The Regressor Can Make Them All

Chapter 586

“…”

Se-Hoon made a look of pure disbelief upon hearing Tuner’s proposal. A fair and square one-on-one fight? From Tuner? A proposal like that from him, of all people, skipped straight past confusion into outright suspicion.

“Are you serious?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t say something this insane if I weren’t!”

Tuner’s tone was playful, yet beneath it, there was an unmistakable sincerity—a fact that made Se-Hoon pause briefly.

“…And why, exactly, should I accept that proposal?”

At present, the only stronghold of the Demon Force left was the Abyss of Demons. Of the Ten Evils, only Tuner and the Elder Lord remained. And among the Watchers, nearly all had been exterminated except for Exuviation, which was led by Tuner himself.

It was clear by any objective measure that humanity’s victory was all but assured. Was there even a reason to accept Tuner’s offer considering that?

“For a clean victory.”

“A clean victory?”

“I knew this war’s outcome was already decided the moment the death of the Visionary—no, the Eternal Nocturne—led to the powers called Blessings appearing.”

The sight of the Perfect Ones’ mighty powers being distributed to humanity under the name of Blessings was the moment their fate was sealed. Unlike the demons, who sought only the destruction of the world, Tuner knew humanity had gained the ability to use the world according to their own wills at that moment.

“Sure, if we used the Harbingers of Destruction properly, we might have been able to flip the board. But honestly—what would that even mean? It’d be little more than mutual destruction,” Tuner said with a shrug.

“…”

“Thinking it through after that, I came to a simple conclusion: if victory is impossible no matter what, then it’s better to lose—cleanly.”

To pour everything he had into the end so that no regret would remain.

That was Tuner’s final choice. His final plan.

“What kind of nonsense is that…?”

“Hard to believe, I know. Who would believe the words of a monster who’s ground down billions of his own kind over the past few decades? Well, if it were me, I’d tell him to shut up too. Heh.”

Seemingly expecting Se-Hoon’s reaction, Tuner soon deflated and let out a sigh.

“So, regrettably, I guess I’ll have to persuade you slightly differently.”

“…Differently?”

“You’ve probably guessed by now, but I have a means of retaining my memories even if you regress. It’s not perfect—but I can at least tell whether you rejected my proposal and how many times it happened.”

Ominous words that made Se-Hoon’s expression harden.

“That’s why, if you refuse this offer, I’ll devote every resource I have to hunting down and killing your friends. Thoroughly. So thoroughly that even the Blessings won’t be able to bring them back.”

“…”

“I’ll die, of course… but, well, that part doesn’t matter. You’d just regress to save them anyway. And after that—”

“The whole thing would repeat,” Se-Hoon finished calmly, cutting him off. “Until every card in your hand is gone.”

If Tuner couldn’t end it cleanly, then, just like he always had, he would fight to the very end—desperately, relentlessly, using every means available.

Realizing what the Tuner truly meant by a “clean victory,” Se-Hoon narrowed his eyes.

“You’re aiming to wear down my mind.”

As stated, while regression could rewind everything, the regressor themself remained the single constant. Currently, it was unclear to Se-Hoon just how long Tuner had been preparing his plan, but judging by his confidence, he had more than enough tools at his disposal.

Hundreds… no. Maybe even thousands of repetitions.

The outcome of the war wouldn’t change… but what Se-Hoon would become at the end of it was far from certain.

Seeing through the plan that targeted a regressor’s one true weakness, Se-Hoon frowned—

“Wear you down? That’s a pretty ungrateful thing to say about your power,” Tuner replied in an irritated voice. “It’s not wearing you down. It’s metamorphosis, or shedding. Casting off the Golden Ring and being reborn as a higher-order existence!”

“…”

“You won’t be a lucky man who just so-happened-to regress, but a true Regressor in the fullest sense. Judging by the results, you could even call it an extraordinary boon!”

“…”

Se-Hoon’s silence made Tuner let out a quiet chuckle.

“I can’t say whether it’s a change you’d actually want, though~”

There was a pointed meaning in Tuner’s tone, as though he already knew the decision Se-Hoon had made in the Forest of Repetition.

The thought made Se-Hoon compose his expression.

Did that come from the Demon King too?

He didn’t know how much information had been passed along, but there was no need to react either way.

Thus, Se-Hoon remained silent still, making Tuner soon sigh.

“Anyway, that’s all I had to say. I hope you accept, but the choice belongs entirely to the victor.”

With those deflated words, Tuner’s voice gradually faded.

“So I’ll be waiting—as the defeated.”

His last words echoed; rather than in his head, they continued to ring until they fully dissipated like a whisper directly into his ear.

“Administrator! Can you hear me? There’s a strange error in the Tower’s system right now! If you hear anything unusual or see a system window, do not trust—”

Hearing Terra’s voice all of a sudden, Se-Hoon replied to her, “It’s fine. He just left.”

“Huh? He left?”

“Tuner imitated your voice to talk to me. Looks like he interfered with the Tower’s system using some hidden system.”

“…What?”

Tera sounded utterly stunned. A Ten Evil—not even a Harbinger—interfering with the Tower’s system from the Abyss of Demons? That was simply unbelievable.

Terra was still reeling, yet she had to respond to Se-Hoon’s following question.

“Terra. Something happened on the Abyss of Demons side too, didn’t it?”

