Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 569 A Decent Sword

Two days later, Geralt went to fight for the third time. Geralt brought out two relatively new things: a synchronized right hand and a model updated after the second parallel run of the fifth district.

The data from the first two tests in Zones 1 and 2 were refreshed, with noise reduction and completion of necessary parts, resulting in a more refined model than the second one.

The sequence of the shoulder and chest armor movements during Hilde's attack, the contact time between her heel and the ground when she exerts force, and the acceleration curve of the axe blade from its starting point to its landing point were all taken into account.

This time, the strategy has been changed. Last time, the compensation method solved the problem of not being knocked away. This time, he has turned up the output limit of the third zone.

Adjust the explosive charge to one and a half to two times the amount needed to offset the damage, and use the excess to blast Hilde directly, blasting her axe and armor.

For the first dozen or so rounds, they could hold on. The giant's armor was thick, and Hilde's strength was great enough. Geralt's extra damage from his attacks hit the armor and didn't have much of an impact.

Hilde was also fast; his footwork was quick, his axe strikes were fast, and his axe retraction was even faster. In a pure physical contest, he consistently had the upper hand.

But each time they made contact, Geralt's sword would press against it, causing part of his attack to be deflected by the crimson burst before it even reached him. The remaining part would then collide with the sword and be neutralized by a second burst of energy.

Hilde also changed her fighting style, suddenly increasing her attack frequency. She started to swing her axe at different angles to the sides, sometimes changing direction halfway through the swing, and sometimes delivering two or three short, rapid slashes in succession.

He tried to break through Geralt's block from different directions, changing angles and rhythms to force him to create openings.

Zone 1 collects real-time data on the speed, angle, force, and impact point of each of Hilde's moves. Zone 2 uses the data to make predictions, and Zone 3 adjusts the direction of Betelgeuse's burst as needed.

Betelgeuse's crimson explosion isn't limited to detonating outwards in the direction of the sword swing; it can detonate in any direction at any point of contact.

As long as Geralt's sword collides with Hilde's axe, regardless of Hilde's angle, strength, or speed, the three departments will calculate in real time which direction and how much force is needed to achieve the collision, and then detonate it directly.

The system consists of three zones: Zone 1 for data collection, Zone 2 for prediction, and Zone 3 for execution. The delay between these three workstations is so short that it is negligible. The entire system's response speed is even faster than Geralt's body.

After about twenty rounds, Geralt's sustained damage output began to build up pressure. His sword would explode outwards every time it hit an axe blade, every time it hit armor, and every time it hit anything.

Hilde's speed and strength remained intact, but his attacks were intercepted every time, while Geralt's continuous crimson bursts continued to build up within him.

Both Zone 1 and Zone 2 detected the change, and Hilde began to actively use her magic.

In their first two encounters, Hilde relied on physical strength, using magic and muscle power simultaneously for pure physical output.

The armor provides passive protection, and the magic power within the body is stored inside and not released outwards. In that state, sensing Hilde's magic power signals through the armor is highly interfered with, and her outline becomes blurred.

The armor's passive protection was no longer enough to withstand Geralt's continuous explosive output. Hilde's body reacted, her magic shifting from a diffuse state towards her skin and then seeping into the inside of the armor to actively reinforce her defense.

The magic signal has become stronger, and the capture accuracy in Zone 1 has increased dramatically. Previously, only outlines could be seen, but now the path and speed of the flow can be clearly seen.

Geralt continued to increase the pressure; the greater the pressure, the more Hilde channeled her magic, and the clearer the signal became.

In its high-speed operation, Zone 2 pieced together the complete rhythm of Hilde's power, from the time window of diffusion to convergence, the convergence path, and the entire link from the soles of the feet to the knees to the waist to the shoulders to the elbows to the wrists to the axe blade.

Geralt adjusted his timing, detonating Crimson Burst at the exact moment Hilde's magic converged.

The two forces collided in mid-air before the axe blades even arrived, and Hilde's pure power attack was neutralized mid-flight by a magical explosion synchronized to the microsecond level.

And Geralt is still blowing things up.

Betelgeuse already accounts for the majority of the damage output, leaving very little for defense.

Hilde is drawing upon more and more magic, from replenishing her armor's defenses to actively reinforcing the magic flow throughout her body; the speed and magnitude of this increase are accelerating.

