Read Chronicles of a Regressor | Tapas Web Community

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Battered and worn by the sandy gales,

Who o'er an oak cup of brandy said -

“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

I am the Tyrant Sovereign, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

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'We won'.
In the end, we were still unable to say those words. Whilst we did beat the Sovereign, the price was just too great. We lost too many companions by his hand, and even now, as we stand atop his corpse, we know that beneath are the eyes of our dead comrades, whom we once ate meals with together. The four of us have gone through countless regressions, to the point that we have already lost count. But what was it for? This bittersweet victory. No, can it even be called a victory, at this point.

I am the leader of the group which protects our planet, Earth, named Union Zeta, and we were the ones who lead the charge when he invaded. The Sovereign of Divine Flame, Mazog the Defiler, who's strength was beyond the likes of anything we'd ever set our eyes upon. And we were the ones who shed the most blood, and we were the ones who were decimated first. But what if we were given a second chance? Higher beings known as the 'Lords' extended out a helping hand to the last four survivors of the massacre, they gave us the power to regress back in time, each time turning back three years. Even so, we still lost. Even armed with the knowledge the future, we were unable to win. So we kept trying, past 10 regressions, to 100 regressions, and then to a thousand. Eventually, on the 1,023rd regression, we arrive at where we are now, with Mazog's corpse at our feet. So who am I? I am not a Catalyst of the Lords' power. I am a Dark Sovereign, leader of Union Zeta, Jaxin Zhang, given the mission of eliminating the true Sovereigns.

"What do you want to do now?" The Lord of Flames, Tanarith, asked. "The Lords owe a great debt to you twelve. We will provide you with anything within our power."
Jaxin was sat on a rock, perched at the end of a ledge jutting out from the mountainside.
"…I don't know."
"Do you think we could rebuild this alone?" Zack asked, one of the twelve survivors of the war. "Nope."
"Zack's right, Jax," Miles said. "There are seven Catalysts now. Eight, including Miles. We could go to the Heavenly Realm of the Lords…?"
"It's possible," said the Lord of the Stars, Alastor. "But only the Catalysts and the Dark Sovereign would be able to make it."
"That's out of the question," said Ten Wei, the new Catalyst of the Lady of Dragons. "Right, Jax? There's no way we're leaving behind Lennart, Nightingale and Lynx."
"…right. I don't know it's just… three thousand years. We've been doing the same thing for ten thousand years, Fox, Erik and I. Now even Fox is gone and… I don't know what to do. If we regress, we'll just face another war. It's almost impossible for a perfect victory, no matter how many times we try."
He lifted the multicoloured, paper windmill, which was actually the Regression Key, which had been created with a significant portion of the Lord of Time, Alaric's life essence, to the sun, which was breaking through the think ceiling of clouds for the first time in a long while. A kaleidoscope of colour splashed onto his face, which was grey and ashen, stained with blood and grime from the fighting they had just been involved in, burdened with three millennia of the deaths of comrades and endless war.

