Not A Regressor - Chapter 1

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

I Am Not a Regressor Chapter 1
Regression (1)
A blackened sky.
In the darkness where the sun had withered and even the moon had lost its radiance.
A hill blanketed with countless corpses stretched endlessly before me.
-Crunch, crunch.
A young man trudged across that vast mountain of the dead.
Stumbling, swaying.
Teetering precariously with each agonizing step.
Death.
Everywhere I looked, there were only crushed and mangled corpses.
Ruptured entrails and spilled brains were all that remained.
And then,
-Uuuuuuung!!
A torrent of starlight poured down upon me as if illuminating the darkness itself.
[Well done, Awakened One Lee Shin-hyuk.]
A woman with silver hair cascading to her waist floated slowly through the void, her dress woven from starlight fluttering gracefully.
“…Vega.”
The blood-soaked youth uttered the name of the woman—no, the goddess—before him.
Vega.
The Weaver Star. The goddess of the Lyre.
Among the countless constellations that illuminated the night sky, the most brilliantly shining one gazed down at me with cold indifference.
[You have slain the Heavenly Demon and saved this world.]
A rigid, inorganic tone—as if reading words transcribed on paper without emotion.
“…Saved?”
My lips twisted.
Kekeke.
My shoulders heaved as laughter erupted from me.
“Saved? I saved this world?”
A fractured voice escaped through my parched lips.
“Don’t—”
Boom!
I stamped my feet violently, my voice a wail.
“—talk nonsense!!!!”
Transparent tears streamed down my cheeks.
“What kind of salvation is this?! Everything has been destroyed by that
monster’s
hands—what damned salvation are you talking about?!”
Thud.
I collapsed to the ground, my voice breaking into a desperate wail.
“The apostles of the Zodiac Twelve Palaces! The Seven Stars! Every last one of those damned constellations!!”
Countless.
Thousands upon thousands of awakened ones had pooled their strength.
Constellations who fought and competed with each other every day had joined hands.
To slay a single Heavenly Demon.
To stop that wondrous monstrosity known as the Devil of the Sky.
And━
“All… everyone, all of them.”
Dead.
They had all perished.
“All… devoured entirely….”
My head drooped helplessly.
The vivid image of that monster tearing through thousands upon thousands of soldiers single-handedly, consuming entire constellations whole, burned vividly in my mind.
[But in the end, the Devil of the Sky was slain.]
Yes.
Though thousands upon thousands had fallen in sacrifice.
The gentle apostles, the valiant warriors, the noble constellations.
Most of them had perished.
Yet still, in the end.
I had slain the Heavenly Demon.
[Awakened Lee Shin-hyuk, you were the one who killed it.]
I had been the one to end it.
“….”
Lee Shin-hyuk lifted my head with hollow eyes.
I could see the Heavenly Demon collapsed with a spear piercing through its heart.
A face concealed behind a pristine white mask.
Lifeless blue eyes visible beyond the mask’s veil.
-Gulp.
I swallowed dryly and whispered the monster’s name.
“…Heavenly Demon, Kwon O-jin.”
The Devil of the Sky, Master of the Black Heaven, Stigma Predator.
Though many names called him, the emotion directed toward him remained eternally singular.
‘Fear.’
Overwhelming, absolute.
Fear.
The name Heavenly Demon had made an entire world tremble in terror.
Of course, it had not always been so.
In the past, Kwon O-jin was merely an awakened one like myself—or even less than that.
‘But.’
The power of ‘Black Heaven’ that Kwon O-jin had awakened possessed the ability to absorb the stigmas that constellations had bestowed upon awakened ones.
Using that power, he devoured the stigmata of countless Awakeners beyond measure, and eventually consumed even the Constellations who were the masters of those stigmata.
‘That was the result.’
A hill blanketed in corpses.
The end of the star called Earth.
[Awakener Lee Shin-hyuk. To you who slew the Heavenly Demon and saved the world, I shall grant you one wish in accordance with the ‘Covenant of Stars’.]
The goddess’s voice, low and resonant, echoed in my ears.
Lee Shin-hyuk’s eyes blazed with cold intensity.
“…Give it to me.”
Wringing the words out.
