underneath. Under the tear, one could see the exposed flesh and traces of bleeding. His right hand held a magic wand, hanging naturally at his side.

He glanced down; blood was still seeping out, but not much anymore. What was more troublesome was the blackened mark around the wound, like an overburnt scab, and it was moving, slowly burrowing into the flesh. Every time it crawled a little deeper, his magic would automatically surge over it.

Two forces were pressing against his flesh, and his magic was being eroded layer by layer. The amount that was replenished was just enough to keep him afloat, and no more could be squeezed out.

The wound hurts a lot, but it's just plain pain.

The burning and corrosive sensation from before had been suppressed by the grand imagery of the star trail meditation, leaving only the sharp, persistent, and relentless pain of the wound itself.

For someone with weaker mental fortitude, this level of pain would be enough to disrupt their spellcasting rhythm, reduce their stability, and slow down their reactions.

Regulus's mental strength held up, but he couldn't tough it out. The erosion from the wound was constantly depleting his magic reserves, essentially causing him to regenerate while simultaneously leaking it out.

Handle it immediately.

Regulus took a few steps back, turned around, and continued running.

He activated the Sprint Spell, causing the rubble beneath his feet to explode, leaving a trail of silvery-white light as he darted away again.

The bleeding from the wound increased as he ran, and the warm sensation flowed down the inside of his robe, along his waistline to his hips. Part of it was caught by the belt, while the rest seeped down the outside of his thighs, leaving several dark, vertical wet streaks on the surface of the robe.

The wind blew from the front, scraping across the wound and bringing a sharp, stinging pain.

The black mist behind them surged and caught up again from dozens of meters away, its front end swirling, and various colored spells shooting out from within.

He ran for several hundred meters, then reached behind his waist with his right hand and pulled out the black magic wand.

The black yew wood staff does not reflect light under the moonlight; holding it in your hand feels like holding a dark shadow.

The moment you grasp it, a deep hum comes from the staff, spreading outwards from the core and into your palm.

It sensed his bloodline and magic, and awoke.

Regulus pressed the staff against the wound on his left side. Without thinking, a thought popped into his head, and he just did it.

The black wand's hum changed, transforming from a low, even background noise into a deeper, slower frequency with a distinct swallowing rhythm.

The black mist spreading from the edge of the wound began to move towards the staff. The black substance was drawn out from the flesh of the wound and flowed along the seeping blood to the surface of the staff. The moment it touched the black yew wood, it was absorbed into it.

The black aura was receding, shrinking from the edge of the wound towards the center. The speed was not fast, but it was definitely retreating.

The icy sensation that kept penetrating deeper also weakened. With each step back, his magic power was replenished less, and the tug-of-war between the two forces began to tilt in his favor.

But the wand was also eating other things at the same time, taking a bite of the blood and magic from his wound as if the black aura was the main course and his own things were scraps to be eaten along with the plate.

The wound jerked violently, as if a suture had been pulled out of the flesh—short, sharp, and tingling.

He frowned slightly.

This wand has a really bad temper. It charges a service fee for helping people, but can't it be a little more polite?

Within seconds, the black aura completely dissipated from the edge of the wound, but the wound remained, the crack remained, and blood was still seeping out.

The black substance that had been eroding him was cleaned away, leaving only a normal physical wound that would hurt and bleed, but would not continue to worsen.

Regulus didn't dare use the black wand to cast a healing spell. This thing had its own mind; it even consumed blood. Who knew what kind of healing spell it would produce?

He tucked the black wand under his arm, and with his left hand pulled out his everyday wand from the inner pocket of his robe, tapping it on the wound.

The hemostatic spell, with its shimmering blue light, is simple, clean, and has no additional effects.

The bleeding slowed down and then stopped. The edges of the wound began to close up, and the skin and flesh squeezed from both sides towards the middle, with new skin covering the tear.

almost.

He put his everyday wand back in, and the black wand returned from under his arm to his right hand, and continued running forward.