"…there is one thing you could do," said the High Lord of Creation, Rieng. "It would mean that you have the greatest chance to achieve something incredibly close to a 'perfect victory', not against the Divine Flame but the rest of the Sovereigns."
"What is it?" asked Erik II Frosteye, who had been Jax's closest companion throughout the regressions other than Fox Summers, who had died, and Ben Reaper-Taylor.
"It would use up the remaining power of the Regression Key," Rieng continued. "We can send you to another world, one much more suited for an invasion by the Sovereigns. While you have 'mana' on Earth, there are not enough people capable of using it here. And instead of three years' preparation, we can give you fifteen years. You would all de-age by fifteen years, all of you, both the Catalysts and non-Catalysts would be able to reach there, and your allies who died in this war will be reincarnated into that world as well."
"…this is too perfect," Jax muttered. "It seems to be a good idea, since I don't plan on rotting to my death here, with the Sovereigns still at large."
Ben nodded in agreement.
"There has to be some kind of restriction?"
"Of course," Alaric said, stepping forwards and taking the Key from Jax's hands. "The Key is extremely powerful, because it has my life essence imbued in it, but it is not omnipotent. It would be impossible to transport all of you, with your level of strength, over to that world, which is an incredible distance away, which means that your power would be sealed by a considerable degree. You will have to regain your current strength in the extra twelve years we give you - no, you must become even stronger. Second, all of you will not be able to arrive together in one place - you will be scattered across that world's singular, gigantic continent, and you will have to regather your former allies who have no memory of you, and have already been incorporated into that would, along with new ones. Can you do this?"
"Hmph," Jax sighed. "Who do you think we are?"
Revan, the Lord of Light, laughed.
"Haha, yes, I'm sure that was a useless question," he said. "I'm sure you will impress us once again."
Jaxin's mouth cracked into a small smile as he pushed himself to his feet and gripped Revan's hand. Revan had been the one who helped Jax calm down and get a grip of his feelings when Fox had died, something that Jax was eternally grateful for.
"We will never forget the Lords' support," Jax said. "I hope we can maintain our relationship even until the final war."
"Of course," said the High Lady of Life, Adela. "We will always watch over you from the Heavenly Realm."

"...you'll need to depart soon," said Rieng, laying a hand on Jax's shoulder. "Good luck."
"Hmph," Jax replied. "Don't worry. I'll make sure that nothing gets in my way."
"I'll be waiting," said the High Lord of Death from the shadows of the cliff. "For the numerous souls you'll soon be sending me."
He gave a Jax a murderous and sadistic smile from the depths of his hood.
"Yeah."
This sadisitc bastard is at it again.
"Jaxin," said the Lady of Dragons, Nova. "And the others, too. Take these."
She handed around twelve small vials of crystal clear liquid, with two tiny golden dragons entwined around the top.
"What is this?" Lynx Reaper-Taylor asked, Ben's younger sister who had been brainwashed as a ruthless mercenary by Mazog.
"You'll know when you use it," she said, and Jax couldn't help noticing that she looked tired.
Lords never looked tired unless they had...
"Lady Nova, did you use your life essence to make this...?"
"Yes," she exhaled. "Quite a bit at that. Do you get it now...?"
"This item it's... on the level of the Regression Key?" Asked Lennart Axelsson, another one of the twelve survivors.
"No, not quite," said the Lord of Time. "But it's pretty darn powerful, I'll give you that."

"How long will it take for us to reach this new world?" Jax asked, as he watched Rieng casting the spell on the Regression Key.
"It'll take twenty years for you to actually reach the world itself, so your allies will already be fully integrated," explained the Lord of Ice, Erin. "Good luck, Erik."
"Thank you, my Lord."
"It's ready," Rieng said, lowering his hands to reveal the paper windmill, surrounded by a misty, multicoloured energy, hovering in the air.
It seemed to be winking at Jax, urging him on.
"You served us well in the 3,000 years we were with you," he said, reaching up and taking a hold of its stem. "This world will be dark and lonely once we move on, just like its thousands of predecessors. Rest well, Regression Key."
He turned to his eleven companions, some of which he had seen die horribly before him one thousand times.
"There's somewhere I need to go. We'll leave after that."
"The HQ?" Ryder Reece, the successor of Fox Summers as the Catalyst of Flame, asked.
"Yeah."

The Lord of Healing, Chrysten, who's Catalyst was Naman the Phoenix, looked up at the streaks of light that were the orbs which contained the twelve survivors.
"Do you think they can really do it?" he queried.
The Lord of Flame glanced back at the Regression Key, which was now nothing but an ordinary paper windmill, all of its godly power now depleted. Jaxin had planted it under an old willow tree, which was the location he had started out every regression from, and also where he enjoyed resting the most. Its tender, green leaves rustled in the slight wind, and the arms of the windmill turned slowly.
"Of course."