The Regressor Can Make Them All - Chapter 576
Chapter 576
The Three Dogs were fence-sitters, who had fought until the very end of the world. They were Se-Hoon’s comrades, people whose names carried both countless honors and countless infamies. They were people who had a love-hate relationship with Se-Hoon, despite Se-Hoon never officially saying such.
And to the three who were in the present, the Three Dogs were people they had crossed paths with from time to time up until now.
They had met the Dogs in dreams and been taught techniques, experienced their power firsthand through Se-Hoon’s Dream Manifestation, and had even gotten the opportunity to fight their illusions that Se-Hoon recreated.
That was why, to the three in the present, the Three Dogs were teachers who had guided them, pioneers who had walked the path ahead of them, and…
Clang!
They were also rivals to surpass.
“Hmph…!”
Sung-Ha’s two short spears scattered flames and darkness as they seized control of the area, while the Mad Dog’s twin short spears that were wreathed in dark crimson fire drove straight in from head-on.
Woong!
An explosive shockwave erupted the moment the four spearheads collided, tearing everything around them apart. Instead of canceling each other out, the two forces had resonated and amplified.
Why? Because the two shared the same framework—the Inferno Ring—and the same root known as “Yeom Sung-Ha.” The phenomenon created a field of destruction that no one but Sung-Ha and the Mad Dog could endure.
Yet two shadows had slipped in without a sound.
Crash!
Hundreds—no, thousands—of ice shards blossomed in midair. Created through Frost Alchemy, the shards crashed into one another and shattered without pause, creating a frigid storm of fragments that pulverized everything within several hundred meters.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
Yet, despite the unending blizzard of razor-sharp fragments whirling around them, Amir and the Frost Dog slashed nonstop with their daggers. Neither put up any defense—only the bare minimum of evasive movements—as aimed for the vital points of the other. Sword-dance-like acrobatics, where a single mistake meant death, were unfolding in the center of the storm.
Meanwhile, in contrast to the furious exchanges played out on a knife’s edge at the center of the battlefield, Luize and the Blast Dog were simply staring at each other in silence.
“…”
“…”
BOOM!
The strength of Incantation Magic lay in rapid activation, skipping any complex spell chants, and the flexibility to respond instantly to any situation. That was why Luize normally fired off incantation after incantation to keep the pressure on when fighting a mage, all to leverage that advantage.
However, that no longer applied when the opponent was another Incantation Mage.
Rumble-
When both sides used the same Incantation Magic, seizing the initiative with speed alone was no longer possible. However, if one side could react to what they saw, then there was no chance the opponent couldn’t. Thus, there was no real advantage.
That was why battles between Incantation Mages came down to who could read the other’s moves better—which meant it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say the outcome was decided before the fight even began.
RUMBLE!
Countless clashes had unfolded inside their two minds, and that alone had synchronized the mana on the battlefield to project faint afterimages.
If Sung-Ha died, then Amir lived. If the Mad Dog lived, then the Frost Dog died. The outcomes shifted ceaselessly depending on Luize and the Blast Dog’s choices. Over and over, countless variables layered over the battlefield—until, at last, everything reflected a single result.
“Set-”
The two Incantation Mages began seizing control of the surroundings with the same incantation.
Flames spun faster as a frigid cold spread. Light vanished from the surroundings as darkness tightened like a noose. Gravity flipped from moment to moment. The laws of physics were overturned without pause.
Creak!
The laws of the world were rewritten again and again by the two. And amidst all that, on the chaotic battlefield, the two spearmen and two assassins had lunged at the same time to settle it.
Whoosh–BOOM!
When Sung-Ha’s flame-engulfed short spear pierced the air, Amir immediately kicked the Frost Dog forward, shoving him towards the incoming spear. However, the Frost Dog used the Mad Dog’s spear shaft as a foothold to twist his body in the air, allowing him to slip past the spearhead narrowly.
Crack
But that wasn’t all. When he passed, the web-like ice around him latched onto Sung-Ha’s short spear. It created a mere split-second opening, yet the Mad Dog’s short spear was already surging toward Sung-Ha’s throat.
Seeing that, Amir hurriedly conjured an ice wall to protect Sung-Ha—but it wasn’t enough to stop the Mad Dog’s strike.
CLANG!
Resonance burst from the twin spear tips, instantly shattering the ice wall into fragments. Thus, left without protection, Sung-Ha was impaled through the neck faster than he could swing his spear.
Splurt!
With his eyes wide open, streams of blood started spraying from his throat. The Mad Dog then twisted his wrist to finish the cut completely—
“Deflect.”
The Blast Dog’s incantation wrenched the Mad Dog’s short spear off in a completely different direction.
