Not A Regressor-Chapter 262: Snowfield (2)

“Kugh, agh!”

Blood gushed out like a fountain. His shoulder burned as if a red-hot iron had branded it. The pain spread like poison and gnawed away at his reason.

“Hup!”

Kwon Oh-Jin suppressed the blinding pain and stabbed Cassia’s arm, wrapped around his waist, with his folding knife.

Crack!

An intense recoil traveled through his hand. He found it hard to believe that he had struck a slender forearm. Still, the attack had some effect as her arm momentarily weakened around his waist.

With a forceful stomp, he pushed himself away from Cassia and widened the distance. From the bag that he always carried, he pulled out an emergency potion and poured it over the torn stump of his right arm, which had been severed below the shoulder.

“My, so quick to react, just like a true liar.” Cassia licked the blood dripping from her wounded arm and tossed Kwon Oh-Jin’s severed arm to the ground like garbage.

Isabella, who had been phasing through a wall of shadow, stared wide-eyed at the severed arm on the ground.

“Unnie? What... are you doing right now?” She glared at Cassia with a stiff expression as killing intent bloomed in her eyes.

“Hmm? I’m just giving a liar his punishment.”

Isabella’s gaze turned ice-cold. She looked down at Kwon Oh-Jin’s arm on the floor and stopped trying to get past the shadow wall.

Isabella turned toward Cassia. “How dare you...?”

The eerie sound of her biting into her nails echoed in the air.

Crack, snap.

“How dare you hurt Mr. Oh-Jin!?”

Blood trickled from her shattered nails and took the shape of a crimson scythe.

Isabella’s dull pupils locked onto Cassia.

“Stop, Isabella!” Kwon Oh-Jin shouted in panic, but couldn’t stop her.

She couldn’t forgive the woman who dared to hurt him, even if that woman was the sister she had desperately searched for over the past ten years.

Isabella gripped her red scythe and forcefully kicked off the ground. A trail of blood marked her path on the floor. Sliding along it like water, she swung her scythe.

Whoosh!

“You're still badly behaved, daring to raise a hand against your older sister.” Cassia sneered coldly and clenched her fist as if grabbing the air.

Shadows climbed up her body and gathered in her hand, forming a long staff. At the tip, two snakes coiled around each other, their mouths holding emerald-colored bells.

Jingle.

With the clear sound, a wave of shadows exploded out from the staff and deflected Isabella’s scythe.

Clang!

The red scythe bounced off violently, sending Isabella sliding back.

“The badly behaved one is you, unnie.” Isabella glared fiercely at Cassia and cut her palm on the blade of her scythe.

Blood spurted out, transforming into red blades that rained down on Cassia.

Cassia’s lifeless pupils focused on Isabella. “You speak as if you know something, but you know nothing, don’t you?”

The jewel on her forehead emitted a sinister black glow. She flicked her staff lightly through the air.

Shhhhhh!

Black snakes surged up along the staff’s trajectory and formed a massive wall. Isabella’s red blades clashed with the snake wall. The ground ripped like paper, and a nearby amusement ride collapsed. Clouds of dust rose.

Isabella turned her bloodied palm down. “Flow.”

Her dripping blood formed a circular ripple, dyeing the ground red. From that crimson earth, flowers began to bloom. Hundreds of blood flowers, red from stem to leaf, spread out around Isabella. It looked like she was standing in the center of a garden made of blood.

Isabella slowly raised her scythe.

Cassia stepped boldly into the blooming blood flower garden. “What pretty flowers.”

She picked one and twirled it in her hand with a giggle.

“Come to think of it, do you remember when we were kids, you made me a flower crown?”

In the Colgrande mansion’s vast garden, Isabella had smiled brightly as she held out a flower crown made of wildflowers. Cassia, sitting in her wheelchair, warmly gazed at her. These precious memories were now so distant that she couldn’t even remember when they had happened.

“I don’t remember,” Isabella said.

In truth, she did. So vividly that she couldn’t even forget them in her dreams.

“Oh my? Is that so? But I remember. Hehe, I still feel nauseous when I think about how disgusting you looked putting that flower crown on me.”

Isabella bit her lip hard. Even though she knew that Cassia wasn’t in her right mind, every word still stabbed Isabella’s chest like a dagger.

“Disgusting... you say?”

“Haha. Why? Did you think I would like it?”

Those cruel words tore apart the album of memories Isabella had treasured in her heart.

“Shut up.” Isabella fiercely glared and swung her scythe.

The hundreds of blood flowers that had bloomed around her exploded at once, unleashing a terrifying blast.

Rumble!

The ground shook as if an earthquake had struck. The level of destruction was akin to a natural disaster.

