Not A Regressor - Chapter 201

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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 201
Sated Hypocrisy and Starving Virtue (5)
“What…?”
Demian squinted as he gazed up at the torrential downpour of fire raining from above.
Despite the considerable distance, the intense heat was fierce enough to make his skin prickle.
The destructive force contained within those savagely roaring flames was something even he could not ignore.
“…So you didn’t come alone.”
“Would I come alone if you thought me mad?”
I knew that my growth had been absurdly rapid—incomparable to other Awakeners.
Heukcheon’s power and the stigma of Lyra Constellation.
I also knew that through the other stigmas I had absorbed into Heukcheon until now, I possessed power several times greater than what the number of strokes in the Star stigma currently inscribed beside my left chest would suggest.
But.
‘I’m far from being able to face the Seven Stars.’
Though I had received only elementary education, I knew how to distinguish between courage and recklessness.
Given how well I understood just how absurdly powerful the Awakeners called the Seven Stars were, I could not fight Demian without any strategy whatsoever.
Whoooosh!
Upon receiving my signal, Ha-eun’s barrage began pouring down relentlessly over the collapsed ceiling.
Demian’s eyes gleamed coldly as he gazed up at the fireballs imbued with formidable magical power.
Though the firepower contained in each fireball was undeniably powerful enough to send chills down even Demian’s spine.
“Do you truly believe I cannot evade attacks fired so recklessly?”
Demian lightly pushed off and retreated, dodging the cascading fireballs.
Though the firepower contained within each fireball was indeed tremendous, his movements were far too refined to be caught by blind attacks fired indiscriminately from a distance where faces could not even be seen.
“Right, for someone like you, dodging attacks of this caliber wouldn’t be difficult.”
Kwon O-jin nodded and evaded the falling fireballs.
There was no need to even reach Demian—I alone could easily dodge the fireballs raining down so indiscriminately.
But.
“What about them?”
“Pardon?”
I twisted my lips into a grin and pointed toward the second floor of the mansion.
There, members of the branch family who had been unable to escape when the passage collapsed were screaming shrilly with pale faces.
“Kyaaaaaaah! It’s h-hot!!”
“Someone save us!”
“Ahhhhhhh!!”
The indiscriminate fireballs falling were striking not only me and Demian on the first floor, but also the people on the second floor who had been enthusiastically cheering for Demian’s victory.
“Well then, shouldn’t we hurry and save those people?”
I twisted my lips upward and shrugged my shoulders.
Yes.
Even if they held no value to me, even if they meant nothing.
I had to throw myself forward and save them.
Because.
“That’s the ‘right’ thing to do, isn’t it?”
He was a truly virtuous human who sacrificed and devoted himself for others—not a filthy hypocrite like Isabella.
Boom!
Whoooosh!
“Ugh!!”
Demian’s footsteps grew frantic as he dodged the cascading fireballs with nimble movements.
He kicked off lightly and jumped up to the second floor.
“Kyaaaah! P-please save me! Demian!”
A middle-aged woman so caked in makeup it was impossible to tell where the cosmetics ended and her face began rushed desperately toward Demian.
Whoooosh!
A massive fireball plummeted toward the woman.
“Ugh!”
Crash!
Demian wrapped his body around the middle-aged woman, who could barely run in her high heels, and took the brunt of the fireball on his back.
“Cough!”
Despite the stigma’s mana enveloping his body, a dizzying impact washed over him.
“Yeah. I thought you’d do something like that.”
Kwon O-jin looked up at Demian, who had thrown himself at the fireball to protect the woman, and laughed with a bitter edge.
“W-what are you doing?!”
Demian turned to Kwon O-jin with a bewildered expression.
He never imagined that Kwon O-jin, known as Noe-rang and revered as a hero throughout South Korea, would do something like this.
“Stop the attack! At this rate, everyone here will die!”
“So?”
“…Pardon?”
“What does it matter to me if they die?”
