Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 565 Bird in the Sky

Dumbledore tilted his head, looking at Hilde at the door: "To be able to discern so much from your opponent's magic, your perception is even better than when we last met."

The eyes behind the visor moved slightly, their gaze shifting a little before returning to Dumbledore's face. The armor emitted a soft metallic clang, and a faint sound came from the joint between the shoulder and neck armor.

Dumbledore's tone was appreciative: "Great progress."

Herogar watched this scene silently from his stone chair, his gaze shifting between Dumbledore and Hilde.

Dumbledore put down his cup, leaned back in his purple velvet chair, and looked into his blue eyes with a gentle expectation behind his half-moon lenses.

"Let me see just how far you've come."

Hilde blinked behind her visor, and Dumbledore nodded at her.

He stood there for a moment, then took a few steps back, clearing a space in the center of the stone house. His boots stomped twice on the rammed earth.

Stand with your legs shoulder-width apart, raise your right hand with your fingers spread and palm facing down.

A brief process of gathering power begins at the feet, and the magic penetrates deep into the soil.

In no time, the magic flowed back up from the soles of his feet, along the muscles of his calves, thighs, waist, chest, and shoulders, converging all the way upwards.

The surface of the armor began to change; a faint light seeped from the joints and gaps in the armor plates onto the dark gray-blue metallic surface.

The edges of the armor plates lit up first, and then the light spread outwards along the surface of the armor, from the lower leg armor, thigh armor, waist armor, breastplate, and shoulder armor, until the entire surface of the armor was covered with a yellowish-brown glow.

The light has a heavy, stable texture, carrying weight and so hard that you can visually feel its density, sharing the same texture as the earth beneath your feet.

His shadow was illuminated by himself and cast on the ground, its color a deep brown, darker than the surrounding ground.

Heroga watched silently as the water in the cup on the armrest of the large stone chair rippled slightly. He glanced at it but made no further move.

Dumbledore stroked his beard with satisfaction and nodded slightly.

Hilde gripped the axe handle with her right hand, held it upright in front of her, and slammed the axe into the ground with a low thud before applying more force.

His right hand tightened suddenly, and the force from his palm traveled from his fingers into the metal, first to the axe handle, and then to the axe blade.

The vibration began, with a large amplitude and a low frequency. The axe blade drew blurry arcs in the air, and the sound of metal hitting the ground was loud and clear.

The ground shook, the tremor spreading outwards from his feet. Fine dust from the carvings on the stone wall was shaken off and flowed down the grooves.

Hilde continued to apply more pressure, and the amplitude of the vibrations began to decrease while the speed increased, transforming from a visible swaying from side to side into a more intense and fragmented tremor.

The axe handle trembled faster and faster in his hand, the amplitude of the vibrations decreased, and the sound changed from a clanging impact to a buzzing hum.

The entire axe handle and blade were vibrating at an extremely high speed, and the outline began to blur to the naked eye, with the edges turning into a blurry shadow.

The battle axe began to heat up, spreading from the grip point along the handle to both ends, up to the blade, and down to the butt. The dark red color spread out as the metal heated up, changing from dark red to orange-red, and then from orange-red to bright red.

The temperature inside the stone house rose sharply, and the wall near the axe was baked until it gleamed slightly.

Ripples began to appear around the axe blade, as the air was continuously pushed away and replenished by the force transmitted from the axe, forming visible patterns that spread outwards in concentric circles.

The ripples crashed against the stone wall and bounced back, and the whole stone house began to emit a continuous, low hum, which became more and more intense, making one feel as if their chest was vibrating along with it.

Dumbledore's silver beard swayed slightly in the heat, and the steam from the tea in his hand became even stronger.

A 5.5-meter-tall, fully armored warrior stood amidst the earthy yellow light and orange-red heatwave, his battle axe rippled with power, causing the surrounding air to twist and deform violently.

Dumbledore stretched out his left hand and casually waved it in the air.

All the energy and magic that had been escaping vanished the moment his palm swept across the wall. The sounds on the stone house walls stopped, the air temperature returned to normal within seconds, and the mineral lamps stopped flickering.

A slight smile played at the corners of his mouth beneath his silver beard as he clapped his hands twice: "Alright, alright, very good, child."

Hilde's battle axe was still glowing red as she began to pull it back.

The battle axe cooled down from bright red to orange-red, then to dark red, and finally to deep gray with a bluish tinge. It vibrated and contracted, the hum disappeared, and it became a quiet metal weapon once again.

Hilde slung the battle axe back behind her. Her facial features were obscured by the visor, but her eyes gleamed faintly in the dim light.

