Not A Regressor - Chapter 348

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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 348
Interlude – I Am Not a Regressor (3)
Whoooosh!
Flames danced.
They consumed the Subconscious Space, roaring with such ferocity that they seemed ready to devour the entire world.
“Gasp, gasp!”
Sweat trickled down my spine.
The Heavenly Demon, his entire form transformed into dark storm clouds, unleashed attacks as cunning as a viper and as savage as a starving beast.
But.
‘I have to endure. I must.’
If I died here.
All the effort I’d put into revealing the truth to Vega would crumble to dust.
Kwon O-jin breathed heavily, his gaze sharp as he glared at the Heavenly Demon.
Had I faced him directly, I would have had no chance of victory.
‘But this is my subconscious.’
A realm of consciousness, not reality.
Even if the actual gap between us was as vast as the difference between an ant and an anteater,
at the very least, I was the ‘master’ of this space.
‘If I can adjust the space according to my will.’
I watched the black flames rushing toward me and snapped my fingers sharply.
Rummmble!
A wall of dark storm clouds surged upward, blocking the flames.
“That’s it!”
There was no need to create lightning and fight in a space that wasn’t even real.
This was the Subconscious Space.
The dark storm clouds enveloping everything around me weren’t the Heavenly Demon’s—they were the clouds of Heukcheon that I possessed.
“Hup!”
Boom!
I drew a sharp breath and stomped my foot roughly.
Rumble! Crack!
The dark storm clouds surged and engulfed the Heavenly Demon.
I could feel the Heavenly Demon’s energy being absorbed through Heukcheon’s clouds.
“Pointless resistance.”
The Heavenly Demon frowned and waved his hand lightly.
The Heukcheon clouds that had been overwhelming him scattered in an instant.
“….”
I’d managed to escape the attack once, but the Heavenly Demon’s expression remained grim.
No matter how much of a Heavenly Demon he was, it was impossible for him to exert his full power in someone else’s subconscious—especially in mine, where I possessed a Heukcheon far more ‘complete’ than his own.
It was like fighting while carrying a block of iron instead of a sandbag.
“Still.”
The Heavenly Demon exhaled a low sigh, his eyes gleaming with an eerie blue luminescence as he fixed his gaze upon Kwon O-jin.
The dark storm clouds that composed his body parted, revealing teeth as white as fresh snow.
“You still have a long way to go.”
A guttural growl rumbled forth.
The Heavenly Demon’s form hurtled toward Kwon O-jin.
The distance collapsed in an instant, erupting into close-quarters combat.
A fist wrought of dark storm clouds lashed out at Kwon O-jin’s solar plexus.
“Ugh!”
Kwon O-jin’s body snapped backward like a shrimp, sent flying by the impact.
From a single blow alone, his internal organs seemed to rupture, blood surging up in a violent torrent.
‘No.’
This was not reality—it was the Subconscious Space.
Internal organs could not possibly exist here.
‘All the wounds I’ve sustained are nothing but fabrications of my own making.’
It was similar to when I had used ‘lies’ against myself before—I hadn’t actually been injured, yet the wounds appeared nonetheless.
‘Then.’
Kwon O-jin drew a deep breath, his eyes shut tight.
If all of this was merely a lie I had created myself.
“I am invincible.”
I need only layer a new lie atop the old one.
“I am immortal, and I feel no pain whatsoever.”
“…What are you doing?”
The Heavenly Demon regarded Kwon O-jin with an expression of utter bewilderment.
After fighting for so long, to suddenly see him engaging in self-hypnosis about invincibility and immortality—it drew an involuntary, hollow laugh.
“I am faster than light, and harder than steel.”
“Stop wasting time with pointless words and focus on the fight….”
A deafening roar tore through the air.
Kwon O-jin’s body was launched forward with a sound that threatened to rupture eardrums.
At a speed far exceeding the sound barrier, the Subconscious Space of dark storm clouds split apart like the Red Sea.
A velocity far surpassing what Kwon O-jin could achieve in ‘reality’.
His clenched fist slammed into the Heavenly Demon’s face.
A thunderous explosion erupted.
A sound that seemed impossible to come from a human fist.
Hundreds, thousands of meters of terrain composed of dark storm clouds caved inward as the Heavenly Demon’s body was hurled backward like a shell.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Heavenly Demon skipped across the ground like a stone across water.
A sickening crunch, a wet tearing sound.
Nearly half of the Heavenly Demon’s body, composed of dark storm clouds, vanished from a single strike.
Of course, the Heavenly Demon’s upper half, sent flying by the punch, had fully regenerated within mere seconds.
“Ugh! Cough, cough!”
The Heavenly Demon clutched his regenerated chest, gasping for breath—the impact hadn’t been completely nullified.
“What is this….”
The Heavenly Demon stared at Kwon O-jin with disbelieving eyes.
Just as I seemed about to mutter nonsense, I suddenly unleashed overwhelming power as if I were a completely different person.
“What? You can’t use this?”
“…Use what?”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“…?”
The Heavenly Demon furrowed his brow and tilted his head in confusion.
What was this sudden talk about lying?
“Ah, well. I struggled tremendously learning to master this myself.”
If the Heavenly Demon hadn’t undergone the same continuous training that Kwon O-jin had, it made sense that he couldn’t use it.
Even though both were the same ‘Kwon O-jin’.
Just as the Heavenly Demon couldn’t replicate everything Kwon O-jin could do, the reverse was equally true.
“You control your subconscious by deceiving yourself with lies…?”
