The Regressor Can Make Them All

Chapter 517

Wooooooooooooooooong~

A foreboding pulse continually echoed throughout the collapsing sealing facility, given off by the resonant repulsive energy from Ryuuma and the Heaven’s Well.

This is…! Se-Hoon’s eyes shot open in alarm.

Feeling the energy both in front and behind him, Se-Hoon realized what Ryuuma was trying to attempt. He sped up his fist even further, sending it into the gap to strike Ryuuma’s head with enough force to rip through the sound barrier. There was no time to waste.

Rumble!

Naturally, the reverse world was unable to bear the attack and finally shattered, sending sections of the facility crashing down. Space everywhere was now twisted like distorted static; mana of the Heaven’s Well and ley lines erupted from the cracks like magma.

If Se-Hoon didn’t escape now, he would be twisted apart with the rest of space—yet he didn’t move.

Crunch-

He couldn’t move.

The fist that just crushed Ryuuma’s head completely was now forcibly anchored to the facility by an orange spike—the Seeker’s left eye—piercing through it.

This bastard…

To buy time until the changes currently occurring within the Heaven’s Well completed the new ritual, Ryuuma had offered his life and body as sacrifices without hesitation.

His resolve was clear: settle everything now, no matter what.

Se-Hoon’s mind raced to assess the situation.

It’s too late for an early takedown.

His only choices now were to settle it here, as Ryuuma intended, or force a retreat outside and reassess. Weighing the pros and cons, Se-Hoon then called out to the figure slumped behind him.

“Ren! Get up!”

Thanks to the power of Boundaries, Ren was barely hanging onto life despite his blinded eyes and severed mana circuits. With such injuries though, he should no longer have had the strength to stand. And yet, trembling all over, Ren slowly pushed himself up.

“So this is… what it feels like… to be forcibly controlled…”

His body, already broken beyond repair due to the price of executing the forbidden technique, was effectively dead. Thus, the power of Boundaries injected mana from the Netherworld into him as a “departed” soul, compelling him to follow Se-Hoon’s command.

“I’ll have to… restrain myself next time…”

“Save the nonsense. Just take Erika and get out.”

“What about you…?”

Handing Erika’s replica to Ren, Se-Hoon calmly answered, “I’m settling this here. If I leave, who knows what variables might crop up?”

The Seeker’s left eye originally belonged to Tuner, so whatever deal had occurred between him and Ryuuma, cutting off external interference by ending it all here would be best to prevent any worst-case scenario.

“You’re… completely insane…”

Ren was dumbfounded. Even he, who knew nothing, could sense the Heaven’s Well was turning into something dangerous. And yet Se-Hoon was choosing to fight, not flee?

“But… maybe that’s why you succeeded…”

While Ren had been chained by his role, unable to even recognize his own feelings, Se-Hoon had crushed his father’s lifelong plan and helped Erika rise of her own will. Ren knew it deeply—if he had stood in Se-Hoon’s place, he could never have gotten Erika to stand on her own.

“Tsk… and here I thought you were just rambling.”

Seeing the bittersweet expression on Ren’s face as he looked down at Erika after glancing at the Heaven’s Well, Se-Hoon smirked.

“I’d like to say more but time’s tight, so I’ll keep it short.”

He split the boundary behind Ren to open a gate leading to the Netherworld, then gently pushed his forehead back.

“You’ve done enough.”

Whatever the outcome, Ren had refused the absolute power and glory of ascension, choosing instead to fight for what he believed in. Having even risked his life to see it through, no one could blame him any longer; at the current moment, whatever the past or the future may hold did not matter in the slightest.

“So stop blaming yourself. Erika wouldn’t like that.”

Whoosh!

Not giving Ren a chance to reply, Se-Hoon sent the two beyond the boundary.

“…Felt like a parting speech, didn’t it?” Se-Hoon mumbled to himself, chuckling at the conversation.

Rumble-

Se-Hoon slowly scanned his surroundings.

The collapse of the sealing facility was speeding up by the second. Currently, the deterioration had progressed so much that as far as the eye could see, space was warped like a shattered mirror. There also wasn’t a single intact section remaining—that is, except for the ground where Se-Hoon stood.

