Monkeys are masters of climbing trees. Not beastkin, but descendants of an ancient pact with the Monkey King, the Hanuman Tribe inherited his power and can run through the treetops like they were flat land.
In the jungle, they moved with unrivaled speed and made full use of that gift. They lived atop the trees, stealing what they needed and vanishing into the canopy.
The raid on Fiou Village was no different. The Immortals might be strong, but they were slow, sluggish primitives. The Hanuman Tribe was confident they could outmaneuver them easily.
And besides, they hadn’t taken an Immortal’s child—just a Fiou’s. Nothing bad was supposed to happen.
“Wukkyak! You said nothing would happen!”
One of the monkey masks shrieked, leaping and thrashing in panic.
“It’s the Wind Spirit! The Wind Spirit is enraged! We’re going to be torn apart!”
“We came ready to anger the stubborn primitives, but who expected a Spirit?!”
“If I knew this would happen, I never would’ve touched Fiou Village!”
Of course, it wasn’t the Wind Spirit. It was the regressor wielding Tianying. But to them, the difference didn’t matter. Whether it was the Wind Spirit or the regressor herself, getting on her bad side meant a horrible end.
Maybe even worse than facing a spirit.
“Screw the offering—we have to run!”
“What about this? We sacrificed five of our own to capture this one!”
A monkey mask pointed to the child squirming inside a sack. Their leader, wearing a lion-maned mask, snarled back.
“Why are you even asking?! Hang it up and let it die!”
“B-but what if the Wind Spirit gets even angrier?!”
“Cut your losses and run! Wukkiki! The Wind Spirit can’t follow us somewhere else!”
With a grunt, the monkey mask leader hurled the sack. Inside, the terrified child whimpered.
“Oww... Owwa...”
“If we just hang it up somewhere, a leopard’ll probably eat it!”
The monkey mask leader reached out with both hands toward the child’s neck, ready to snap it like a twig.
But he should’ve taken the Wind Spirit—no, the regressor—more seriously. No matter how cold she might seem, she wouldn’t sit back and watch a child be murdered.
Honestly, she wasn’t all that cold anyway.
“KIYEEEEEK!”
A spray of blood exploded as the leader’s arms were violently knocked aside. An invisible blade of wind had severed them in one stroke. As he staggered back in agony, the regressor leapt like lightning, kicking the attacker guarding the child away and landing in front of the sack.
She glared at the monkey mask leader.
“Looks like the tailing ends here. Hughes, you have no objections, right?”
“Of course not. Surely this too is guided by the Saintess’s blessing, isn’t it?”
With a flick of her hand, the regressor stirred the air. The sack containing the child gently floated down on a current of wind.
Rash leapt up in an instant and caught it. He cradled the frightened child with care, his face full of sorrow.
“To treat a fellow Fiou’s life like this... Has the Hanuman Tribe lost both pride and compassion?”
“Wukki! What would some lucky primitive with power know?!”
The monkey mask leader clutched his bleeding arm and shouted:
“You Immortals don’t understand! To survive, we have to offer sacrifices! We need power from the Great Spirit and the beautiful Mu-hu! Without it, we’re doomed!”
“There are ways to survive without sacrificing children. I saw them with my own eyes beyond the Great Plains.”
“Beyond the Great Plains? Of course it’s possible there! But not here!”
The monkey mask leader fidgeted with his fingers as he kept talking.
“This land is ruled by witches, beasts, spirits, and Mu-hu! Without strength, without something to rely on, we’re abandoned, devoured! You Immortals, blessed by sheer luck... you’ll never understand what it means to survive like us!”
And then, suddenly, the monkey mask leader pulled a leather pouch from his robe. A venom sac made from the toxins of jungle insects. He crushed it in his grip and hurled it straight at us.
“Wukkiki! Ant poison! Die drowning in venom!”
But his trump card was worthless.
Clack. The regressor retracted Tianying.
Dozens of tree branches fell all at once, severed in a single motion. Among the countless falling leaves, one could spot the blood-soaked hand of a monkey mask.
A beat later, the wind surged violently. Monkey masks clinging to the trees were tossed down like ragdolls.
The poison sac, once his hidden ace, fell softly to the ground—sealed by the regressor’s whirlwind.
“Poison? That’s so outdated. Who even dies to that anymore?”
Since the rise of qi arts, poisons and curses—those asymmetric forms of attack—had lost their edge. They couldn’t even breach a martial artist’s body, and even if they did, they couldn’t seize control of their organs. Poison to stop the heart? Just wring it out with compression qi.
In the age of qi, poison had no place.
But in this savage land, where qi techniques weren’t widely known, poison was still in use.
“Wukkiki...”
“The Spirit is angry...”