CLANG!
Sung-Ha’s counterstrike—aiming for the crown of the Mad Dog’s head—was barely knocked aside, grazing the Mad Dog’s temple instead. Following up, Amir swung his dagger toward Mad Dog’s exposed neck without pause.
In the fleeting moment when the ice wall blocked the Three Dogs’ line of sight, Luize had shoved Sung-Ha into a gap at the boundary, and Amir had set up an ice clone as a decoy to trick Mad Dog.
Got him…!
Thanks to that, Amir’s ice dagger had touched the Mad Dog’s nape and was carving dow—
“Escape.”
Whoosh! Crash!
Sung-Ha and Amir were blasted backward, narrowly missing the ice debris that scattered where they had been standing. Because of the shockwave Luize released, the ice wires that the Frost Dog had laid around the Mad Dog were all shattered and revealed.
“…”
It was a flawless setup, one so precise that if Luize hadn’t intervened, Amir might have been sliced to pieces before he could fully take the Mad Dog’s head.
To think that they had just faced a tactic that used even a comrade’s life as bait… the three stared at the Dogs with hardened expressions. Likewise, the Three Dogs had retreated as well, all watching them warily due to the new abilities that the trio were now able to wield.
The fight had gone on for less than five minutes, but both sides understood instinctively: it had been a fight of the countless butterfly effects Se-Hoon had caused and the exchanges that had crossed time and space along the way. Those experiences had made the new trio grow to this point—where they now possessed strength that could stand toe-to-toe with the past.
“…”
Still, with only their own strength, it might take hours, maybe even days, of nonstop fighting with no decisive conclusion. So, in the end, what would decide victory wasn’t the three of them.
Rather, it was the power of the fourth comrade of both sides—the same man—who wasn’t currently participating.
Woong!
In other words, the artifacts Se-Hoon had forged for them.
The Mad Dog’s twin short spears—Red Extinction and Dark Blossom—crossed, scattering dark crimson flames.
CRACK-
The Frost Dog’s twin daggers—Zayed and Sakin—froze his arms as he compressed the cold.
Woong-
The Blast Dog’s staff—Yggdrasil—amplified her synesthetic mindscape, making the surrounding world tremble.
The Three Dogs each held a masterwork that Se-Hoon had poured his heart into back then: Aspirant-tier equipment that turned them into Harbinger-slayers.
Facing the Dogs, whose true strength was surfacing thanks to those weapons, the trio’s expressions hardened even further.
“We’re… done for.”
“Indeed…”
Until now they could still respond somehow by combining forces, but now they’d been left far behind. To make up for the gap, both Amir and Sung-Ha made the same calculation, wondering if someone would need to sacrifice themselves.
But Luize, eyes still on the Three Dogs, spoke before they could finish their calculations. “Hey. If it’s one-on-one… do you guys think you can pull it off?”
At Luize’s sudden question, Sung-Ha and Amir looked at the Mad Dog and Frost Dog respectively, then gave an answer of absolute certainty with no hesitation.
“Of course.”
“As if we’d lose.”
“…Good.”
Luize pulled out a thick encyclopedia—Akasha—from the Ascension Ring.
“Then I’m leaving the rest to you.”
Swish!
Akasha opened wide, vomiting countless letters into the air to form a single sentence.
“My past self becomes a trial for my present self.”
A sentence so vague it was almost meaningless. Under normal circumstances, not even the Seeker’s World Alteration[1] could have made that into a law. However, where they currently were—within the Forest where time and space were tangled—things were far, far different.
Woong!
Akasha’s sentence shone crimson as it spread outward, strengthened by the Law of Repentance, letting Luize seize part of the control over the Forest of Repetition. Yet that wasn’t the end as the power dwelling in the Ascension Ring tore open the sky above the area Luize had claimed, forcing it wide open.
“Terra!”
“Generating a trial!”
Terra, administrator of the Towers of Heroes, delivered a new trial upon them.
BOOM!
A pure-white tower dropped from the sky, golden waves bursting from its peak. Unable to resist that tremendous light, the trio and the Three Dogs vanished without a trace into it.
[The ‘Turning Point of the Future’ is now open.]
A new trial had begun.
***
Whoosh-
A fierce wind swept past. Beneath a cloudless night sky, the forest swayed like waves as the ash of a cinder-choked ruin spiraled up into the heavens.
“This place is…”
Sung-Ha stared blankly at the new scenery he abruptly found himself in.
Step- Step-
“This is where I lost everything.” A voice, familiar yet strange, answered Sung-Ha.
Arriving beside him, the Mad Dog gazed calmly at the former main hall of the Flame Sect, now merely piles of ash. His hands and feet were wrapped in bandages, and he was dressed in worn martial robes.