“Guess it’s about time.”

Click-

A mechanical interlocking sound echoed as a door began to open.

Rattle!

Then, the Heaven’s Well—which until now had basically shown no activity—suddenly slipped into the crack of the rupture and forcibly fused the collapsing space together.

Thump-

A slow, foreboding pulse rang through the entire space.

Thump- Thump- Thump-

It beat faster and faster and faster… and then, the reformed space began moving in a specific direction.

Rumble-

At its core, the Ascension Project was just a system to channel power from a specific point of origin into a vessel for free use.

Based on the Seeker’s Omniform Sacred Armament—her exclusive way of connecting to the Golden Ring with the power of Omniscience—the Ascension Project was supposed to be a general-purpose version of that Final Revelation.

I guess… other methods of reaching the Golden Ring are possible too.

The original plan to connect to the Golden Ring through imitating the Towers of Heroes had been rendered void when Erika gained a self separated from the ritual. So, before his death, Ryuuma abandoned the now-inaccessible route and instead inputted the coordinates embedded in the corrupted Seeker’s left eye into the Heaven’s Well.

Woong-

By doing so, a new point of origin was accessed: the Abyss of Demons.

Crack!

The moment the space around Se-Hoon connected to that place, an overwhelming pressure crashed down from all directions and began dragging him downward.

“Guh…!”

Unlike the Tower of Heroes, which one had to climb through their own strength and will to reach the top, the Abyss of Demons dragged anyone and anything that dipped their feet into the depths.

Ascent and descent. Climb and fall. Completion and ruin.

The opposing concepts clashed as the space surrounding Se-Hoon transformed into a separate domain. And at the moment the collapsed ritual was fully reconstructed…

Darkness engulfed everything as incomprehensible whispers echoed from everywhere.

***

Ryuuma’s childhood held little worth remembering. Although he was born the third son of a noble family, it had been in an era thrown into chaos by unprecedented upheaval.

The glory his family had built over centuries collapsed within a few short years, so any child born into that time was more of a curse than a blessing—and his father and mother had been unwilling to bear that curse.

Under the justification that it was “for the future of humanity,” they had thrown him into the Tower of Heroes.

“…──”

What was hard to believe was undoubtedly true. After all, even adults could be slaughtered by monsters if unlucky back then. A helpless infant? Its fate was all but sealed.

Rather than kill him with their own hands, though, his parents had used the excuse of “humanity’s future” to throw him into one of the then-unknown Towers of Heroes.

“…──”

Unlike today’s world, where that would be condemned, humanity had collectively lost its mind back then. In those times, such things were common occurrences.

That was why the infant cast into the Tower should have died like the others.

By pure chance, the infant had encountered an unexpected stroke of fortune. Because his innate talent was the power to enslave other beings, the Tower presented him with a living creature as his first trial.

Woong-

He was barely a week old at the time, unable to even recall what the creature looked like. All he knew was that it resembled a transparent mass of light.

However, by instinct alone, the infant used his power to enslave the creature and returned to reality.

“I… was──”

Naturally, everyone panicked. The infant they thought was for sure dead had returned only after a few hours? Upon hearing the news, his parents—the ones who sacrificed him “for the good of humanity”—mobilized all remaining family power to retrieve him.

“Ryuuma. You are our family’s only hope.”

To them, the miracle of an infant’s survival was surely the prophecy of the family’s revival. And, surprisingly, his parents’ delusions largely went according to plan.

Even in an era with no structured system of magic, the infant had fumbled his way through learning the Shikigami arts, and before he knew it, his childhood was over.

By the age of seven, he was already being deployed to the battlefield for the sake of family restoration.

You know, we’re all crazy to some degree… but your family really takes the cake.

Seeing such a young child, the other awakened individuals on the battlefield either pitied him or tried to help. However, the young boy turned them all away. In hindsight, the reason was laughable. As a child though, he had unconditional trust in his parents above all else.

“There are many who seek to exploit our family’s prestige. Never listen to them.”