I opened my parched lips.
“Send me… back to the past.”
[…What?]
Vega’s eyebrows rose sharply.
[Do you truly desire regression at this moment?]
“Yes.”
[…Do you wish to relive that horrific past once more?]
“It will be different.”
Crunch.
Lee Shin-hyuk clenched his teeth harshly.
“This time, it will be different.”
Not by anyone else’s hand.
I will make it different myself.
[Hmm.]
The goddess’s eyes narrowed.
[So you would become a star that defies destiny itself.]
A possibility that resists the world’s fate.
The sole existence capable of rewriting the pages of a story whose ending was already written.
A Regressor.
The human before me now wished to become exactly that.
[Once a world’s destiny is fixed, it does not easily change.]
“I know.”
[A future even more agonizing and despairing than before may unfold.]
“I will change it.”
[There shall be no second chance.]
“One is enough.”
Lee Shin-hyuk’s gaze blazed with fierce resolve.
[….]
The goddess remained silent, eyes closed in contemplation.
A brief moment passed.
Golden eyes, as if holding starlight itself, turned toward Lee Shin-hyuk.
[Very well. According to the Oath of Stars, I shall send you back to the past.]
A sharp crackling sound.
Lee Shin-hyuk clenched his fist tightly.
“And one more thing.”
[A wish granted by the Oath of Stars may only be made once.]
“This isn’t a wish, Vega. It’s a proposal I’m making to you.”
He continued, his voice fractured and strained.
“Grant me the Stigma of Lyra.”
[….]
The goddess’s golden eyes wavered.
[Do you not understand? My stigma is… something no human can endure.]
Her words rang true.
Not a single human had ever survived receiving the Stigma of Lyra.
Its power was far too overwhelming—no one could wield her stigma.
━Even that Celestial Demon could not.
He never managed to obtain the Stigma of Lyra, no matter how hard he tried.
[No matter that you are a hero who slew a Celestial Demon… the odds of you surviving the Stigma of Lyra are not one in a thousand, nor even one in ten thousand.]
“If I can’t become that one, then there’s no point in going back in the first place.”
Lee Shin-hyuk answered with unwavering resolve.
[….]
Vega closed her eyes once more, lost in thought, before slowly approaching him.
[Very well, Star of Rebellion. I shall grant you the Stigma of Lyra.]
She placed her hand upon his shoulder.
[The moment you journey to the past through the oath, the Stigma of Lyra shall dwell within you. And… I myself shall come to find you.]
“You’ll come find me?”
How could you possibly do that?
If I return to the past, wouldn’t your memories of this world disappear as well?
[Indeed. Though the memories of this world will only remain with you… if you bear my stigma, the me of the past will at least be able to recognize that you are a ‘Returner’.]
In other words, her stigma would serve as a kind of mark—a way for the past version of her, stripped of all memories of this world, to recognize that he was a Returner.
[If you endure my stigma, the me of the past shall take you as my apostle.]
“That’s… quite reassuring to hear.”
The rigid tension around Lee Shin-hyuk’s mouth finally eased.
He had understated it as merely reassuring, but his heart was now pounding so violently it felt ready to burst.
Becoming an apostle of Vega, one of the Polar Stars, was something countless awakeners had yearned for.
[Then, let us begin the oath at once.]
“Wait.”
Lee Shin-hyuk turned away from Vega.
He moved toward the place where the Celestial Demon lay fallen.
“Hah.”
With trembling hands, he grasped the pure white mask that covered the Celestial Demon’s face.
And then,
I removed the mask.
“…Ah.”
Beneath the mask lay the face of a young man with slightly drooping eyes.
“This is… Kwon O-jin’s face.”
The visage was far too gentle and serene to belong to one who had supposedly plunged the entire world into terror.
“…Hmm?”
My brow furrowed slightly as I examined the face of the dead Heavenly Demon, my eyes wide open.
‘Where have I… seen this before?’
I rummaged through the hazy recesses of memory, but nothing surfaced.
‘Regardless.’
What mattered now was that I had confirmed the Heavenly Demon’s face.
‘When Kwon O-jin first appeared, he wasn’t particularly strong.’
