The Hunted Regressor: My Heretic Saint System

Chapter 202: Playtime’s Over II

Ignotus’s sword, made impossibly heavy by his gravity magic, dragged his arm down faster than gravity should allow. This sudden drop caused his entire body to tilt, and Blanc’s spike sailed harmlessly over his shoulder.

Using the momentum of the "missed" swing to pivot, Ignotus tossed his sword upwards with one hand and swung a backfist with the other.

The air popped.

Blanc raised a sludge shield, but Ignotus’s fist had the mass of a boulder behind it.

The backfist smashed through the shield and grazed Blanc’s "face," tearing a chunk of sludge away.

Unaffected, Blanc reformed instantly and swung a liquid blade at Ignotus’s exposed side.

Ignotus was still off-balance from his heavy swing. His feet hadn’t even settled on the ground yet.

It looked like a guaranteed hit.

But Ignotus stared at the incoming blade without panic.

With barely a thought, he glanced at his sword in the air.

He pulsed his [Living Ligature].

The sword stopped falling and shot sideways, slamming directly into Blanc’s incoming blade.

Clang!

The impact knocked Blanc’s weapon wide, leaving the Demon’s chest wide open.

That was when Ignotus’s heavy boots finally crunched onto the floor tiles.

"I got you."

He shot forward and tackled Blanc’s midsection.

[Living Ligature] roared, the gravity field around Ignotus crushing the poisonous air, bypassing Blanc’s natural defenses. He grabbed the Demon by its tattered cloak or whatever the sludge was pretending to be.

"Up you go!"

Ignotus yanked, lifting the Demon over his head with the enhanced strength of his Ligature.

"And down you go."

He slammed Blanc into the floor.

BOOM.

The stone shattered as a crater formed, cracks spreading in all directions.

The impact was so heavy that the cavern room shook, dust falling from the ceiling.

"SCRRRRREEEEEE!"

Blanc shrieked, its body splattering and trying to bounce away.

Ignotus didn’t let up; he stepped on the hand that held the sword, pinning the Demon to the ground with sheer mass, and raised his blade with both hands, pointing the tip down at Blanc’s core.

"Die."

He thrust down.

"CORRUPTION!"

’What?’

Before the sword could pierce the core, a concentrated stream of black, pressurized Corruption exploded from Blanc’s free hand.

It hit Ignotus squarely in the chest.

Normally, Ignotus would’ve been able to tank it without effect. But he was mid-lunge, his balance committed forward, so the blast pushed him upright, stalling his momentum just enough.

Clang!

The sword bounced off the hardened sludge armor as the blast knocked Ignotus backward. He skid across the floor, his gravity boots carving deep grooves into the stone to stop himself.

"A repulsor blast?"

Ignotus looked at the Demon with mild surprise.

"Were you saving such an attack?"

Seizing the opportunity, Blanc twisted its liquid body mid-air, scrambling to its... feet.

Once upon him, it swung its sword awkwardly—a sloppy strike, but backed by Corruption.

Ignotus looked at the sloppy swing, deciding not to tank it. Even with his gravity armor, getting hit by concentrated Corruption would lead to a bad day, perhaps a last one.

He sidestepped, letting the sludge blade hiss past him, and quickly retrieved his sword from the floor.

The two combatants reset and circled each other in the poisonous gloom.

Neither said anything, too focused to speak; Ignotus didn’t need to, however.

His smile had widened, and his eyes shone with genuine excitement.

He was enjoying this.

This wasn’t a boring grind or a power-level kind of deal. This was a puzzle. He was heavy, slow, and tanky—a fighting style he never used. It forced him to think differently. To use [Wise Fool], his luck, and Gravity’s physics instead of just speed-blitzing.

"Come on then."

At his taunt, they clashed again.

CLANG. HISS. THUD.

It became a rhythm.

The room was filled with poisonous miasma, pressing in on Ignotus’s gravity shield.

Each of their movements was deliberate, matching the speed of the rare poison droplets that began to fall from the stones above. Which reached a steady rhythm that matched the tempo of their battle.

It almost acted as a reminder of what Ignotus had to do, how he had to move at that speed to reach the Demon—too fast, and he’d let the poison in; too slow, and well, the Demon would strike him down.

As if it were a true chess match, he studied Blanc, understanding the ins and outs of the Demon before him.

Every second that passed drained his Divinity. Maintaining [Living Ligature] was expensive.

It was an endurance race. Blanc knew that well. The Demon was beginning to fight more conservatively now, just trying to outlast the clock.

It seemed that their battle had ended up as an endurance race after all.

Noticing that, Ignotus decided to risk it.

He couldn’t afford its stalling; this was just the beginning of his little war. Gaia, Lykos, Ulv, and the others were fighting their own battles. Every second he wasted here was a second they might be dying.

Furthermore, he really couldn’t waste all his Divinity this early; he had to end this.

Pressing the attack, he forced his heavy body to move faster, swinging with reckless abandon.

Ignotus aimed for the core, for the head, and for the limbs. Blanc dodged and weaved, turning into liquid to avoid the heavy hits, then reforming to strike back.

The clash of steel and sludge rang through the room.

But as the seconds ticked by, Ignotus noticed something subtle.

Blanc wasn’t retreating as much, and its "muscles" were coiled.

It wasn’t just stalling as he once thought; it was waiting.

’A trap?’

Ignotus immediately noticed the tell.

There was a slight shift in weight and a gathering of Corruption.

"Damn you!"

Without warning, Blanc lashed out, abandoning all defense.

The Demon was betting everything on one strike to break the shield, sending tendrils of poison whipping at Ignotus from all angles—left, right, and above—just trying to overwhelm the gravity shield.

Ignotus stepped forward, intent on meeting the attack, only to...

"Ah."

Stumble.

Or at least, it looked like a ’stumble.’

To an observer, it looked like a clumsy mistake.

But the stumble ducked him under the high whip, and the forward momentum turned his fall into a perfect, gravity-assisted shoulder check.

[Wise Fool] triggered again as Ignotus slammed directly into the Demon’s main body.

At the moment of impact, Ignotus maximized his density, weighing as many damned boulders.

The Demon didn’t stand a chance.

It exploded backward, slamming into its own sludge with enough force to pierce through.

"Guh...!"

Blanc gurgled, trying to pull itself together.

"You know..."

Ignotus stood up and dusted off his shoulder.

"Usually, I have to be fast. Running around and dodging, but this?"

He flexed his hand, the purple gravity cracking the floor around him.

"Walking through everything like a giant? I could get used to this."

Ignotus raised his sword again, and the gravity around the blade hummed, distorting light.

"Playtime’s over, Blanc. It was nice, but I have friends to save."

He swung.