The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 1

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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 1. The Sixth Ash
Prologue
People ask: doesn’t vengeance eventually fade before the passage of time?
Twenty years, thirty years, fifty years, and one hundred.
How could human hatred maintain its form across such an expanse of years?
It’s absurd.
Time, for me, was no healer bringing forgetfulness. It was a blacksmith, tempering my vengeance into something harder still.
Six regressions. More than one hundred years.
Within endless despair, my hatred for him did not dilute—it refined itself into its purest form.
The rage of my first life fed the helplessness of my second. The betrayal of my third life burned with the despair of my fourth as its fuel.
Each repeated failure burned away any mercy or forgiveness from my vengeance.
For me, vengeance was no mere emotion.
And now, as my seventh life began, that flame exceeded its limits once more.
Once more, until everything returned to ash.
***
Episode 1. The Sixth Ash
The world was collapsing.
Or rather, it was being unmade.
The Nakdong River Special Defense Zone—the final bulwark, they called it—was nothing but a vast stage for someone’s amusement.
“Screeeeeee—!”
The cry belonged to Yu Han-gyeol, an S-rank Hunter. The man once hailed as South Korea’s mightiest tank clawed at his own head, tears of blood streaming down his face.
His eyes were shattered like broken glass, and black foam dripped from his mouth.
“Captain! Get ahold of yourself!”
His aide rushed forward in desperation, only to meet a fist.
Crack!
With a dull, sickening sound, the aide’s body flew dozens of meters and slammed into a wall.
“Ha… haha… ggh… gaaaah—!”
From Yu Han-gyeol’s mouth poured the hollow wail of a man whose reason had shattered.
Song Ji-hu watched the entire scene without expression.
‘…Again.’
His whisper held neither anger nor sorrow—only the echo of yet another ending, repeated six times before.
At the center of the battlefield, atop a ruined high-rise, the Abyss Lord stood motionless against a torn sky, the architect of all this tragedy.
Dressed in a tattered black formal coat as if aping human form, it swept its hand through empty air like a conductor before a concert’s climax, gazing down at this hell with a satisfied smile.
“Ah, how beautiful….”
The voice did not echo in the ears but resonated deep within the skull.
“Steadfast conviction crumbles, and a blade is turned upon your most trusted ally in that moment of despair. What such pure, concentrated emotion it is.”
The Abyss Lord trembled throughout, savoring the sensation as if tasting a delicacy, and Song Ji-hu felt his fingertips quiver.
“Screeeeeek—!”
Another figure collapsed amid anguished death throes. Lightning crashed down. Flames erupted. Screams—and screams yet again.
“Ji-hu….”
A voice soaked in blood. Im Jae-hyeok pushed himself up, using his own shield as a crutch, staggering.
“Run… away.”
The man who had extended his hand first, who had been like an older brother—his shield was shattered, blood pouring from his abdomen.
“You have to survive.”
Though Song Ji-hu felt the despair woven into those words, he did not respond.
“If only… if only I’d been stronger…!”
Tears of self-recrimination fell from Im Jae-hyeok’s eyes.
“It’s not your fault,” Song Ji-hu said.
He spoke for the first time. His voice was parched as desert sand.
“We were… nothing but his pieces from the beginning.”
Im Jae-hyeok’s face contorted in incomprehension. Song Ji-hu offered no further explanation. There was neither time nor meaning for it.
Bang!
With a tremendous crash, a building collapsed. Dust rose in clouds, and fresh screams erupted from within.
Song Ji-hu slowly lifted his gaze toward the Abyss Lord, whose face wore an expression of supreme satisfaction.
“Well then.”
The Lord clapped its hands with elegant grace, as if introducing an actor upon a stage.
“It is time to savor the ripest fruit first.”
The moment it reached out its hand, Song Ji-hu felt the blood in his veins turn to ice at those words—fruit.
A sensation no amount of repetition could make bearable: the feeling of one’s very existence being violated.
