Chapter 1245: The Adamant Thunder Annihilation Campaign (36)
Arriving in the past, a time when Adamant Thunder was still weak and young, through the use of Regression.
It was the period when he had just begun his activities as a freelancer, encountered in a pub in District 49.
However, the Adamant Thunder encountered in that past timeline was not the person Kaiser had intended to meet.
“You’ve been acting strange since earlier. Are you not going to say a word to me?”
“…….”
“……Hey. If you keep this up, I’ll call someone, too.”
The woman’s cautious attitude, feeling a sense of unease upon seeing Ethan Bajour’s face, yet precisely because of it, she became even more guarded.
Despite knowing that fact, Kaiser couldn’t take his eyes off Lennok.
The mage slowly tilted his glass, his dark-blue eyes turning back towards Kaiser.
The Adamant Thunder standing before Kaiser was not the naive freelancer existing in that past timeline.
The Grand Mage who acquired the Lightning of Transcendence through the Annihilation Campaign. The Seeker who had achieved the same Domain as Kaiser.
Lennok, Adamant Thunder himself, who had been with Kaiser just moments before, was present here instead of the past Adamant Thunder.
‘Domain, temporal resistance, multi-dimensional aptitude, Immutable Body… these are the immediate possibilities that come to mind.’
In this world where all sorts of mysteries and wonders run rampant, Regression is not an invincible power that cannot be countered.
The struggles experienced while facing all sorts of monsters and geniuses from the project’s inception to its failure.
Among them were also Transcendent beings who possessed the Talent to perceive Regression or prevent it.
What Kaiser recalled were the Somatic Bodies or aptitudes that were most lethal even amidst countless Regressions.
Having innate resistance to temporal manipulation, or possessing the talent to perceive multiple dimensions.
Or perhaps having acquired a body capable of responding to any external changes.
Either way, these were the qualities of powerhouses whom even Kaiser had to defeat after numerous hardships.
But Lennok did not rush, even as he watched Kaiser lost in thought.
Instead, he simply raised a hand towards the woman who was looking at him with a wary expression.
“An Alter Wallet, please. For over here.”
“Oh, so you’re buying since you earned a bounty? If you start getting addicted to spending money already—”
“Jenny.”
Lennok smiled gently at the woman.
As if recalling an old memory that could no longer be returned to.
“It’s fine. I’ll finish up quickly and leave.”
The moment the woman faltered at Lennok’s words, Lennok spoke.
“It’ll only take a moment. Don’t worry.”
“…….”
Why was it that she, who had dealt with all sorts of eccentric individuals in District 49, couldn’t refuse Lennok’s request?
The moment the woman, with a strange expression due to her own incomprehensible reaction, stepped aside.
Kaiser opened his mouth with an expressionless face.
“How are you here?”
The Eternal Tribulation Severing Leaf that Lennok and Kaiser simultaneously deployed at the end of the Adamant Thunder Annihilation Campaign.
However, Lennok’s Domain couldn’t stop Kaiser’s Regression.
Adamant Thunder, who didn’t possess the Talent for Reversing Heaven, couldn’t exist on the same timeline as Kaiser.
Nevertheless, the one present here was undeniably Adamant Thunder himself, who Kaiser had just faced.
“Adamant Thunder. You—”
“You don’t possess the Talent for Reversing Heaven, do you?”
Lennok tilted his glass and said nonchalantly.
“You’re right. I didn’t regress. Nor did I rewind to a past timeline. I don’t even think that method is correct to begin with.”
“…….”
“Everyone is given one chance. Everyone seeks their own answer within that one life.”
Lennok slowly turned his gaze.
“Because it’s a single chance, it’s so precious… and because it’s a single life, it has meaning. I’m no different from others.”
“…….”
Lennok calmly met the gaze of the silent Kaiser.
“I knew it was the last, which is why I could strive and yearn so much. Because I know there’s only one chance, I cherish this moment even more.”
“…….”
“I’m still here because I found meaning in the process, not just the result.”
Slowly, Lennok put down his glass and stood up.
“So, I can’t fall behind you here.”
“That’s not why you can follow my Regression.”
Kaiser said with an expressionless face.
“My ability, expanded to its limits through the project, is a miracle that reshapes the world… literally a power adjusted into the form of an Ideational Domain.”
“…….”
“Are you saying you’ve met the aptitude or talent required to stand on the same timeline as me, with just your answer?”
“It’s not that I have a heart because I found the answer.”
Lennok said softly.
“The process of finding the answer is also part of my heart.”