After the wound closed, Star Orbit Meditation operated at full power, focusing entirely on replenishing the core. No longer needing to allocate a portion to combat the erosion, the recovery speed significantly increased.

Moonlight shone on the wasteland, the grass was trampled and the heather was crushed. He ran past the side of a low hill, the black mist following behind him.

Regulus changed his running style. Before, he would run in a straight line and occasionally turn, but now he has started to change direction frequently.

Switching to the Swiftness Spell, a flash of white light appeared on his body, and he cut an acute angle to the right.

Run about twenty meters, then cut at an acute angle, darting diagonally to the left rear, run a straight line, then cut at an acute angle again, heading to the right front.

He drew zigzag lines across the wasteland, each one forcing the black mist to follow his curves.

Spatial perception told him the principle behind the black mist's movement: driven by internal magic, the entire front end exerted force simultaneously to surge forward, chasing in a straight line at extremely high speed.

However, when turning, the driving force of the internal magic needs to be redistributed from forward to another direction. This redistribution needs to cover the entire volume, which is tens of meters wide. The larger the volume, the slower the redistribution.

Moreover, since it is 60 meters wide, if you want to change it from one direction to another, the outer edge needs to follow a longer arc than the inner edge, which will inevitably cause a physical delay.

Compared to the black mist, his size was too small. He could turn with a swift spell with almost zero delay, while the black mist took a fraction of a second to turn each time.

After passing this window, the internal drive is redistributed, the outer edge is pulled back from the arc to a straight line, the disengagement closes, and it will accelerate again.

Regulus' dual senses read the distribution direction of the magic driving force inside the black mist in real time. With each change of direction, he precisely cut to the side and rear of its current direction of advancement, allowing it to redistribute the force to the greatest extent.

One hundred changes of direction created a distance margin of nearly one minute.

Five minutes passed, and the black mist was slid further and further away by his serrated path, the distance between them increasing from tens of meters to more than a hundred meters.

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Five minutes later, the distance continued to widen, and the magic reserves slowly recovered from the dangerous low point. Although they were not full, they had recovered a lot from the previous state of depletion.

enough.

He deactivated the sprint spell, stopped, turned around, and faced the black mist.

The black mist was surging in at high speed from more than 200 meters away, with a tremendous force. Various colors of dirty light flickered on the surface, and incantations were constantly shooting out from the inside.

The black wand was held in his right hand, the shaft pressed against his palm. The humming continued, this time at a higher frequency, rising from his palm, along his arm, and reaching his shoulder, as if it were speaking.

It wanted more; that small bite was just an appetizer. It smelled more, in that lump of something across from it.

The black wand vibrated again, its buzzing rising half a tone, carrying a clear urging.

Regulus's lips twitched slightly.

He immersed his consciousness deep into his mind, and in an instant, the containment chamber was opened.

The gray substance inside was the part extracted from Voldemort's dark revelation, which had been locked away and only released once.

That time, everything from his expression to his emotions was an act, an act for Voldemort's benefit. This time, he doesn't need to act anymore; there are spectators on the hills, but they are too far away.

He was injured, had fought half the night, and had been chased for more than half an hour. Under such circumstances, no one would think he was putting on an act no matter what he released.

The gray substance surged outward from the enclosed area, flowing along the magic channels to the entire body, instantly making the magic texture thicker and more viscous.

The light on the surface of the Constant Iron Armor Curse dimmed, and gray patterns seeped into the silvery-white light. The gray eyes darkened, turning from light gray to dark gray.

The black wand trembled violently in his hand, the buzzing sound suddenly intensified, changing from a low frequency to a high frequency, with an excited tremor. The temperature of the wand increased, and the feel of it changed from heavy to hot.

The gray magic and the black wand snapped together, the two flowing into the wand core from different directions and colliding in the Thestral's heart tendon.

The fragment of the Black Ancestor's soul recognized this texture; it had consumed the dark emotions of more than a dozen Blacks during its centuries-long slumber, but had never tasted one so intense.

nice one.