Dumbledore looked at him with a smile: "Much better than last time, Hilde. Your efforts have not been in vain, nor have my teachings."

Hilde raised her right hand again, clenched her fist, and slammed it onto her breastplate. Then she took two steps back and returned to the position at the entrance of the stone house.

Dumbledore turned to Horoga, picked up the cup of tea that Hilde's axe had just heated, and his blue eyes lit up: "What a pity Geralt didn't see this."

Heroga looked up at him.

Dumbledore shook his head: "He would be very happy if he saw this; he likes to be beaten."

A thoughtful look, typical of giants, flashed in Heroga's large, grey-green eyes. After a long pause, he nodded slightly without offering any comment.

Dumbledore laughed even harder.

The stone house fell silent again. The mineral lamps shone steadily on the stone walls. Herod held a stone cup, Dumbledore held a porcelain cup, and Hilde stood in the shadows to the side of the doorway, her eyes behind her visor now dark.

Dumbledore's gaze shifted from Heroga to the carvings on the stone wall. He paused for a moment, then looked back, his tone still gentle: "Heroga, I'd like to hear you tell the story of the Sky Bird again."

Heroga stared at him with his grey-green eyes, remaining silent for a long time.

Dumbledore waited patiently, neither in a hurry nor urging.

Seventy years ago, on those nights, he had grown accustomed to Herogia's silence; he knew that the giant's silence was never a rejection.

After a long while, Herod spoke, in the language of giants, his voice slower than when they had been chatting, his vocabulary older, and Dumbledore had to think about some words before he could fully understand their meaning.

"The sky is free and boundless. The earth has boundaries, but the sky does not. Standing on the mountaintop and looking up, the giant knows that the sky belongs to no one."

Giants are not children of the sky; their feet tread the earth. Their magic comes from the earth; the earth is their beginning and their end.

Dumbledore listened quietly, the massive silhouette of Herod reflected in his crescent-shaped spectacles.

"In the oldest tradition, from father to son, generation after generation, the giant's memory holds a creation about the sky, the bird of the sky."

Heroga's voice continued in the stone house, the stone walls reflecting his voice and absorbing it, creating a deep, resonant spatial sensation.

"Giants are children of the earth, but even the oldest giants wanted to know what lay at the end of the earth, so they went deeper and deeper into the earth, digging and digging."

They reached the edge of the earth, passed through it, and emerged into the sky.

Dumbledore's fingers gently traced the rim of the cup.

Heroga’s voice deepened as he said this: “The end of the earth, the beginning of the sky, the same place.”

"After completing sufficient training, the young giants will be taken to the highest mountain peak, stand on the summit, and let their magic seep out to their feet, merging with the mountain."

Mountains are the tallest things that grow from the earth. The giant standing on the mountaintop has his body at the highest point, and magic flows down the mountain, reaching the deepest part of the earth, penetrating the earth and the sky.

In the language of giants, this state is called the listening of the heavens.

Herod looked at Dumbledore: "Most of the time you can't hear anything; the sky is silent."

Dumbledore nodded slightly; he had heard these words once before, seventy years ago, by the fire.

"But the legacy of the giants tells us that long ago, an ancestor on the highest mountaintop felt a response from an even higher place."

A silver light streaked across the sky, flying over the valley. The shape of that light was etched into the giants' heritage—like a bird, a bird from the sky.

Herod's voice continued, saying things he hadn't said to Dumbledore before: "You must sink deep enough to reach high enough to touch the sky. This is what the earth teaches us, and our magic proves it."

My ancestors said that his magic reached the deepest part of the mountain and the lowest point of the earth, and the whole mountain trembled beneath his feet.

At that moment, he stood at the highest point in the world, because his feet were firmly planted with the deepest roots in the world.

Then the sky responded to him with a silver light.

Dumbledore's blue eyes gleamed behind his half-moon lenses.

Birds in the sky, silver light, starry kites.

Heroga paused, his gaze drifting into the distance: "I went up there, and there was nothing there. My father went up there too, and there was nothing there either. The last giant he ever spoke of was a memory from hundreds of years ago."

He stopped after he finished speaking, and the stone house remained quiet for a long time.

Dumbledore held the cup of tea, which had cooled down again, and looked down at the remaining leaves in the cup for a while.

Then he looked up, his blue eyes bright, and said softly, "Maybe one day, someone will see this again."

Herogar's grey-green eyes slowly shifted from him to Hilde.

Dumbledore didn't look in that direction; his gaze was fixed on Gudvanne.

There's a wooden house there, and inside is a person who got beaten up today and is sleeping.