The same question and answer he had shared with the past Kaiser in the Restricted Zone, now repeated across time.
The old pub in District 49, which existed even before it was rebuilt.
Lennok and Kaiser met eyes at the bar counter, bathed in faint sunlight.
“But… in the end, explaining it with words is meaningless. Everything you and I have done, we decided and acted upon ourselves, building it up over time.”
Lennok smiled, tilting his glass.
“If you wish, let’s continue. No matter what, the outcome won’t change anyway.”
“…….”
“I’ll keep waiting right here.”
“…Indeed.”
Kaiser raised his mana with an expressionless face.
He too knew what Lennok meant by these words.
Questions, answers, even all the delusions—all must be discovered by oneself.
Because both of them were Seekers who had arrived here, searching for the next step—
“In the end, verifying the answer shouldn’t be left to others.”
Chrrrrrrrrrrk!!!!
The clock hands beneath their feet rotated and churned once more.
“You’re right, Adamant Thunder.”
Kaiser murmured, watching Lennok recede.
“I will continue to advance to the next iteration. No matter what ending awaits at its conclusion—”
KWAANG!!!!
Kaiser’s Regression was a miracle that rewound time entirely based on the moment the Ideational Domain was manifested.
As long as the Ideational Domain was maintained, Kaiser could change the regressed timeline countless times.
He merely needed to find a timeline where the current Adamant Thunder didn’t exist, close the Ideational Domain, and fix the iteration.
Click.
The clock hands swiftly reversed, and he descended before a dilapidated power plant.
The time when Adamant Thunder first learned Unique Magic and achieved the status of a War-Mage.
At this time, when he had secretly learned Unique Magic from a Lightning Wizard exiled from Thorben Magic Tower—
KWAANG!!!!!
A pillar of dark-blue lightning struck, and the power plant vanished, dissolving into nothingness.
The Lightning of Transcendence fiercely spun, erasing everything in all directions, a hellish landscape.
A young man wielding dark-blue lightning, looking down at Kaiser from beyond the collapsing power plant.
Click.
Without hesitation, he changed the timeline again.
The time when he killed Pardun MacQueen, the Cartel’s First Director, and reached Level 7.
A decisive battleground in an unnamed city, lined with skyscrapers.
Kwagwagwagwa!!!!
Dark-blue lightning surged like a tidal wave, obliterating everything.
From beyond the collapsing White Rakshasa Cannon’s Domain, amidst Pardun MacQueen’s corpse, a figure turned precisely towards him—
Click.
Madrich Onnion’s Net of Ghostly Subjugation shattered, and dark-blue lightning raged wildly.
Click.
The mage, standing on Anathema’s corpse, scattered ominous dark-blue light and smiled.
Click.
Supporting the unconscious Maleon, he looked back at Kaiser amidst the falling meteor shower.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Every moment. Every past. In every timeline, the ‘current’ Lennok faced Kaiser.
No matter how many times he rewound, no matter which timeline he chose, Lennok was already there.
Even after hundreds of Regressions to find a different iteration, the ‘past’ Lennok did not exist.
Realizing this, Kaiser furrowed his brows in dismay for the first time.
“No way—”
A phenomenon of absolute presence, existing identically in all timelines a single human has lived.
Could that mage perhaps possess the same fate or characteristics as Alkaid?
More dangerous and unknowable than any talent or aptitude Kaiser had ever conceived—
“What’s wrong?”
Click.
Lennok, who was entering the hearing room, sat in a wheelchair pushed by Antares and asked Kaiser.
“You could still do a lot more, couldn’t you?”
“…No.”
Kaiser looked up before the badly shattered Hermes’s Ascension Gate.
“I’ve been stuck on one method for… long enough to be tired of it.”
“…….”
“Adamant Thunder. If you can maintain your current self in all the timelines you’ve lived. If you’ve gained an unchanging absolute presence—”
Kaiser raised his mana with an expressionless face.
“Let’s start again from an even more distant past.”
Chrrrrrrrrrrk!!!!!
Further back than the timeline where Adamant Thunder first appeared in Vulcan.
He headed decades into the past, to a time before Adamant Thunder was even born.
The past timeline that Kaiser Bajour himself had repeatedly traversed through Regression countless times.
Before the project had even taken shape. Before everything began.
Click!
KWAANGAAAAAAH!!!!!!
The Eternal Tribulation Severing Leaf violently shook, and the timeline began to run wild.
Ever since acquiring the power of Regression, Kaiser had relentlessly rewound his own past.
