After Regressing, I Gained the Power of the Demonic Dragon - Chapter 46

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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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Chapter 46
Crack!
Before the black light had even faded, the ground beneath his feet gave way.
Sang Hyuk’s body plummeted.
Thud!
Mid-fall, Sang Hyuk twisted his frame and landed on both feet.
He straightened and surveyed his surroundings.
He stood at the center of an immense scale.
At each end of the scale’s beam rested a circular platform, whole cities mounted upon them.
To the east stretched white stone walls crowned with sharp-peaked roofs.
To the west, rounded buildings packed densely within black iron ramparts.
Thick chains in multiple strands connected each platform to the scale beam.
Below lay a Black Sea that stretched beyond any measure.
Boom!
Colossal waves surged from the Black Sea, crashing against the defenses of both cities.
Each impact fractured the transparent barriers in new places.
On the eastern walls, soldiers rushed to repair the cracks.
In the streets of the western city, people climbed toward higher ground, carrying children and the wounded.
Their voices could not be heard.
Yet their movements to escape approaching ruin were clear even from a distance.
Information about the Battlefield materialized before Sang Hyuk’s eyes.
[First Uncleared Battlefield: Scale of Ruin]
[Recreating the final record left in a world of destruction.]
[Conquest Objective]
– Choose one of the two cities: Eastern or Western.
– Defend your chosen city for ten minutes.
[Battlefield Rules]
– The chains of your chosen city will remain secure.
– The chains of the city you reject will be released.
– Should you fail to choose within the time limit, both sets of chains will be released.
[Selection Time Limit: 01:00]
One minute to decide which city to abandon.
Hum.
A circular stone platform beneath where Sang Hyuk stood began to glow.
On its left was carved the Eastern City; on its right, the Western City.
[Place your hand upon the emblem of the city you choose.]
Sang Hyuk did not place his hand on either.
The Battlefield demanded he abandon one of the two.
But Sang Hyuk could not accept such a choice.
He looked again at both cities beyond the platform.
Soldiers repairing the cracking barriers.
People ascending toward safety, carrying children and the wounded.
Whichever he chose, the people of the other city would plummet into the Black Sea.
Over that image overlaid a memory from before his return.
Helpless, he could only watch as beloved people fell before his eyes and South Korea crumbled to ruin.
As that old powerlessness resurged, his chest tightened.
Sang Hyuk closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, he harbored no doubt.
‘I’ll save both cities.’
No path forward was visible yet.
That didn’t matter.
He had spent his time overturning Conquests deemed impossible, one after another.
That was how he’d earned the name Impossible Left.
If he searched for an answer now, he would find it.
It was not unfounded confidence.
The Heart of the Apocalypse Dragon had opened new possibilities each time he reached a dead end.
He had wielded that power to forge new paths every time.
This time, he would do the same.
Sang Hyuk’s eyes deepened to a dark crimson.
‘Dragon’s Eye.’
The outer surface of the scale fell away, and the structure within the central axis lay exposed to view.
The chains connecting both cities terminated in thick iron bars, their ends firmly locked in place.
The bars were carved with evenly-spaced grooves, and massive gears meshed perfectly into them.
When one city was chosen, the opposing gear would turn, drawing out the iron bar through the mechanism.
Once the bar withdrew completely, the chains were designed to come loose.
‘Then, if I…’
Slow the gear’s rotation, stop it, and push the withdrawn bar back in—that was all it would take.
That way, neither city’s chains would break free.
Sang Hyuk examined the condition of both cities.
Cracks were spreading across the eastern barrier faster than those on the western side.
If the platform tilted even slightly, the eastern barrier would collapse first.
[Selection time limit: 00:24]
Sang Hyuk placed his hand on the symbol to the left.
[Eastern City selected.]
[Western City chains will now release.]
Clang!
The gear locked to the western iron bar began grinding violently.
With each rotation, the bar was forced outward from the central axis.
In the blink of an eye, half of the bar lay exposed.