He grew exponentially more powerful as he began devouring stigmata using the power of the Black Heaven, but when he first revealed himself to the world, he was merely one among countless ordinary awakeners.
‘I’ll return to the past and kill Kwon O-jin.’
If I could only slay him before he became the monster known as the Heavenly Demon.
‘…I can save them.’
Everything I lost, everything I failed to protect.
All the regrets I repeated endlessly.
This time.
[Time grows short, Awakener Lee Shin-hyuk.]
The goddess’s urgent voice.
I nodded and rose to my feet.
‘I don’t yet know details beyond his face.’
It doesn’t matter.
I know where he first registered as an awakener.
If I know his face, I can wait there and hunt him down.
“Alright. Send me back to the past.”
I approached Vega.
A tremendous aura of light enveloped my body.
‘Heavenly Demon.’
You alone.
You who took everything from me.
‘I will surely kill you.’
With that,
consciousness faded.
* * *
‘Ah….’
A sensation as though drifting through an endless sky.
Within that distant sensation, memories of the past brushed through my mind.
That day.
The memory of when he lost everything.
-The sky is so dark.
Before him, Cheonma smiled with a bloodstained grin, gazing up at the heavens.
The sky that day was a pristine blue without a single cloud, and the dazzling sunlight poured down relentlessly.
-Isn’t it?
As if unable to see the blazing sunlight, Cheonma turned to him with a question.
With shoulders shaking in a sinister chuckle, Cheonma’s hand held━
‘No. This can’t be.’
The severed head of my younger brother.
‘Woo-hyuk, Woo-hyuk….’
Lee Woo-hyuk.
My younger brother, so powerful that he had been chosen by the constellations of the Zodiac Twelve Palaces.
Unlike me, who was foolish, he had been brilliant and wise.
That brother was dead.
Before my very eyes.
-Why, why are you doing this to me!!
I screamed. I wailed.
Tears streaming down my face, I begged.
-What have I ever done to deserve this!!!?
Grin.
Cheonma laughed brightly and hurled my brother’s head at me.
-Who knows?
Behind that pristine white mask.
The blue eyes gazing down at me burned
-If you hadn’t abandoned me in that place back then, wouldn’t all of this have been avoided?
with an icy, consuming rage.
“Ugh!!!”
The sensation of floating in the void ended, and a searing agony wracked my body.
-Ding!
[The Stigma of Lyra has been inscribed upon the body of Awakener Lee Shin-hyuk.]
[As the Stigma of Lyra takes root, the existing Stigma of Compass vanishes.]
[Warning! The power of the Stigma is too overwhelming and is causing the body of Awakener Lee Shin-hyuk to collapse!]
[Entering a state of Qi Deviation.]
Along with a clear chiming sound, a blue message materialized before my eyes.
But with no mind to read that message,
“Cough!! Cough hack!!”
Crack! Crackle!!
Blue lightning ignited and burned across my body.
Torrents of agony ravaged me.
“What—what is this? Why is he suddenly acting like this?”
Then a voice reached my ears.
“—Ah.”
A voice so achingly familiar.
A voice I could never forget.
‘What… what?’
Lee Shin-hyuk turned his head with trembling eyes.
There was no doubt.
The face I had confirmed with my own two eyes the moment I removed the mask.
A face I could not forget, a face I must never forget.
Standing there.
Before my eyes.
Was the Heavenly Demon.
“Ah… ugh.”
The instant I saw him breathing, alive and well.
A torrent of overwhelming emotion shattered through me.
[Your emotional disturbance intensifies your demonic possession state!]
Why was the Heavenly Demon here.
Why was Kwon O-jin standing before my eyes.
The first face I see upon returning to the past—was it truly the face of the enemy who stole everything from me.
“Kack, cough! Cough! Coughhhhh!!!”
Lee Shin-hyuk collapsed where he stood, his limbs convulsing violently.
Crackle!!
With each flash of blue sparks, his body lurched and thrashed against the ground.
[The Lyra Stigma runs rampant from your demonic possession!]
[Your body is collapsing completely!]
Crack! Crackle!
My convulsing body began to twist and contort.
“Kack! Cough! Coughhhh!!”
Blood surged up my throat, streaming down my chin.
