Not A Regressor - Chapter 352

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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 352
Starlight (4)
“Vega.”
My low voice echoed through the empty Divine Temple.
The Silver-haired Goddess stood with her back to me, as though she couldn’t hear my call.
Footstep.
One step.
I moved toward her.
[Stop.]
Uuuuuung!
A brilliant silver light blazed forth.
My body froze as though struck by an invisible wall blocking my path to Vega.
‘Sacred Domain.’
I carefully touched the transparent barrier blocking my way.
Crackle, crackle!
Even with the lightest touch, I felt a powerful repulsive force that threatened to tear my palm apart.
Vega spoke without sparing me a glance, her voice cold and measured.
[One more step forward, and you will be gravely wounded….]
“Huff.”
Without hesitation.
Without the slightest doubt.
I took a large step toward the Sacred Domain Vega had erected.
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
“Cough! Hack!”
Blue lightning struck my entire body.
Like throwing myself against a high-voltage fence, a tremendous torrent of electricity tore through me.
My body, already ravaged from the battle with Riak, was violently hurled backward.
Terrible pain erupted as wounds not yet healed tore open anew, blood soaking through my clothes.
[My, my child!]
Vega spun around and rushed toward me, but then she bit her lip hard and turned back.
[Didn’t I tell you that you would be hurt if you came closer!]
She cried out in reproach.
I staggered to my feet.
And took another step.
I moved toward Vega’s Sacred Domain.
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
As I touched the transparent barrier, I was violently repelled backward once more.
[Don’t, don’t come!]
“…Vega.”
I pressed down on my trembling legs with my hands and pushed myself up.
I could resist Vega’s Sacred Domain to some extent if I used Heukcheon’s power, but I chose not to.
Suppressing the pain, I took another step toward her.
Crackle, crackle, crackle!
Blue lightning blazed as my body rolled across the ground.
[…How…]
Vega, reduced to tatters on the floor, turned to look at me and bit her trembling lips.
The image of my wounded form burned into her mind and refused to fade.
[How… how can you refuse to listen to me so stubbornly!]
She gazed at me with sorrowful eyes and clenched her fists.
[Did I not tell you not to come!]
It hurts.
With every word she spoke, her chest throbbed as though pierced by an awl.
[Now that you’re here… what could you possibly have to say now!]
She cried out as though wailing.
[You deceived me! From the beginning, always!]
From the moment we first met at the Gate that day.
I had deceived her all along.
I had hidden the truth that I was the master of Heukcheon, facing her behind a mask.
Yes.
The image of me she had cherished in her heart.
The image of me that had made her heart ache with longing.
It had all been nothing but a masked illusion.
[I have nothing more to say to you!]
A searing sense of betrayal gripped her chest.
Every memory I had shared with her flashed through her mind like a panorama.
The memory of when we first met.
The image of him touching his own cheek with trembling hands, saying he wanted to see her.
Even the image of him lamenting the future he could not protect, vowing this time to surely save the world.
With each page of memory that turned, the thought that it had all been lies threatened to drive her mad.
[I… I….]
Vega could not finish her words, only biting her lips.
“….”
I approached her slowly.
Without a single excuse on my lips, only in silence.
[Enough!]
Vega twisted her expression fiercely and reached out her hand toward me.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
A torrent of blue lightning shot toward me.
Lightning of a magnitude entirely different from what had been used in the Demon Realm.
The lightning of Lyra Constellation, which could only manifest in the Sanctuary free from Divine Law’s constraints, surged toward me as though to swallow me whole.
Boom!
Without any particular defense, I took the torrent of lightning directly into my body.
My body was violently hurled backward and slammed into the Divine Temple wall.
The acrid stench of charring flesh.
My skin contorted grotesquely across my entire body, and the lightning that had penetrated deep within had cooked my internal organs.
[Ah….]
Vega approached me with a deathly pale expression, her eyes fixed on where I lay embedded in the temple wall.
[Why, why didn’t you defend yourself!]
That attack had been dangerous enough to potentially cost me my life.
There was no way I wouldn’t have known that.
Why, exactly.
“….”
Without answering, I pushed myself up using my spear like a cane.
“Cough!”
Blackened blood poured from my throat.
Charred fragments of my organs mixed with the blood and rolled across the floor.
‘Ah.’
I might actually die from this.
It was no wonder she was called the Constellation of Polaris—Vega’s power, freed from her constraints, was truly awe-inspiring.
‘Still.’
One more step.
I moved toward her.
The Sacred Domain blocking my path repelled me, and I rolled across the ground again.
“Ugh, ah.”
