Not A Regressor - Chapter 373

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

I Am Not a Regressor Chapter 373
Black Star Constellation (9)
Crack!
The fist wrapped in black lightning touched Anselladus’s chest, and the Sacred Domain protecting his body tore like tissue paper.
The clenched fist pierced through his heart, passing clean through Anselladus’s body.
[Wh-what… is this…?]
Anselladus stared down at Kwon O-jin with eyes wide in shock.
He saw Kwon O-jin looking up at him, a bitter smile playing at his lips.
[Im… impossible…]
Cough.
Black powder poured from Anselladus’s mouth as if a sack of flour had burst open.
A Constellation’s body was not composed of blood and flesh, but the magical power of stigmas.
That stigmatic power was now being torn apart mercilessly by the black lightning and spilling out.
No one had seen exactly what Kwon O-jin had done.
The black lightning had flashed in the instant before his fist touched Anselladus’s chest—a fraction of a second.
From the perspectives of Lee Woo-hyuk, Sakaki, and Koshiro, it was an invisible angle.
Perhaps only Vega, being closest, could have seen it.
Needless to say.
It was no accident.
A lie constructed over ten minutes of limited time.
A carefully orchestrated deception designed for this decisive moment—this fatal blow.
Anselladus, who had firmly believed that Kwon O-jin could not penetrate his Sacred Domain without a Constellation’s blessing, or more precisely, Anselladus as he had been made to believe, had no way to evade the black lightning.
[Cough!]
Black powder continued to pour from between Anselladus’s lips.
The legs that had stood firm even through ten minutes of fierce combat wavered and buckled.
The trident fell from Anselladus’s hand as he collapsed onto one knee.
“Haa… haa…”
Though not to the degree of Anselladus with his pierced heart, Kwon O-jin’s condition was far from normal either.
The trident that had gouged into his abdomen had mangled his internal organs beyond recognition.
Had it not been for an Awakened One’s superhuman physiology, the wound would have been fatal the moment his abdomen was pierced.
In truth, he could have dodged that final attack.
‘But I had to go this far to deceive Anselladus.’
Anselladus was arrogant and conceited, yet he displayed a meticulous side in combat.
Or perhaps it was more accurate to call it cunning.
Setting traps to lure Kwon O-jin’s group in from the start, using his subordinates as bait to try to drag them into the swamp—all of it was part of that cunning.
Even in this ten-minute limited battle, while spouting nonsense about displaying the true power of a transcendent, he focused on defense and dragged out time until the Constellation’s blessing faded.
A lie is always sharpest when it hides between truths.
To completely deceive Anselladus, Kwon O-jin had no choice but to accept a mortal wound himself.
[Are… are you alright, my child?!]
Vega’s face twisted in anguish as she looked at Kwon O-jin’s abdomen pierced by the spear.
“…I’m fine.”
Though the wound was severe, with my water affinity skill, recovery wouldn’t be difficult.
Treating trauma of this magnitude would require tons of water, but with the Sea nearby, I wouldn’t lack for it.
‘The problem is that I’ve drifted quite far from the Sea.’
In my efforts to avoid the Swamp, I’d inevitably ventured deep inland.
Still, as long as I successfully dealt with Anselladus, it wasn’t a distance I couldn’t cover.
[Grrr, you… you bastard…!]
Anselladus glared at me with wide, furious eyes.
He pressed his hand against the pierced wound in his chest and struggled to rise, swaying.
His expression was one of utter disbelief as he stared at me.
[How… how did you wield that person’s power…!]
“….”
Had the Heavenly Demon not informed him that I possessed Heukcheon?
‘Well.’
If it were discovered that I possessed Heukcheon in a form as complete as—or perhaps even more perfected than—the Heavenly Demon’s own, it would place the Heavenly Demon in quite an awkward position, given that he’d been ruling the Black Star Constellation through Heukcheon’s power all this time.
[Ugh… damn… you…!]
Anselladus let out a pained groan, clutching his chest.
Even concentrating the stigma’s mana to heal the wound, recovery wouldn’t come easily.
“It won’t be easy to heal.”
The Black Lightning carried the power to disintegrate stigma mana.
For a Constellation whose body was composed of stigma mana rather than flesh, few attacks could be more lethal than this.
[Don’t… you dare… be arrogant…!]
Anselladus gnashed his teeth savagely, his eyes blazing with murderous intent as he glared at me.
An unbearable sense of humiliation, a burning rage, surged up, drowning out the agony of his pierced heart.
It wasn’t merely because the one who had inflicted such a grievous wound upon him was a ‘human’.
[You arrogant scrap of a star…!]
Memories surfaced.
The cold, contemptuous gazes of the other Constellations as they looked upon him.
He had appealed to them.
He had cried out desperately.
-Why, why don’t you understand! This is the only way to prevent the catastrophe!
Not all humans could accept stigmas.
Only a tiny fraction of humans could accept stigmas, and even among them, there were differences.
