Regression - Second Chance At Life

Chapter 265: Confronting Another Dark Past

Adam watches the man closely. His hands trembling, his jaw clenching tightly, his eyebrows scrunching, anger burning in his eyes, profusely sweating, all of this pointed towards one outcome.

’Am I overthinking it?’ Adam wonders, thinking that he might just be projecting onto this man. After all, not everyone has gone through what Adam has.

Not everyone feels immense hatred towards everything as he once did. Luckily for Adam, he grew out of that state pretty quickly, but he never forgot about it.

He never forgot how bitter he was towards everything and everyone, no matter who they were.

Adam knows he might be wrong about this man, but deep down, he knows something’s off. These are the men who are the most dangerous, so he continues to keep an eye on them.

The game continues. The man who is burning with anger tries his best, but Illiana, aka Chiperz, proves why she is one of the best. She deals one final punishment for her opponent’s counter attack atempt and reduces his character’s health bar to zero.

The screen displays Illiana’s victory in large, bold, colorful characters, and with her win comes a loud, immediate cheer from the audience.

Even Bart, who is standing next to Adam, jumps in the air in excitement, seeing that Chiperz won, she won’t have to kiss that ugly dude anymore.

He turns to look at Adam, to see what the handsome guy has to say, only to find a frown on Adam’s face as he seems to be staring at someone.

Following Adam’s gaze, Bart turns his head to look at Chiperz’s opponent, wondering why Adam is staring at the guy so intently.

Bart notices how the guy is just sitting in his chair silently, staring at his screen, while Illiana, who is just a few meters away from him, has a big smile on her face. Clearly very happy with her victory.

That’s when things suddenly take a drastic turn.

The guy who has been sitting still in his chair all the time reaches down towards his shoe to grab something, just then Bart feels a violent gust of wind blow past him. He sees someone sprinting very fast.

Everything happens very slowly before his eyes. He sees the guy jump from his seat with a knife in his hand. His expression one of complete madness.

Illiana, who has a big smile on her face, is glad that she managed to win after almost losing to this random guy, when she suddenly hears a raging scream directed at her. Her eyes lock onto her opponent, who is charging at her with a knife in his hand, about to attack her. Her life flashes before her eyes as her expression turns to one of fear.

’Am I going to die here?’ She thinks.

Illiana can see her guards rushing to stop the guy in his tracks, but the distance between them is too far; they are going to fail. She knows this. She feels angry. How can they fail to protect her when she paid them so much money to keep guys like this away from her?

She sees the knife that is aimed at her getting closer, about to stab her right in the chest. She freezes like a deer in a headlight. Zero survival skills.

She might have excelled in many things, but when it came to doing something to save her own life, she is failing miserable. A life of comfort suddenly meets random chaos, and she isn’t prepared for it.

Just as she is about to accept her fate, she sees something come right at her attacker at blinding speed. A leg.... A flying leg.

The leg makes contact with her attacker’s hand, the one he is holding the knife with, and drives the hand into the large TV screen.

The TV screen shatters on impact as the hand is shoved into the TV. Glass goes flying everywhere, the screen immediately goes black, and then comes a scream of pain.

The knife falls on the ground while her attacker goes down on his knee, screaming in pain.

Illiana’s eyes widen with shock. Everything happened so fast.

Her eyes finally fall on the person whose leg just saved her life.

She looks at his wide back and tall stature, as it is all she can see. Her heart is beating at over a hundred beats per second as this thing is straight out of a movie. She feels an influx of emotions.

Her eyes then move towards her attacker. She looks at his hand, which is bent unnaturally, clearly broken from the impact it suffered from that kick.

Then came her guards, finally catching up. The pin the guy to the ground while one of them secures the knife away.

A commotion breaks out. The people who have gathered to watch her start yelling and screaming, even though they can’t believe what just happened.

The people who are watching online are also shocked; her chat is in complete chaos. But in that chaos, one figure stands firm, Adam. All eyes are on him now.

The people online can’t make out Adam’s face because his back is turned to the camera. Illiana set it that way so that people see her face and not everything else. The other camera, which showed the attacker, is showing the shocked crowd, who are also curious as to who Adam is.

Bart, who is in the crowd, stares at Adam with wide eyes. He saw everything. He saw how Adam made his move before the attacker could even get up from his seat to attack Illiana. If not for Adam moving first, Illiana would probably be dying right now in her own pool of blood.

Just that thought scared the shit out of Bart. He never wants to see Illiana in a state like that.

He begins looking at Adam like he is a hero, and it’s not just Bart; everyone is looking at Adam as if he is a goddamn hero. If he had not stepped in, their favorite streamer would probably be dead.

While everyone is looking at Adam, Adam’s attention is solely on the attacker, who is currently being pinned down to the ground.

Adam’s eyes are cold. He is looking down on the attacker. He no longer feels pity for this man. It’s anger. Not because he was about to attack Illiana, no, but because the man completely gave up on himself.

This was his desperate last hurrah, to do something, to feel something, to be known for something, to not want to disappear as a complete nobody, a loser.

Adam understands this because he can see it in the guy’s eyes; he understands this because he might have done the same if not for his stumbling into nihilism during those times.

Adam looks at this man and can see how he could have become something like this, how close he was to becoming someone like this, and it disgusted him.

The attacker, who is in immense pain right now, looks up to look at the guy who stopped him, and what he sees are eyes full of disgust. The attacker is so taken by the look in Adam’s eyes that he doesn’t register anything else, not Adam’s face, not his clothes, the surroundings, or the guards who are pinning him to the ground. All he sees are Adam’s eyes that are full of disgust, and all the attacker feels seeing them is shame.

In this moment, he sees how pathetic he looks in those eyes, and he, too, starts feeling disgusted by his own actions. He was about to kill an innocent person just because he was angry at himself.

He stops fighting back.

Adam’s eyes flicker as he sees the attacker avert his gaze in shame. He doesn’t say anything else; he just turns and walks away.

This incident stirred something in Adam; he realized something about himself. The deep hatred he felt for himself that he had buried deep inside all these years, behind his nihilistic ideologies.

He thought he had grown a thick skin by realizing that nothing matters, and there is no meaning to life. It was what allowed him to keep living just for the sake of living when he had nothing.

But then he regressed. His nihilism disappeared as if it never existed because life had meaning again; his regression itself proved it. And today’s event made him confront the deep hatred he held for himself behind the curtains of nihilism.

With clenched fists and a tightened jaw, Adam walked away from the store while everyone stared at him in awe. What he did was heroic. Everyone wished they could do what Adam just did.

Illiana, who is completely overwhelmed by everything, finally snaps out of it as she sees Adam leaving. She gets up from her chair to stop him, talk to him, but one of her guards grabs her and pulls her away, taking her off the premises.

Adam walks out of the computer store, his mind still replaying what just happened.

That face of sheer anger that man had, it’s stuck in his head—the thought of how that man would have been in his past terrified Adam.

’Nihilism saved my ass....’ Adam thinks and suddenly chuckles.

His regression immediately destroyed his nihilistic ideology because it was just a way for him to cope with his failure. And now that he is no longer nihilistic, he had to confront a part of himself that he thought he had completely gotten rid of.

His Pessimism. How he felt completely worthless in a worthless world, and Adam is sure that the man he just took down was feeling the exact same thing, but instead of changing, he decided to do something to not be worthless in his own way, even though it would be through an act of evil.