Not A Regressor - Chapter 104

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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I Am Not a Regressor Chapter 104
The Conman’s Path to Victory (6)
Crack!
“Cough—hack!”
Cheon Woo-sung’s body flew backward from the slap, tumbling violently across the passage floor.
The wound that had already been bleeding freely tore open wider, and blood soaked into the passage floor.
“Such trivial… convictions?”
Cheon Woo-sung clutched his cheek and staggered to his feet, swaying.
Kwon O-jin watched him and clicked his tongue.
‘This bastard’s body is absurdly durable.’
Despite such grievous wounds.
The sensation in my hand was dull and blunt.
“What do you know?! What gives you the right to spout such nonsense?!!”
Cheon Woo-sung shrieked as if seized by a fit.
“You understand nothing… absolutely nothing…!”
The whimpering of a child.
The boy wearing a young man’s mask spewed forth a torrent of raw emotion toward me.
….
I stared intently into Cheon Woo-sung’s eyes.
Eyes unmarred by the world’s corruption.
Crystalline and vivid emotions.
‘Has he stopped growing?’
Nine years ago.
After his mother was murdered by an Awakener.
Cheon Woo-sung’s time froze.
Only his body continued to grow while he remained suspended.
‘If.’
I had lost Ha-eun.
If the most precious thing had been stolen from my hands by another.
Perhaps I would have become like Cheon Woo-sung.
‘There’s no way to know.’
There was no point in hypothesizing about events that never occurred.
‘What I must do now.’
I lifted the spear I had planted in the floor.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”
I aimed the spear.
“But that applies to you as well, doesn’t it?”
Just as I do not know Cheon Woo-sung.
He does not know me.
“If we are strangers to each other.”
Crash!!
I plant my feet firmly against the ground.
“Let me show you who’s right.”
“Ugh!!”
A sharp spear tip shoots toward Cheon Woo-sung’s throat.
Cheon Woo-sung hastily pulls his body back and conjures a Black Wing blade.
-Clang!
Spear and sword collide.
A dizzying shockwave reverberates through the Tunnel.
“Hah, hah!”
Cheon Woo-sung barely parries the relentless spear strikes pouring from Kwon O-jin, gasping for breath.
But that’s all.
Against spear thrusts that precisely target his openings and bore through his defense, he begins to give ground steadily.
‘This can’t be real…!’
How could this possibly be the power of a 5-Star Awakener?
Even if he were in a state of near-fatal wounds.
It made no sense to be pushed back so completely by a mere 5-Star Awakener.
‘A difference of three entire stars, not just one or two!’
And he himself was no novice who had just reached 8-Star—he was a master on the verge of 9-Star.
Ordinarily, a 5-Star Awakener should be swept away with a mere gesture.
-Clang! Bang! Clang-clang-clang!
“Ugh! Hack!”
Relentless spear strikes without pause for breath.
Wires coiling around his body, interspersed with kicks and punches flying in from every angle.
Even if he were in perfect condition.
Could he have properly defended against such an overwhelming assault?
‘Why, exactly.’
How could this be.
“Just… a man who got lucky…!”
Never facing hardship.
Never paying any price.
Merely chosen by a Constellation through fortune alone.
-Thud!
“Cough-hack!”
How could he.
Possibly be this strong.
-Boom! Crash!
Cheon Woo-sung’s body tumbles roughly across the ground.
“Hah! Hah!”
Was it from losing too much blood?
Blood no longer flowed properly from his wounds.
“No, this can’t be.”
I dragged myself pathetically across the floor.
“I can’t end like this.”
I staggered to my feet, my body swaying.
A Tunnel shrouded in thick darkness.
“…Mother.”
Like reaching toward the night sky.
Cheon Woo-sung stretched his hand toward the ceiling of the Tunnel with a pitiful gesture.
“Give me strength… Mother.”
Thump, thump.
The Constellation Mark etched on his left chest blazed with brilliant light.
-Whoooosh!
Radiant waves of light enveloped Cheon Woo-sung’s body.
Shrrrrip!
The massive black wings unfurled behind him wrapped around his body as if to protect him.
“…What?”
Kwon O-jin widened his eyes narrowly as he created distance from Cheon Woo-sung.
‘Is this another Constellation’s blessing?’
I examined Cheon Woo-sung while tightening my grip on the spear.
‘…No.’
It was different from Park Geon-woo and Ashad Khan.
His skin didn’t wrinkle, his spine didn’t bend.
He simply blazed brilliantly, enveloped in radiant light.
‘Surely not…’
Kwon O-jin stared at Cheon Woo-sung in disbelief.
There was only one case where a Constellation Mark’s light enveloped the entire body like this.
‘This bastard is ascending to the 9th Star?’
Like a cliché from a boy’s manga.
In a moment of crisis, he was recalling his mother and stepping into a new realm.
“Damn it.”
What kind of situation was this?
Kwon O-jin furrowed his brow and raised his spear.
‘I have to kill him quickly.’
Cheon Woo-sung’s Star rank was 8th.
If he ascended to the next level here.
He would become a high-tier awakener—a being that transcended humanity.
‘Then it’s over.’
No matter how confident I was, I couldn’t face a high-tier awakener.
‘I kill him before the awakening completes!’
I’m not stupid enough to stand idle and wait for my opponent’s transformation or awakening like some villain from a shonen manga.
If they’re drawing power by thinking of their mother in this moment of crisis.
Then I’ll just drive my spear through their gut and send them to join their dead mother.
“Hah!”
Boom!
I pushed off with my feet and charged toward Cheon Woo-sung, wrapped in those black wings.
Concentrating my mana into the spear’s tip.
I thrust the spear forward!
-Clang, clang, clang!!!