Kwon O-jin leisurely dodged the incoming fireballs and chuckled.
He recalled their figures, spewing hatred at Isabella, screaming for him to kill that witch immediately.
It didn’t matter if they died.
In fact, it would be a problem if they lived.
“You…!”
“More importantly, can you afford to be so relaxed?”
Kwon O-jin pointed at the people fleeing in all directions to avoid the fireballs.
Several of them were already engulfed in flames, writhing in agony.
“They’re all going to die like this, aren’t they?”
“Damn it!”
Demian cursed harshly and desperately swung his sword to protect the people amid the downpour of fireballs.
Slash! Slash!
As the sword wrapped in pure white light cleaved through the fireballs, they transformed into red crystalline chunks that fell to the ground.
The Libra stigma possessed such overwhelming power in countering mana-based attacks that no other stigma could compare.
‘There are too many attacks.’
It wasn’t merely the sheer quantity that posed a problem—each fireball possessed such devastating power that defending against them proved extraordinarily difficult.
Demian gnawed at his lip with an anxious expression, swinging his blade toward the cascading inferno.
If he abandoned those trembling behind him, repelling such an assault would be trivial.
‘But I cannot.’
His eyes blazed with unwavering conviction.
His sword began to radiate with brilliant luminescence as it cleaved through the fireballs.
“As expected, when the conditions align, there’s no awakener quite like my sister.”
Kwon O-jin watched Demian barely holding back the deluge of fireballs and let out a dry chuckle.
During his previous sparring match with Ha-eun.
Kwon O-jin had overwhelmed her in mobility, combat instinct, and close-quarters combat—everything except raw firepower.
‘In other words.’
In pure destructive output, Ha-eun surpassed Kwon O-jin.
Especially in indiscriminate, wide-area bombardment—there was no catching up to Ha-eun.
‘She can’t sustain this level of assault indefinitely, though.’
Even with a dragon’s heart, Ha-eun couldn’t unleash such overwhelming firepower without respite.
Surely even now, she was straining herself to maintain this barrage.
‘This should at least buy us some time—’
The thought was cut short.
A resonant hum filled the air.
The brilliant light flowing from Demian’s body intensified, and wings of pure radiance materialized behind him.
“Hah!”
With a sharp cry, Demian pushed off the second-floor railing and launched himself skyward.
The luminous wings unfurled completely as his body tore through the air at a terrifying velocity.
“What the hell.”
Kwon O-jin stared upward with an expression of utter disbelief.
Soaring into the sky, Demian was systematically cleaving every single fireball across the entire bombardment zone with his blade.
‘Is that even human?’
It was like using a sword to deflect raindrops on a rainy day to keep your clothes dry.
And not just his own clothes—everyone else’s as well.
The blade sang through the air with piercing shrieks.
A deafening sonic boom erupted.
The shockwave alone from movements that transcended the sound barrier caused the mansion to collapse, sending cascading debris scattering like pebbles.
Massive heaps of concrete rubble were being flung away by nothing more than the wake of his passage.
Kwon O-jin gazed upward with an expression of utter exasperation.
“Wow.”
“D-Demian…”
Even the fleeing civilians were transfixed, their eyes locked on Demian’s movements—a display of such transcendent prowess that it left them breathless.
Roughly thirty seconds passed.
The intensity of the fireballs began to noticeably wane.
Ha-eun’s mana reserves were running dry.
“Haa, haa.”
Even in such circumstances, Demian’s breathing was only slightly ragged as he leisurely cut through the weakened fireballs with an ease that belied the danger.
‘So that’s why he’s not just one of the Seven Stars.’
Kwon O-jin exhaled sharply and infused mana into the spear he gripped.
Demian had defended against Ha-eun’s attacks far better than anticipated, which had eaten up precious time.
“Still, we’re not too late.”
Crack, crackle!
Kwon O-jin felt the spear tremble in his grip and grinned wickedly.
Though he couldn’t speak or send telepathy.