Geralt's Crimson Blast came faster and denser, blocking Hilde's attacks one by one, and his armor was continuously being hit.

The pure strength route has reached its limit, and defense is also suffering from the cumulative depletion under continuous pressure.

With a final, extremely heavy chop, the axe blade smashed down from directly above, blasting a crater half a meter deep into the ground, sending rubble and dirt flying in all directions.

Geralt's sword met the attack, unleashing the largest Crimson Blast of the entire battle from Zone 3. The burst absorbed most of the kinetic energy, with the excess blast striking Hilde's breastplate, where the crimson light exploded into the shape of a flame on the armor's surface.

Hilde stopped, bringing the axe back from the air, gripping the handle with one hand, and planting the blade downwards in the ground.

After a few moments, he pulled the axe from the ground, turned around, slung it over his back, and walked toward the entrance of the passage, his footsteps heavy and rhythmic.

Geralt stood there, watching the figure disappear.

The three battles have provided enough material: Hilde's power ceiling, speed range, the armor's defensive limit under continuous pressure, and the threshold for switching between passive and active states.

But beneath this observed data, he saw gaps.

Hilde's magic remained stable within a certain range, with the amplitude increasing, but the structure never fluctuated.

This indicates that beneath the portion of magic he has already mobilized, there is something deeper that has never been used in the three battles.

When a warrior is pushed to the limit of pure strength, he chooses to stop and retreat instead of unleashing his power on the spot; he is preparing himself.

Next time it won't just be about power; Geralt is certain there will be a fourth time, and that fourth time will be the last.

Back in the cabin, he continued working on synchronizing the magic in his right hand, expanding the range to his entire arm from shoulder to fist. The precision and speed of the synchronization were much higher than before.

He let the magic start from his shoulder joint and spread along his entire arm, covering every layer of tissue—bones, muscles, tendons, nerves, blood vessels—and then synchronize it.

He walked up to a rock embedded in the hillside and threw a punch.

The rocks exploded, shattering into fragments. Larger pieces rolled several meters away, while smaller ones turned to dust, scattering a cloud of lime everywhere.

Geralt tilted his head to avoid the rising dust, and a gust of wind blew from the direction of the fjord, carrying away the stone dust.

He looked down at his fist; his knuckles were covered in dust, and his skin hadn't even turned red. He deactivated the synchronization, and the magic returned to the channel.

This is just a temporary boost right now, but how far can it really go?

He sat down on the stone bench, gazing at the water in the distance.

For simply increasing power, the magical world has plenty of ways: power-enhancing spells, power-boosting potions, and even some dark magic to modify the body.

But those are all temporary external applications; once the spell wears off, the power is gone, and once the drug's effects wear off, the power returns to how weak it was.

He is now simulating the magical texture of giants, allowing magic to be exerted in sync with the physical body, which is essentially still a method of manipulating magic.

It's much more advanced than the Power Enhancement Spell, but it's not very meaningful. He wasn't sure if it could truly lead him down the path of physical enhancement.

He was not yet fully certain of Dumbledore's intentions in sending him to Norway.

The old man led him to the giant and made him fight a giant warrior. The giant's body was indeed a perfect fusion of magic and flesh.

But whether that's what the old man meant or not, we'll have to wait until he shows up and we can talk to him face to face before deciding on the next step.

What we're doing now is just an experiment, to test the feel of it after confirming there are no long-term side effects.

Then his thoughts took a turn. Magic and the physical body can merge and exert force in sync, so what about his sword?

The burst of Betelgeuse and the protection of Betelgeuse are constantly alternating, glowing crimson when attacking and blue when defending.

Two wills take turns on duty, with switching and gaps. When fighting, whether to use a burst or a defensive sword is determined by the three zones, and the allocation itself occupies the computing power of one zone.

He could cut one or two more areas out of his brain; technically he could do it, mentally he could handle it, and it could run in parallel. But what about in the future?

The opponents we encounter in the future will only get stronger, the battle scenarios will only become more complex, and his methods will become more and more numerous. We can't just cut off another piece of our brains every time there's an additional need.

Switch to ten zones, or twenty zones?

If we continue like this, there will be no end in sight. Moreover, it is problematic to manage things at the level of Betelgeuse and Betelgeuse using districts. Districts are management tools, not integration tools.

