After Regressing, I Gained the Power of the Demonic Dragon - Chapter 2

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 2
The backwards-flowing world snapped to a halt.
“Gasp—!”
Sang Hyuk’s eyes flew open as he gasped for air.
He lurched upright, lost his balance, and tumbled off the bed.
Thud!
His left shoulder struck the floor.
Empty bottles scattered across the room, clattering loudly.
Still sprawled on the floor, Sang Hyuk surveyed his surroundings.
No giant orc. No workshop buried under black stone dust.
Only a decrepit bed and empty bottles strewn across a shabby room.
Sang Hyuk gripped his left shoulder.
Instead of the whip-torn wound, smooth skin met his touch.
When he pressed his chest, there was no pain from broken ribs.
He slowly examined both hands.
The scabs and calluses had vanished, replaced by long, clean fingers.
The shackle marks around his wrists were gone.
Only then did the room’s details begin to register.
Empty bottles rolling across the floor.
Crumpled clothes draped over a chair.
A broken dumbbell wedged in the corner.
On the desk lay a half-opened Awakening Institute Diagnostic Report.
[You have not met the conditions for Awakening.]
The verdict stamped across the center of the report caught his eye.
Sang Hyuk remembered this room.
A time when he had surrendered everything after exhausting himself searching for the Awakening conditions.
Sleeping through the day, drowning in bottles through the night.
Then a new message flickered into view.
「Time has been reversed.」
Sang Hyuk’s gaze locked on the notification.
The temporal regression that had begun just before his death had ended.
He pushed himself up from the floor.
The full-length mirror reflected a younger version of himself.
The hollowed cheeks had filled out again, the skeletal shoulders restored.
The whip scars that had crisscrossed his back and chest had vanished.
Sang Hyuk stared into the mirror at his own eyes for a moment.
‘I’ve really come back.’
It was something he should have doubted.
Yet his mind remained remarkably calm.
Having brushed against death once, confirmation of what lay ahead took priority over shock.
Sang Hyuk focused his will immediately.
‘Status window.’
[Name] Kim Sang Hyuk
[Level] 0
[Characteristic] <Heart of the Apocalypse Dragon>
[Unlocked Authority] None
For the first time, a name had been inscribed where question marks had veiled his characteristic throughout his life.
The <Heart of the Apocalypse Dragon> he had awakened to just before death remained intact.
He had returned to the past not alone, but carrying that power with him.
Ring-ring.
At that moment, his phone vibrated on the desk.
Sang Hyuk checked the date displayed on the screen first.
XXXX Year, XX Month, XX Day.
Four years since the Infinite Tower had appeared.
Before Korea fell.
Unread calls and messages were stacked beneath the lock screen.
[3 Missed Calls / Kim Seo Yun]
Sang Hyuk’s finger froze.
He opened the most recent message.
[Kim Seo Yun: Call me when you wake up.]
[Kim Seo Yun: I’ll take the diagnostic report with me.]
[Kim Seo Yun: And don’t drink today.]
Sang Hyuk read the three lines slowly again.
A voice fractured by static and noise brushed against his ear.
— So don’t give up. Survive no matter what happens.
Sang Hyuk checked the date on the screen once more.
Kim Do Hyun.
Kim Sang Jun.
Kim Seo Yun.
On this day, all three were still alive.
Sang Hyuk placed his thumb over the call button.
His finger hesitated for a moment, then dropped to the message input box instead.
[Sang Hyuk: Yeah. I’m up.]
The delivery confirmation appeared.
Only after sending that brief reply did his constricted breath ease a little.
Then a notification that had been piling up at the top of the screen caught his eye.
[Ilsung Group Makes Strategic Entry into Player Equipment Business]
In the article’s photograph, the Ilsung headquarters stood intact.
The Ilsung emblem at the building’s crown glowed brightly.
Before the regression, that light had finally been extinguished in the flames.
Sang Hyuk pulled his gaze from the photograph and moved toward the window.
When he drew back the curtains, vehicles flowed in neat lines along the street.
