The Regressor Can Make Them All

Chapter 491

Boom!

A pair of fists crossed paths, one aiming for the head and the other at the heart. The former—Se-Hoon’s—narrowly grazed past and struck empty air. Simultaneously, the latter attack—the Observer’s—was caught by the wrist and forced to a stop right in front of its target.

Physical strength: superior. Reaction speed: inferior.

Vital defense: active. Regeneration: incomplete.

From just a single exchange, both had grasped the overall tide of the match. Se-Hoon, with his two eyes; the Observer, with its seven Cursed Eyes—the two searched for any weakness they could exploit.

And that took only an instant. Having finished analyzing each other, the twos’ fists shot forward again.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A deafening boom and bursts of shockwaves erupted from each clash. Each was fiercer than the last, making the night sky itself seemingly distorted.

Crush- Crack!

Flesh crumpled, muscles tore, and bones shattered. Yet Se-Hoon’s fists smashed head-on against the Observer’s without receiving a single scratch.

So even my regeneration can’t keep up with this. The Observer’s eyes narrowed upon noticing.

It wasn’t just Se-Hoon’s physical ability—it was his explosive power erupting from within the Observer, a force born from pure mana. That alone had far exceeded what its body could handle.

On top of that, instead of weakening as the fight dragged on, Se-Hoon only grew stronger. No, the Observer was well aware there was a very good chance Se-Hoon hadn’t revealed his full strength even now.

I wanted to observe more, but…

Just one glance had been enough for the Observer to understand Se-Hoon wasn’t an opponent it could afford to take lightly. Thinking no more, the Observer fully shifted from probing to full engagement, syncing its movements with Se-Hoon’s.

Crack!

The Observer’s fingers tightened, turning sharp and stiff like awls, and grazed Se-Hoon’s forearm. Then the Observer’s fist plunged toward Se-Hoon’s solar plexus, forcing Se-Hoon to twist his entire body to dodge. But without batting an eye, the Observer followed up and whipped its right leg like a lash.

Boom!

A clean hit to the abdomen made Se-Hoon flinch, eyes reflexively tightening in pain—an opening. Not missing it, the Observer pressed the assault. Its body transformed in real time: compressing, hardening, and turning more elastic.

Splurt!

The changes were so extreme and violent that even demons adept at flesh manipulation would’ve fallen apart. Yet the Observer’s body adapted seamlessly, despite not being specialized in transformation abilities, and quickly surpassed the limits of any living organism.

I can do this.

The miracle it had been banking on succeeded. It had discarded its body to take the form of a conceptual being, and then successfully shaped itself back into flesh. Its body, created with Se-Hoon’s help, had completely transcended the physical constraints of a living organism.

I can get even stronger.

They had all the pieces. Now, the Observer was basking in the infinitely increasing ecstasy from the escalating battle, gleefully savoring the overwhelming sense of satisfaction that it had never once experienced before. And from how all seven of its Cursed Eyes glowed in radiant distinct colors, it showed.

“I will keep moving forward—”

“Stellar Radiance.”

Woong!

Before the Observer could finish its declaration, a sword gleaming gold that was imbued with the brilliance of a blue star swung toward him. Only when Se-Hoon had already grabbed and swung with full force had the Observer noticed.

Slice!

In one swift motion, both of the Observer’s arms that were in the midst of hardening were cleanly severed. And that wasn’t all. Immediately following up, Se-Hoon formed two more swords—White Light and Violet Halo—and resonated them with Stellar Radiance.

Celestial Infinity Blade: Trichroma Resonance

WOOONG!

A powerful resonance exploded from all three swords at once. But Se-Hoon reined it in, compressing it all into a single point before driving all three swords forward simultaneously.

BANG!

The swords hadn’t even fully made contact, yet the majority of the Observer’s body had been shredded to the point of being left without a trace. Having finally stabilized his synesthetic mindscape, Se-Hoon was able to deploy the Celestial Infinity Blade to flip the situation.

All that’s left is the left hand, and…

Se-Hoon’s gaze focused on the eye that had been embedded in the Observer’s forehead. Despite its body being essentially obliterated, the Observer’s eye continued to stare straight at him.

Wasting no time, Se-Hoon stabbed Stellar Radiance forw—

Sevenfold Cursed Eyes: Reversal of Woe.

The Observer’s pupil shimmered bizarrely, then the world twisted.

Clang!

Stellar Radiance was deflected upward right before piercing the eye. Using the force to twist its body, the Observer—whose entire body had returned—slammed its foot into Se-Hoon’s abdomen.

BOOM!

Hit on the same exact spot as before, Se-Hoon grimaced from the pain of his insides shaking but still forced his eyes open so that he wouldn’t miss the next strike.

Creak-

Se-Hoon stared with wide eyes at the pitch-black arrow, darker than the night itself, in his face. Notched in the crimson longbow formed from the Observer’s left arm, it flew.

