The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

Chapter 82: The Nightmare of the Taboos

"What?" Ravian asked, though he had heard the Descent’s question with perfect clarity.

The Descent didn’t reply, and the frozen look in its eyes didn’t change.

Just as Ravian thought he had managed to buy himself some time with that evasion—

Shlick!

The sound of tearing flesh rang out, and blood suddenly spattered across the right side of Ravian’s face.

"Huh?"

Ravian didn’t understand what had happened.

He didn’t even feel it at first.

His eyes shifted to the right, searching for the source of the blood.

And he saw it.

Or rather—he no longer saw it.

The place where his right arm should have been was now empty.

Only his right shoulder remained. The arm itself had vanished without a trace, leaving behind a horrific wound from which blood poured freely.

The pain arrived late.

"Mmm!"

Ravian instinctively tried to scream, but his mouth was forcibly clamped shut before the sound could escape, the restraint reasserting its grip over his jaw and throat.

"Mmph...!"

"Mmph...!"

His gasps strangled inside his throat, unable to escape his mouth.

’I can’t...’

’What can I possibly do in a state like this?’

Ravian’s thoughts drifted through his mind with no anchor to cling to.

When he decided to kill Robert, he had expected death.

But what was happening now went far beyond even his worst expectations.

And worse still?

The entity before him seemed capable of looking straight through him, as though his body, soul, and thoughts were nothing more than transparent layers before its eyes.

"I will not ask again," the Descent said.

The moment its voice reached Ravian’s ears, his entire soul shuddered from within.

Ravian raised his eyes toward the entity once more.

But what was he supposed to tell it?

That he had crossed into this world and received a System called Sovereign Pride—and that it was the thing capable of devouring its Ambassador’s Records?

He would rather die than divulge even one of his secrets, let alone the greatest secret he possessed.

Nor could he lie.

If a mere Ambassador of Truth had exposed his lie, then what could the Descent of the Taboo itself do?

Deceiving it was impossible.

Unfortunately, Ravian didn’t have the luxury of spending so long deliberating.

"Disappointing," the Descent said suddenly.

’Huh?’

Ravian had barely processed the word when—

Bam!

His entire body was slammed into the floor as though gravity had multiplied hundreds of times over in a single instant.

Craack!

Several bones inside Ravian’s body shattered at once from the impact alone.

His awareness of his surroundings faded for several moments.

The tavern around him became a blurred mirage as splinters from the wooden floor pierced his face, abdomen, and scattered parts of his body.

Then his body began to rise from the floor again, carried by an invisible force.

"Kah! Kah...!"

Ravian coughed up blood and the wooden splinters that had entered his mouth when he struck the floor.

Just as he thought he would be questioned again, no question came.

Bam!

This time, that same invisible force hurled his body upward, slamming him into the tavern’s metal roof and sending him straight through it. Suddenly, he found himself facing the vast, still night sky.

Crack!

Shlick!

Ravian heard what remained of his bones shattering and his flesh tearing.

The speed at which he had been hurled and the force of the impact were far beyond anything an ordinary human could imagine.

One moment, he had been inside the tavern.

The next, he hung suspended in the sky above the capital.

Had it not been for the body Sovereign Pride had rebuilt, his bones would have turned to dust upon the first impact.

Swooosh!

His body was dragged back down in the same blur of speed, then smashed into the tavern floor once more.

Booom!

Ravian’s body destroyed a large portion of what remained of the tavern floor, sending splinters and dust scattering in every direction.

His body had been utterly deformed.

His left arm—intact only moments earlier—had vanished without a trace, and he didn’t even know when he had lost it.

Only the portion of his left leg above the knee remained. Everything below it was gone.

As for his right leg, although it remained attached, it no longer resembled a strong, straight human limb.

It had twisted at a hideous angle, all trace of its natural joints nearly gone.

His blood dyed his white hair dark red, mingling with traces of that strange gray liquid, while his skull had been deformed so severely that even thinking had become a struggle.

Then what remained of Ravian’s body began rising into the air once more, until he hung facing Robert’s corpse—the vessel the Descent had claimed for itself.

"Speak," the Descent said with complete calm, despite the destruction it had wrought only moments earlier.

Its voice reverberated unnaturally through the tavern, and Ravian’s soul trembled with every echo.

At the same moment, the restraint around his mouth and throat loosened just enough to allow him to speak.

Ravian could no longer raise his head to look at the entity.

He couldn’t even move his eyes within their sockets, regardless of whether he could raise his head.

Blood poured from every part of his body in unbroken streams.

His lips moved faintly.

Very faintly—but they moved.

And when the Descent seemed to believe he was about to confess what he had been hiding—

"Damn you," Ravian said.

The Descent continued watching him in silence.

"Damn you, your Ambassador, your followers, and your entire sect, you son of a bitch," Ravian added with the last breath remaining in his lungs, his eyes once again igniting with that strange crimson light.

The Descent stared at him with its white eyes, remaining silent for a moment.

Then it spoke.

"I have changed my mind. I will learn what I wish to know myself."

At that very instant—

Shlick!

Shlick!

Thud!

Sharp, echo-like waves swept out with the entity’s voice, severing both of Ravian’s ears at their roots. They dropped to the floor as blood began pouring from where they had been like two rivers.