Yu Han-gyeol’s body rose suspended in the air. His mouth tore open at an impossible angle, unable even to scream, and from within, something brilliant and luminous began to be drawn out.
A face twisted with agony, screaming silently—the visage of Yu Han-gyeol given form as a spirit, compressed into an Ego where all his emotions and abilities coalesced.
“Ah… indeed, the Ego of an S-rank marred by torment and despair has a different fragrance altogether.”
The Lord’s voice brimmed with the delight of consumption.
“A lifetime of pride and conviction built from nothing, and then that final, crushing despair. What exquisite flavor.”
The mass of Ego was drawn into the Lord. He swallowed it whole. The sound of the spirit fragmenting and splintering inside his mouth was enough to raise the hairs on one’s skin.
Crack—
A chilling sound emanated from Song Ji-hu’s jaw. His grip had been so fierce that his own nails dug into his palms, drawing blood.
“Next….”
The Lord’s gaze turned to the other S-rank Hunters.
“No!”
Someone screamed, but resistance was futile. Over and over, spirits were torn free and swallowed by the Lord’s maw—a mechanical repetition of agony.
“Hmm, this one has lingering traces of mana; the aftertaste is bitter. This one carries the flavor of loyalty quite strongly… oh, this one is laced with betrayal—a most stimulating taste.”
He savored each spirit like a wine sommelier. Suffering that did not end even in death. An eternity of degradation, reduced to his nourishment.
‘Ah, this… I’ve seen it six times now.’
The harvesting of his comrades’ souls, one by one. Watching them resist until they crumbled. And even in death, condemned to eternal servitude as food for their enemy.
Six lifetimes. He had gathered S-rank Hunters. Trained them. Devised strategies. Collected Artifacts. Ascended through Dungeons and leveled up. With every Regression, he had attempted a different approach.
But the result was always the same.
Total annihilation.
And Soul Harvest.
And at last, the Lord’s gaze fell upon Im Jae-hyeok.
“No!”
Song Ji-hu threw himself forward to shield Im Jae-hyeok, but the Lord cast him aside with a flick of a single finger.
“Ji-hu… I’m sorry….”
The final tear fell from Im Jae-hyeok’s eye. Even as his soul was torn away, his gaze remained fixed on Song Ji-hu.
“Mmm… the taste of such fervent friendship. Exquisite. Tonight’s finest course.”
Song Ji-hu lay sprawled on the ground, watching as his last companion vanished.
There was no sorrow.
There was no anger.
Only a void as cold and empty as the cosmos filled his heart.
“Well, now for the final feast,”
The Lord descended before Song Ji-hu.
“Only you remain, my little farmer.”
“…Farmer?”
“Yes, farmer.”
The Lord laughed, clearly delighted.
“Through six lifetimes, you have tended the finest crop. You sought out the most excellent seeds, nurtured them with care, and presented them before me at the peak of their ripeness. All of this—I owe to you.”
Song Ji-hu’s hollow eyes trembled as if struck by an earthquake.
“You….”
“Still ignorant, I see. How naive.”
The Lord seized his jaw and forced their eyes to meet. Within that gaze, Song Ji-hu saw the six lifetimes flash before him like a lantern show.
“Your Regression—I have known of it from the beginning and permitted it.”
“……!”
Song Ji-hu’s breathing became ragged.
“Power that reverses time belongs to the divine realm. How could a mere mortal wield it of their own accord? I merely observed the potential in your soul and provided a small stage for you to act upon—until you had harvested the finest spirits for me.”
The Lord stroked his head as one would pet a beloved animal.
“This life’s harvest, too, has been most satisfying. You have cultivated well.”
A bestial groan escaped Song Ji-hu’s lips. The six lifetimes of struggle before him had not been the epic of a hero saving the world.
It had been nothing but the most humiliating servitude—tending a spirit farm for the final boss.
“But hear this, farmer. What I truly await is your own soul. That taste, ripened through six cycles of despair, will surely transcend all others and become the supreme delicacy.”