If it failed, again. If it was wrong, again. If he gave up, again.
After stabilizing the power of Regression using the project, how much time had he spent on Regression?
How many times had Kaiser himself rewound the time he had lived, re-experiencing and reliving it?
At one point, he thought of it as nostalgic, then boring, and then it only felt painful.
And now, he felt nothing at all.
Kaiser’s endlessly faced and replayed past unfolded before his eyes.
Just like in those countless Regressions, events from decades ago flowed past like a panorama.
[Kaiser. Do you really have to do it that way?]
[I trust your abilities, but this is too reckless a challenge.]
[You’ll fail. We’ll all be in danger.]
Before starting the project, during the period of various trial-and-error attempts to prevent the apocalypse.
Kaiser, who had traveled the continent searching for a method, had friends who had been with him for a long time.
Truth-seekers who realized this world was ending. Seekers who strived to prevent the apocalypse.
Companions who loved this world as much as Kaiser himself.
His worried friends eventually laughed, as if they couldn’t help it.
[Well, let’s give it a try anyway.]
[If it’s something you’re doing, I’ll follow you to the end.]
[It’s only right to at least struggle before the end comes, isn’t it?]
[Come on. I’ll show you how to use the new research equipment.]
In his clumsy early days, Kaiser learned many things from his companions.
How to uncover the truth of this world. How to research and control the Talent for Reversing Heaven.
How to share emotions with others. Even how to find meaning in a life different from others.
They taught him how to accept finite life and death and live.
They were friends, lovers, companions, siblings, and mentors.
Kaiser believed he would be with them until the very end.
Click.
Time passed, and the scenery before Kaiser’s eyes changed.
[Kaiser. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.]
[Too many companions have left… I think this is my limit.]
[I can’t bear to see you die. But if I can’t stop it… then this must be where we part ways.]
During the period when he was breaking free from the cycle of Short-lived Beings and gradually controlling his Talent for Reversing Heaven.
As time passed, his friends aged, and Kaiser gradually grew younger.
As their physical appearances changed, their opinions diverged, even with those he believed he would be with forever.
Companions who tried to stop the apocalypse gradually changed their minds with age, or died before that.
More and more people left to find their own meaning before the end arrived.
Kaiser remained until the last, trying to persuade them, but much was too late.
Click.
Time passed again, and the scenery changed once more.
The empty laboratory. Kaiser, left alone after all his companions had gone.
Olivera Ron Maize, her face veiled, stood behind him.
[A futile struggle, as I have told you countless times.]
[…Olivera. You’re still here.]
Kaiser, who had been sitting blankly, looking at papers, raised his head.
Glancing at her face, Kaiser smiled weakly.
[I didn’t think you’d just watch my failure without helping even once. How does it feel now, satisfied?]
[Hmph… I have no interest in entertainment with a predetermined ending. What happened here was nothing more than a foolish act of replaying failures repeated over hundreds of years.]
Olivera snorted.
[It is only natural that its end should lead to catastrophe. It was predetermined long ago that your so-called friends and companions would give up.]
[Yes… perhaps so.]
Kaiser staggered to his feet.
[But I haven’t given up yet.]
[….]
[I thought I had done enough… but there was one method left.]
Kaiser turned towards Olivera and slowly pointed to himself.
[I intend to use my Talent for Reversing Heaven to reverse the time of this world.]
[…You.]
Leaving the hesitant Olivera, Kaiser said softly.
[I was always filled with regret.]
[If only I could have done a little better back then… I just let time slip away meaninglessly, thinking that.]
[….]
[I will rewind even the time I regretted and create infinite opportunities. If I review all the failures of this world that way….]
Kaiser hesitated, then spoke.
[At the very least, I might find the path towards an answer.]
[You… you wouldn’t be able to attempt such a thing alone. Have you found a method?]
[I found a new patron. Someone who knows a great deal… and is somewhat similar to me. No, I don’t know if you could call them a person.]
Kaiser’s expression clouded, then he smiled weakly and said.
[I plan to establish a new city and use it as a foundation to construct the final project. What do you think, are you interested?]
Silence fell.
Olivera too knew how absurd Kaiser’s plan was.
To process the Talent for Reversing Heaven, adjust it into the power of Regression, and through it, infinitely rewind the world’s failures.
If it were the cold-hearted Olivera he knew, she would never lend a hand to such a reckless plan.
Kaiser himself wouldn’t have even considered implementing such a plan without a patron.
Yet, why did he propose the project to her at that time?
