The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

Ravian swam through the water, seeing nothing ahead of him, simply swimming straight without turning right or left, using Absolute Focus to sense his surroundings while his eyes remained shut.

Each stroke propelled him several meters forward, thanks to the strength of his physique and his explosive new muscles.

A few short minutes later, Ravian stopped swimming—not because he no longer wanted to, but because there was no longer any point. The water itself had begun dragging him along at an unbelievable speed, sweeping him away with the current.

’Yes! Toss me into the air, darling!’ Ravian laughed from sheer exhilaration, but he quickly shut his mouth after accidentally swallowing a few gallons of water.

And a few seconds later—

Boom!

Ravian’s body was suddenly launched into the open air like a volleyball.

”Huh?” Ravian found himself abruptly in the air instead of the water, then began plummeting back down.

Ravian stayed silent as he fell at high speed through the air, watching the moon shine round and bright in the sky before him.

’My, what radiant beauty you have,’ Ravian said, gazing at the moon as it seemed to drift slightly away from him.

Then—

Splash!

He plunged into the water once more, setting off a small aquatic explosion.

After his fall, Ravian calmly pushed himself upward until he broke the surface, and he soon found walls to his right and left, with the water he had just fallen into flowing between them.

’Hmm? This looks like a miniature river running through the city...’ Ravian realized, looking at the tall buildings beyond the two walls and the vibrant lights illuminating the whole place around him. He could even begin to hear the voices of people chatting along the river.

’Finally, a little aristocracy, far away from the battlefield and the bloodshed.’

That beautiful smile of his spread across Ravian’s face on its own as he watched the moon rising in the sky, the sounds echoing all around him, and himself still alive.

He slicked his hair back with both hands almost instinctively, gazing up at the sky and the stars scattered across it, smiling, but not with his usual calm. This time, there was a shadow of something on his lips... obsession?

”Wow.”

Then Ravian heard a soft, startled gasp coming from his right, atop one of the river walls, and when he turned, he saw the source of that sound.

...

Meanwhile, in the border fortress of the City of Light.

Thorvin stood in the storeroom, and before him stood Bimbo, holding two pieces of cloth against his ears to keep them in place, just as the fort’s physicians had instructed before departing on Thorvin’s orders.

”Boy, I’m going to ask you one last time, and I hope to hear an answer that satisfies me and doesn’t raise my blood pressure,” Thorvin said, holding his cigarette before his mouth, taking a light drag and exhaling it, then returning his gaze to Bimbo.

”Who did this to you, and when?” Thorvin asked, dragging over a wooden crate and sitting down on it.

”Bimbo really doesn’t know! I was here lifting things and putting things down, and then a super scary voice came from behind Bimbo and frightened him terribly, and then—boom!” Bimbo said, stammering through his words and acting out every single one with his hands like a clown.

Thorvin watched all of this with a bewildered frown and a slightly open mouth.

”Who in the Creator’s name assigned you to this camp, boy?” Thorvin asked him.

”Bimbo was assigned by his cousin, sir Battalion Commander!” Bimbo said, standing up and snapping into a military salute, letting the cotton and cloth fall from his ears, which brought the pain rushing back.

”Ouch, ouch.” Bimbo winced, quickly bending down to grab the cotton and reinsert it into his ears with utmost seriousness.

All the while, Thorvin stared at the scene with widened eyes, his cigarette nearly falling from his mouth in shock. Then he turned to the man who looked to be in his forties, standing beside him from the very beginning.

”What the hell is this, Karius?” Thorvin asked him, pointing a finger at Bimbo.

”I haven’t the slightest idea, Battalion Commander,” Karius said, looking at Bimbo with the same expression that was on Thorvin’s face, though Karius seemed more focused on something else.

”You truly found no trace of that person, Battalion Commander?” Karius asked, turning to look at Thorvin with curiosity.

”No,” Thorvin said, without lifting his eyes off Bimbo.

”But how? How did you fail to pick up his soul energy even though you were in the room directly beside him?” The entire incident only seemed to grow more mysterious the more they discussed it.

”I don’t know, but...” Thorvin said, staring absently at the ground beneath his feet.

”The only person capable of being in the room right beside mine without me sensing him would have to be... at my rank, at the very least,” Thorvin said, his eyes deadly in that moment, his foot tapping against the floor without pause.

Karius glanced at Thorvin’s feet and noticed the state of unease he was in, but that possibility seemed far-fetched to him.

”And what could possibly drive someone of the Fifth Rank to beat a dimwitted Awakened senseless in a storeroom, then simply leave without doing anything else?” Karius said, dragging over a wooden crate of his own and sitting down beside Thorvin, looking at Bimbo, who shrank more and more under their stares.

”I don’t know. I’m even more confused than you are.”

”What do you think, Karius?” Thorvin asked.

”A relic,” Karius said simply, his eyes perfectly calm.

”What?” Thorvin could not believe what was coming out of the mouth of the friend sitting beside him.

”You’re saying...” Thorvin said, his eyes widening as he finally lifted his gaze from Bimbo and looked at Karius.

Karius nodded, his eyes unreadable.

”Yes. He chose to evade your senses completely and flee the instant he had done what he came for. I believe this is someone carrying a relic, not someone of your rank,” Karius said, confirming Thorvin’s suspicions.

”A relic... For him to possess a relic capable of hiding his traces from me—me, a Sealbearer with a powerful domain—that’s no low-rank relic. That’s at least...” Thorvin said, his eyes widening as the realization piled up within him.

”A Fourth-Rank relic,” Karius finished in his stead, his eyes narrowing lethally as he recalled the earlier incident with his disciple.

”A relic capable of entering the forest, killing my dear disciple, returning from it, and then infiltrating the fortress, all right under my nose while I stand at the peak of the Sixth Rank, and under yours while you stand at the Fifth,” Karius said, his fingers tightening around the shaft of the spear strapped across his back instead of the sword sheathed at his waist.

”This is a Nation’s Wing-grade relic, Thorvin,” Karius said, and the news struck the room like a thunderbolt.

The silence in the room was almost physical.

Thorvin froze in place, wide-eyed, upon hearing Karius’s assessment, one that matched his own estimate perfectly.

But he could not afford to stay calm now. This place was under his command, after all.

”We can’t keep quiet about this, Karius. It’s a Nation’s Wing-grade relic, at the very least!” Thorvin said urgently, pacing the room back and forth.

”A relic of such power could bring about a catastrophe if it fell into the wrong hands. No, there’s an even worse possibility,” Thorvin said, pulling a cigarette from his pocket.

But Karius noticed the faint tremble in his hands as he did, and he did not blame him in the slightest. In fact, Karius was even more anxious than he was, his heart pounding with unbelievable force in his chest, because he understood exactly what Thorvin was thinking.

”That the relic’s bearer loses control over it and... one of the Fourteen Taboos manifests through him,” Thorvin said, the words forced out of him against his will.