Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 560 Geralt should use a sword

Hilde stood to the left of the stone house entrance, her two battle axes planted on the ground with the axe handles planted on the ground, her hands clasped together on the top of the handles, her face shield facing forward, motionless.

Geralt looked at the patch of light and shadow outside the door, which was cut in two by the sunlight.

When Heroga introduced himself, he also mentioned Hilde. A leader, on his own territory, in front of three wizards who were visiting for the first time, specifically mentioned the name of the guard standing at the door.

Hilde's status in the camp must have been quite high; she might have been a leader among the warriors, or even a close relative, or someone close to a relative.

Never mind, Geralt suddenly felt that this trip wasn't in vain after all.

From the moment Dumbledore sent the message, he had been thinking about fighting. The giants of Jotunheim were at most a bit smarter than ordinary giants; they were quick-witted and not easily fooled. He still had to fight.

As a result, after hearing what he said and reading the story in the alchemical plate, Herogia's attitude softened significantly, and he thought he was out of the running.

I've been lying around in Grimoire Place for a month. Although it's been lazy and comfortable, my bones are definitely getting tired. It's good to get some fresh air, run some errands, or chat with the Pwett brothers.

If we still have to fight now, then that's even better.

He strode towards the door, and Fabian glanced at Gideon, who shook his head slightly. The two of them followed.

Hilde pulled the battle axe from the ground, sending a chunk of rammed earth flying into the air and shattering into powder. She slung the axe over her shoulder, blade facing backward, and turned to walk in another direction from the camp.

Geralt strode after him without asking where they were going.

Hilde's strides were ridiculously long, each step covering three or four meters. Her dark gray-blue armor gleamed coldly in the morning sunlight, and the seams between her shoulder and back armor opened and closed slightly with the rhythm of her steps, producing a low, metallic scraping sound.

He walked ahead, his silhouette appearing taller than the stone houses on either side. Sunlight shone from the side onto his armor, casting a long shadow on the ground.

Geralt's legs sprang into action; at 1.8 meters tall, it was somewhat difficult for him to keep up with Hilde's 5.5-meter strides. His legs moved incredibly fast, but he was still walking.

Crossing through another area of ​​the camp, unlike the living area we had passed through earlier, the stone houses here were shorter and closer together, like a storage area, with large bundles of animal hides and whole logs piled up at the entrances.

Along the way, some giants stopped, glanced in Hilde's direction, then at the three humans following behind her, before putting down what they were doing and following them from a distance.

Most of them were wearing armor and carrying weapons of various styles: spiked clubs, four-sided warhammers, and two-handed greatswords, all of which were thick, large, and heavy. There was also one who turned in from the intersection, carrying a huge metal rod and following further behind.

The sun was almost at its highest point, high in the east. In Jotunheim in August, the sunlight streamed directly into the canyon, illuminating the outlines of every rock and every crack in the camp.

After walking for about twenty minutes, at the end of the campsite, there was a mountain wall in front of us, gray-white granite stretching from the ground to an unseen height overhead.

At the bottom of the rock wall is a wide opening, with obvious signs of artificial carving, wide enough for two giants to pass side by side, and a little over ten meters high.

The passage was long. Once inside, the sunlight outside quickly dimmed, and footsteps echoed in the enclosed passage. After walking seven or eight hundred meters, a bright spot appeared ahead, growing larger and larger.

Once outside the passage, the view exploded, revealing a vast valley stretching out before us, surrounded by vertical cliffs on all sides, forming a nearly circular space.

The valley floor is over seven kilometers in diameter, and the ground is far from flat, with undulating ripples and pits everywhere.

On the left side, there are obvious cracks, with an irregular fissure spanning most of the valley floor. The edges are rough and contain fine powder fragments shattered by the impact.

Pitholes are everywhere, some several meters in diameter, some so deep that the bottom is nowhere to be seen.

The cliff face is even more exaggerated, with huge cuts extending from the ground up to tens of meters high, where the entire rock surface has been sheared off, revealing a lighter-colored, fresher rock layer underneath.

There are also circular dents and spiderweb-like cracks spreading from the center outwards.

These marks are from different eras. Some have had their edges weathered into rounded curves, while others are still very fresh, with sharp edges on the cross-sections that could cut your hand.