Betelgeuse and Rigel should coexist in the same output.

Compared to the fusion of magic and body, the fusion of two wills is undoubtedly on a higher level.

Magic is a tool; it can be manipulated, its properties altered, and it can be integrated into the body. Willpower, however, is something much deeper.

Betelgeuse and Rigel are the powers he gained after resonating with the will of the two stars during his star trail meditation. The power erupts from Orion's shoulder and is protected by Orion's knee. Each has its own direction and its own personality.

If two completely opposite wills could be united into one, the significance of that would be far greater than a simple fusion of magic.

Geralt stood up from the stone bench, walked to the open space outside the cabin, and stretched out his right hand with his fingers spread and his palm facing up.

With a thought, alternating blue and red light surged from his palm, and a sword quickly took shape in his hand.

Blue and crimson light alternated on the blade, and the edges of the sword's outline shimmered with a magical glow, casting faint shadows of the two colors in the night.

He twirled the sword in his hand, and blue and crimson flashed alternately on the blade.

He closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into the deep space of star orbit meditation. Betelgeuse burned with crimson light on its orbit, while Rigel shone with blue light on another orbit. The two orbits alternately passed by the output position of the sword, without interfering with or contacting each other.

He opened his eyes and channeled both forces simultaneously at the tip of the sword, where the contact area was smallest.

When the red and blue light collided, the crimson light exploded outwards while the blue light contracted inwards, in completely opposite directions. At the moment of impact, the repulsive force pushed them apart to the sides, without them merging.

Geralt stared at the sword tip for a while, then changed his approach, involving Betelgeuse.

The sharp edge of Betelgeuse emerged from the depths of the spirit, extremely fine and sharp, landing at the boundary between crimson and blue, and then began to cut.

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The boundary between the two forces is thinned until the originally clear boundary becomes blurred, turning into a semi-transparent transition zone.

Then, with his own willpower, he squeezed the crimson and blue from the outside into that thin transition zone.

The two forces began to mix at the boundary, with the eruption and the protection existing in the same place, repelling each other, but the boundary was gone, and so was the way out.

The spirit and will continued to exert pressure, and the sharpness of Betelgeuse continued to cut. The two colors intertwined, surged, devoured each other, and depended on each other on the tip of the sword.

The brightness of crimson was dimmed by blue, and the intensity of blue was warmed by crimson. At a certain moment, their boundary disappeared, and the two forces no longer had their own forms. The color at the boundary slowly changed from deep red and deep blue to a third color.

Dark purple.

Geralt stared at the point of light for a while, then repeated the action.

Starting from the tip of the sword, the dark purple color spreads along the blade towards the body, gradually erasing the boundary between crimson and blue.

The alternating rhythm of Betelgeuse and Rigel disappeared, and the light from both tracks flowed into the sword simultaneously, mixing together beneath the dark purple surface.

Within ten seconds, the color of the entire sword became uniform.

He held the sword up to his eyes and examined it for a while.

The uniform dark purple color was deep and rich, and the outline of the sword was more solid than before. The halo around the edge had changed from alternating pulses of hot and cold light to a more stable diffusion.

The entire sword, from the inside out, from its will to its magic to its outward radiance, is perfectly integrated.

Geralt gripped the hilt of his sword, flicked his wrist, and the blade left a dark purple afterimage in the air that lingered for several seconds before dissipating.

The feel is completely different from before.

Previously, the two wills took turns on duty, and each sword could only do one thing: when it was about to explode, it would explode outward with all its might, and when it was about to protect, it would pull inward with all its might. Every strike involved a trade-off.

Now that they've merged, each sword strike can do two things simultaneously: protection and burst damage, both taking effect in the same instant.

Two completely opposite forces, expansion and contraction, merge into an automatically operating loop. This is not as simple as mixing two colors together, nor is dark purple just a middle value of crimson and blue.

It is something new; every bit of the power of the attack is restrained by the protective structure and no longer leaks out; every protective barrier is filled with the explosive impact and no longer spins idly.

All forces are doing work.

Geralt looked at the faint purple light on the sword in the night and a slight twitch appeared on his lips.

It looks much better now. I have to admit, it's much cooler than the previous alternating blue and crimson look.

He sheathed his sword, the dark purple light faded from the blade, and the sword disappeared into the air.

I'm going to fight tomorrow, for the last time.

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