"What? You created seven Heroes to fight against an Overpowered Villain?" In a dull, grey world, with cracks covering the sky, seated atop a hill with an old man was a furball, exclaiming in surprise, "How is that supposed to be a plot?"
"That was indeed the plot." The old man huffed a laugh, "However, Heroes might not be the right term to describe them. They were, you know…"
"Main Characters."
"Huh?" The furball grumbled in confusion, "Isn't a story only supposed to have one MC? Maybe you're confusing important side-characters with MCs."
"Really…Well, hmm…" The old man pondered the furball's argument for a few seconds and then asked a question, "Why don't you describe what a Main Character is?"
"That's easy." The furball huffed in confidence, "It's who the story revolves around."
"Exactly," The old man smirked, as if the answer exactly matched his convenience, "In this story, it revolved around seven people."
"Huuhhh?" The furball exclaimed in shock, "How broken was the villain that it needed seven Main Characters to beat?"
"He wasn't a villain," The old man revealed a playful smile upon seeing the furball's frustration at his words.
"Okay, Antagonist it is then." The furball grumbled.
"Nope," The old man eyed the horizon, remained silent for a few seconds, and dramatically inhaled a deep breath before uttering solemnly, "He was the Plot."
"Whatever!" The furball let out a cry and faced the other direction, "I'm not interested in your whimsical tale."
"I think it'll garner your interest when you hear this," The old man said without an ounce of ego, "Each of the MCs developed their own path to power and eventually, they cornered the Plot."
"Oh?" The furball raised an eyebrow in interest, even though it didn't have an eyebrow, "What happened then? Did the story conclude there?"
"No, that's where things kicked into high gear." The old man burst into laughter, "When pushed into a corner, the Plot gained a piece of Armour. And that was it. The game's balance was broken. The overpowered Plot became a broken existence."
"Broken characters are uncool." The furball made a vomiting action, "The story would have become damn boring past that."
"That would have been the case, unless…" The old man eyed the furball with an air of mystery, "If you had to, how do you suppose you would go about facing a balance-breaking existence? With the intent to win, that is."
"Either I become more broken…" The furball began its analysis.
"How?" The old man asked. "Such an option doesn't exist."
"Or I seek his tutelage and wait for an opportunity to strike…" The furball stopped speaking for a moment and then rolled around on the dirt in protest, "Tell me all the bloody rules before you ask me for a solution, argh!"
"Just make up shit to win! It's your story!" The furball huffed and slumped on the ground, sulking. But then, curiosity got the best of it eventually. Turning around, it eyed the old man to ask, "Did you bullshit your way out?"
"No," the old man said.
"Did the solution follow the rules?" The furball asked.
"Obviously," The old man whistled gleefully.
"What was it then?" The furball rolled to his thigh and acted cutely.
"Glad you asked," The old man smiled as he pointed at his heart, "The MCs surmised that even the simplest hits from those you care about hurt the most."
"Whether it be friends, family, lover, pride, ambition, fear," The old man summarised, "Depending on how they are tackled, they can either reinforce you to the zenith or shatter you into oblivion."
"When tackled well," The old man's eyes glimmered like a serpent that had partook in countless dreadful schemes, "Everything can become a well-polished weakness."
"If it exists, exploit it," The old man fist-bumped the air, "Otherwise, just make up a new one."
"So, the MCs made the Plot care about various things, from casual things like food and sleep to deeply emotional things like pride in his strength, family, etc. And then…" The old man whistled, "They abused the hell out of it, turning everything against him systematically, until the Plot himself pierced through the Armour protecting him. With the Armour gone, they thrashed him freely."
"That's how victory was seized."
"That does sound interesting. I wonder how they achieved that?" The furball then shook its head, "However, the story feels too unrealistic."
It stared at the old man in confusion, "Who even asks for such a story to be made?"
"And most of all, why DID you even create this story?"
"There was a need and hence, it was created." The old man extended his hand and patted the furball, smiling wryly, "And it was you."