Twang! Fwooosh!

With a black meteor trailing behind, Se-Hoon’s body slammed into the ground.

BOOOOM!

A terrifying shockwave shook the earth, forcing all battles on the ground to screech to a halt.

“That’s…”

Seon-Woo stared wide-eyed at the impact zone that resulted from a strike equal to—or even greater than—Baek-Yeon’s.

Shocked, Seon-Woo turned his Enhanced Vision toward the direction the arrow had come from.

Crack-

The Observer stood in the air at ease, reinforcing the hastily formed crimson bow. There wasn’t a single scratch on him.

But Se-Hoon’s attack couldn’t have missed… Seon-Woo’s expression warped into one of disbelief.

What kind of trick had the Observer pulled to stand there like nothing happened? Unable to figure it out, Seon-Woo just stared up in confusion, and soon enough, the Observer sensed his gaze and looked down.

“You must be a relative of the Visionary.”

“!”

Shocked by the voice that pierced through thousands of meters and directly entered his mind, Seon-Woo froze and just stared up as the Observer met his gaze with a rigid one.

“Ugh…!”

“Come to think of it, your Cursed Eye is quite useful too.”

Merely meeting the Observer’s gaze made Seon-Woo’s vision distort, as though his eyes were being gripped by an unseen force. Let alone shut his eyes, Seon-Woo couldn’t even tear his gaze away.

Despite the distance between them, the Observer’s Sevenfold Cursed Eyes had one-sidedly dominated Seon-Woo’s Enhanced Vision.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to take it, just in case…” Trailing off, the Observer looked at Seon-Woo for a long moment, but in the end, slowly turned its head. “Unfortunately, though, it seems I won’t be given the time.”

Whoosh!

Cutting through space, Se-Hoon swung Stellar Radiance once more. In response, the Observer instantly whipped its crimson longbow to deflect.

Clang!

Despite charging in, Se-Hoon was pushed back. Taking advantage of the distance gained, the Observer drew its bowstring and fired an arrow into empty air.

Sevenfold Cursed Eyes: Hatred-Destroyed Heaven.

Boom!

The moment the Observer’s eyes lit up, the arrow that should’ve hit nothing instead pierced Se-Hoon’s shoulder directly—and it didn’t stop there. Another barrage of arrows followed, fired relentlessly.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

One by one, the arrows vanished without a trace upon release, only to reappear and embed themselves into Se-Hoon’s body at point-blank range. No matter where they were shot or how, the arrows would home in on their target.

Unable to fully dodge or block such attacks, Se-Hoon quickly adapted his strategy.

Clang!

He narrowly deflected the arrow aimed at his neck. More arrows came after, targeting his head, heart, lungs, and spine; however, Se-Hoon’s swords intercepted them all midair.

In truth, that was surprising. The Observer stared at Se-Hoon.

“This is…”

Rather than trying to dodge preemptively, Se-Hoon moved the moment he was struck, preventing the arrows from embedding too deeply by following the force. Such a thing, though… had surpassed the limits of what the human body could do—it was enabled solely by Se-Hoon’s use of Unity of Mind and Body.

The Observer let out a subtle breath of awe.

“You… your very existence is akin to a power.”

Even while limited to only a few skills, Se-Hoon was already so formidable. Just what would he be like at full capacity, with all his skills unleashed? Imagining it, the Observer trembled at the fathomless depth of Se-Hoon’s strength and talent. At the same time, though, it felt a sense of relief.

Just a few months… no, even a few more weeks and I would’ve lost.

Right now—while that seed inside Se-Hoon had yet to fully bloom—he still had a chance. Sensing that all the world’s possibilities were converging toward him to open up a new future, the Observer looked up at the flow.

Sevenfold Cursed Eyes: Heaven of Perpetual Peace.

Swoosh-

With the sound of the world changing, dozens of arrows pierced Se-Hoon’s entire body.

Thud- Thud- Thud!

Every vital point was struck with precision before Se-Hoon had even realized a single arrow flew. Trembling faintly, Se-Hoon’s body went limp.

The arrows that struck him were forged by compressing part of the Observer’s essence itself. They were akin to a curse, which not only devoured the body but also ravaged the synesthetic mindscape.

“…”

Observing that all signs of life had vanished from Se-Hoon’s body and even making sure the countless threads of possibility that had once flowed from him also faded away, the Observer lowered its crimson bow and gazed up at the sky.

Rumble-

The world itself began shifting, centering around him. Slowly, a feeling of omnipotence settled over it, as though everything in existence now lay within its eyes.

“So this… this is the view you sought,” it muttered in a low voice.

The all-encompassing view had to be the transcendent sight Baek-Yeon had glimpsed upon reaching ascension. Not even the Cursed Eye of Perception had revealed such a vast world.