As the bar withdrew further, the chains connecting to the western city grew slack.
The circular platform began tilting toward the Black Sea.
At that moment, the first line of the Black Scroll flared to life in Sang Hyuk’s mind.
‘Iron Decline.’
Crackle!
A black mark seared itself onto the gear.
Grinding, grinding, grinding!
The violently spinning gear stuttered and slowed.
The iron bar, half-withdrawn, hesitated in place.
But it did not stop entirely.
The bar continued to creep outward, and the western platform kept tilting.
When the black waves crashed against the platform’s edge, a section of wall shattered and fell into the Black Sea.
A woman clutching a child to her chest slid toward the collapsing wall.
A soldier seized the woman’s arm, but both of them were swept toward the broken section.
The iron bar had to be forced back in before they fell.
Sang Hyuk drew the power welling from the Heart of the Apocalypse Dragon up through his right arm.
Crack-crack-crack!
Black scales rose from his hand, spreading across his shoulder.
Sang Hyuk reached toward the gear just ahead of him.
‘Leave the bar. Only the gear.’
‘Annihilation Feast.’
Screech!
Black energy bloomed from his fingertips, engulfing the gear.
The iron bar beside it remained untouched.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
Only the gear crumbled into black sand and scattered.
The iron bar, half-withdrawn, stopped in place.
But the chains were already slack.
The western platform continued to tilt.
To right the platform, he had to push the half-extracted bar back in.
Sang Hyuk withdrew the Annihilation Feast and drew the heart’s power up through his left arm as well.
Crack-crack-crack!
Black scales rose from his left hand to his shoulder, covering both arms without gap.
Sang Hyuk braced his legs and gripped the iron bar with both hands.
First, he lifted the bar’s end.
Scrape-scrape-screech!
The bar, angled awkwardly, scraped metal as it aligned with the central axis entrance.
“Hnngh!”
Grinding, grinding, grinding!
As Sang Hyuk drove the bar forward, the stone floor beneath his feet split in all directions.
The iron bar crept slowly back into the central axis.
In that moment, the soldier and the woman continued sliding toward the collapsed section of wall.
One of the soldier’s feet slipped into the void.
Sang Hyuk gritted his teeth and pushed the lever all the way.
Clang!
The iron bolt slid fully into place.
The slack chain pulled taut, dragging the western platform upward with a violent screech.
The tilted platform found its level once more.
The soldier hauled the woman back into the street.
The woman collapsed where she stood, clutching the child tight against her chest.
Moments later, a great bell tolled from the Eastern City.
Dong!
Immediately, the bells answered from the west.
Dong! Dong!
People from both cities gazed past their barriers toward the Center of the Scale.
Soldiers atop the walls raised their weapons, while those in the streets embraced one another.
[You have prevented the Eastern City from falling.]
[You have prevented the Western City from falling.]
「A new Conquest Branch has opened, one absent from the Records of Ruin.」
Sang Hyuk turned his gaze between the two cities and exhaled slowly.
He had saved them both from collapse without yielding to the Battlefield’s forced choice.
As the bells rang from both sides, a fierce, scalding joy welled up from deep within his chest.
With strength, one did not have to accept another’s sacrifice as inevitable.
Sang Hyuk would grow stronger still, searching always for another way.
In the Dimension League to come, he would protect everything—family, allies, and South Korea itself—yielding nothing, holding fast to the end.
But there was no time to savor that joy.
The calm water swelled upward from its center like a mountain rising.
Whoom!
Beneath the Scale, the Black Sea erupted upward.
Soon, fingers as tall as the walls broke through the black waters.
Crack!
A colossal hand seized the iron chain connected to the Eastern City.
Another hand, rising behind it, grasped the western platform.
Upon the back of the creature that hauled itself from the Black Sea, the ruins of collapsed towers and walls were embedded without number.
They looked like the remnants of every city it had devoured.
A massive head rose between the crumbled buildings.
From a mouth that consumed half its face, black water cascaded like a waterfall.