True to an ego weapon with its own consciousness, he could sense something like the spear’s will.
“Come on then.”
He struck the ground roughly with the shaft of the spear.
The azure lightning that had been coiling around the pitch-black spear gathered at its blade.
Crackle!
What the azure lightning created was a single spectral war horse.
The same phantom steed that Living Armor had conjured.
Of course, what covered the phantom steed’s body was not the eerie teal flames that Living Armor’s creation bore, but brilliant azure lightning burning with radiant intensity.
“Let’s see what you can do.”
Mounted upon the spectral war horse with wings of light unfurled, Kwon O-jin aimed his spear at Demian, who had taken flight into the sky.
Crackle!
The phantom steed reared its front legs high and began charging ferociously toward Demian.
Rumble!
From atop the war horse, he leveled his spear.
The azure bolts that formed in the surrounding air converged at the spear’s tip like lightning striking a conductor.
“Ugh…!”
Demian’s expression twisted.
Perhaps those wondrous movements he’d displayed moments ago weren’t as effortless as they seemed.
Unable to evade Kwon O-jin’s strike that exploited the opening, he hastily raised his sword to block.
Azure lightning and pure white light collided.
Rumble!!!
A dizzying roar as if dozens of tons of explosives had detonated simultaneously.
The Colgrand Family Mansion, which had been as massive as a soccer field, crumbled to ruin, and the ground for hundreds of meters around sank several meters down as if a sinkhole had opened.
A sight that defied comprehension as a clash between humans.
As the dust cloud that had risen thickly began to settle, what came into view was.
“Cough.”
Demian, his left shoulder pierced through by the pitch-black spear, spitting blood.
In contrast to the wounded Demian, Kwon O-jin stood remarkably unscathed.
“D-Demian sir!”
“Noe-rang… defeated the Seven Stars?”
The family heads of the branch families watching the scene opened their mouths in shock.
Had circumstances been different, Kwon O-jin and Demian’s collision would have swept everyone away in its shockwave, leaving them all dead. But because Demian had positioned himself as a shield just before impact, only the area where they stood managed to escape the devastation.
“Ugh, cough! Cough!”
Demian gazed at the silent Kwon O-jin and offered a faint smile.
“It appears… I have won.”
Thud.
With those words, Kwon O-jin’s upright form tilted like a tumbler before his face crashed into the ground.
Though Demian’s visible wounds appeared more severe.
“Ugh, ah, ahhh.”
The mana flowing through my body refused to move at all.
Under the power of Libra, the mana crystallized within my circuits shattered violently from within, tearing me apart.
A horrific agony as though shards of blade flowed through my veins instead of blood.
I writhed on the ground like an insect, my body convulsing.
“O-Kwon O-jin!”
Isabella crawled toward my collapsed form.
With each movement, the curse’s influence wracked her body with a withering pain.
Yet she did not stop, reaching me and pulling me into her embrace.
Cradled in Isabella’s arms, I struggled to lift my head.
“Hah, hah. He’s absurdly strong, isn’t he.”
To think he could overwhelm me while protecting others in that situation.
I had expected him to be formidable, but Seven Stars was a monster beyond imagination.
“I’m sorry… Kwon O-jin. Because of me….”
Leaving Isabella with glistening eyes behind, I watched Demian slowly walking toward me.
Demian pulled the spear embedded in his shoulder and cast it to the ground, raising his sword.
“Now it ends.”
“…Yes.”
I nodded.
Just as he said, I had no strength left to move even a fingertip.
But.
“‘My role’ ends here.”
“…Pardon?”
I let out a chuckling laugh and nodded.
From the moment I first came here.
I never believed I could defeat Demian.
‘But even if I said it was impossible.’
I grabbed a concrete fragment scattered nearby and dragged it across my forearm.
Slash!
Blood streamed down my forearm.
I extended my bleeding forearm toward Isabella.
“Drink.”
If it was Isabella.
If it’s the Leech Queen.
She could bring down Justice’s Sword.

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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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