The Regressor Can Make Them All

Chapter 215

Are the Perfect Ones really on humanity's side?

Although answers varied, they were all still positive since plenty had personally witnessed the Perfect Ones fighting to save people in the war against the Demon Force.

But the story changed when the question was framed differently.

Are the Perfect Ones always right?

Branching off the age-old debate about what truly defined good and evil, the Perfect Ones were a highly controversial topic. They had displayed their might before by publicly executing S-rank heroes who attempted coups and often interfered on a global scale without concealing their influence.

Viewed positively, their actions could be seen as them establishing order in society; viewed negatively, however, they were simply being overly oppressive.

With no clear answer, discussions, although not always open ones, about the Perfect Ones' morality surfaced constantly.

“...Is she out of her mind?”

However, there existed some individuals who could easily come to conclusions without questioning it at all.

“Pretending to help and then secretly planting a trap in their brain? What a jerk—”

“Calm down. It’s all resolved now.”

“Do I look like I can calm down?”

Woong-

Her blue eyes blazing with anger, Luize unconsciously began making the mana within the hospital room surge in response. It was her unique skill, Mana Assimilation, which had manifested even more clearly than usual.

“I understand how you feel, but if you keep this up, Professor An is going to come chase you,” Se-Hoon comforted, gently patting her shoulder.

“Whew.”

Letting out a deep breath, Luize calmed her anger and the turbulent mana in the room calmed. She then looked at him with a puzzled expression.

“How are you not bothered by this?”

“Why should I be?”

“You almost ended up being someone else. Yet, you don’t seem that angry about it.”

Considering it had happened just yesterday, Luize found it strange that Se-Hoon was so calm.

Understanding her concern, Se-Hoon just shrugged. “Well, I expected it to some extent.”

“...You expected it?”

“Of course. We’re dealing with a Perfect One here.”

A Perfect One was a monstrous being that could devour a person at the slightest misstep. And yet, not only was Se-Hoon using their power, he was giving up a part of his own body to do so instead of using equipment. It was practically a death wish.

“Then why...?”

“As dangerous as it is, its potential is unmatchable. It'd be such a waste to not use it if you can handle it, right?

“Hmm...”

Luize frowned. She thought he was being overly optimistic, but she couldn't argue because he was unharmed and had achieved significant results with it.

If he hadn’t used that power... we wouldn’t have been able to deceive Dawn.

While luck had played a part, their success was largely due to his bold use of a risky tool. And she understood that, but her heart found it difficult to accept. Conflicted, she struggled internally.

Noticing her struggle, Se-Hoon chuckled. “I know you’re worried about me, but—”

“Shut up.”

Cutting off Se-Hoon with a sharp retort, Luize relaxed her expression now that she had thought it over.

“Fine. I guess if it’s you, you must’ve thought it through... But are you sure you’ll be okay moving forward?”

“Okay with what?”

“You’ve fallen out with the Seeker, haven’t you? Wouldn’t it be hard to work with her like before?”

With Se-Hoon’s plans to exploit the Seeker to his benefit exposed, the Seeker certainly wouldn’t be cooperative like she was before. Yet to that, Se-Hoon made a wry smile.

“That’s what you’d normally think, but... she’s a little different.”

“Different? How?”

“It’s faster if I just show you. Watch carefully.”

Pulling out a thick encyclopedia from his void pocket, Se-Hoon used the power of Boundaries to separate a part of the Seeker’s mana from his body. He then infused it into the encyclopedia, fixing it in place with a boundary.

Crack!

The encyclopedia's cover began to swell grotesquely almost immediately as veins bulged out of its pages. It was only when it reached a certain size that it calmed down and quickly returned to its original form.

For a moment, Luize just stared at the now calm encyclopedia with tense eyes.

Flutter!

Suddenly flinging open, the book started releasing letters into the air that swirled wildly as they pieced themselves together. A brief moment later, a complete sentence formed.

“Hey, I was just messing around a bit. Are you actually mad about this? Hm?”

“...”

Unbefitting of the dramatic appearance, the tone of the sentence was so childish that Luize just blankly stared at it. Recovering a beat later, Luize turned to Se-Hoon.

“Is this the Seeker...?”

“Well, sort of.”

“...”

Luize felt dizzy. She couldn't understand how the Seeker could view invading another's mind as a joke. It was so incomprehensible that a torrent of words was about to rise bottom of her consciousness. But she swallowed them down, summarizing them simply.

“She’s one crazy bastard.”

Experiencing such a side of a Perfect One for the first time, Luize looked at the encyclopedia with disgust, prompting the floating text to rearrange.