Commuters gathered before a crosswalk, and the glass windows of the towering buildings reflected the morning sunlight.
The sky bore neither rifts nor blood-red lightning.
Seoul was alive.
Sang Hyuk looked down at his phone again.
He opened the calendar and his finger, flipping through the dates, stopped one year ahead.
The quarterly settlement when the National Achievement Points would exceed 1,000,000.
The day Seoul’s sky had split before the regression.
Sang Hyuk had roughly one year left.
‘Not much time.’
Sang Hyuk closed the calendar and opened South Korea’s National Achievement status.
[South Korea Global Ranking] 64th
[Projected Deficit Points This Quarter] 150,000
[Anticipated Danger] Large Rift Emergence Zone
Sang Hyuk’s eyes fixed on the number 150,000.
The 1,020,000 points one year ahead hadn’t appeared out of nowhere.
Every time a rift opened, Players and soldiers died.
As fewer people climbed the Infinite Tower, the National Achievement Points earned in the next quarter dwindled alongside them.
Then larger rifts would open, and more people would die.
Korea was already caught in that vicious cycle.
If the deficit couldn’t be reduced starting this quarter, the 150,000 points would only grow at the next settlement.
That path led to the cataclysmic rift of before the regression.
‘It has to be reduced starting this quarter.’
National Achievement Points could be earned through Tower ascent records and accomplishments.
First clears and performances that surpassed existing records granted higher scores.
The rifts that would open in the real world diminished by that score.
But 150,000 points was a threshold that Korea’s high-level Players couldn’t fill even pushing hard throughout an entire quarter.
Sang Hyuk was still Level 0.
Sang Hyuk’s gaze shifted to an article that had remained at the top of his screen.
[First Seat <Chang Cheon>, Humanity’s First Level 80 Breakthrough]
The man in the article photograph wore a combat suit marked with blue patterns.
Surrounded by countless reporters, Chang Cheon neither smiled nor looked anywhere but straight ahead.
Chang Cheon was the apex of the Sixteen Heavens and ranked first globally at the time.
Four years later, Chang Cheon reached Level 102.
He led the Sixteen Heavens and the elite forces of each nation as Earth’s representative in the Dimension League.
But with a single stroke of the enemy commander’s blade, the blue light that had blanketed the arena split, and Chang Cheon’s sword and body cleaved in two.
One year remained for Korea.
Four years remained for humanity.
Sang Hyuk set down his phone and opened his status window again.
[Level] 0
[Characteristic] <Heart of the Apocalypse Dragon>
[Unlocked Authority] None
The Apocalypse Dragon.
Before the regression, Sang Hyuk had known of only one being worthy of comparison to that name.
The Red Dragon that descended upon Africa.
With a single breath, it incinerated vast territories.
Even the otherworldly races that conquered Earth avoided the Red Dragon’s domain.
The Giant Orc occupation forces had likewise skirted the continent, taking the distant sea route instead.
A single entity stronger than an entire legion.
Such beings truly existed in the otherworldly dimensions.
Sang Hyuk placed a hand over his chest.
If the Heart of the Apocalypse Dragon held power befitting its name, he could have altered the outcome of his previous life.
But all that was confirmed now was the name itself.
The level was 0, and no authorities had been unlocked.
Sang Hyuk had never even fought directly in the tower.
The knowledge he carried from before the regression was not something he had earned through conquest.
Rumors heard in refugee camps.
Records from fallen nations.
War stories gleaned from slave labor sites.
He knew when and what incidents would occur.
But he had never once faced a monster in direct combat.
‘Then I’ll verify it myself.’
Sang Hyuk picked up a liquor bottle that lay rolling on the floor.
It still held roughly half its contents.
He went to the bathroom and poured the remaining alcohol into the sink.
Glug, glug, glug.
The acrid stench vanished down the drain.
Sang Hyuk washed his face with cold water and changed into practical clothes—a shirt and trousers suited for movement.
Back in the center of the room, he surveyed his surroundings.