Savoring it, the Observer gently closed all seven of its eyes.

So this moment… is going to go on forever…

Because it couldn’t choose, it had nearly lost everything. But now… now, at long last, it seized a new future: a second chance. The Observer reached out toward the sky, relishing the feeling—

“Reversal of Woe…”

Its hand froze, having heard a faint voice echoing from Se-Hoon’s lifeless lips.

“Rewinding the body to its original state and nullifying all damage… basically a reversal of time.”

Bang!

Se-Hoon’s head was blown off, reflexively shot by the Observer.

Swish-

However, like a mirage, the air wavered before his head reformed exactly as before.

“Hatred-Destroyed Heaven… the power to make all attacks land by reversing causality through future realization.”

“…”

“Heaven of Perpetual Peace…”—Se-Hoon slowly lifted his head, his still-pristine right eye glowing violet—“a complete global time freeze…. Am I right?”

One by one, Se-Hoon described the three skills constituting the Sevenfold Cursed Eyes—which meant he had seen through all their mechanisms with one glance.

Unable to believe its ears, the Observer stared in disbelief.

“You… how could you possibly…?”

While it might have been plausible for Se-Hoon to guess the names and effects of the skills, deducing their very principles should have been impossible. The other two aside, that should have especially been the case for Heaven of Perpetual Peace. It was unlike the unstable Sealed Heavenly Net: it had frozen time so completely that even Se-Hoon had failed to react.

But more importantly, if Se-Hoon understood even that, then there had to be far more hidden up his sleeve.

“‘How,’ you say…”

Nonchalantly plucking the arrow from his left eye, Se-Hoon erased the wound as if it had never been there. Then, raising his head, he met the Observer’s gaze with both eyes and gave a faint, calm smile.

“Did you already forget… who it was that created you?”

Realizing something from his words, the Observer’s eyes widened.

“No… that can’t be.”

Until now, it had believed that its body was born from the mix of Baek-Yeon’s power of Perception and its old synesthetic mindscape as Heaven Eye. At most, Se-Hoon should have just filled in the gaps.

“It’s hard to deal with someone as irregular as you unless I plan for it from the start. That’s why I… hmph!”

Splurt!

Se-Hoon calmly yanked out an arrow that had pierced his lung through his ribs.

“…I made sure to adjust the directionality when shaping your body. That way, once I figured out what abilities you had, I knew I could beat you even without my powers.”

“You’re saying… every power I possess was crafted to your design?”

“No, of course not. Like I said, I only influenced the directionality.”

Pulling out the remaining arrows, Se-Hoon casually rolled his shoulders before locking eyes with the Observer.

“Time reversal, causality inversion, time stop—I just built the skeleton. It was you who filled in the rest. After all, you wouldn’t notice anything off that way.”

Just like when forging a piece of equipment, Se-Hoon paid attention during the creation so that the resulting weapon skill would be subtly guided to the desired result. As long as its performance wouldn’t be compromised, Se-Hoon could manipulate the materials and processing to shape it as he wished.

Like that, the Observer’s skills were born—exactly as Se-Hoon had envisioned.

“…Ha… hahahahaha.” The Observer could only chuckle dryly.

To think… to think the enlightenment it thought it had earned through its own strength had actually been orchestrated by Se-Hoon. In the first place, it had been its old synesthetic mindscape as Heaven Eye, Baek-Yeon’s power of Perception, and Se-Hoon’s talent.

“Just how pitiful… are you planning to make me?”

Despite having once given up everything, the Observer still found itself speechless.

“I told you earlier, didn’t I?” Se-Hoon began quietly. “I picked the safest path.”

Woong!

Activating the Celestial Infinity Blade, Se-Hoon gripped Stellar Radiance and White Light, then looked squarely at the Observer.

“What could be safer and easier than fighting someone I designed myself?”

“…I see.”

Perhaps from the very moment it borrowed the powers of others to achieve something, such an outcome had become inevitable.

Forced to accept the truth, the Observer looked up at the flow of the world’s possibilities that started shifting once more. Observing it briefly, it lowered its gaze and notched an arrow into the crimson bow.

“Just a hypothetical question… but how would you feel about being killed by something you made yourself?”

“Hmm…”

Woong!

Stellar Radiance scraped against White Light, its blade buzzing with killing intent.

“If it were something I made that was strong enough to surpass me… I’d probably feel pretty satisfied.”

With a shrug, Se-Hoon gave an honest answer, at least in part. To the Observer, however, that answer held a meaning that made it stare blankly at Se-Hoon for a moment.

“You really are…”—the Observer shook its head with a bitter smile—“disgustingly insufferable.”

Sighing, the Observer aimed its arrow.

“I know.”

Se-Hoon’s chuckle rang out as he raised his blades into the air.