“Bastard? That’s a bit unfair.”

“Unfair?”

“I just wanted to learn more about your ‘boyfriend.’ Oh, not in a romantic way, of course! It’s purely academic, so there's no need to be jealous—”

“Bind.”

Taking control of the floating letters, Luize’s incantation coiled them to form a rope that bound the encyclopedia tightly. Then, after grabbing it, Luize slammed her fist down on it.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Luize struck the encyclopedia furiously, showing no concern for whether the Seeker felt pain or not. And while she was venting her anger, letters slipped out from between the pages.

“A—Ah—Ouch!”

One could almost hear the screams of pain from the words.

Just as I thought... Se-Hoon thought.

He quickly stopped Luize.

“Hey, hey. Calm down. No matter what you do, she won’t die.”

“Huff... Huff...”

Catching her breath, Luize glared at the encyclopedia. Her face was seething with anger; she seemed like she would have torn the book apart if it wasn’t for Se-Hoon. Now somewhat calmer, she released her incantation, allowing the crumpled letters to slowly form another sentence.

“Why... Why does it hurt? I shouldn’t be able to... What’s going on...?”

Judging by the confused tone in the Seeker’s words, even she didn’t fully understand what had just happened.

“As you saw earlier, the Seeker doesn’t really have any strong feelings against me. To her, she’s doing what needs to be done.”

“What do you mean?”

“Actually, it’s not that surprising. Just think about her name. Doesn’t that already tell you what kind of person she is?”

At Se-Hoon’s explanation, Luize finally connected the dots.

“Seeker...”

Considering the Perfect Ones’ titles were usually derived from their traits or abilities, there was nothing that described a Perfect One’s nature better than them.

“She simply wanted to explore my body, so she tried to take over my brain and examined me bit by bit—pure and simple.”

“You’re quite sharp.”

The text in the air seemed to agree with Se-Hoon’s words.

But in contrast to those two, Luize felt a chill run down her spine. She had heard that high-ranked heroes were often overly inflexible, but even then, the Seeker, a Perfect One, was different. She didn’t just

have a twisted personality; it felt like she had become something else altogether.

Unsettled, Luize cautiously gazed at the encyclopedia. Meanwhile, Se-Hoon continued his explanation.

“Well, that’s why there shouldn’t be any major problems using her power in the future.”

“You know, I could be even more helpful if you let me study your body.”

“Enough with your nonsense.”

Listening to the two’s casual conversation, Luize let out a sigh.

Well, whatever...

In the end, the Seeker was already deceased, and she would soon take care of Dawn, the ones trying to bring her back to life.

Reaffirming her resolve, Luize asked, “So, there really won’t be any problems using her powers, right?”

“Probably not. Still, leaving things like this is a bit risky, so I’m going to do a bit of tweaking,” replied Se-Hoon with a sly smile.

Roughly knowing what he meant, Luize’s mouth dropped open.

“You’re not going to...”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

After saying that, Se-Hoon opened a table attached to the bed and infused the Ascension Ring with mana, opening his void pocket.

Thunk

The sight of what fell out—a pristine white arm, seemingly freshly cut off—made Luize frown.

“This, and...”

Following the arm, the Pilgrim’s Incense Burner and Abgrund were brought out from the Dream Storage and the Netherworld respectively. In the blink of an eye, the table was covered with Legendary items, or those close to that rank.

Overwhelmed by the lineup, Luize gazed down speechless.

“I’m going to create a tool that will let me use the Seeker’s power safely. You just need to use your Incantation Magic when I give the signal. Got it?”

“Ah... Okay.”

“Wow... You’ve got quite a collection here.”

Even though Se-Hoon had just said he was going to turn the Seeker into a tool, the Seeker remained completely unfazed.

Let’s see how long you can keep that attitude, Se-Hoon thought, his smile widening.

Beginning, Se-Hoon grabbed the Pilgrim’s Incense Burner first and began drawing out the divine mana he had absorbed earlier to activate the power within.

Divine Seal

Woong!

A golden-white mist began flowing from the burner and transformed into golden chains that tightly bound the Seeker’s right arm.

Cling-

The moment the chains made contact, the right arm, which had been still until now, began emitting a reddish glow to resist. At the same time, a sentence formed above the encyclopedia.

“You plan to seal me with divine mana borrowed from the Pilgrim's Incense Burner. Not a bad attempt, but it’s not enough.”

Without a deep understanding of the Pilgrim’s power, merely borrowing the Incense Burner’s strength wasn’t enough to interfere with another Perfect One’s body. But Se-Hoon had anticipated that and quickly instructed Luize.