‘Ah.’
As I lay dying, the goddess’s warning suddenly surfaced in my mind.
—Your chances of survival are one in a thousand… no, not even one in ten thousand.
It was a simple reason.
Surprisingly straightforward causality.
‘I… was not that one.’
A hollow despair crushed down upon me.
My consciousness flickered and dimmed.
I could no longer feel even the searing agony that had wracked my body.
“Why… why am I…?”
With that final question lingering, I held my breath.
Lee Shin-hyuk exhaled his last.
* * *
“No, no, no!!! Why the hell are you doing this all of a sudden?!”
Kwon O-jin seized Lee Shin-hyuk’s limp collar in a frenzied grip, shaking him violently.
“Hey! Breathe! Breathe, damn it!!”
It wasn’t grief over Lee Shin-hyuk’s death, of course.
They’d only met a few hours ago—barely enough time for even a hint of attachment to form between them.
The problem wasn’t Lee Shin-hyuk’s death itself,
“Die after you take down every last one of these bastards, you son of a bitch!!!”
but the horde of 2-Star rank monsters surrounding them.
“Grrrrr.”
A low, bestial growl reverberated through the air.
The ferocious eyes of the encircling monsters fixed upon him.
If he’d fought desperately and fallen gloriously, that would be one thing.
But to collapse suddenly while surrounded by monsters at this critical moment—what kind of death was that?
And worse—
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it all!!!”
he wasn’t even an Awakened One capable of fighting monsters.
“What method could….”
Method? There was none.
A powerless ordinary human surrounded by monsters had no need to contemplate their fate.
‘Still.’
He couldn’t simply accept death without resistance.
Kwon O-jin frantically searched Lee Shin-hyuk’s body for anything useful.
“This is….”
Then his eyes caught upon a stigma engraved on Lee Shin-hyuk’s left chest.
A stigma of a form he’d never seen before.
Drawn by instinct, he reached out and touched the stigma carved upon Lee Shin-hyuk’s chest with his fingertips.
That was when it happened.
-Ding!
[Heukcheon begins its first awakening!]
[Heukcheon absorbs the stigma of Geomungo!]
“…What?”
Heukcheon?
What in the world was that?
-Kurrrgh!
Before he could voice his confusion, a black miasma flowed from his fingertips, engulfing the stigma engraved upon Lee Shin-hyuk’s chest.
And then.
“Ugh!! Cough—cough—coughhhhh!!!”
Crack! Crackle!
Azure lightning descended through dark storm clouds, seeping into his body.
“Damn it!!!! This hurts like hell!!!”
The pain was exaggerated enough to feel like his testicles were bursting.
“Kyaaaaaaah!!!”
Kwon O-jin thrashed about, screaming pathetically.
How much time had passed?
-Ding!
[You have completely absorbed the Star Mark of Lyra.]
[The power of the absorbed Star Mark is too immense!]
[The power of the Star Mark is being adjusted to match your current stage of Heukcheon’s awakening.]
A blue message window materialized before my eyes, and the agony began to subside.
“Hah… hah…”
I pushed myself up, breathing heavily.
I reached toward the blue message window hovering before me in disbelief.
‘This is…’
Wasn’t this the system window that only awakened ones could see?
‘Why do I have this…?’
Could it be that I had just become an awakened one?
Bewildered, I felt my left chest and touched the ‘Star Mark’—the symbol of an awakened one.
‘This was definitely on that bastard just moments ago…’
A Star Mark of a form I had never seen before.
As I furrowed my brow and caressed the Star Mark,
-Whoooosh!!!
Space tore open, and brilliant starlight cascaded down.
Emerging from the torrent of starlight was━
[Hmm. I certainly felt the aura of my Star Mark here.]
A woman with silver hair as beautiful as the Milky Way.
As she glanced around, her golden eyes gleamed, and she approached me.
[That you possess my Star Mark, which I have never given to anyone… I see.]
What had she understood?
The woman who had suddenly torn through space regarded me and nodded.
[The star that defies heaven. The existence that opposes fate. The sole savior of a world where the end has been written━]
What is this woman talking about?
[So you are the one who has regressed.]
“…Pardon?”
That’s not right.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————