Sparks erupted where the spear blade met the wings.
“Ugh!”
I poured more force into it, trying to cut through the wings themselves.
But the spear only penetrated a third of the way before bouncing back.
-Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Black feathers shot from the uncut wings, shredding Kwon O-jin’s body.
“Argh!!”
Black feathers embedded in my shoulder, thigh, and side.
I gritted my teeth and thrust the spear at the same spot again.
-Clang!
The spear blade bounced back with tremendous force.
Whoosh.
The wings, which had been dented by the successive spear strikes, instantly restored themselves to their original form.
“Damn it!”
Disgustingly hard, and it auto-repairs too.
Rough curses spilled from my lips.
‘I can’t break through with my current power.’
Even using Exceed and Cerebral Inflammation together, I couldn’t pierce it.
There was no chance of breaking through even if I used Explosive Thunder or other techniques.
‘I have no choice but to attack while avoiding those wings.’
But that was difficult too, since the black wings wrapped around Cheon Woo-sung’s body without a single gap.
-Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!!
“Ugh!”
If I just stood still, maybe.
But feathers kept shooting from the black wings, making it hard to even attack.
‘Damn it.’
The light was growing brighter.
Time was running out.
I gritted my teeth and unleashed a barrage of attacks against the black wings enveloping Cheon Woo-sung.
-Clang! Bang! Clang, clang, clang!!
No matter how many times I thrust, the spear frequently bounced back, blocked by the wings.
“Ugh!!”
Feathers shot from the wings burrowed deeply into Kwon O-jin’s body.
‘Damn it.’
Kwon O-jin bit his lip with an anxious expression.
He had attacked the wings relentlessly, prepared to take wounds, but ultimately they remained impenetrable.
It felt like facing an impregnable fortress.
‘Attacking like this is meaningless.’
The wings’ regeneration speed was too fast—continuous assaults had no effect whatsoever.
‘I need to pierce it in one strike.’
But how?
“….”
With the power of Heuk-cheon and the Lyra Constellation stigma, I was fighting evenly against an 8-star awakener.
Yet Kwon O-jin was still only a 5-star awakener.
As for mana, I had reserves thanks to absorbing it through Heuk-cheon.
‘In the end… my narrow mana circuits have their limits.’
Mana circuits that were inevitably narrow because I was only 5-star.
That was my bottleneck.
‘I’ve already used Exceed too.’
Exceed was merely a technique to pressurize the mana circuits and expel mana forcefully.
It couldn’t release vast amounts of mana at once.
‘Then.’
My eyes gleamed sharply.
I paused my attack momentarily.
And extended the spear lengthwise.
‘If there’s a limit to how much mana I can release at once.’
I would accumulate mana without releasing it.
Condense it. Compress it.
-Creak! Crack! Snap!
The spear, infused with mana beyond its limit, twisted like a pig’s tail.
‘This won’t work.’
The spear couldn’t withstand any more.
‘If the spear won’t do━.’
I glanced down at the hand gripping the spear.
Not the spear, but my hand.
I condensed the mana there.
“Ugh!”
Tremor, tremor, tremor.
My hand gripping the spear shook violently.
-Ding!
[Warning! Mana has been condensed beyond the limit!]
[If you do not release the mana, you will enter a state of ‘Demonic Possession’!]
A red warning window materialized, blocking his actions.
‘Demonic Possession… Is that what Lee Shin-hyuk suffered from?’
A faint smirk crossed my lips.
I forced even more mana to condense within the circuit.
“Ugh! Agh, hnn.”
Capillaries burst as crimson blood streamed down from my eyes.
From my nose, my mouth, my ears.
Red blood flowed freely, drenching my body.
-Ding!
[Warning! Mana has been condensed beyond the limit!]
“Silence.”
I swiped away the warning window before my eyes and tightened my grip on the spear.
Crack! Crunch!
Perhaps my hand could not withstand the mana compression.
My hand twisted with a sickening sound of bone warping.
My fingers snapped at unnatural angles, and my wrist rotated in a way that should have been impossible.
-Clang!
I bound my mangled hand and the spear tightly together with wire.
‘Once more.’
I forced more mana in.
Crack-crunch!!
Bone fragments tore through flesh and scattered.
But.
Still.
“━Haa.”
Once more.
I condensed the mana.
Once more.
I compressed it.
Once more. Once more. Once more.
-Ding! Ding! Ding!
Red warning windows flooded my vision.
A dizzying, excruciating agony.
A horrific pain like sharp hooks tearing through flesh ravaged my entire body.
“Hah, hehe!”
Kwon O-jin laughed brightly amidst the onslaught of torment.
-Ding!
[You have successfully wielded the Lightning in an extreme situation!]
[You have acquired the skills《Charge Lv1》and《Discharge Lv1》!]
[Due to the influence of the《Lightning Lv9》skill, the levels of《Charge Lv1》and《Discharge Lv1》rise to level 6.]
Charge and discharge.
The usage of the newly acquired skills flowed into my mind.
‘I’ve already charged more than enough.’
Then.
“Hiss.”
Concealed within the black wings.
I gazed at Cheon Woo-sung standing before the path leading to the ninth star.
“Ah, Mom… thank you.”
Was he seeing some vision of his mother’s welcome?
From within the wings came the sound of Cheon Woo-sung’s sobs.
“Don’t worry, you bastard.”
Kwon O-jin’s lips curved into a sinister grin.
-Crackle, crackle, crackle, crackle!!!!
To the limit.
No—beyond the limit, the condensed azure lightning surged with savage intensity.
“I’ll let you see your mother so desperately wanted very soon!!”
Discharge.
A torrent of azure lightning poured forth toward Cheon Woo-sung, hidden within the wings.

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