The monkey masks, their fighting spirit broken, crawled along the ground. The regressor stood over them, wind swirling around her like a storm, and spoke coldly.
“You’ve got one choice: die quietly, or spill everything and die anyway. What were you going to do with the child?”
“Wait, Shei. If you threaten them like that, you really think they’ll talk?”
“Wukkiki... The demon of Celestial Consumption... We were to offer it to the altar of Ankrah...”
“...Wait, they just told us?”
It was a bit ridiculous. Asking savages to give their lives for loyalty was one thing, but confessing just because someone said they’d kill them?
But the Hanuman Tribe groveled before the regressor and spilled everything without resistance.
“We—we were asked to do it! The demon of Celestial Consumption—Ankrah—needs a thousand souls as offerings. We were promised apple trees in exchange for every child we brought.”
“The demon of Celestial Consumption?”
“A terrifying ancient demon that devours a thousand people! They said if we didn’t help, it would eat us first! Wukkiki! We kidnapped the children to survive!”
The regressor, seeing how submissive they were from the start, let her killing intent ease a bit.
They called her a spirit, sure—but showing unconditional obedience to a being with incomprehensible power was their way of surviving. Sёarch* The NovelZone.fun website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
“So it’s the kind of demon with a title, huh. Must be the one Meiel mentioned, one of those ancient evils.”
“Even the name sounds scary. Shei, can you really handle it?”
“Of course. Demons aren’t that powerful. It’s been over a thousand years since the calendar began—whatever strength they once had has faded. Even if they’re revived through offerings, it’s only a fraction of what they once were.”
‘There’s no way a demon I don’t even remember is all that powerful. Meiel wouldn’t send me to fight something unbeatable either. Let’s wrap this up quick. There’s nothing much left for me in the old land of All Nations. Only that Tree of Sin is really worth anything...’
The regressor, mind now at ease, turned to the monkey masks.
“Tell us where they are. I’ll spare your life.”
Hearing the promise of survival, the monkey mask’s face lit up.
“The Bone Altar! Wukkiki—it’s the Bone Altar! It’s located—”
That’s when it happened.
One of the monkey masks, who had been groveling on the ground, suddenly stood up. Oozing a sinister aura, he raised both arms—and snapped the joints with his own strength.
Crack. The sound alone was sickening. All around, monkey masks’ arms twisted unnaturally, bones breaking in unison, grotesque limbs flailing in the dirt.
“KIIIEEEEEK!”
“KIEEEK!”
Screams of agony rang out as they writhed. Only the one who’d broken his arms on purpose remained standing, smiling coldly as if immune to pain.
“Fools... I laced them all with poison ahead of time.”
The regressor raised Tianying to strike him down—but stopped, frowning.
“...That’s black magic.”
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
The ones most like humans... are humans. That’s why, when it comes to casting magic meant to harm people, the easiest and most convenient medium to use is a human body.
That principle is what gave rise to black magic—rituals that use physical vessels. It’s powerful and simple, but the downside is that using black magic damages your own body...
“A puppet, huh? I guess you’re not bold enough to show up in person.”
“Kikiki. Of course not. Why would I risk my real body just to deal with beasts like these?”
The monkey mask twisted into a sneer beneath the surface.
Sure, if you use your own body as a vessel, you can cast powerful spells easily. But even black magicians care about their bodies. So, over time, they figured out how to perform their magic while protecting themselves.
The crudest, and also oldest method—was sacrifices. After all, there’s no rule saying it has to be your body.
“What a waste. These monkey brutes were easy to use, stupid but obedient limbs... and now I’ve lost one of my carefully made puppets because of you.”
“Such pointless effort. With the time you spent making that puppet, you could’ve just hired someone for cash.”
The regressor spat the words with disdain.
People say black magic is easy and comes without risk, but in truth, there’s no power as inefficient and wasteful as black magic.
It’s easy to write something with your own hand. But trying to control someone else’s hand to write for you? Nearly impossible. And if that “someone” resists, it’s even worse. So to properly use a human as a vessel, you have to strip them of their will, override their body with drugs and toxins. The cost-efficiency is already in the gutter.
And finding those sacrificial bodies? Good luck. If a single vessel can’t bring in more than one new subject, you’re operating at a loss. And if they resist and get damaged? Their value plummets.
People think black magicians are degenerates chasing easy power, but that’s just ignorance. In truth, even black magicians have it rough. Small-time ones live day-to-day, barely scraping by.
“Maybe where you’re from, over the Great Plains, money moves people. But here? Fear and desire run the show. Puppets are much cheaper in the end.”
Still, those who push through the pain and climb the ranks become monsters—consuming human lives with pure greed. The one controlling this monkey mask was no exception.