A long-forgotten emotion, yet one he surely held at that moment… seemed to be there.
Amidst the infinitely repeated Regressions, the moment Kaiser vaguely recalled it.
Olivera asked.
[What is the name of the project?]
[Name?]
[You say you want to change the world, yet you haven’t even thought of a name for the plan?]
Kaiser stroked his chin, lost in thought with a haggard look.
[I hadn’t really thought about it… If I had to say, we are in the position of stubbornly insisting on existence beyond demise. From the world’s perspective, we’re closer to troublesome customers.]
[….]
[Indeed. We are throwing a tantrum, wanting to grasp unauthorized qualifications and a future. So the project’s name is—]
Again and again.
Kaiser revisited this moment countless times.
During his infinite Regressions, he sometimes deliberately rewound time to stand before her at this point.
At this moment when everything failed, and everything started anew.
To not forget the resolve he made here. To not lose the answer he decided upon here.
Even when his heart and soul were worn down, and his emotions withered away, he didn’t want to lose this.
Even now, feeling nothing, he habitually rewound time and stood here.
He compulsively uttered the same words, feigned emotions, and conversed with Olivera.
So—
“The project’s name is Black Consumer.”
When he heard Lennok’s voice from behind, Kaiser couldn’t help but react.
“For decades, we have been stubbornly demanding unauthorized qualifications and rights, dreaming of them.”
“…….”
Beyond the darkened laboratory, where the lights had gone out.
In that place where everything had begun anew, Lennok stood, gripping dark-blue lightning.
The mage’s figure, wrapped in dark-blue lightning, silently watched Kaiser.
“I’ve seen you once in the Restricted Zone. I remember it.”
“…You.”
“Olivera must have remembered this moment too.”
It was impossible.
This wasn’t Adamant Thunder’s past, but Kaiser’s past, existing much earlier than that.
Timewise, it was a time when a human named Adamant Thunder hadn’t even been born.
Even if he possessed an absolute presence, existing identically in all timelines he had lived, he couldn’t be here before his birth.
Yet, for Lennok to exist here, perfectly fine—
“An interesting method. Returning to before the project even began and repeating from the very start?”
Lennok ignored Kaiser and stroked his chin.
“If you intended to regress to a timeline where I didn’t exist, there would be no need to start from here.”
“…….”
“Ah, I see. Is it because you acquired Ethan Bajour’s body that you are rewinding the timeline ‘from the beginning’ again?”
Even as Kaiser was speechless, Lennok quickly found the answer on his own.
“Even blood relatives don’t have perfectly identical faces. If you regressed mid-project, someone who knew your original face might feel a sense of unease.”
“…….”
“Amazing. To be so concerned with others’ reactions and emotions. I thought a Regressor would be insensitive to such things.”
Lennok chuckled.
“Or is that the only ‘meaning’ left in your Regression?”
“……!!!”
For the first time, a faint crack appeared within Kaiser.
Something he thought had completely worn away during infinite Regressions.
Before he could even realize it was a fragment of long-forgotten emotion—
Click!
[Kaiser. Do you really have to do it that way?]
[I trust your abilities, but this is too reckless a challenge.]
[You’ll fail. We’ll all be in danger.]
“You have good friends.”
Lennok stood beside Kaiser’s companions who worried about him.
“Do you remember all their names?”
Click!!!
[Kaiser. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.]
[Too many companions have left… I think this is my limit.]
[I can’t bear to see you die. But if I can’t stop it… then this must be where we part ways.]
“They worried about you more than the success of the plan.”
Lennok said, watching the departing companions with Kaiser.
“Perhaps they wished you would say you’d give up. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“…….”
“You knew something was lacking, yet you always desired more than that.”
Lennok smiled beside the silent Kaiser.
“Perhaps it was because even that deficiency resembled me… that I’ve chased after you all this time.”
Click!!!
[What is the name of the project?]
[Name?]
[You say you want to change the world, yet you haven’t even thought of a name for the plan?]
“Here again?”
Lennok stood behind Olivera.
“You regress countless times, rewind countless times… and yet you always stop here at least once.”
“…….”
“Was it a precious memory?”
Chrrrrrrrrrrk!!!!!
Regressing, then regressing again.
Endlessly traversing back through past timelines, starting over from the beginning.
[Kaiser. Do you really have to do it that way?]
[Kaiser. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.]
[The project’s name is Black Consumer.]
The clock hands raged, pushing forward into the timelines beyond.