“Hm. I thought they were pretty flowers, but I guess they’re just like you on the inside.”

Even amid that overwhelming explosion, Cassia stood perfectly unharmed.

“Now it’s my turn,” Cassia said.

With a clear jingle, black snakes shot toward Isabella like a tidal wave.

“Ugh!”

Counting them was meaningless with so many. Isabella wildly swung her scythe, slashing through the flood of snakes.

After some time, she gasped for breath and leaned on her red scythe for support like a cane. “Haa, haa!”

“Tired already?”

While Isabella looked like she would collapse at any moment, Cassia remained unchanged since the start of the fight. At most, she only seemed slightly out of breath.

Cassia curled her lips into a smirk. As she took a step forward, she disappeared into the shadows and instantly appeared right in front of Isabella.

“I guess I need to punish you too, Bella.”

“Unnie...”

Cassia’s pupils gleamed with a sinister emerald light. She raised her staff high and aimed it down at Isabella. However, she abruptly stopped like a machine whose switch had been flipped off.

“Ugh.” She moaned and bit her lip. “Agh, urgh.”

Her staff slipped from her hand and landed on the ground with a clear chime.

Cassia clutched her head with both hands and curled into herself. “S-Stop... No, I mustn’t stop...”

She muttered to herself while trembling. With each violent shudder, the jewel embedded in her forehead pulsed with a black light.

“Ah, ugh.”

Like a fish leaping from water, Cassia suddenly uncurled and looked up at the sky. Her shadows obscured the sky above. Not even a glimmer of light could be seen, only pitch darkness.

Her old and faded memories returned. Memories she never wanted to recall again.

“I'm sorry, Miss Cassia. Your condition can't be cured with modern medicine.”

The doctor’s words felt like a death sentence. She couldn’t even remember the exact name of the disease, but it began with her legs. Then, her waist, arms, and entire body eventually stiffened like stone.

Even the Colgrande Family’s massive wealth couldn’t cure the disease. All she could do was sit in a wheelchair as she slowly turned into stone and waited for death.

“Hehe, Cassia unnie! Look at this!”

Isabella smiled brightly and gifted her a flower crown.

Cassia could only watch her healthy little sister dash about, as though mocking her in that wheelchair. She felt miserable, but pretended to smile. She pretended to be fine so her loved ones wouldn’t be sad.

Then, one night, while wandering the halls late at night, she heard her mother talking with her father.

“Still, I’m relieved.”

What were they relieved about?

“If Bella had ended up like that, I really... haa.”

Her mother’s sigh almost sounded like relief. The moment she heard that, Cassia’s world collapsed. Her life as Cassia Colgrande only meant that much. Like drawing a losing slip in a lottery, no one wanted her or needed her. She was just a crumpled piece of paper to be thrown in the trash.

That day, she lost everything, including her kind father, her gentle mother, her beloved little sister, and even herself.

After some time passed, they sent her to a hospital in Iceland according to the family’s rules. She didn’t feel wronged or sad since she had nothing to begin with. All she possessed was her deteriorating, pitiful body.

After her family abandoned her, she was abandoned once more when a massive rift leading to the Demon District opened. When the monsters attacked, no one helped her. Struggling to wheel herself away, she collapsed in a snowfield. The howling blizzard felt so cold and sharp as if it could slice her. She felt like she would freeze to death.

She recalled that memory and looked up at the dark and moonless sky.

Cassia lowered her head and staggered as she slowly raised her staff. “I must... follow his words...”

She recalled the nightmare of that day when she waited for death with pitiful tears.

“Only then...”

She would never be abandoned again.

“Explosive Lightning!”

Crackle!

A bolt of blue lightning fell from the sky and pierced through Cassia. She groaned and stumbled back.

Bang!

Kwon Oh-Jin quickly wrapped his wire around Isabella and yanked her toward him. He hugged Isabella with his one remaining arm.

“Haa, haa. I’m okay now, Mr. Oh-Jin.”

Panting heavily, Isabella raised herself up and formed her red scythe once more. “I’ll buy you some time, so please run while you can. Earlier, I managed to create a small gap in the shadow wall.”

He immediately shook his head and flatly refused. “No. It’s still better to fight together.”

Even if he wanted to run, they had nowhere to go with everything engulfed in shadows. Even if a gap existed, he couldn’t just leave Isabella behind.

Isabella watched as Kwon Oh-Jin raised his only remaining arm and somehow took a fighting stance.

She placed a hand on his shoulder and commanded, “I told you to run.” 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

He began to move against his will. “Ugh! Isabella!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Oh-Jin.” Isabella faintly smiled. “But I felt the same way back then too, you know?”

She winked playfully as she gripped her scythe. Then, she charged toward Cassia once more.