If Tuner had acted that confidently, he must have gained something while fighting the others there.

“…Yes,” Terra answered in a grim voice, confirming his suspicion after a brief silence. “Dean Ryu and Lady Aria are trapped inside a barrier deployed by Tuner. According to the Tower’s system, they’re still alive, but we don’t know their exact condition yet.”

“When did it happen?”

“Right after you entered to seal the Void.”

“So he was planning this from the start.”

Whether he succeeded or failed in sealing the Void, Tuner must have decided now was the final turning point.

Taking a moment, Se-Hoon organized the countless thoughts swirling in his mind before issuing orders calmly.

“Bring everyone to the workshop once the treatment’s done. Holding a meeting inside the Towers feels risky right now.”

“Understood. And you, Administrator?”

“I’ll head back by myself. You check for any other anomalies in the Towers first.”

“Got it! I’ll report immediately if anything comes up.”

The connection was cut off. Left alone, Se-Hoon looked down at the Aeon Sphere containing the sealed Void.

He turned over Ludwig’s final words and Tuner’s proposal in his mind, then left with a quiet murmur.

“We really do need to end this cleanly.”

***

Late in the evening, after gathering his companions in the workshop once their emergency treatment was complete, Se-Hoon looked at each of them briefly in silence.

“…”

Though the Alliance’s morale was soaring since victory was all but assured despite the deaths of Ludwig and Jason, Se-Hoon’s companions were different. With Eun-Ha and Aria trapped inside Tuner’s barrier, the mood among them had sunk so deep it was as though they had already lost.

Objectively speaking, this is still a miraculous victory.

Wanting zero casualties in a war was unrealistic. Still, it was a hope they had all fought with, making the weight of losing even two people impossible to ignore.

Seeing the sight of them so shaken, Se-Hoon clapped his hands lightly to draw their attention.

“Let’s go over the situation first. I’ll start.”

He explained everything that had happened in the Forest of Repetition and the Garden of Void, in order.

Naturally, bitterness and shock crossed everyone’s faces at some point. And when he got to Tuner’s proposal, everyone’s eyes widened.

“A fair fight? With what nerve…”

“That bastard’s insane.”

Jake and Sung-Ha scoffed, while Amir frowned deeply.

“He’s insane—and he understands regressors far too well. I never imagined he’d prepare something like this…”

Amir instantly saw through how precisely calibrated the Tuner’s coercion was: too dangerous to accept blindly, yet too threatening to dismiss outright.

“What do you plan to do, Brother?”

“That’s what we’ll discuss now. First, though, tell me what happened in the Abyss of Demons. I heard the basics from Terra, but there are a few things I want to ask.”

The three who had fought there exchanged glances; Erika started first.

“The flow of the battle itself was ordinary. Tuner looked like he was trying to do something using the Abyss of Demons at first, but we blocked everything.”

Wide-area attacks using the Abyss of Demons were completely intercepted by Eun-Ha with Erika’s support, and whenever he tried to prepare a powerful spell, Aria sensed it early and shut it down with Jake.

When all his prepared moves were neutralized and the fight turned one-sided, Tuner fled deeper into the Abyss.

“That’s when the chase began?”

Despite the team’s role being to keep him in check until the other Great Demon Realms were cleared, Eun-Ha and Aria immediately pursued him. After all, at the time, they had lost contact with Se-Hoon after entering the Forest of Repetition—yet Tuner spoke as if he knew exactly what was happening there.

“He sounded like he knew?”

“Yes. Like he knew you were heading to the Forest of Repetition.”

“…”

Se-Hoon narrowed his eyes in thought. If Tuner knew about the Destroyer of Moralities, linking it to Se-Hoon—the regressor—wasn’t impossible, but that alone didn’t fully explain his certainty.

The resonance with the Destroyer of Moralities only really started after I entered the Forest of Repetition…

Was it a bluff then? Or… did Tuner possess something only he knew?

He fell into thought, but soon noticed Erika waiting for his response.

“Sorry. Go on.”

“The chase dragged on, just like the earlier fight. Then, when a massive surge of power erupted from the Garden of Void and the sky tore open, Tuner counterattacked, deploying the barrier.”

With the story reaching there, Se-Hoon was just about to ask what kind of barrier it was when Terra—seemingly on cue—projected a video into the air.

At the center of the corrupted Antarctic Sea within the Abyss of Demons stood a massive hemispherical structure, glowing in shifting, iridescent colors.

A simple barrier…? No, something like that shouldn’t be able to persist over the Abyss of Demons.

Considering some answers, he asked, “Were there any signs before he used it?”

“No. No incantation, no seals. We didn’t see any pre-prepared magic arrays or artifacts either.”

“Then it was cast without incantation…. Luize, what do you think?”

Luize studied the hemisphere with an odd expression, then—with Terra’s help—wrote words in the air.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s a type of magic to begin with.”

“Not magic?”

“That bastard is skilled enough to imitate the Seeker’s abilities, but this feels different. If I had to describe it…”

She frowned, struggling to find the right analogy. At that moment, for the first time since the conversation began, Meirin’s voice was heard.

“The Tower,” she murmured.

All eyes turned to her, who, looking at the projected image, elaborated calmly..

“That is an imitation of the Towers of Heroes—using the Abyss of Demons.”