Not A Regressor - Chapter 347

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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 347
Interlude – I Am Not a Regressor (2)
Crack!
A brutal fist slammed across my cheek.
Even though this was the Subconscious Space, not reality, my mouth split open and the metallic taste of blood flooded my senses.
I looked up at the Heavenly Demon straddling me, raining down punches in a frenzy.
‘The roles have reversed.’
Despite the sharp pain spreading through my torn mouth, my lips curled upward of their own accord.
The fact that the usually serene Heavenly Demon was this agitated told me everything—his plan had completely fallen apart.
“You! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”
The Heavenly Demon brought his fist down, his face twisted in fury.
“I could have ended it all!”
If I had only absorbed Vega Star.
I could have seized control of Heukcheon and obliterated it.
I could have brought down the curtain on this endless, seemingly eternal performance of waiting.
But.
But.
But.
“You! You ruined everything, you bastard!”
Vega chose to bless me instead of throwing herself into Heukcheon.
The blessing of Vega Star dwelling within me alone was insufficient to obliterate Heukcheon.
When would such an opportunity come again?
Perhaps it would never come again.
Even now, my Heukcheon was raging wildly, consuming me from the very soul.
“This was the last time! The final chance!”
The final chance to protect Ha-eun.
The final opportunity to save her from the approaching annihilation had slipped away in vain.
“Why, why, why did you say you weren’t a regressor?!”
He screamed as if in anguish, as if wailing.
Gripping my collar as I lay fallen, he poured out his accumulated despair.
“Then… it wouldn’t have been this way.”
Tears streamed down the Heavenly Demon’s cheeks.
Despair swirled in his parched, worn gaze.
“Others might be able to do it… but not you. You couldn’t have done this.”
Even if our lives were different.
Even if our paths diverged.
If you were the same Kwon O-jin as me.
“You… had to be me.”
The Heavenly Demon’s grip on my collar weakened and fell away.
His slumped shoulders trembled faintly.
Kwon O-jin wiped away the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, his sunken eyes gazing up at the Heavenly Demon.
“You had to be me?”
Wasn’t that a strange thing to say?
I could understand his rage at having his long-laid plans ruined.
I could even understand, stretching generosity to its limits, his willingness to sacrifice Vega to protect Ha-eun.
Had I been in his position, I might have harbored similar thoughts.
But.
‘You had to be me.’
My eyes narrowed.
That strange sense of alienation I’d felt when first encountering the Heavenly Demon.
The unsettling sensation of gazing upon a mannequin that bore an uncanny resemblance to a human resurfaced.
“…You are.”
Distorted somewhere.
Something twisted within.
Misaligned, contorted.
The grotesque revulsion one might feel encountering a person who walks on their arms instead of their legs.
Staring into the trembling pupils of the Heavenly Demon, I understood the source of that revulsion.
“Ha.”
A hollow laugh escaped between my lips.
I shoved the Heavenly Demon off me and rose to my feet.
With eyes turned cold as ice, I looked down upon the Heavenly Demon, whose head hung like a puppet with severed strings.
“You were trying to become me.”
Like parents projecting their unfulfilled dreams onto their children.
He had been projecting an impossible dream, an ideal, onto me.
Even if he were to perish alongside Heukcheon.
With the thought that ‘Kwon O-jin’ would live on.
“So that’s why you were so obsessed with us being the same?”
“…”
“I had to be you, didn’t I?”
Only then could he find solace in his own wretched demise.
Even if I died.
I could live on as you.
“…Shut your mouth.”
The Heavenly Demon glared at me with a face twisted like a yaksha’s.
“What do you know? How dare you speak such things.”
I had defied the natural flow of time and returned to the past to save Ha-eun.
My mind was consumed by the raging Heukcheon, and I lost precious memories one by one.
Within those eroding memories, I clung to a sliver of hope and survived.
Someday.
The hope that I could be together with Ha-eun.
“I… I…”
But then.
I came to understand.
That only my death could protect her.
That the Heavenly Demon was nothing but an obstacle standing in the way of her happiness.
“If I didn’t do this…”
The Heavenly Demon collapsed to his knees.
With his head bowed, he clenched his fists so hard they trembled.
“…I couldn’t endure it.”
Without projecting myself onto Kwon O-jin.
Without thinking of you as myself.
I couldn’t bear the crushing despair that weighed upon him.
“…”
Kwon O-jin stared down at the kneeling Heavenly Demon, his lips pressed firmly shut.
A bitter taste spread across his tongue.
He couldn’t affirm his life, but he could understand it.
If he had been in that position, he would have thought the same way.
“Perhaps we both started the same way.”
I don’t know whether human nature is inherent or changes through living.
I hadn’t received enough education or devoted myself to study to answer such philosophical questions.
But one thing was certain.
“I will not walk your path.”