Geralt's senses were jolted the moment he stepped out of the passage. The magical concentration in the entire valley was more than one level higher than that in the camp. A heavy and viscous texture enveloped him directly from the environment. Everywhere there was a thick, chaotic, and violent magical residue, and his senses felt heavy and oppressive.

He could almost see the traces of nearly a thousand years layered upon every part of this land. The giants who once trod here, swinging their axes, stomping their feet, colliding, falling, rising, and colliding again, the magic transmitted through their spines and shoulders. The intense friction of their feet grinding against the ground and rocks seemed to seep into the depths of the rock layers over time, each layer sealing in a different era.

The texture under his feet was wrong; it was too hard and the density was abnormal. He looked down at the ground and saw that it was different from the rammed earth in the camp. It was denser and heavier, and felt more like a metal surface when he stepped on it. Magic had altered the structure of the soil.

The training grounds of the giants.

The moment Fabian and Gideon stepped out of the passage, their bodies visibly paused.

The concentration of magic here was so high that it could be felt even without precision. The air was filled with violent and chaotic magic. Fabian's hand immediately touched his wand, and his body reacted in battle.

Gideon's reaction was a little smaller, and then the two brothers reacted almost simultaneously, relaxed, looked at each other, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Geralt glanced back at them, his amber pupils showing a relaxed expression, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

He began to wander around the training ground, walked to the foot of a cliff, looked up at the slash mark that stretched from the ground to dozens of meters high, touched the edge with his finger, and scanned it with his senses. The magic here was particularly dense. A giant's blow could tear such a deep mark on a rock wall of this density.

He continued walking forward, stepping over one pit and crack after another, occasionally squatting down to touch a particularly deep spot, sensing the residual magical texture as he probed downwards.

Giants entered one after another from the entrance of the passage, spreading out and forming a loose semicircle along the cliff face, neatly arranged in the shadow of the rock wall.

A dozen heavily armored giants silently stared at the center of the field, the daily sounds of the camp completely shut out by the mountain wall.

A bird flew over the cliff, let out a sharp, piercing cry, flapped its wings, and flew away into the distance, its shadow sweeping across the valley floor.

Heroga didn't come.

Geralt walked to the center left of the training ground, stopped there, and turned to face Hilde.

Hilde had already reached the other end, her massive figure facing Geralt's direction. She lowered her battle axe from her shoulder, gripping the handle in her right hand, the blade hanging down at her side.

A pair of icy gray eyes behind the visor were looking at Geralt.

The distance is about two hundred meters, which is just right for a wizard, allowing him to cast spells, aim, and create a safe space.

Hilde clearly knew what wizards were all about and how they fought. She stood at a distance, flicking her wand at herself with spells, becoming more composed the further away she was.

Geralt stared at Hilde for a moment, then started walking forward, his hands empty, hanging at his sides.

The first two steps were at a normal walking pace, but the third step was faster, with each stride becoming larger and faster, turning a walk into a long stride. The sound of her footsteps was short and dense, and her long, silvery-white hair flew behind her.

Fabian watched Geralt's figure rushing faster and faster toward Hilde from behind. A five-and-a-half-meter-tall giant in full armor was waiting on the other side, its battle axe's attack range covering at least an eight or nine-meter radius in front of it. Geralt didn't even take out his wand, nor did he think of creating distance. If he got too close and the giant's axe snatched it, he would probably be killed instantly.

His voice was confused and hesitant: "Geralt?"

Gideon raised his hand and placed it on Fabian's shoulder. Fabian turned his head to look at him, and Gideon gently shook his head. Fabian opened his mouth slightly, then closed it again.

Hilde's eyes, hidden behind her visor, were fixed on Geralt, who was approaching. A wizard, empty-handed and without a wand, was accelerating toward him.

The wizard's strategy is to stand at a distance and cast spells. The opponent gave him a 200-meter distance, but he didn't use it. He ran closer, got even closer, and then swung his axe, and it was all over.

The pair of icy gray eyes behind the visor narrowed slightly.

Hvafaen?

Geralt's magical perception was fully activated, and the two hundred-meter distance was closing, but he couldn't see the situation inside the armor very clearly.

From the moment he entered the camp, he noticed that Hilde's armor was radiating a high concentration of magic power, and the texture of it was consistent with the magic power he had sensed from Hilde before.

