Regressor Of The Fallen Family [EN]: Chapter 292

A wave of fiery orange light burst into the room, making the shadows jump. The knights who had been charging at Viktor cried out, grabbing at their throats as if they were choking. They stumbled back, their faces twisting in pain.

Greg and Nat were strong knights, known for their skill. They quickly raised their swords, blocking the bright orange blades of light that shot towards them like arrows.

“Hmph!” Greg grunted, his face strained.

“Ugh!?” Nat gasped, struggling to keep his balance.

But then, something much stronger hit them. It felt like a punch from inside their own bodies, knocking the air from their lungs. They staggered, stunned. Before they could even understand what was happening, a young man with wild red hair and eyes like burning coals appeared in front of them.

“Ah…?” one knight breathed, his eyes wide with shock.

*Snip*. A soft, clean sound, like shears cutting through silk.

Suddenly, the knights felt the ground rush up to meet them. They looked down in confusion, then horror. Their legs were gone, cut off cleanly below the knee.

“Aaaargh!” one screamed, clutching at the bloody stumps.

“You… you crazy monster!” the other yelled, his voice filled with pain and rage.

“Viktor! Bro’s here!”

“……How did you?”

Even Viktor was surprised by Ronian’s joking voice, but this was no time to relax.

Ronian smirked and turned around.

But as soon as he turned, the smile vanished, replaced by a burning rage.

“I’ve got the ones who can talk, so I’ll kill the rest!”

The mages, led by Gerohin, were a little slow to react. Only after Ronian shouted angrily did they send out their magic.

“Spirit Thorn!!”

As the mages shouted together, grey thorny vines burst out, wrapping around them and Gerohin.

Tididing.

Burdel’s arrows, fired quickly from behind, were blocked by the thorny barrier and bounced off.

Burdel made a *tsk* sound, showing he was annoyed as a gloomy voice came from behind the barrier.

“Corrupt Explosion.”

At that moment, the bodies of the dead knights began to swell, with a grey mist around them.

Ronian frowned, looking confused and worried at the strange magic. He had never seen anything like it before. Viktor, remembering a similar situation, quickly shouted.

“They’re going to explode! Get out of here!”

Viktor shouted, but he was still hurt and couldn’t move. Ronian saw this and quickly stepped in front of Viktor to protect him.

Soon, orange power seemed to gather on the sword he raised.

Kwwaaaaaaang!

An explosion that seemed to shake the entire royal castle echoed. The bodies of the knights exploded, but the orange wall blocked the impact, so Ronian and Viktor were not hurt.

Rumble.

After the explosion, the building started to fall apart. Dust flew up everywhere. Viktor, surrounded by the orange wall and unharmed, stared at his friend in surprise.

“You, what is this? No, more importantly, how are you here now……?”

“Damn. The enemies are running! Explanations later!”

Ronian shouted, sensing the enemies’ movements through the thick dust, and Viktor nodded firmly.

“……Okay. You go.”

“What?”

Ronian was about to run into the dust, but he stopped and looked at his old friend, surprised.

“There might be a connection to the Empire. Capture one if possible.”

However, Viktor, remembering the earlier explosion, urged him on.

“I have to finish my mission.”

“What are you going to do in that state…….”

His friend, who had been seriously injured fighting the mages, was stubbornly insisting on continuing his mission.

Ronian frowned. But then he felt Viktor’s power. It was strong again, and different from before. Ronian’s eyes opened wide in surprise.

“You……!?”

“I’m finally getting used to it.”

Viktor smiled brightly and showed a grey power on his hand as if he had never staggered. The power felt so strong, as if he had never been hurt.

Ronian, as if sensing something from it, smirked and patted his friend’s shoulder.

“Be careful.”

“You too.”

The two friends, who had met after many years, shot off in different directions at the same time and disappeared.

Rumble.

“W-what is this!”

“It’s from His Majesty’s chambers!”

“T-the knights!”

The Royal Palace was in chaos.

