Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 539 Beheading

The moment Regulus began his siege of Old Raul, Sylas withdrew from the heart of the battlefield with his vassals.

The magical clash of that level caused the ground within a radius of several hundred meters to tremble. The rocks that sprang up from the ground after the spells struck carried enough force to penetrate the human body, and the shockwaves from the explosions could push people backward even from hundreds of meters away.

Being close doesn't guarantee you'll be hit by the spell, but it's possible to be killed by the aftershocks of the two forces colliding.

Silas led the twenty-five or twenty-six surviving Black family vassals to a high ground a few hundred meters away, where they dispersed again, maintaining visual contact and magical perception coverage of the core area.

After Old Raoul turned into that black mass, it became even more impossible to get close. The space around him was distorted beyond recognition, and Apparition was pointless to even attempt. Casting ordinary spells was like spitting into the ocean, and rushing in would only result in death.

But they didn't leave either. For more than half an hour, Silas led his men to chase after Regulus.

The silvery light moved eastward, and they would teleport to the eastern highlands. When the light turned back westward, they would teleport to the western hilltop, always maintaining a distance that was both reachable and unobtrusive.

Attacking is pointless, but leaving is impossible.

They didn't know whether the young master of the main family could win or run away. If Regulus couldn't hold on, they would risk the lives of a few people to drag him out of the battlefield. That was their reason for coming here.

The moment Regulus was swallowed by the black mist, Silas was standing on a gray rock, his right hand in his robe pocket, holding something.

He couldn't see what was inside the black mist, but he could sense it from the thing in his hand.

It's a bloodline token of the Black family, a very old thing. Orion gave it to him before he left, and it's been with him for half the night.

The token is tied to the bloodline of the main branch of the Black family. The token will change temperature according to the state of the main branch members.

Being alive is warm; it gets warmer when magic is abundant, cools down when magic is low, and burns when in danger.

Throughout the chase, the token remained warm. As the magic was consumed, the temperature slowly decreased, but it did not become cold.

After being swallowed, the token bounced in Silas's hand, and its temperature suddenly dropped, changing from warm to slightly cool.

The Black family's vassals phantom-shifted from all directions, converging behind him as they watched the churning black mist.

Silas didn't move his feet, nor did his expression change; he kept his eyes fixed on the location of the black mist.

The keepsake was slightly cool, but still warm. Warmth meant the person was still alive. The magic was fading, but the person was alright.

He waited for nearly two minutes, the token in his palm fluctuating between slightly cool and warm. The young master was dealing with that thing inside, the magic power would drop and then return.

For two minutes, the black mist churned, and the flashes inside became more and more frequent. Then, a crimson explosion blasted open a hole from the inside, and a silver-white figure rushed out of the hole.

A moment later, the token's temperature returned to warm.

In the ensuing battle, the Black Wand appeared and the Fiery Blade brought it to an end; they watched from the outside the whole time.

There was no need to get close, nor was there any opportunity to do so; that level of power was beyond the scope of conventional combat.

They couldn't help by going up there; they could only ensure that no one else broke into the outer perimeter of the battlefield, and that if Regulus really encountered a problem, they could rush in immediately.

The battle is over, the black mist has vanished, the wasteland is quiet, and the moonlight shines on the ground once more.

Silas led his men back to the ruins area, walked near Regulus, and his gaze swept from the young master's face to his left side.

The robe had a hole in it, and the bloodstains had dried to a dark brown color, spreading over a large area.

He didn't say anything, stopped two steps behind Regulus, his hands hanging at his sides, his wand close to his sleeve, silently following and remaining on guard.

The others dispersed and reoccupied several high points on the periphery of the ruins.

Regulus walked toward the core of the ruins. The stones shattered by the Disintegration Curse broke into smaller pieces under his feet, and the ground corroded by the black mist had a sticky resistance when he stepped on it.

The original manor has been completely destroyed, leaving only an undulating rubble field covered with battle remnants of various colors and shapes.

Directly in front of us was the fissure in the ground created by the Disintegration Curse. I knew from my magical perception that there were survivors underneath that spot, even before the fight started.

Ten meters below, it was covered by a layer of something, well protected. At the time, we judged that it was Old Luo'er's family or an important vassal, so we didn't pay much attention to it; the front line of the battlefield was a higher priority.

Now that the fighting is over, it's time to deal with it.

The crack was about two meters wide, and it was pitch black looking down. Only a small section of moonlight shone in before being swallowed up.

Regulus stood at the edge of the fissure and looked down.

Dorfin Rol, his magical signal was weak, but he was still alive, enveloped by a barrier made of organic matter.

A taut human skin, stretched to the point of being translucent, reveals the veins underneath clearly. The outline of the human figure is still recognizable, but the head has slumped down, the shoulders have spread out to the sides, and the limbs have been elongated. A human skin covers a person.

This skin is still alive.

As the Disintegration Curse descended, Old Luo Ergan activated his Flesh Protection to withstand it, while simultaneously using the flesh of another vassal to encase Dolphin.

Regulus looked down for a moment.

If old Rohr wins, Dorfin won't be in danger; we can just dig him out.

If old Roll loses, the Black family will wipe out everything the Roll family left behind. Even if Dorfin is protected, he won't survive; he'll die sooner or later anyway.

From a rational perspective, this protection is meaningless, but that's what old Raoul did anyway.