His voice burrowed into Song Ji-hu’s mind like a demon’s whisper.
“Not yet. You are not yet ripe. A little more despair, a little more suffering, a little more thrashing about—and when all hope has crumbled to dust, then I shall come to taste you.”
“Shut up….”
“Then, until your final life, my most beloved farmer.”
The Lord hummed as he turned to harvest the remaining spirits.
“What rare souls will you offer in the next life? I can hardly wait. Or… will you simply give up?”
Song Ji-hu instinctively drew the Soul Revolver, the Regression item bound to his soul.
Faces of his comrades from the first life flashed before him. Last Sunset. The name had become the memory of a distant past.
And the Soul Revolver was the legacy left to Song Ji-hu by Last Sunset’s leader, paid for with life and soul alike.
Six chambers.
When this revolver had first become bound to his soul, those six chambers had been filled with six bullets.
Each time he defied fate, another bullet vanished from the chamber.
And now, only a single round remained.
“Never….”
The moment Song Ji-hu’s finger found the trigger, a faint vibration thrummed against his chest.
He fumbled through his garments and felt the scorching pulse of solid metal.
“The Compass?”
A small, worn Compass of brass.
The same weathered talisman Im Jae-hyeok had pressed into his hand just before the fight began, calling it a charm for luck.
“You’ll be the only one to see the end. We know it already—know that our odds of winning are almost nothing.”
“….”
“But we’ll fight anyway. Because you’re our hope. You have to survive to the end.”
His final words echoed in Song Ji-hu’s ears.
And the moment the Compass touched his palm, Song Ji-hu understood.
“Ah….”
This Compass was the only ‘variable’ that had never existed across all six lives, across a century of cycles.
He had lived four of those six lives alongside Im Jae-hyeok, yet the man had never once handed him this Compass. Then where had it come from?
Whoooom—!
The Compass blazed with searing light, vibrating with terrible intensity. That radiance seeped into Song Ji-hu’s hollow spirit and carved a message into it.
[Open the gateway to the mental realm.]
[Turn toward the origin.]
[Purify the source of the corruption.]
Song Ji-hu’s eyes snapped open.
Hunters crumbled under the creature’s Mental Attack because each encounter amplified their trauma, shattering their Ego.
Then what if he reversed it—what if he dove into the heart of that trauma and healed it?
If his Ego strengthened?
If he could withstand the Lord’s Mental Attack?
‘There’s… a chance. There has to be.’
Song Ji-hu’s hands trembled. But not from despair this time.
Hope.
For the first time in a hundred years, true hope kindled in his chest.
The Compass synchronized with the Soul Revolver, merging into his spirit like a brand.
He sensed what he had to do.
Song Ji-hu clawed his way upright, blood spilling from his wounds.
“Abyss Lord.”
His voice was low and cold, yet within it burned the spark of hope—kindled for the first time.
The Lord paused mid-harvest, intrigued, and turned to face Song Ji-hu.
“Oh? Do you still have words left?”
Song Ji-hu hooked his finger around the Soul Revolver’s trigger.
“Six times over.”
He pressed the barrel against his own temple.
“And a seventh time again.”
The smile faded from the Lord’s mouth.
“Until the moment your heart explodes into ash.”
In Song Ji-hu’s eyes, the killing intent of six lifetimes of hatred detonated.
“I will not yield. Never. I will challenge you to the very end.”
Bang—!
As the Soul’s bullet tore through his temple with horrific agony, Song Ji-hu glimpsed the final faces of his companions.
‘This time, for certain… I will succeed.’
Consciousness dissolved into darkness.
The 7th Regression Collector of Calamities
Author
: Song Tan
Publication Date
: July 13, 2026
Publisher
: Asys Media Co., Ltd.
Editor
: Asys Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F, Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work has been published by ACESIS Media in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder,
and the content may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the company and the author.
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UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260709064

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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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