I would not follow the same road he had traveled.
Because the path I had walked thus far.
Was far too different to retrace his steps.
“I will not become you.”
The words fell like a sword’s edge, resolute and final.
“…”
The Heavenly Demon’s shoulders trembled beneath his bowed head.
Kurrrrrgh.
Black clouds of shadow began spreading from his left chest, gradually consuming his entire form.
“…Is that so?”
The Heavenly Demon slowly lifted his bowed head.
In eyes that had been barren as a desert, a fierce blue flame ignited savagely.
“Then I’ll have to change my plans.”
He twisted his lips into a smile and slowly raised his arm.
Whoooosh!
Black flames as dark as pitch erupted from his palm.
The dark fire engulfed Kwon O-jin.
“Ugh!”
Kwon O-jin rolled his body urgently to evade the flames.
Though this was the Subconscious Space rather than reality, he could sense it instinctively.
‘If I touch it, I’m done for.’
Either he would be trapped forever in the Subconscious Space, or he would burn along with this entire realm.
A premonition flashed through his mind—no matter what, he couldn’t survive unscathed.
“Ugh!”
Crackle, crackle, crackle!
Azure lightning erupted and collided with the black flames.
“That won’t work.”
With the Heavenly Demon’s scornful voice, the azure lightning scattered and dissipated into the void.
“This is insane!”
Despite clashing with the lightning, the black flames showed not a single blemish or hesitation.
It was like throwing a cotton ball in front of a speeding truck.
“Burn brighter.”
With that soft incantation.
Whoooosh!
The black flames began to swirl, consuming everything around them.
Like living organisms, the flames drifted freely through the air, converging on Kwon O-jin from all directions.
“Gahhh!”
Kwon O-jin swallowed hard and desperately dodged the incoming flames.
‘This is…’
Watching the flames roam freely through the void, he bit his lip.
A sight all too familiar to Kwon O-jin.
“Why do you have the stigma of the Dragon’s Heir?!”
He cried out while rolling his body away urgently.
Whoosh!
The black flames swept across the spot where he had been standing moments before.
“I wonder why myself.”
The Heavenly Demon smiled bitterly and snapped his fingers.
The flames that had been raging wildly through the air suddenly vanished.
And then.
Whoooosh!
A colossal barrier of fire erupted around Kwon O-jin.
“Damn it!”
No matter where he looked, there was nowhere to escape.
‘If Vega’s power won’t work!’
Black lightning surged from Kwon O-jin’s hand with terrifying force.
The lightning collided with the wall of flames and dispersed far too easily for its intensity, yet it carved out a small gap—just barely wide enough for a person to slip through.
“Ugh!”
Kwon O-jin threw himself through the gap created by the lightning.
My entire body was scorched as I passed through the veil of flames.
Excruciating pain radiated from my burn-ravaged skin.
“Haa, haa!”
Kwon O-jin glared at the Heavenly Demon while gasping for breath.
I had anticipated this much.
Yet the gap between myself and the Heavenly Demon was so vast it was almost laughable.
“Hmm.”
Despite displaying such overwhelming dominance,
the Heavenly Demon frowned, gazing at the black flames dancing upon his palm as if displeased.
“It seems difficult to exert my full power within another’s subconscious.”
At that quiet murmur, a chill raced down my spine.
Difficult to exert full power?
That was just now?
‘…Damn it.’
Imagining how much wider the gap would become if the Heavenly Demon unleashed his true strength, my nape prickled with dread.
The Heavenly Demon turned toward Kwon O-jin and advanced with deliberate steps.
“You said earlier that you were trying to become me?”
There was no need for that anymore.
Kwon O-jin and I were different.
You were not me.
“You’ve accumulated too many precious things.”
Even though I could end everything,
the reason Kwon O-jin revealed the truth to Vega was because she was precious to him.
It wasn’t just Vega.
“Riak and Cassia… and Isabella, was it?”
Ha.
A cold sneer escaped the Heavenly Demon’s lips.
“You couldn’t even protect a single person, and yet you’re being greedy?”
He shot Kwon O-jin a glare with blazing eyes.
“The fact that you can stand beside your sister now is entirely because I helped you.”
If I hadn’t sent Lee Shin-hyuk to the past and given him the Fate-Reversing Star,
Kwon O-jin wouldn’t even be standing here now.
“Everything you’re enjoying! Everything you possess! All the laughter, the chatter, the joy!”
Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble!
The Subconscious Space trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
“All, all, all of it!!! Exists because I was here!”
Desolate blue flames fixed their gaze upon Kwon O-jin.
“…That’s enough. You’re no longer needed.”
Crackle, crackle, crackle.
Black clouds completely consumed his form.
“You don’t deserve to stand beside her.”
The Heavenly Demon, his entire form transformed into roiling black clouds, spat the words at Kwon O-jin.

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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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