The Heavenly Demon, who had been contemplating Kwon O-jin’s words from moments before, regarded him with an expression of utter absurdity.
To manipulate one’s subconscious by deceiving oneself with falsehoods.
The Heavenly Demon himself, having spent countless years in the Subconscious Space, understood better than anyone how preposterous such a notion was.
The subconscious wasn’t something you could control at will.
For example, if someone told you “don’t imagine an elephant,” what would you picture?
Even if you consciously didn’t want to imagine an elephant, you’d unconsciously conjure one anyway.
Sustaining injuries in the Subconscious Space operated on the same principle.
Since it wasn’t reality, you weren’t actually wounded—but because your subconscious judged it as “injured,” you would suffer wounds in this space of consciousness rather than reality.
‘And yet.’
Kwon O-jin was perfectly controlling that subconscious through ‘deception.’
“…Certainly.”
The Heavenly Demon twisted his lips and nodded.
“You’re not me, after all.”
Having witnessed a technique he couldn’t replicate, the Heavenly Demon let his arms fall limply, his expression hollow.
Whoooosh.
The black flames that had been raging fiercely withdrew back into his body.
“You weren’t trying to kill me?”
“I will kill you. However….”
At least not in the Subconscious Space.
Against Kwon O-jin, who could freely manipulate the subconscious, the Heavenly Demon—not even the master of this realm—had precious few options.
“…You’ll kill me after returning to reality?”
Kwon O-jin narrowed his eyes, fixing me with a piercing gaze.
I was feigning composure to the best of my ability, but inwardly, tension had parched my mouth completely.
Right now, I had no way to defeat the Heavenly Demon in actual reality rather than the Subconscious Space.
“That seems difficult for the moment as well.”
The Heavenly Demon placed his hand over his left chest with a bitter expression.
A deep, rumbling sound echoed—*krrrgh, krgh!*
As time dragged on, Heukcheon’s erosion had grown far too potent.
Even if I returned to reality, it would be difficult to regain my sanity for some time.
“Well, in the end, it’s just a matter of sooner or later.”
His eerie blue flames blazed as they fixed upon me.
“You have no right to protect your sister.”
Now that I understood he was a different existence than myself.
I could not leave him at Ha-eun’s side.
“We will meet again.”
*Krgh, krrrrgh.*
Like the breaking of dawn, the black storm clouds that had blanketed everything began to scatter gradually, and light seeped through the cracks.
“Whenever that may be, it will surely happen.”
The Heavenly Demon left those words behind before dissolving into the void like mist.
“Ugh!”
As the black storm clouds dispersed, my consciousness was forcibly pulled back to reality.
….
When I opened my tightly shut eyes, what lay before me was the ruins of Niflheim.
The tidal wave of black storm clouds that had surged up as if to swallow the world had vanished without a trace.
‘Where did he go?’
I squinted and activated the stigma of Canis Major Constellation to survey my surroundings, but I felt no trace of the Heavenly Demon’s presence anywhere.
“Phew.”
The tension drained away, and a deep fatigue crashed over me like a tidal wave.
“Hey, O-jin!”
I could see Ha-eun rushing toward me from the distance.
“Sister?”
“You, you bastard! You suddenly disappeared, and here you were the whole time?!”
Ha-eun seized me by the collar with a contorted expression.
When she heard from Riak that I had gone alone to block the tidal wave of storm clouds, her heart had nearly stopped from the shock.
“Ugh… hic! Sister, would you like my chest to become asphalt gum, you bastard?!”
“…What are you talking about?”
Ha-eun pulled me into an embrace and wept sorrowfully.
I placed my hand on her back and patted it gently, offering a faint smile.
—You have no right to be at your sister’s side.
The Heavenly Demon’s words cut sharply through my mind.
‘Perhaps he was right.’
Perhaps my greed had been too excessive.
Perhaps I had tried to bear far too much.
But.
“…Sister.”
“Yeah, why?”
Splurt!
Ha-eun blew her nose forcefully against Kwon O-jin’s shirt, then looked up at him with glistening eyes.
‘What in the world is this woman doing?’
Kwon O-jin grimaced at the thick mucus smeared across his clothes, then let out a soft chuckle.
This unguarded side of her—if anything embodied Ha-eun, it was this.
Kwon O-jin tightened his grip around Ha-eun’s waist.
‘I’m sorry, but…’
I had no intention of stepping away from her side.
“Stay by my side from now on.”
Even if another ‘me’ were to appear.
I swallowed the bitter rest of my words and buried my face in Ha-eun’s shoulder.
“Huh? W-what?”
Ha-eun’s eyes widened in bewilderment, darting about frantically.
“D-did I just… what? Did you just propose to me?”
That wasn’t what I meant at all.
“Hey, hey you bastard! This kind of thing needs to be, you know, somewhere more romantic! Right? With a ring too! You’re supposed to say it like that, not here and now like this, what am I supposed to do?!”
I didn’t propose.
“Anyway, you jerk. Saying something so strange all of a sudden…”
Ha-eun fanned her flushed cheeks with her hand.
She glanced around uncertainly before taking a small step back from Kwon O-jin, then carefully opened her mouth.
“I… well, I… okay.”
“…”
I hadn’t exactly proposed.
‘Well, I’ll just let this one slide.’
Kwon O-jin chuckled softly and gently pressed his lips against Ha-eun’s.
Not everything had been resolved.
In fact, nothing truly important had been resolved.
“Let’s go home.”
It was time to place a period on this long journey through the Demon Realm.

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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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