“It’s also… where my greatest regret remains.”
The Mad Dog, having regained his original form from the black shadow, wore a lonely expression.
“…”
Sung-Ha turned his head away in silence, also looking out over the ruins.
“Just like you, I killed my master here after he’d defected into a demon. But back then… unlike you, I was a complete mess.”
Without Se-Hoon, the Mad Dog had been unable to stabilize the Black Flame Wheel and resolve the succession struggle. He was threatened again and again over the position of heir, using the instability of the Inferno Ring as the pretext. And with Yeom Jin-Hyun held hostage, he had no way to refuse the unreasonable missions he was constantly assigned.
Like that, in the world Sung-Ha knew not, the Mad Dog lived an isolated life within the Flame Sect, rotting slowly day by day—until it was all brought to an end by Yeom Jin-Hyun, who had become a demon and slaughtered the leadership.
“I had thought it was all caused by the Sect Master’s greed, yet Master told me not to blame the Sect. He said the reason we met such a miserable end… was simply because we lacked strength.”
“…”
“That’s why I wanted to become strong. Because I didn’t want to be taken from again. Because I wanted to prove that my master’s final lesson was right.”
The Mad Dog’s expression turned bitter, recalling the day he killed the demonized Yeom Jin-Hyun and swore that oath.
“But seeing how that choice became my greatest regret… maybe I did it because I couldn’t bear to admit my master’s disgrace.”
The Mad Dog turned to face Sung-Ha, the regret he carried to the end—and the wish left there—playing constantly in his mind.
“Thinking coldly, I should throw away all my attachments and entrust the future to you. But—”
“Leaving it to someone weaker than me wouldn’t sit right?” Sung-Ha finished for him, cutting him off as he met the Mad Dog’s eyes. “Isn’t that so?”
While the two had lived completely different lives, the root was still the same: the man known as Yeom Sung-Ha—himself.
Feeling that anew, the Mad Dog let out a short laugh. “Ha… Yeah. I’m glad we understand each other. Those guys never get it no matter how many times I explain.”
“It’s a bit frustrating. We’ll just have to indulge them.”
As the two talked, using a specific manner that would have made the blood pressure of anyone listening spike, they simultaneously tightened their grips on their short spears.
“I couldn’t control Master’s despair… or my own rage. You, though, I know you’ll be different.”
Woong!
Red Extinction and Dark Blossom rang with resonance, creating flames that rose throughout the ruins of nothing but ash to encircle them both.
“So prove it. Prove that my choice was wrong—that your future is RIGHT!”
FWOOOOOSH-
The flames surged, overwhelmingly amplified by the Aspirant-tier spears resonating with the Mad Dog’s power.
So this… is Mad Dog’s true wish…
Facing the blazing aura that felt like it could burn the world itself away, Sung-Ha felt more bitter than fear.
The Mad Dog, unable to save his master or himself, had clung to the only thing left and driven it through to the end. His life steeped in regret, the only wish the Mad Dog now had was one: to have his choice denied head-on.
It was a wish that could only be fulfilled by him—the Sung-Ha of the present—who had made the correct choice and changed the future with the Regressor’s help.
“…Phew. Fine.”
Sung-Ha raised his own weapon. The already complete darkness-mana short spear Shadowgrief and the fire-mana short spear that was still unfinished. Compared to the Mad Dog, who wielded two completed weapons, he was far behind.
And yet Sung-Ha didn’t believe he’d lose.
He said it would be complete the moment I awakened my Unique Skill.
Granted to only one person in this world, a Unique Skill was created through the definition of the self, of an origin that would never change. Because of that, right here and now, facing himself, was the perfect time to solidify that Unique Skill.
“I’ll grant that wish of yours instead.”
Hearing those words, the Mad Dog grinned at Sung-Ha’s declaration. Then, in the next moment, the two of them almost simultaneously swung their short spears as they drew their Inferno Rings.
Fwoosh!
Red Extinction and Dark Blossom crossed and collided, cracks racing through their shafts with each collision. And soon enough…
CRACK!
Both shattered into pieces that scattered in every direction. However, the fragments all quickly turned into dark crimson flames that were then sucked into the Mad Dog’s Inferno Ring.
The ring, now bearing Red Extinction and Dark Blossom, accelerated at tremendous speed until a violent resonance was unleashed.
Rumble-
The world shook; the trial created by the Tower was quivering as though it were about to collapse. It was clear the Mad Dog’s Inferno Ring had reached the pinnacle of destruction that could threaten even the laws of the world.
“Manifestation of Silent Extinction.”
Woong!