Before turning himself into a black, inhuman mass of destruction, he made one last action, still imbued with human instinct: to protect his son.

Interesting.

He raised his wand and cast the Levitation spell at the crack in the ground.

The flesh and blood barrier that enveloped Dolphin rose from the depths of the fissure, hovered, rose, crossed the edge, and was pulled to the ground.

With a soft thud, the wet, fleshy barrier rolled once on the ground before coming to a stop, leaving behind a patch of half-dried blood.

With a horizontal swipe of the wand, a silver arc flashed, and the barrier split open in the middle. The taut human skin was cut off and rolled to both sides, revealing the person curled up inside.

Dolphin tumbled out, landing on his upper body, his shoulders and chest hitting the protruding rocks with a loud crash. He was covered in blood and flesh residue, with dark red viscous fluid clinging to his hair and face.

He started coughing, face down, shoulders twitching, and a series of intermittent hissing sounds coming from his throat as if he had finally gotten air after being blocked for a long time.

He lay there coughing for a while, sputum dripping from the corners of his mouth and nostrils. He braced himself against the rubble with his elbows and tried to crawl out by digging into the cracks in the rocks with his fingers, trying to get himself completely out of the remaining flesh and blood. His movements were haphazard, and he rolled over twice before finally rolling to the side.

Then he saw a pair of boots less than two meters in front of him.

Dolphin's pupils contracted sharply, and he looked up with trembling eyes.

The moonlight shone from behind the person in front of me, shrouding their entire front in shadow. Their face was obscured in the darkness, and only an outline could be seen.

The man looked down at him, his head not lowered, but his gaze was lowered.

Dolphin panicked and tried to get up from the ground. He braced himself with his arms, but his body trembled and he fell back down. He tried again, but his knees hit the gravel, and he barely managed to lift his upper body.

He started looking around. There were rubble, broken walls, ruins. The manor was gone, his house was gone.

Corpses and body parts were scattered around, some unrecognizable as human, others still retaining half of their body outline.

A severed arm was stuck on the ground, its fingers curled upwards, and a strange mass of flesh lay sprawled in a pit not far away, still twitching slightly.

Further away, a straight black scorch mark extends from one side of the ruins, stretching into the darkness of the wasteland, its end nowhere in sight.

His expression shifted from blank to confused, then from confused to enlightened. After a moment, he broke down.

He started crawling, using both hands and feet, trying to run, to escape, to leave this place, but his legs were too weak to support his body, so he could only crawl on his knees, his fingers gripping the edges of the rubble, his fingernails scraping the surface of the rocks, breaking several of them.

He felt no pain and continued climbing.

Regulus stood there watching him, his gray eyes looking down at the writhing figure on the ground.

The man who was now shuffling forward at his feet with his knees and broken fingernails was the same person who had shaken hands with him, exchanged pleasantries, and patted him on the shoulder at the Malfoy family wedding a few days ago, saying it had been a long time.

The Rolle family heir, who was always quiet, low-key, and had an extremely low profile in the Slytherin common room, is now crawling on his knees on the ruins of his house.

Dolphin's mouth finally opened. He lay on the ground, head tilted back, looking at Regulus. His pupils trembled, his lips quivered, and his voice was hoarse and broken.

"Why—"

"Blake—what right do you have—"

"The Rohr family—what did we do—and why—"

He tried to stand up by supporting himself on his arms, but before his knees were fully up, he slipped and fell back down.

He didn't give up, he got up again, and continued to shout at Regulus, "My father—"

His final scream: "What right do you have—!!!"

Regulus lowered his head, the moonlight shining from behind, his face hidden in shadow, his expression unreadable.

Dag Rol erased himself from the world—his body, memories, personality, everything—filling it all into that black mass, just to change the possible outcome.

Regulus could not say he was unmoved by that kind of resolute act of burning oneself to ashes.

When someone throws everything away for a single goal, that choice is hard to ignore. They approve of that action, of that path that leaves no way out.

But these things have nothing to do with Dorfing.

Throughout this whole affair, his role was that of a collateral victim.

The reason for the contract was attributed to him, but the real reason that led Regulus to initiate the genocide contract had nothing to do with Dorfin Rol.

He wasn't qualified to be an opponent, not qualified to be an enemy, not even qualified to be killed by his own hands.

He just happened to have the surname Roll, happened to do two stupid things, and happened to give the Black family a reason to be established.

Regulus waited.

Dolphin was still shouting, his voice changing from hoarse to breathy, and from breathy to panting.

Interspersed among them were "why" and some unrecognizable words, which might be curses, pleas for mercy, or perhaps nothing at all, just the vocal cords of a completely broken person making their final movements.

A gust of wind surged up from the crack in the ground, making a howling sound.

Dorfin finally fell silent, kneeling on the ground, his hands supporting him, his whole body trembling, his head hanging down, his face not visible from above.

Regulus flicked his finger, and a silvery arc flew from his fingertip, flashing in the moonlight, slicing across Dolphin's neck from left to right.

The head was separated from the neck, the cut was clean and neat, and the head rolled twice on the ground before coming to a stop face up.

His body lurched forward, his knees buckled, and his headless body collapsed onto the ruins with a final, dull thud.

Crimson blood gushed from the cut, leaving a dark stain.

Regulus retrieved his wand.

The wind is still blowing.