“Ryuuma, beware anyone who says they want to help you. Those are the ones you should fear most.”

Raised practically in isolation, what proper worldview could he have possibly formed? On top of that, he was ambushed repeatedly by agents under his parents’ orders, so his perception of the outside world only grew more warped.

It was inevitable that he became a loyal servant of the family.

“…When did I realize——?”

The life of servitude came to an end when he turned eighteen, when the Perfect Ones brought renewed hope to humanity. Thanks to the Emperor of Ascension, global communication was restored.

From that day on, his parents stopped treating him like a slave to save face. Of course, part of it was also because his power had stagnated at A-rank, unlike his nearly S-rank siblings.

“Your older siblings started way later and already reached A-rank. What have you been doing? Useless trash…”

In the first place, it was the boy’s battlefield income that had funded their training, but he didn’t complain. After all, the money belonged to the family. He was merely one member among them.

“Focus on your training for now.”

In just one night, he had fallen from the family’s hope to a disgrace, yet, oddly enough, it wasn’t all that bad. Since setting foot on the battlefield, he’d never had a proper break, so even if he was scorned or insulted, the peace was oddly welcome.

You were quite different… huh.

He was practically a different person. And in fact, the “Inoue Ryuuma” known today was created shortly after that incident.

Hmmm? Created?

With that thought, Ryuuma’s internal monologue finally paused. Then, after a second, the voice that had only been echoing in his head finally slipped from his mouth after a beat.

“…To remain yourself even in this situation——if you weren’t incomplete, I’d have failed from the start.”

Se-Hoon hadn’t fully grasped the situation, but he’d been through enough similar experiences to form a solid guess.

My memories are likely just linked to Ryuuma’s because of the Seeker’s left eye in my fist.

Ryuuma likely intended to overwhelm him by flooding him with thoughts and memories, but unfortunately for Ryuuma, Se-Hoon was a veteran who retained his sense of self even when trapped inside a Harbinger of Destruction’s synesthetic mindscape.

Not like I can afford to be complacent still…

Different from the past, when he would have already manifested his body in his synesthetic mindscape by now, Se-Hoon was still stuck in a third-person view of Ryuuma’s past. He couldn’t even feel his own form.

Is this how much weaker Soul Honing has become…?

Though it could also just be a sign that his synesthetic mindscape had changed, in a situation where he could be overwritten, that wasn’t a good thing either.

As Se-Hoon contemplated his next move, Ryuuma’s halted memories resumed.

“It doesn’t matter. Regardless of whether this works on you or not, my task remains the same.”

What was he trying to achieve by showing his past? Uncertain, Se-Hoon turned his gaze back toward the memory.

Guess I’ll just watch for now.

To understand Ryuuma’s abnormal obsession, seeing his past would be the fastest route. Additionally, he might even glean insight about the Seeker’s death or Succession from it.

“The family continued to flourish afterward, hitting its peak after joining the Seeker’s weapon project.”

When the Seeker invited the three great families to forge powerful artifacts, that had been the moment the Inoue family seized the chance to gain immense influence. At that time, Ryuuma remained far from center stage, as he still hadn’t broken past A-rank.

“A disgrace to the family…”

“After floundering for such a brief span, he thinks he’s so special…”

His decades of service were now used as fuel for ridicule. His parents saw him as deadweight, but because they still wanted to use him, they began scheming.

Then, when the fifth Perfect One Eternal Nocturne appeared and the Seeker vanished, Ryuuma was suddenly summoned to meet a woman.

“…”

Jet-black hair like the night sky, dreamy eyes like one drugged, and skin as pale as a doll. Ryuuma froze, taken aback by the woman’s haunting beauty.

“She’s your fiancée. You’ll use her as your shikigami later, so be ready before the ceremony.”

“…Excuse me? Shikigami—what…?”

Bang!

Without sparing another second, they left the room. And just like that, the two were alone.

In the awkward, absurd silence left behind, Ryuuma looked at the woman seated calmly.

She, upon meeting his gaze, smiled and bowed her head.

“I’m Inoue Mizuki. I look forward to our time together.”

She was the woman who would later become Ren and Erika’s mother.