Until the moment he found an iteration without Lennok amidst the infinite Regressions.
Searching for a timeline where Lennok was not accompanying Kaiser’s Regression.
[Kaiser. You’re not… a Regressor, are you?]
[Finally, I’ve gained Crimson as a companion. Now I can touch the Domains of the Ascendants.]
[My name is Racy. A humble vampire. I’ve heard about your plan.]
KWAANGAAAAAAH!!!!
He continued to regress, forgetting even the order and flow of time.
Memories of the project’s journey towards success.
[Lord Kaiser. Someone… has come from the Imperial Palace.]
[They say they want to make a deal regarding Ars Nova’s fate.]
But in all those moments, Lennok was present.
The moment Kaiser moved to the next iteration and stood before a different timeline.
The dark-blue lightning always announced its presence as if waiting.
Repeated Regression. The boundary between past and present. As if time and place held no meaning.
And, as time flowed, a branching point eventually arrived.
[Greetings, Kaiser Bajour. I am Yuseong, the Left Prime Minister of the Imperial Palace Cabinet of The Empire.]
[Those born with the Mana of Reversing Heaven all die young before the age of 20, and their mana becomes distorted, making it difficult for them to learn martial arts or spellcraft.]
[Kaiser. You are the one who has survived the longest while wielding that cursed Bloodline Ability, and the only one who has managed to control that talent.]
[It is rare to find a Seeker who repeats trial and error as much as you, or an Attainer who has come so close to the correct answer.]
[We are interested in the compilation of talents you found through endless failures.]
[So, would you like to make a deal?]
A visitor from The Empire’s Imperial Palace of Ars Nova, with whom he had almost no dealings in countless Regressions.
Yet, the presence of a ‘noble’ who accurately understood the true nature of Kaiser Bajour’s abilities.
The decisive turning point where the Black Consumer Project became fundamentally distorted.
And the turning point where the project became closer to the ‘correct answer’ than anything else.
[Regarding the Corpse Emperor… I have a proposal I’d like to make.]
“The Corpse Emperor.”
Lennok was now standing behind Kaiser.
“It’s the first time I’ve heard the Emperor of The Empire referred to by such a name.”
“…….”
“Even the nobles and Ascendants of Ars Nova never called the Emperor that. Is there… a reason?”
“…Indeed.”
For the first time, Kaiser truly looked back at Lennok.
Only now, after coming this far, could Kaiser finally understand the truth.
“You… weren’t regressing with me, following me.”
“…….”
“If you possessed the power of Regression, there’s no way you could have come this far. It’s impossible for you to exist even in my past, beyond the time you’ve lived.”
If Lennok’s ability was an absolute presence, existing identically in all timelines he had lived, that could explain his unaffectedness by Regression.
But even with such a talent, he couldn’t exist this way in a past long before he was born.
This wasn’t just the talent of absolute presence, maintaining his ‘current’ self regardless of past and present.
It was a culmination of powers far more incomprehensible and unrealistic than that.
“You are not rewinding time with me to be here. That’s because, from the very beginning, it wasn’t just your absolute presence—”
Kaiser’s gaze passed Lennok and slowly moved downwards.
Lennok’s presence, which had appeared before Kaiser every time since he began Regression using the Eternal Tribulation Severing Leaf.
And the dark-blue lightning that was always with Lennok at those times.
Kaiser, finally reaching the answer, looked at the dark-blue lightning.
“It was the result of the Level 9 Lightning Magic you acquired.”
“Yes.”
Lennok smiled.
“I’m not regressing with you. Nor have I been chasing you from a step behind.”
Lennok slowly grasped the dark-blue lightning and tilted his head back.
“I merely… exist here ‘prior’ to every timeline you regress to.”
“…Prior?”
“It is the Prescience I had to obtain to counter a Transcendent Regressor.”
Lennok slowly took a step.
Each time, dark-blue lightning flickered, pushing Lennok forward into this world’s timeline.
Like lightning that exists before all changes, no matter how much the timeline is altered or rewound.
The ideal power that the Thorben Magic Tower Lord once spoke of to Lennok in a dream.
Drawing out the causality of lightning to its very end, reaching it at the very beginning of one’s life—
“Transcendent lightning that exists ‘prior’ to all causes and effects in this world.”
“…….”
“Kaiser. This is what I finally obtained after grasping the Level 9 branching point and coming this far—”
Pajijijijijik!!!!!
Gripping the lightning imbued with a dark-blue light, Lennok spoke.
“It is called Ultimate Lightning Magic.”