The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

”You two — why are you standing here in the middle of nowhere chatting like you are on a leisurely stroll? I might excuse Ravian since this is his first time,” said Karius, fixing his gaze on Ravian for a brief moment before turning back to Lysandra, ”but this is unexpected from you, Lysandra. You never miss a single slip, so how did you manage to make a mistake like this?” Karius finished speaking and waited for Lysandra’s response.

”That’s...” Lysandra parted her lips as if to say something, but almost immediately stopped and closed them again.

”Hold on — isn’t this your fault, old man?” said Ravian, clearly irritated.

Lysandra nearly lost consciousness the moment she heard him address Karius that way.

”Hmm. What did you just say to me, boy?” said Karius, raising an eyebrow with an amused glint in his eye as he looked at Ravian.

”Isn’t the fault yours for calling me into battle the moment I joined the camp, when she already had to watch over two lives instead of one?” said Ravian, jerking his finger toward Lysandra.

”Are you telling me my decision was wrong, boy?” Karius asked, and his voice took on a tone Ravian had never heard from him before.

Ravian held his gaze for two full seconds and noticed no significant change in his expression, so he decided to press on.

”Yes. That is exactly what I am trying to say, old man,” said Ravian, dipping his head in a single, perfectly serious nod.

What he failed to notice were the frantic signals Lysandra was sending him from beside him, panic written plainly across her face as her eyes darted back and forth between Ravian and Karius.

”H—ha... Hahahaha!” Karius suddenly burst into loud, ringing laughter.

’Hmm? Has the old man finally lost his mind?’ Ravian thought, tilting his head slightly as he watched Karius, though a moment later he caught Lysandra’s ashen expression out of the corner of his eye as she stared at him.

”What’s wrong, Miss Lysandra?” Ravian asked, confusion spreading across his face.

”Forget it. It is already too late,” Lysandra said, shaking her head with the air of someone who had accepted the inevitable.

”What are you talking about? And when are we heading back to camp? This war has already been going on for hours—” Ravian started, but his words died in his throat the moment he felt a growing presence just beside him.

He turned around.

And saw him.

His teacher, Karius. Only Karius had stopped laughing, and he was now smiling at Ravian in a way that made the air feel different.

Gulp.

Ravian swallowed, the creeping certainty settling in his chest that he had just done something he was going to deeply regret.

”It seems I have been far too lenient with my disciple, Lysandra. Why don’t you give us a moment so I can teach him some manners?” Karius said, turning to Lysandra with a gracious smile.

Lysandra glanced at Ravian for a single instant, unmistakable pity etched across her face.

”Understood, sir,” she said, giving Ravian one last slow shake of her head before grabbing the orc she had slain earlier by the leg and heading back toward camp.

Ravian watched her go, the bad feeling in his chest growing heavier by the second, but the moment he spotted her dragging the Ninth Rank orc behind her, something jolted in his mind.

’Damn it, I completely forgot about my orc!’ he thought, snapping his gaze past Karius in search of the orc he had killed himself. Fortunately, it was still there.

”...Phew.” Ravian exhaled audibly in relief the moment he confirmed the corpse was still in place.

”Look at you, already relaxed and forgetting what you just said.” Karius’s voice cut through abruptly, yanking Ravian out of his thoughts.

”What is it, old man? I have a lot of things to do to improve my strength before the war with that ridiculous empire you mentioned kicks off, so if you will excuse me,” said Ravian, stepping past Karius with the quiet hope that the bluff would actually work.

”Ho-ho. Not so fast,” said Karius, placing a hand on Ravian’s shoulder.

Ravian turned his head to look back at him, and what he saw made cold sweat break out along the back of his neck.

Karius had his shoulder gripped, and then—

BOOM.

Karius launched him into the air like a small stone hurled from a catapult.

”Waaaah!” Ravian screamed as he suddenly found himself airborne alongside the crows and every other bird unlucky enough to be sharing the sky with him.

And in the next instant—

WHOOSH.

Karius ignited his aura and leaped in the same direction with terrifying force, sending himself rocketing toward Ravian, who was still sailing upward at a steep angle.

He flew until he drew level with Ravian.