I no longer had the strength to stand.
Twang!
I raised my trembling arm and fired the wire shooter toward the ceiling.
Like a puppet suspended by strings, I pulled myself up while dangling from the wire.
[Stop, please stop.]
Vega retreated hesitantly, backing away.
I grasped at my fading consciousness and took another step toward her.
My wire-bound body drew closer to the Sacred Domain with each step, one after another.
Just as I was about to be repelled by the Sacred Domain again.
[Stop! Enough of this now!]
Her voice rang out through the Divine Temple like a desperate cry.
[Yes, you said you had something to tell me, didn’t you? Go ahead and say it!]
What could he possibly want to convey while being reduced to tatters like this?
Vega glared at me with fierce, blazing eyes.
“….”
I slowly lifted my head.
I forced my blood-stained lips to move, squeezing out the words with difficulty.
“I’m sorry.”
With a fading smile, I took a step toward her.
“I’m sorry for deceiving you all this time.”
I knew that an apology wouldn’t resolve anything.
I didn’t even believe I could be forgiven for having deceived her.
But.
I still wanted to say it.
I felt I had to say it.
[In such a state, is all you can say just that you’re sorry?]
Vega stared at me with an expression of utter disbelief.
My body was torn by fingernails, scorched by lightning, reduced to rags.
To sustain wounds so severe that death would be no surprise, only to offer a single word of apology—it was absurd.
“Yes.”
I nodded, my expression somehow relieved.
As if there was nothing more to say.
[This….]
Vega’s delicate brows twisted as she raised her arm.
[You, you, you foolish bastard!]
Crack!
She slapped my cheek and seized my collar roughly.
[There must be a reason you deceived me!]
“….”
[Make some excuse! Tell me it wasn’t what you wanted, that you had no choice!]
Her voice trembled thinly.
A transparent tear streamed down Vega’s cheek.
[Why… why won’t you say anything?]
The strength drained from her grip on my collar.
Vega collapsed to the ground, tears flowing freely.
[Sob… sob.]
When I first realized he had deceived me.
When I learned that everything I had seen of him was a lie.
Overwhelmed by betrayal, I had sworn never to meet him again.
[So… so I even closed the doors of the Divine Temple….]
Like the life I had before meeting him.
I spent my time in the empty Divine Temple.
Meeting no one.
Speaking to no one.
As I always had.
Alone.
[I thought that would be fine…]
I had simply returned to a life from just a few years ago.
My meeting with Kwon O-jin could be dismissed as a lie, just as he said.
All of it was illusion, all of it was false.
Surely solitude had always been far more familiar to me than anything else.
[Your image… it kept haunting me.]
The image of Kwon O-jin, branded into my mind like a mark, refused to fade no matter what I did.
Rather, with each passing moment, it only grew more vivid.
[So when you came seeking me… I opened the door without even realizing it.]
Vega trembled with a self-deprecating smile on her lips.
The moment I realized Kwon O-jin had arrived at the entrance of the Divine Temple to meet me.
When he knocked hesitantly on the temple door.
Despite Riak’s earnest plea never to open it, I opened the temple door immediately.
[Sigh. Truly… what a foolish woman I am. To be deceived so thoroughly… and yet unable to let you go.]
Vega grasped Kwon O-jin’s hand with a lonely smile, his lips pressed firmly shut.
I had sworn never to meet him again, never to exchange words with him.
But I had known from the beginning that was impossible.
Kwon O-jin had already become an inseparable thorn in my life.
[Please… say something, anything.]
I pleaded, clasping his hand between both of mine.
Why he had been lying to me all this time.
Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter.
[Just say you had no choice…]
“No.”
Kwon O-jin, who had been silent, slowly shook his head.
No choice?
At first, when he knew nothing about Vega, perhaps that could be excused, but later was different.
“I did have a choice.”
There would have been countless opportunities to speak.
Vega would have believed him whether he possessed Heukcheon or not.
The reason he hadn’t spoken until now was simply because he was a coward.
[…]
Vega’s expression hardened rigidly.
She turned her head away with bitter eyes.
[You are truly stubborn.]
Had I not already said that I opened the temple door myself?
[Even if it were a lie, if you had just said so, I would have believed your words…]
“No.”
Kwon O-jin placed his hand on Vega’s shoulder and continued.
“I won’t lie anymore.”
I did not come to her with pathetic excuses.
“You said you couldn’t give up, didn’t you?”
I gently grasped Vega’s chin as she turned her head away, avoiding my gaze.
“I feel the same way.”
Drawing her chin toward me, I pressed my lips against hers.

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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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