A sudden explosion from the King’s residence and the Royal Palace shaking as if it would collapse.

But a middle-aged man calmed the commotion.

“Everyone, don’t panic! Preparations have already been made!”

A man who, despite the sudden chaos in the middle of the night, put on his official robes without a single flaw and shouted with a cold face.

“A, yes!”

“Yes, Minister.”

“Everyone calm down and do your jobs!”

Everyone who recognized the middle-aged man stopped being confused. They started to move in an organized way again.

“Minister, with this, it must have been suppressed, right?”

“Of course. With this level of explosion, it must be Lord Gerohin’s magic. There’s no way a prepared mage can be defeated by a mere assassin.”

The middle-aged man, Donati Pello, smiled coldly as he looked at his subordinate bowing beside him.

And at that moment, his head rolled off as if sliding, with the smiling face still intact.

Pshhh.

The people around him, who had been staring blankly at the suddenly spurting blood, screamed together.

“Aaaaargh!”

“T-the Minister!”

“Call the Knights!”

The servants became even noisier than before.

While everyone was still in chaos, Viktor quietly moved behind one of the officials who was standing still in shock.

“Where is the Duke hiding? Take me there.”

The official, with cold sweat on his forehead, nodded slightly with a pale face.

His trembling steps quickened because of the sharp tip of the knife stabbing his back.

He was terrified his neck would be cut. He tried to secretly signal for help to the people he passed.

“Aaaargh!”

However, most of those who noticed ran away.

“You bastard!”

Sometimes, brave soldiers or knights would rush towards him.

*Snip*.

Their necks were cut with a single stroke and flew into the air.

In the end, the official had no choice but to give up resisting and guide Viktor to the Duke at an even faster pace.

“There are strangely few knights. Do you know anything?”

“I, I don’t know…….”

Even as he said that, his steps led to the largest room in the Royal Palace.

The hall in the main palace where the Duke conducted official business.

Smirk.

“The Duke is in here?”

“Y-yes, really! I swear…….”

The official desperately shouted to survive as he watched Viktor laugh in disbelief.

“No, I confirmed it.”

Thwack.

“I’m just dumbfounded.”

Viktor quickly knocked the official out. His face became serious as he looked at the door of the main hall.

The tremendous power felt inside the main hall was definitely not created by just one or two people.

‘If the artifact was intact, I would have sneaked in and taken the Duke’s head.’

There’s no need to do that now.

Ggggeunng.

Viktor, with a confident smile, raised his power, and the door of the main hall opened with a loud roar.

Many confused people stared through the wide-open door. The gazes of over a hundred knights and a dozen mages at first glance.

“Who goes there!?”

As the knights in the grand hall drew their swords, Viktor scoffed.

“Quite the gathering. So this is where all the knights have been hiding…”

The knights probably weren’t called here tonight. They must have been ready as soon as they found Viktor’s path. Greg was right.

Most of the hundred or so knights looked utterly exhausted, as if to prove this.

Perhaps because of their exhaustion, or because Viktor was alone, only a few knights approached him.

A haggard, middle-aged man, surrounded by knights at the upper end of the hall, muttered in a small voice, “That blood on the sword…”

“The blood of Donati Pello. You’re next, Duke.”

Viktor decided to answer with a mix of disdain and confidence, and the reaction of those gathered in the hall changed dramatically.

“The Chancellor!?”

“That fiend!?”

“Kill him!!”

Dozens of knights charged forward, their swords flashing in the torchlight. At the same time, the mages around the hall began to chant in low voices, lifting their staffs like branches in a storm.

“Don’t kill him, subdue him!”

Viktor chuckled, hearing someone shout amidst the chaos.

Not kill him, eh?

“How very kind of you.”

A grey Aura Blade surged forth from Viktor’s sword.

Viktor felt the new power in his body. It made him feel very confident.

I must protect my sister.

That was the most important goal in Viktor’s life.