"What?" The furball frowned.
"You created this story." The old man concluded.
"That's bullshit!" The furball roared, "I don't remember doing any of that!"
"Moreover, it's not my style of doing things!"
"It was all according to a plan," The old man spoke with nostalgia, "You hit your growth limit. But to proceed beyond, you created seven Main Characters and set them on a gut wrenching journey."
"Their accomplishments during said journey turned into your power, fueling your growth beyond limits." The old man proclaimed in pride, "And when the story ended, you had reached a terrifying level of power, a level that made you our strongest."
"Power? Strongest? Me?" The furball eyed itself, "I can't even scratch your butt and you're calling me the strongest?"
"If not for a certain incident, you would have remained all powerful." The old man sighed, "Remember that moment when the Plot broke the game balance?"
"That was the spark of our doom," He slowly raised a finger and pointed at the sky, which in response darkened, for something humongous seemed to have covered it from beyond. "It summoned in an existence with infinite growth potential, as our enemy, one feared across the Universe with a terrifying prefix,"
"Celestial!"
"The Celestial now intends to devour our world." As the old man spoke, a vortex formed in the sky, sucking in the clouds, following which an eye appeared, significantly dwarfing the world. The old man swerved his head to the side and observed the trembling furball, "It seems even though you've been beaten to the point you've lost not only your strength, but also your memories and sense of self, the trauma from the crushing defeat still seems to linger on."
"Uh…urgh…argh…!" The furball grunted and groaned in pain, all to no avail, "I remember…I now remember the fact that I've forgotten everything!"
"That…" Tears streamed out of the furball's eyes as it stared at the sky getting devoured helplessly, "Can we do nothing to protect ourselves…protect…our world?"
"We can," The old man expressed his resolve and extended a hand towards the furball, "And towards that, I need your power."
"It's the last piece of the puzzle I've been working on all my life."
"Whatever you want from me," The furball replied without any hesitation and leapt onto the old man's lap, "Take it!"
"Thank you," A formless energy flew out of the furball and entered the old man, at which he regressed to a middle-aged man, a young adult, and finally, a youth. Slowly, he waved his hand over the withered furball, hearing the latter wheeze out a question.
"What…is the plan?"
"Regression." The old man, now a youth, commented as he held the furball dear to him, eyeing the other party's dissatisfaction as faint streams of memory sparked through its mind, "Yes, a simple regression wouldn't be enough against our opponent. Curb your disappointment, for,"
"I plan to regress the timeline and reincarnate at a pivotal crisis point, seven different times. And in each loop, I will save a heavy hitter that fell to the Celestial."
"No, even combined, it won't be enough, Torq!" The furball seemed to have caught its second wind, which was how it was able to speak with strength. No, more than that, it now seemed aware of its past, displaying concern, "It seems my near-death state has recovered most of my memories…enough of that. Coming back to the point. Each of our heavy hitters is equal to me in terms of strength. And that,"
"Isn't in the slightest enough, not against The CELESTIAL!"
"Exactly," The youth, Torq, chuckled, "Which is why I spent my entire life completing this puzzle, the puzzle of simultaneous regression and reincarnation."
"Everything in the universe follows the law of conservation of energy, including regression and reincarnation!" The sky was fully devoured. And now, as the earth was getting consumed, Torq got up to his feet and roared at the top of his lungs. "I carry the butterfly effects of my actions through my regressions. And in my seventh, final regression,"
"I'll unleash them all! Best of all," He pointed in mockery at the entity beyond the sky, "Every time I regress, the one fuelling my regression is none other than the Celestial!"
"Ha…hahaha!" The furball burst into laughter in response to Torq's claims.
It purposefully echoed its cackles as an angry claw pierced through the heavens and shredded through their world, "That means…by the seventh regression, even the mighty Celestial would be nerfed to the extent we can think of fighting him!"
"OH! I'll wait in anticipation!" The furball's words were dampened while the world got brutally ruptured. There was a pause in the time-space continuum.
And then, Torq began his regression.