Boom!

In the next moment, what remained of his legs exploded from their sockets, leaving nothing of Ravian but the mangled upper half of his body.

Throughout all of it, no expression appeared on his face.

Or rather, in his current state and amid the flood of pain sweeping through him, he was no longer capable of showing any expression at all.

Just as Ravian thought it was over, the Descent appeared before him again.

It drove its hand into the center of his chest, piercing flesh and bone before closing its fingers around his heart.

Crunch!

It crushed Ravian’s heart inside its fist.

Spurt!

Blood burst from Ravian’s mouth, and his head slumped forward.

[Warning!]

[One of the Taboos is attempting to access the Host’s Records.]

[The entity will reach Sovereign Pride at any moment.]

[Extracting the Host’s Records will erase his extra lives.]

[Kill yourself.]

Ravian’s body trembled involuntarily at the System’s notification.

Even in his current state, he felt the danger swell to a level beyond everything that had come before.

’No!’

Ravian’s mind rejected what was happening, but his rejection meant nothing in a situation like this.

In a moment of madness and despair, he arrived at his final resort.

He didn’t know whether it was a solution or whether it would destroy the last chance he had left, but he refused to remain still and wait for the entity to tear everything out of him.

Absolute Focus.

Ravian entered the state of Absolute Focus despite the crushing pain tearing at his mind and scattering his thoughts.

Then—

Soul Ascension.

Before the last threads of consciousness binding him to his body could go dark, Ravian’s soul began leaving it at tremendous speed—faster than it ever had during any previous use of Soul Ascension.

"Hmm?"

The Descent murmured, and for the first time, the look in its eyes changed.

Ravian’s soul separated from his body, and with it, every physical sensation fell away.

He could finally see what was happening before him—but this time, through his spiritual form.

The body lying below no longer resembled a human body.

But he didn’t care.

He had already decided to flee as quickly as he possibly could.

Yet what happened next only deepened his shock.

The entity’s eyes shifted away from his ruined body, then rose upward.

’What?’

The entity’s gaze settled directly upon Ravian’s spiritual form.

For the first time, a strange smile appeared on the Descent’s face.

"There you are," it said, staring at Ravian’s soul.

But Ravian had already vanished from where he had been.

’Damn it!’

’Damn it!’

’It can see me even in my current state?!’

Ravian couldn’t believe what was happening.

But escaping an entity like this had been impossible from the beginning.

Not for Ravian—and not for anyone else at his level.

"Caught you."

The Descent’s voice suddenly came from behind him.

At that same instant, Ravian’s spiritual form froze in place beneath the grip of an invisible force.

[The Host’s Records and soul are being torn away by the power of a Taboo.]

The System window appeared to tell Ravian the very last thing he wanted to hear.

’No!’

Ravian’s entire being rejected what was happening, but that changed nothing.

With every passing moment, he could feel something being wrenched from the depths of his soul until he was on the verge of being stripped away entirely.

Then another notification appeared.

[Host death confirmed.]

[Extra lives remaining: 2.]

[Regressing to the start of the day...]

[Regression failed: the Host’s soul is restrained.]

[One extra life has been consumed.]

[Extra lives remaining: 1.]

Ravian felt a familiar force wrap around his soul and attempt to drag it back to the start of the day, but the entity’s grip pinned him in place until the force of the Regression tore apart and dissipated.

’Damn it!’

Madness nearly consumed Ravian as he watched everything he had gathered being torn away by an entity he had no way of fighting—the likes of which he had never encountered in his new life.

The entity’s smile widened until it became something terrifying.

"I have you at last..."

It paused for a moment, even as it continued tearing Ravian’s soul from its very core.

"...Nightmare of the Taboos."

Although the Regression had failed, the consumed extra life reanchored the core of Ravian’s soul for a moment, preventing it from dissolving.

But the entity’s grip remained buried within him.

And it tore him apart again.

[Warning!]

[Host death confirmed once again.]

[Regressing to the start of the day...]

[Regression failed: the Host’s soul is restrained.]

[One extra life has been consumed.]

[Extra lives remaining: 0.]

Ravian’s thoughts froze as he read the final window that appeared before him.

He had no extra lives left.

He no longer possessed a body to return to.

And he was facing an entity at the level of a Taboo.

’Then you won’t get what you want.’

Ravian suddenly stopped resisting.

A strange stillness settled over his spiritual form, and the panic vanished from his thoughts as though it had never existed.

Instead of continuing to push back against the force tearing at his soul, Ravian gathered what remained of his core and compressed it inward.

Then—

Boooom!

Ravian detonated his soul core.

"What?!"

Even the entity was caught off guard by what Ravian had done, its eyes widening for the first time in genuine shock.

"Nooo!"

That was the last sound Ravian heard.

His soul erupted outward in an explosion far greater than anything he had imagined—so powerful that it hurled Robert’s corpse, the Descent’s vessel, away at a speed no eye could follow.

And the explosion did not stop at the tavern.

Its shockwave extended through the material and spiritual worlds alike, erasing the houses, the streets, and everything near its center.

It was, in the end, the detonation of the soul belonging to the bearer of Sovereign Pride.

[Host death confirmed.]

[Extra lives remaining: 0.]

[Regression cannot be executed.]

[The Host will now die permanently.]