[An entity previously unknown to the Records of Ruin has revealed itself.]
[City Devourer Lv.35]
The City Devourer opened its maw.
Roooaaarrr!
With the cry, a black torrent surged toward both cities.
As the black wave struck, the barriers holding firm began to crack in multiple places.
[New Conquest Objective]
– Defeat the <City Devourer> before both cities fall.
[Time Remaining: 05:00]
Thanks to the <Magical Vessel> expanding his maximum reserves, he still had plenty of power left even after using <Iron Decline> and <Annihilation Feast> once each.
Sang Hyuk immediately kicked hard against the Scale beneath his feet.
Thud!
His body shot upward toward the Devourer’s arm rising from the Black Sea.
The City Devourer released the chain and swung its arm at Sang Hyuk.
A palm as vast as the walls filled his vision.
Sang Hyuk raised his left arm, riding the momentum of his ascent.
Boom!
His scaled left arm collided head-on with the colossal palm.
His body was knocked sideways, but he twisted in midair and landed on the creature’s arm.
His entire left arm thrummed with pain, and his shoulder felt as though it might be torn away.
Yet the skeleton he had inherited from the <Ancient Bone>, and the scales that covered his arm, endured the impact.
Boom!
The flesh where he landed rippled like mud.
Black water surged up through the gaps that split open across its surface.
Sang Hyuk ran up the creature’s arm toward its shoulder.
The devourer thrashed its limb violently, trying to shake him off.
When the arm swung upward, he bent his knees to absorb the impact.
As it plunged downward, he drove his scale-covered right hand deep into the flesh, bracing himself against the recoil.
The moment the arm’s movement slowed, Sang Hyuk yanked his hand free and ran forward again.
Each time it thrashed, he held firm; each time it paused, he closed the distance toward the shoulder.
When only one step remained between him and the shoulder, Sang Hyuk thrust his right hand forward.
‘Annihilation Feast.’
Screech—!
Black energy engulfed the creature’s shoulder.
From the moment Sang Hyuk’s hand made contact, the massive shoulder began to vanish rapidly.
The connection between arm and torso severed.
An arm the size of a city wall plummeted into the Black Sea.
Roooaaar—!
The City Devourer’s body lurched violently.
Sang Hyuk kicked off the falling arm and leaped onto the creature’s torso.
But then—
Whooooom—!
The barrier of the Eastern City suddenly darkened.
Light poured from it, flowing through chains of force toward the creature’s severed shoulder.
Squelch—!
Black water and flesh churned together as a new shoulder swelled into being.
Below it, an arm and fingers materialized swiftly.
The destroyed limb had not been restored.
A fresh arm had been constructed from the magical force bleeding from the Eastern City’s barrier.
[Eastern City barrier weakened.]
[Barrier integrity decreased by 9%.]
Sang Hyuk’s eyes narrowed.
What he had just erased belonged to the creature itself.
Yet it was the Eastern City that paid the price.
Sang Hyuk opened the Dragon’s Eye at once.
The flow of magical force within the creature’s body became visible.
Its power did not remain confined within that colossal frame.
Chains of force stretched toward the Eastern City.
Conduits extended into the Western City.
Even the barriers encasing both cities were woven into the network.
Thousands of threads of magical force radiating from the creature’s body were entangled throughout both cities.
The devourer and the two cities had become bound as a single entity.
Sang Hyuk traced one stream of force flowing into the newly-formed arm, swimming against its current.
The flow branched in multiple directions, connecting to various points along both barriers.
The creature was drawing upon the barriers’ magical reserves to restore its severed body.
Continued attacks on the creature would weaken the barriers first.
Yet he could not sever the magical connections to the barriers either.
Each link he severed would tear holes in the barrier itself.
If the black tide poured through those gaps, the cities would collapse before the creature fell.
[Time remaining: 04:31]
He had to find a way to topple the devourer while defending both barriers.
Just then, the City Devourer raised its newly-formed arm and brought it crashing down upon Sang Hyuk.
Thunderous boom—!

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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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