The Mad Dog unleashed the synesthetic mindscape skill embedded in Red Extinction and Dark Blossom. With it, the limits of his Unique Skill, Complete Source Resonance, were lifted. Now, the Mad Dog could maintain the resonance in a semi-permanent state and even amplify the power within the Inferno Ring without end.
A transcendent force that could match even the Perfect Ones burned fiercely inside that ring of flame—a truth that made Sung-Ha clench his two short spears tightly.
I can’t win with the same resonance.
That power and multiplier of amplification… made comparison meaningless. So, in that case, what he had to pursue was something beyond resonance: his own road into a new future.
Woong!
The Inferno Ring, his root and his beginning; the Shadow Ring, his new creation. What those two shared was the fact that he had accepted—no, resigned himself to accepting. It was the idea that his attribute mana, Crimson Flame Soul and Nightshade Soul, could not mix. For that reason, he instead balanced them with two spears, making flame and darkness resonate and repeatedly merge in a roundabout way.
Do I have to split them like that?
The flames his master taught him and the darkness in his own heart—both defined him. However, bound by the concept of elemental mana, he had distinctly separated them because he hadn’t had the confidence to contain both.
But now he did.
What defines me… isn’t the world’s laws. What defines me has only ever been one thing: the law I set for myself.
The moment that conviction took root and his own law was defined within him, cracks spread across his unfinished fire-mana short spear.
Clang!
Bursting into red light, the unfinished fire-mana short spear compressed around Shadowgrief to fully reconstruct both.
In the end, what formed was a single long spear of interwoven black and red.
“That’s…!”
The Mad Dog’s eyes widened at the unexpected shape, and a notification message appeared before Sung-Ha.
[Weapon “Eclipse Spear” has been completed!
A weapon born from miracles, created by the united will of two. In a limitless world, this weapon possesses a power that has carved out a domain of one’s own will to defy even the laws of the world itself.
The tier evaluation for ‘Eclipse Spear’ is ‘Aspirant’.]
A weapon only one person in the world without limits may possess, a weapon completed by its sole owner Sung-Ha atop the foundation Se-Hoon had laid.
Gripping his new spear, Sung-Ha gave it a light test swing, lowered his stance, then leveled the spearhead forward again.
“I’m coming.”
Woong!
A red-black ripple scattered from the spearhead. Yet, as subtle as it was, the flames surrounding the ruins were all drawn into Sung-Ha to illuminate his spear tip with a brilliant light. It looked as though he were trying to repaint the world itself.
“So it’s not resonance… but unification.”
Seeing a glimpse of the power of the new Unique Skill reached only by accepting all of himself, the Mad Dog let out a murmur of admiration. With just that one look, he already knew: the outcome had already been decided.
But even so, the Mad Dog did not withdraw his power.
Even if destined to fall today in defeat, he would never stop. Why? Simply because… that’s what the one in front of him would do from now on.
Woong!
The Mad Dog steadied his stance as the flames of his ever-accelerating Inferno Ring compressed into the two short spears.
The flames of the ruin wavered, about to go out under the pressure of the power of both sides—and at last, they were indeed snuffed out like a candle.
Complete Source Resonance: Darkened Sun of Despair
Complete Source Unification: Crimson Sunbreaker
The three spearheads collided and scraped past one another.
Screech!
Starting from the point of impact, the Flame Sect’s former main hall was torn to shreds. In its wake, a pure-white space suffused with surging golden light began surging through the rifts.
That clash had truly pushed the Tower’s trial to the very brink of collapse.
Bzzzt-
Watching the static crackling all around them, Sung-Ha lowered the Eclipse Spear he had been aiming forward, while the Mad Dog stared at his now completely empty hand.
“So it really is my defeat…”
The ending he had expected. In any other moment, defeat would have left a foul taste in his mouth… but right now, relief outweighed everything.
Confirming that end, Mad Dog clenched his empty hands and walked forward.
“…”
Listening to the Mad Dog’s footsteps fading away, his presence disappearing into the distance, Sung-Ha debated whether he should turn and look at him one last time—
“Ah. I nearly forgot.”
The Mad Dog stopped.
“May I ask one last favor?”
“Say it.”
Standing there, the Mad Dog hesitated for a moment, then smiled gently.
“Take care of my friend, will you?”
And with that request, the Mad Dog’s presence vanished completely.
Step- Step-
Sung-Ha stepped forward without turning back. It was only when the trial collapsed and everything began to dissolve into light that he let out a murmur, as if to himself.
“Don’t worry.”
1. The raw said power of Omniscience, which is technically correct, but there’s the law-creating law of Repentance, so we’ve made it more specific. ☜