”Look at you screaming like a little girl. Where is the fearsome Ravian who just took down a Ninth Rank orc while still being at the Tenth Rank himself?” Karius asked, laughing as he coasted through the air beside him.

”You crazy old man!” That was the entirety of Ravian’s response.

”Oh? It seems you still need a great deal more discipline,” said Karius, and then he vanished from Ravian’s side.

”Where did you go, you crazy old man?!” Ravian bellowed, his voice swallowed entirely by the open sky as he continued arcing toward the camp on the Viera Empire front, his momentum already beginning to bleed away.

And now the fortress walls of the city were clearly visible to the naked eye.

”Old man! I am not a cat with nine lives, by the Creator! I will die the second I hit anything solid, you lunatic!” Ravian screamed into the wind, and still Karius was nowhere to be seen.

”If you do not stop calling me a crazy old man, I will let you fall for real. And you still owe me an apology,” Karius’s voice reached him suddenly, sourceless, with no indication of where it was coming from.

Ravian looked down and felt his stomach drop. His descent was accelerating, and at this rate, he could slam into any part of the camp below.

”Fine, fine! I will not call you a crazy old man again, now do something, for hell’s sake!” Ravian said rapidly, watching the ground rush toward him at a terrifying rate, and still no reply came from Karius.

”Then apologize,” Karius said, his voice calm and still disembodied.

Ravian heard him, and his eyes widened as he began to make out individual soldiers moving between the tents below. He did not even know if it was physically possible to slow down from this speed in the time he had left.

”I-I ap—...” The words scraped against something inside him, and his mouth moved, but—

He did not say it.

He could not.

Ravian’s twin crimson eyes ignited without warning, flashing with a dangerous, razor-edged light, and his expression shifted, settling into a cold, eerie calm that seemed utterly wrong for a man about to die.

”I apologize? To hell with you, you crazy old man. Just let me die,” Ravian said in that same unnervingly tranquil voice, and this time there was something unmistakable laced beneath it.

Contempt, and...

Pride?

The ground and the tents were growing rapidly beneath him, his eyes unblinking now.

He looked, in every way, like a man who would not take back his words even at the cost of his life.

And several seconds later, with barely ten meters between him and the ground, and his body still carrying the momentum of a projectile—

WHOOSH.

A white aura erupted from nowhere and spread itself beneath Ravian, killing his velocity in a way that bordered on the impossible.

And in the next breath, he was set down on the ground, gently, almost comfortably.

Karius appeared at his side, his expression one of pure, undisguised shock, staring at Ravian with eyes that had gone wide.

The blaze in Ravian’s crimson eyes dimmed just as quickly as it had appeared, and his usual expression, composed, unhurried, and carrying that quiet weight of pride and authority, reasserted itself. He quickly raised his hands and covered his eyes, for this was the longest time he had remained in that strange state.

’And I still cannot control it. It surfaces on its own and vanishes on its own,’ Ravian thought, turning over that strange sensation, the one that made him choose anything, even death, over bowing his head or being forced into something he had no intention of doing.

”You... you are insane,” Karius said, still staring at him, having clearly caught the singular glow of those crimson eyes from moments ago.

”I hear that a lot,” Ravian replied with a simple tilt of his head, then lowered his hands from his eyes.

...

Somewhere within the massive building at the heart of the Wall of Light camp, the fortress belonging to the Marquisate of Dmitri.

Inside a broad, high-ceilinged room. Around the strategy and briefing table.

Frank sat alongside four others of comparable rank and power, all of them leaders of factions at the Seventh Rank: Riftmakers.

Two men and two women, each one remarkable in their own distinct way.

But for some reason, every person in that room wore the same tight, grim expression.

”So, Frank, you are telling us that Sir Karius’s new disciple...” began one of the two women, her hair a rich, gleaming gold, her beautiful blue eyes shaped like twin almonds, a bow of rare golden luminescence resting on the table in front of her.

”...has a connection to one of the Fourteen Taboos?” she finished, her voice heavy with disbelief at the very words she was saying.

”Yes. That is what I observed. Those eyes, and the energy that radiated from him in that moment, everything points to the same conclusion. And Sir Karius is almost certainly aware of it,” Frank said, dipping his head in a slow, certain nod.