So he believed the most talented children should be given concentrated power, that this method alone could prevent the prophesied catastrophe.
He had believed that without sacrifice, there was no way to save the world.
But.
-Anselladus, Constellation of the Seahorse Constellation.
His convictions were brutally trampled by the other Constellations.
By fools who believed the world could be saved without accepting any sacrifice whatsoever.
-We expel you from the Sanctuary.
Thus he was banished from the world of stars.
Along with the contemptuous title of ‘satellite’.
Therefore.
[To you alone…!]
The pinnacle of those arrogant stars who had cast him out.
To the child of Polaris, called the most brilliantly shining star.
I could not afford to lose.
Uuuuuuung!
A torrent of black light erupted explosively.
[Kraaaah, ahhh!]
Anselladus’s anguished scream pierced the air.
Crack, crackle!
His body began shattering like glass, fracturing in countless places.
“That is….”
Kwon O-jin’s expression hardened rigidly.
The black light spreading widely around Anselladus’s body.
It was a scene Kwon O-jin had witnessed a few times before.
[I, I am unfolding the Sacred Domain!]
Sacred Domain deployment.
Not the infinitesimal Sacred Domain encircling one’s body, but a true ‘Sacred Domain’ in which a Constellation could fully exercise its authority.
It was the same realm Vega had unfolded to stop the Heavenly Demon before.
[F, flee, my child!]
Vega cried out in urgent desperation.
For a Constellation, unfolding a ‘Sacred Domain’ was no simple feat, even within the Sanctuary where Divine Law held no sway.
Precisely because it was so difficult, within that unique domain, a Constellation’s power was devastatingly absolute.
[Heh, heheheh. It is already too late to flee!]
Anselladus twisted his lips upward and spread both arms wide.
The black light pouring from him engulfed the space around Kwon O-jin completely.
[Haah, haah, haah!]
Even for Anselladus, relatively freed from Divine Law’s constraints, unfolding a Sacred Domain was a tremendous strain—his breath came in ragged gasps, rising to his throat.
Yet.
[B… behold, mortal.]
Still, he succeeded in trapping Kwon O-jin within his Sacred Domain.
Kuguguguung!
The earth trembled as water erupted explosively from within the black light, pouring forth.
[This is the Sacred Domain of Seahorse Constellation—the Dragon Palace.]
Water that had risen to his ankles surged past his waist and chest, completely swallowing Kwon O-jin’s body.
A place that had been solid ground mere seconds before transformed in the blink of an eye into the depths of the sea.
A miracle transcending the laws of physics by an immeasurable distance.
The expression on Kwon O-jin’s face, now trapped within the Sacred Domain unfolded by the Constellation, was.
[What the hell?]
Anselladus’s expression twisted.
He should have been trapped inside the Dragon Palace, suffocating and writhing in agony.
[Why… are you laughing?]
Kwon O-jin’s expression underwater was utterly composed.
No, more than merely composed.
A caustic sneer played at the corners of his mouth.
Anselladus narrowed his eyes at Kwon O-jin’s serene demeanor—one that seemed impossible for someone trapped within the Sacred Domain.
[Ah, can you hear me now?]
After gasping through the water several times, Kwon O-jin quickly grasped the technique and used the stigma’s mana to craft his voice.
[Huh… I didn’t expect this much, honestly.]
Kwon O-jin surveyed the Dragon Palace with unhurried ease.
True to its name, a colossal Divine Temple constructed from stigma mana loomed in the surrounding waters, and countless seahorse creatures wielding weapons encircled Kwon O-jin.
Their movements appeared incomparably swift compared to what he’d observed on land, likely due to the aquatic environment.
[Of all places, why choose underwater?]
[What do you mean by that?]
[Do you remember Sosuke?]
[…I do.]
Though he was dead now, he had been a child of considerable talent among those who inherited his stigma.
[Do you know how he died?]
[I don’t.]
I knew he was called an Executor and had led the other children, but since that was before the Constraint weakened, I never learned the details of his death.
[Is that so?]
Kwon O-jin shrugged and seized Anselladus’s spear still piercing through his abdomen, then wrenched it out with brutal force.
His mangled organs came free with the spear, scattering into the water.
[What are you doing?]
Anselladus stared at Kwon O-jin in incomprehension.
Even if one extracted the spear with utmost care, survival would be uncertain—yet he was pulling it out as carelessly as removing a nail from wood.
[You want to die before we even fight… huh?]
Anselladus’s expression hardened into rigidity.
The fist-sized hole in his abdomen was sealing itself in an instant.
Not just the wound in his belly—every laceration covering his body, from the largest gashes to the smallest cuts, vanished without trace.
[Well, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know.]
Kwon O-jin’s shoulders trembled with a sinister chuckle as his lips twisted into a savage grin.
[You’ll find out soon enough.]

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