His family was alive.
Ilsung, Korea itself—they had not yet fallen.
This time, he had the chance to protect them.
But first, he needed to assess the power he now possessed.
‘The Infinite Tower.’
As Sang Hyuk sent forth his intention, a notification materialized before his eyes.
“Will you enter the Infinite Tower?”
Sang Hyuk did not hesitate.
‘Enter.’
Whoosh!
White light erupted from beneath his feet, engulfing his body.
The cluttered room vanished beyond the radiance.
* * *
The light cleared.
Sang Hyuk stood in the center of a pristine white space.
The boundary between wall and ceiling was imperceptible.
Beneath his feet was inscribed a massive circular magic circle, and before him stood a single obsidian stone gate.
“You have entered the initial tutorial.”
“Player registration is commencing.”
“Your level will increase as a registration reward.”
[Level] 0 → 1
Light rising from the magic circle swept across Sang Hyuk’s body.
Warmth beginning at his soles traveled upward through his calves and along his spine.
His body felt lighter, and his blurred vision sharpened into clarity.
Sang Hyuk clenched his fist, then opened it.
An unfamiliar force stirred between his fingers.
A current both warm and heavy moved slowly through his veins, tracing their paths.
‘Is this mana?’
It was a power he had never felt even once before the regression.
Players often compared mana to a second blood, a second heart.
It was no exaggeration once he felt it firsthand.
His body had transformed noticeably from moments before.
But this was the kind of change any player experienced upon reaching Level 1.
At least for now, he was no different from the other players.
It was time to unlock his first Authority and learn how to use it against training specimens.
Through that process, the true nature of the Heart of the Apocalypse Dragon would surely reveal itself.
Then a notification appeared, signaling the transition to the next stage.
「Confirming the player’s Characteristic.」
「Initiating Authority Awakening according to Characteristic.」
Thump.
Sang Hyuk’s heart beat with ponderous force.
Black energy flowed from beneath his feet, staining the white floor.
Thump. Thump.
With each beat of his heart, the black energy spread wider.
The pristine white floor was soon entirely dyed black.
But the next notification was slow to appear.
「Confirming Characteristic……」
「Verification in progress……」
「Unregistered Characteristic.」
Sang Hyuk’s eyes narrowed.
「Measuring Characteristic tier……」
「Error. Target tier exceeds measurement range.」
「Attempting remeasurement……」
「Error. Exceeds measurement range.」
「Characteristic tier determination failed.」
「The Characteristic is recorded as [Immeasurable].」
[Characteristic Name] Heart of the Apocalypse Dragon
[Characteristic Tier] Immeasurable
Even the highest-tier Characteristics that Sang Hyuk knew of displayed numerical values.
There had never been a case where measurement itself failed.
‘A Characteristic that even the Infinite Tower cannot measure?’
As Sang Hyuk gazed down at the blackened floor, a new notification followed.
「Tier measurement failed, but Authority recognition is complete.」
「Conditions for unlocking have been satisfied.」
「The first Authority of Characteristic Heart of the Apocalypse Dragon is now unlocked.」
Thump──!
This time his heart beat with violent force.
Heat burst from his chest and surged into his right arm, black energy rising above his palm.
[Authority Unlocked]
[Authority Name] Annihilation
[Authority Level] Stage 1
Sang Hyuk raised his hand, dark energy coalescing in his palm.
His gaze turned toward the stone gate directly ahead.
A structural element of the tower that divided the early tutorial zone.
Players who obtained their first Authority would often test whether they could destroy that gate.
But there was no record of anyone succeeding in so much as leaving a scratch.
‘If this Authority comes from a Characteristic the tower itself cannot measure, what then?’
Sang Hyuk walked toward the stone gate and pressed his palm against it.
Hisss.
Where his palm made contact, the solid stone gate transformed into black sand.
Whoosh.
The black sand cascaded away, leaving a deep groove beneath his hand.
Only then did the system notification appear.
「Warning. Tutorial structure has been damaged.」

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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