The responsibility for his parents’ death had become an obsession, something he had to fulfill, even if it cost him his life.

This purpose in life had come about when he was too young.

As a child without parents, he had to protect his younger sister. He didn’t need to think about it much.

He wasn’t even sure he could achieve that small goal.

So, when he was young, he protected his sister physically. As he grew older, he protected the place where his sister could live happily.

But after a while, his sister didn’t need his help anymore.

“I can take care of myself just fine!”

He knew she said it because she cared about him.

He also knew that his sister was a genius who might become a mage at a very young age.

She didn’t need his protection anymore.

So, he looked elsewhere.

He felt grateful to the lord who had saved his and his sister’s lives.

He decided to repay that gratitude.

But his lord was a superhuman who didn’t need his help.

“You? Haha. I appreciate the thought.”

An ordinary person would have laughed, but Viktor was concerned.

Then what should I do?

He loved his sister and felt grateful to his lord.

These feelings were real, but Viktor had lost his way in life.

Viktor had always lived for others, and he didn’t know how to live for himself.

“Now live your own life, brother. Don’t worry about me anymore!”

“Only think about your own development. That will ultimately help me.”

Live your life.

The words of the two people he felt indebted to were the same. So, Viktor began to think about what he wanted for the first time.

He trained hard in swordsmanship and explored his inner self through meditation.

At some point, he faced his deepest desires.

And he realized.

Live.

His parents hadn’t wanted him to protect his sister in their final moments. They wanted him to survive.

He wanted to live, even if it meant a miserable life.

‘I will definitely survive.’

That was his desire, a mix of his survival instinct and his parents’ last hope.

It was the honest feeling that came when he removed the guilt that had been piled on top of his kindness.

He was ashamed at first, but he soon changed his mind.

Face your own desires, and use them to grow while accepting them.

That will drive you to develop your unique trait.

I believe in you.

He kept training, remembering his master and lord’s words.

But training wasn’t enough.

To draw out that ‘desire to live,’ he needed a crisis that would make him feel threatened.

Now, facing such a crisis, Viktor had finally succeeded.

“Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Viktor smiled, feeling the endless energy inside him.

The power of life, Force, had become Aura.

His trait, finally awakened, was ‘endless vitality.’

Whirr!

A grey Aura Blade surged from his sword. It was so large and powerful that it was hard to believe he had just awakened his Aura.

However…

“Top-tier knight!!”

“But he’s still alone!”

“Capture him!”

Unfortunately for the knights, the grey Aura Blade didn’t shine like a normal Aura.

Because of this, they thought Viktor was weaker than he was.

This might end even easier than I thought?

He had never expected that his Force would be helpful in this way.

You are a suitable talent for learning our magic…

Suddenly, the mage’s words flashed through his mind.

He remembered the strange magic that exploded the corpses.

He also thought about the ghosts he had seen in the royal castle.

Corpses and living bodies are different, and coercion and free will are different, but the methods felt similar.

Maybe they really are connected to the Empire.

No, this is not the time to be thinking about this.

Seeing the swords coming closer, Viktor’s eyes shone again.

He shouted.

“Receive the punishment for defying the will of the Empire!”

What?

The Duke’s confused voice was drowned out by Viktor’s shout.

Thirty minutes passed. Viktor stood before the Duke, surrounded by a mountain of corpses of knights and mages.

Swish.

“Kugh.”

He pulled out the sword from his side, and the wound healed quickly.

Viktor smiled, watching the burn on his left hand heal quickly.

“At this rate, I might not even need armor.”

Of course, he was joking.

Even with his trait, he still used Force to heal the wounds.

It was best to block attacks if he could.

The person who saw this could only think one thing.

“M-Monster…”

“Duke…”

It wasn’t a disguise with magic. It was real.

Viktor moved his sword quickly.

Slice.

Viktor sheathed his sword in a blink of an eye. A head rolled on the ground.

That day, the entire Duchy of Tahiti was turned upside down.