“Use Incantation Magic to put the Seeker’s right arm to sleep.”

Although Luize didn’t understand why, she followed Se-Hoon’s instructions regardless. Equipping Hati from her void pocket, she cast an incantation.

“Sleep.”

Though simple, the powerful word was able to influence the Seeker’s right arm, seeing as how the reddish glow had begun to fade.

“What...?”

“Good. Keep it up.”

Noticing that the Seeker had been caught off guard, Luize cast her the incantation repeatedly until all of the resisting mana around the arm had vanished. And seizing the moment, Se-Hoon swiftly inscribed more Divine Seals deeply into the arm.

Sizzle!

In seconds, golden chain-like markings had been branded across the entire arm. By this point, the unique presence of a Perfect One that had been emanating from the arm had significantly weakened.

Confirming its level, Se-Hoon bit his thumb and created long needles out of his blood.

“Now, let’s see...”

Using his Eyes of Clairvoyance, Se-Hoon traced the flow of mana and strategically inserted the blood needles at several points into the arm to disrupt the flow of mana. Normally, the Seeker’s mana would have rushed over and consumed the needles, but thanks to the Divine Seals, they were able to stand firm.

I consider my soul pretty resilient, but to think I still have to weaken it this much to suppress a Perfect One’s soul completely...

At the disappointing realization, Se-Hoon frowned but continued inserting needles.

“Whew... That should do it for now,” he said upon finishing.

“What did you just do?”

“He suppressed my mana's unique features to prevent corrosion in the equipment he's going to forge.”

Though the question was directed to Se-Hoon, the Seeker had answered before he could.

“Yeah, something like that.”

Slightly disgusted, Luize started at the arm, “Do you really have to go this far to stop the corrosion? That’s seriously disturbing...”

At her words, the Seeker focused on her.

“While his ability to suppress the corrosion is impressive, what’s even more intriguing is how you put my arm to sleep. Is that a special property of your Incantation Magic? But even considering that, the difference in power is way too high?”

Judging by the tone of her words, the Seeker was fascinated by Luize’s Incantation Magic and was still trying to process what had just happened. Unlike her, however, Se-Hoon knew why.

A Perfect One’s body, without its consciousness, is no different from a limp limb.

With her unique skill, Mana Assimilation, Luize had absolute dominance over such entities. In the first place, that was why Se-Hoon had asked for her help during the forging process.

“There’s not enough data.... I’d love to study your body more. Could I just have a quick look—”

“Hey, hurry up and finish. I can’t stand looking at that thing,” Luize suddenly said, ignoring the Seeker.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”

Resuming his work, Se-Hoon absorbed the darkness of the Netherworld from Abgrund, strengthening the power of Boundaries, and surrounded the Seeker’s right arm with it. Then, before the Seeker's consciousness could awaken, he channeled his mana into the Ascension Ring and opened his void pocket once again.

Woosh!

The Seeker’s right arm disappeared into the void pocket, and, just before closing it, Se-Hoon extracted a thin thread from within.

Focusing all his attention on the thin strand, the line defining the boundary surrounding the Seeker’s right arm, Se-Hoon carefully examined the point where the boundary and the void pocket intersected.

I’ll pull the line of boundary outside as I close the void pocket.

He was attempting to connect a closed space to the outside—an inherently contradictory task. But he intuitively knew it was possible thanks to the white space he had glimpsed when Ludwig had summoned him in the past. By navigating through that Whitespace, he could circumvent such a contradiction.

Swish-

Pulling the line out as the void pocket slowly closed, Se-Hoon watched it tremble faintly. But despite his concerns, the line didn't sever, so Se-Hoon quickly linked it to the encyclopedia.

Woong!

“Ugh... I feel... dumber...”

The encyclopedia trembled and the letters scattered. Then, when everything became completely still, Luize, who had been quietly watching by the side, finally broke the silence.

“Is it... done?”

“We won’t know until we test it. Let’s see... what should I name her...”

Musing over a name, Se-Hoon infused mana into the encyclopedia and called out what he had decided on: “Akasha.”

Trembling slightly, the encyclopedia formed a sentence in midair.

“Speak.”

“How much dumber are you now?”

Obediently answering, the Seeker—now Akasha—formed a new sentence.

“I’m so dumb that I don’t even feel like looking into anything without your request...”

“Perfect.”

The Seeker’s consciousness remained intact, but her instincts had been thoroughly suppressed. Satisfied with the flawless outcome, Se-Hoon smiled.

[The tier of ‘Ascension Ring’ has increased to ‘Legendary.’]

With the sudden appearance of the notification message, the Ascension Ring radiated a brilliant light.