The regressor’s voice dropped, her tone sharp.
“Are you trying to resurrect the evil god?”
“Of course. Isn’t that every black magician’s dream?”
“Drop the pointless nonsense. Stop now.”
“Kikiki... Afraid, are you? But that’s just what I was hoping to hear!”
The monkey mask spread its broken arms wide. Blood poured from the twisted joints, bones dangling uselessly, yet the thing laughed like none of it mattered.
“I will resurrect the evil god and become one with them! I’ll erase every last trace of Mu-hu that still lingers on this land and rise as the new god! Kikiki! This land shall be great again!”
The regressor wasn’t impressed. She answered flatly.
“I don’t care who or what you’re trying to resurrect. That god’s probably so weak, I’ll just kill them again. So stop.”
Maybe it was too much of a curveball. The monkey mask froze in place, arms still spread. Probably hoping it was a joke—but the regressor was dead serious.
‘Celestial Consumption? I’ve never even heard of that in previous timelines. Sure, I’m the one who got assigned to it this time, but Meiel must have foreseen it being defeated either way. The Holy Crown Church would never allow an evil god like that to endure.’
The colder the truth, the deeper it cuts. The monkey mask, bleeding out, gripped its face and cackled madly.
“Kikiki... So arrogant, you people from beyond the plains. You’re always like this... mocking, trampling, destroying everything here... and then trying to ‘fix’ us, like we’re broken!”
Beneath its robes, veins bulged. In an instant, a violent force surged from the puppet. The monkey mask, setting its own life ablaze, roared like a beast and charged at the regressor.
“I’ll kill you and use your corpse as the final offering! Let’s see if you’re still smiling when—!”
“Funny.”
But honestly, the power this puppet displayed wasn’t all that impressive.
We’ve come across too many legendary foes by now. Compared to them, this black magician—no, this puppet—was nothing. Sorry to say, but even I could probably take it.
Dozens of wind-forged blades ripped through the puppet. If it had mastered qi, those attacks would’ve been useless—but black magicians rarely can, and even if they do, they can’t channel it through someone else’s body. The blades carved through like tofu, slicing tendons and muscle.
“KIIIEEEEK!”
With a final scream, the monkey mask collapsed. Since it wasn’t its real body, the black magician tried to keep controlling it—but with its ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ tendons cut, all it could do was twitch and squirm.
The regressor looked down at it with no real sense of triumph.
“Just wait right there. I’ll send you off properly.”
“Kikki... You think you can kill me?”
The bloodied puppet rasped through what little voice it had left.
“This was just one of many puppets! I may have failed to kill you... but you’ve failed too! You’ll never find me! You’ll never kill me!”
“I’ll tell you something.”
The regressor cut him off, eyes gleaming sharply.
“I’ve hunted down your kind countless times.”
Of the Seven-Colored Eyes, this was the third—Golden Sight, the eye that sees the unseen.
She plunged Tianying deep into the puppet. The storm within the blade tore its body to pieces, granting it a proper death. The black magician’s consciousness fled—forced out of the corpse it could no longer inhabit.
And the regressor watched it.
With the Golden Sight, she saw it clearly—something I couldn’t. The fragment of consciousness drifting off, flying into the dark forest.
“...Got you.”
Her voice was ice.
Now all that was left was to follow and kill.
Realizing how serious this was, Rash glanced at the child they’d rescued and asked:
“This may be a grueling battle. What should we do with the child? If we bring him along, he may die in the crossfire.”
“We’ll send him back to Fiou Village. Rash, could you take him?”
“I cannot. The priests of the evil god are vile. Even if I, an Immortal, am safe, a boy or your teacher could fall victim to some underhanded trick. What if your teacher took him?”
“I appreciate the concern, but we don’t know who they are—just as they don’t know us. They’re not the only ones who can strike unexpectedly.”
And besides, we had that so-called “blessing of the Saintess.”
You can’t give black magicians time to breathe. They always have sacrifices and stockpiles tucked away somewhere, and the moment they feel threatened, they’ll burn through it all in desperation. If we want to save even one more life, we have to move now.
“You don’t have to come, Hughes. I’ll take care of this faster on my own.”
Ooh, how generous. Telling me to go home and rest instead of working. Normally, I’d jump at the offer.
But right now, I had a bit of interest in demons and evil gods. So I declined the regressor’s offer politely.
“No. I’m curious about this evil god. I want to fight it too—and help you out, Shei.”
“...Really?”
‘Huh. That’s kind of sweet. He even said he’d help. What’s gotten into him? Is this the Saintess’s blessing at work again?’
What does she take me for? After everything I’ve done to help, you still think it’s some divine fluke?
...Well. I guess she’s not entirely wrong.
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