The Hunted Regressor: My Heretic Saint System-Chapter 44: My Brother

Back at the main path, the world had descended into a special kind of Hell.

It was a chaotic, muddy mosh pit of confusion. All but Gorm of the Ironhead mercenaries, who had been sharing crab jerky and crude jokes just hours ago, now had dark eyes and veins of Corruption crawling all over their bodies.

Gorm was swinging his battle axe, pushing back his men, while a handful of dirt-covered villagers—who must have been stalking them in the grass for miles—rushed in with pitchforks and rusted knives.

"Don’t kill them!"

Ulv roared, parrying a lethal blow from a villager.

"They’re not in their right minds!"

The massive wolf-man was sweating, his fur matted with mud.

"Ulv, he’s trying to flatten my skull!"

A guard yelled, ducking under a mercenary’s swing.

"It’s a bit hard to play nice when they’re trying to turn me into meat paste!"

Lykos, meanwhile, stood in the center, his hands trembling on his staff.

He was a noble, trained for combat, but he was currently watching his small world dissolve.

Felix, neither a noble nor trained, was curled into a ball behind a large rock, whimpering, "I’m not here! You don’t see me! Eat someone else!" over and over.

The temperature around them had plummeted, and to make things worse, the black mist Ignotus had seen earlier zipped through the tall grass and coalesced right in front of Lykos.

"...brother."

A white-clothed child materialized.

"Where is he?..."

It tilted its head so far it cracked, its eyes searching in this Hell.

"Where’s my brother?"

Its voice didn’t come from its throat but rather echoed inside their skulls.

That made Lykos freeze; his instincts were telling him to run, but his legs felt like they were made of stone, disabling him from moving.

"Ah."

The Curse’s black pits seemed to soften for a split second before its mouth stretched into a wide, unnatural smile that revealed too many teeth.

"Brother..."

It reached out a pale, translucent hand toward his face.

"I’ve finally found you."

"YOU SCORNED BEING!"

Ulv, abandoning his fight with the mercenaries, lunged at it.

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!"

He channeled his Divinity for the first time, creating an armor of ice that covered him from head to toe, including his great sword, giving it the ability to shred the Curse to pieces.

He didn’t care if it looked like a child; he saw the Calamity as it truly was.

But he didn’t see the hands.

From the Curse’s small back, six invisible, ethereal limbs erupted like the legs of a ghostly spider. They were made of Corruption, and one of these ’hands’ caught Ulv mid-air, slamming into his chest with incredible force.

Crack!

Ulv’s ice armor shattered, and he was sent flying backward, coughing up a spray of crimson.

"Don’t get in the way of my brother and me!"

Two more invisible hands shot forward, their fingers elongated into spear-like shapes, aimed directly at Ulv’s throat to fiercely massacre the one who dared ruin their sibling reunion.

Yet before that could happen...

CLAAANG.

𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

The sound of steel hitting something incredibly dense echoed through the clearing.

Its hands had paused, all thanks to Ignotus, who had sprung out of the grass and slid on his knees, barely reaching in time to block the invisible spears just inches from Ulv’s neck.

His Beholding Eyes were glowing, allowing him to see the shimmering outlines of its limbs.

"Ulv! Get the Hell back!"

Ignotus barked, his muscles straining against the pressure.

"You can’t hit what you can’t see, and you’re too slow anyway!"

"Young... Stranger..."

Ulv wheezed, clutching his broken ribs.

"Thank you for this!"

"No worries! Now go protect our puppy!"

Ignotus shoved the invisible hands back with a grunt of effort while standing up.

"But seriously? Invisible hands? For a Lesser Curse like you?"

The Curse hissed, and all six hands lashed out at once.

Ignotus moved and began to flow through them.

To the others, it looked like he was dancing with whooshing air, twisting and parrying its invisible strikes, but to Ignotus, it was a high-speed game of ’don’t get impaled.’

’Three on the left, one from the right, two from above.’

He quickly stepped inside the reach of the lower limbs and slashed at those from above, pushing them back.

Ignotus was far from being a strong Runebearer, but he saw exactly where the heart of this Curse was located.

"Your brother isn’t here, kid."

His voice dropped to a low, blunt tone.

"And he wouldn’t recognize you like this anyway."

He lunged forward, pushing the Curse back further, and sliced through the invisible arms that came to protect its midsection.

But he didn’t stop there, driving his sword straight through the center of its stomach—the ’heart’ of this Curse.

"KWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

As the blade sank in, the realm blurred around him.

Ignotus felt a surge of incredibly weak Corruption flooding his mind, a natural consequence of dispelling a Curse. And with that touch of Corruption, he saw a flash of a rural village.

There, a little girl held the hand of a boy who looked just like her. Before them were large men in black armor—House Priests—dragging the boy away while he screamed her name.

Ignotus saw the girl get left behind, crying in the dirt, until a shadow moved over her...

A Demon.

She made a deal in the depths of despair.

’I’ll find him for you... just give me your life.’

Ignotus’s Corruption was cleansed by his Divinity, the memory gone with it, returning him to the present.

’Hm...’

His expression softened for a fraction of a second.

"A shitty world."

He twisted the blade, ending her heart.

"Rest now... your nightmare is over."

The child let out one final, haunting sigh.

"...my brother."

Her body began to dissolve into a thick, oily puddle of Corruption.

The invisible hands vanished, and the freezing cold lifted.

Across the path, the effect was instantaneous.

Gorm’s people dropped their weapons and collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.

The others fell to the dirt as well, all unconscious but still alive.

"..."

"..."

"..."

The silence that followed was heavy.

Ignotus stood over the fading black puddle, his sword dripping with dark residue.

He flicked the blade clean, returned it to his inventory, and turned back to the group.

Ulv was being helped up by a frantic Lykos, and Felix was slowly peeking out from behind his rock.

"It’s done..."

Ignotus wiped sweat from his brow.

"Good job."

He looked at the unconscious mercenaries.

"Get some water. They’re going to have one Hell of a headache when they wake up."

After saying that, Ignotus remained still, looking out at the tall grass with an unreadable face.

He had done well and successfully saved the "Boss," but that little girl’s memories gave him a very bitter taste in his mouth.

’Damned Demons.’

His eyes turned to the bright moon above.

’...may she rest in peace.’

Sighing such feelings away, he picked up a rock and glanced at Grom.

"Sorry about this."