Regulus gripped his black wand and walked toward the black mist.

Gray magic covered his body, turning the silver-white of the Constant Armor Charm into a dark silver-gray. The wand trembled in his right hand, and the heat of the wand made his palm red.

The black mist rushed towards them from the opposite side with an overwhelming force, the distance rapidly decreasing from fifty meters to thirty meters to twenty meters.

Regulus raised his hand, swung his wand horizontally, and a dark gray arc of light flew out from the tip of the wand, cutting through the air.

The air leaves an extremely thin crack in the path it travels through; the air on both sides collapses toward the middle, but cannot collapse through.

The arc of light struck the surface of the black mist and cut into it.

The incision did not close completely; the spot where the arc of light had cut in left a dark afterimage, which remained embedded in the wound of the black mist, continuously burning, corroding, and consuming it.

New black matter surged in, trying to fill the gap, but it encountered the afterimage and was devoured. It consumed as much as it came, and the cut could not be closed.

Regulus's lips twitched slightly as he continued walking forward, waving his wand repeatedly.

The second arc of light flew out, cutting diagonally into the side of the black mist. The third one slashed upwards from below, tearing a horizontal slit at the bottom. The fourth one slashed horizontally, cutting in from the left and out from the right, leaving a straight cut in the middle.

Each arc of light left a residual image that was devouring the black mist. Cracks began to appear on the surface of the black mist, cracks that would never close. The black substance was peeled off layer by layer from the edges of the wounds by the residual images, and what was peeled off was eaten directly, leaving not even a trace.

The black mist was churning faster as it tried to resist, to recover, and to fill the wounds with more matter. But the more it filled in, the more the afterimage consumed.

Piercing curse, blasting curse, burning curse, shattering curse, chain curse—each spell that landed on the black mist left a wound.

More and more afterimages appeared, and the speed at which they consumed the mist increased. The surface of the black mist was covered with countless collapsing black pits and burning trenches.

The black mist finally realized that it was being eaten.

It stopped simply surging forward; the entire mass began to undergo a more complex motion, with the outer layer rotating in an attempt to shake off the afterimages on the surface.

But it couldn't shake it off; the afterimage had penetrated too deeply. It began to contract, actively peeling away the outermost layer most severely eroded by the afterimage, discarding the infected parts, and preserving the core.

It thickened and tightened, and at the same time, the attack density increased dramatically, allocating more magic power to the attack, using a more intense output to force back the approaching Regulus.

The free-range chicken went all out, using the Sprint spell to stay close to the ground and the Swiftness spell to move sideways, weaving through the gaps in the spells.

Regulus continued to attack while moving at high speed, casting a spell between each dodge, leaving afterimages on the black mist.

The battle scene darkened, and the previous stationary bombing was replaced by various colored lights flashing alternately above the ruins, creating a bright and lively scene.

The previous high-speed chase, the silvery-white figure under the moonlight and the black behemoth chasing each other across the wasteland, was a chaotic mess.

Now that the black wand has been used, the color temperature of the entire battlefield has dropped.

The dark arc of light flew out, hitting the point without flashing or exploding, only leaving behind slowly collapsing black craters.

The dense afterimages on the surface of the black mist continued to burn, emitting a dim light.

The spells flying between the two moving objects were half black mist shooting out in various colors, and the other half dark flashes of light shot out by the black wand.

A few minutes passed, and the size of the black mist shrank from over sixty meters to over forty meters, being eaten up by a third of the afterimage.

Regulus sensed the depletion of the gray energy; it was burning as soon as it was released, and it was no longer infinite from the moment he opened the containment chamber.

The black wand's power had been at its peak for so long that the gray matter was clearly running out. If it burned any longer, the power would drop, and the corrosive power of the afterimage would also decrease.

However, the black mist has been significantly weakened, its speed has slowed down, the frequency of its spells being emitted has decreased, and its pushing speed has become sluggish.

He's still holding on; there's still some gray matter left, the six stars are active, and the wound on his left rib has healed.

It's time to wrap things up.