But the details are blurred by that overflowing magic, like looking at something through a strong light. The direction and position are right, and the shape is right, but the surface texture and subtle structure are blurry.

However, when Hilde was smashing the axe in the stone house just now, he was able to detect a clear path of magical energy transmission. The giant's magical energy could be transmitted to the outside world through the weapon, and output together with physical force.

This is exactly what he wanted.

Throwing spells from a distance can certainly lead to victory, but simply winning isn't very meaningful; you won't learn anything from it.

He wanted to see how Hilde's magic gathered from its diffused state to the required location, how it synchronized with her body's power at the moment of swinging, and how it quickly redistributed itself when changing direction. These things could only be perceived up close.

Moreover, the giant in front of him was standing in the sunlight, holding a battle axe longer than himself, waiting to challenge him. He wanted to give it a try.

The magic in the entire training ground was pressing down on him, and the magic within his body was also pushing outwards.

My heart was racing, my blood was surging, my temples were throbbing, the golden light in my amber pupils was leaping, the heat of Betelgeuse was spreading outwards from my body, and the air was beginning to distort.

As the distance closed to one hundred meters, Geralt's magic surged to its fullest extent. He continued walking, his pace shifting from a brisk stride to a running rhythm, with each step increasing in power.

His right hand was open, palm facing up, and blue light began to emanate from it.

The light has mass. As the palm sinks slightly, a blue ball of light condenses in the palm, increasing in density. It changes from transparent to semi-transparent and then to a near-solid texture. It then stretches out to both ends and extends vertically, drawing out the outline of a sword in a fraction of a second.

Blade, hilt, guard, blue structure, Rigel, the will to protect.

Almost simultaneously, crimson light surged from the same location—Betelgeuse, an eruption of will.

Starting from the hilt, the pattern extends upwards along the blade, like lava pouring into an ice crevice, burning crimson lines onto a blue base.

The blue was not covered, nor was the crimson suppressed; the two colors of light pushed against each other, permeated each other, and convected with each other on the blade surface.

The sword began to emit a low hum, and the air nearby distorted slightly.

Finally, the edge of the blade sharpens, like Rigel.

An unseen sharpness landed on the edge of the sword. The air parted to both sides from the edge of the blade, and a very thin line could be seen with the naked eye. The air broke at that point, and the density difference widened instantly. Dust and particles were cut in half and bounced to both sides when they approached the blade.

The three stars worked simultaneously, and the Star Orbit Meditation operated stably within his body. Betelgeuse provided the skeleton and structure, Betelgeuse infused with explosive power, and Betelgeuse solidified the invisible edge on the blade.

The hum of the sword became clearer, traveling from his palm into his arm and then down his shoulder blade, like something alive, emitting a deep echo in his hand.

He gripped the sword hilt tightly, the weight transferring back through his palm.

The blade is nearly 1.3 meters long, with the hilt taking up about 30 centimeters. The blade is slightly tilted forward, and the center of gravity is more forward. This weight distribution is more suitable for slashing than stabbing.

Blue and red light flowed alternately across the blade, magic overflowed from the sword, and the surrounding air distorted violently near the blade.

Blue and crimson halos seeped outward from the sword, leaving thin trails in the air. Where the sword passed, the air was cleaved, and the airflow on both sides of the cut surface surged outward, with ripples carrying heat and energy spreading outward from the sword.

He twisted his right wrist, and the sword twirled in his hand, leaving a fleeting trail of blue and red in the air.

Geralt should use a sword; that's how he should be.

He stopped twenty meters away from Hilde, his amber vertical pupils meeting the pair of icy gray eyes behind the armor.

Hilde looked at the sword in his hand, a single Norwegian phrase mingled with her breath muffled inside her visor: "Kvaihelvete"

'

What the hell?

He lifted the battle axe from his side with one hand, the blade changing from vertical to horizontal in the sunlight, pointing towards Geralt.

At a distance of twenty meters, a giant clad in full armor held a battle axe in one hand, while a silver-haired wizard gripped a sword that shimmered with blue and red light.

The training ground fell silent. The wind blew down from the top of the cliff, swept across the valley floor, and blew Geralt's long silver hair and the halo emanating from his sword backward.