The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 48

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

Episode 48. The Old Knight Commander’s Key (3)
“I’m wondering if this welcome has come rather late.”
Im Jae-hyuk swallowed dryly and adjusted the Shield slung across his back, and as Eun Seo-jin wrapped his aura around his blade, the ambient life force in the vicinity plummeted instantly.
“There’s definitely something important in this place.”
“Right. Given how they’re blocking the way.”
On all sides, corrupted soldiers and knights rose without end.
Their bodies were rotted in places, their rusted armor clanking with every movement.
Between collapsed pillars, atop shattered corridors, throughout the decrepit Throne Hall, blood-red eyes blazed forth like stars scattered across the night sky.
Dozens, hundreds. A number without end.
All of them flickered with those blood-red eyes, slowly tightening their encirclement around the three intruders.
“Don’t be too alarmed.”
Song Ji-hu placed both hands on the shoulders of Eun Seo-jin and Im Jae-hyuk.
“Mental Connection.”
Song Ji-hu’s mind extended toward Eun Seo-jin and Im Jae-hyuk like thin threads.
“What is this…”
The moment the three minds were bound together as one, the positions and intentions of each became crystalline in Im Jae-hyuk’s consciousness.
His initial bewilderment was brief. The legion of Specters suddenly surged forward.
The clang of rusted armor colliding and the grotesque groans seeping from their throats engulfed the entire space.
‘Front.’
Before Song Ji-hu’s thought had fully transmitted, Im Jae-hyuk stepped forward.
Thud!
The massive Shield made contact with the ground, releasing a heavy sound as it deflected the assault of the rushing enemies.
“I’ll hold the line!”
Boom!
Golden aura began to shimmer across Im Jae-hyuk’s Shield, expanding its reach until it covered most of the Throne Hall.
Boom! Boom!
Hundreds of corrupted Specters crashed against Im Jae-hyuk like a wave. Rusted blades clanged against the Shield, and decayed fingernails scraped savagely at its surface.
Yet Im Jae-hyuk did not yield an inch.
Though the weight of hundreds pressed down upon him at once, he stood rooted with both feet planted firm, bearing the whole of their assault alone.
“Wide-Range Provocation. Now I understand why the Guild Master took him on.”
Eun Seo-jin, observing Im Jae-hyuk’s ability, broke into a grin.
“The Guild Master is here. Leave the rest to us.”
The enemies’ attacks continued to pummel Im Jae-hyuk relentlessly, yet he did not utter a single groan.
“Ahhhhh!”
Instead, he lowered his hips deeper and shoved the Shield forward with greater force. Behind Im Jae-hyuk’s back, a space of impossible safety unfurled.
For the first time, Im Jae-hyuk’s true nature was revealed. A man who absorbed the enemy’s firepower upon himself alone, carving out a stage where his allies could fight without restraint.
At this display, Song Ji-hu smiled. It was exactly the Im Jae-hyuk he had known.
“Frost Step.”
And across the stage Im Jae-hyuk had created, Eun Seo-jin glided forth.
A blur of icy afterimages, and two blades slashed through the heart of the Specter horde, cutting the air itself.
Crack!
Everywhere they touched, the Specters froze solid. Those caught in the icy strike shattered like glass into countless fragments.
As Eun Seo-jin’s twin blades crossed in an X, the entire throng of Specters surrounding him was pierced through by a massive spike of ice.
‘Prison of Eternal Snow. That really is an incredible offensive skill.’
The Specters, crushed beneath the weight of that arctic aura, were too sluggish to mount any real resistance.
With every step Eun Seo-jin took, frost spread beneath his feet, and with every sweep of his blades, dozens of Specters shattered like glass.
It was a slaughter without a drop of blood spilled. His blades were merely cold, beautiful, and merciless.
Yet the number of Specters did not diminish easily. No matter how many were cut down, new ones crawled endlessly from the gaps in the crumbling ruins.
As if this dead world itself were rejecting the intruders.
Crash!
One exceptionally massive Specter knight slammed into Im Jae-hyuk’s Shield. The force was of a different magnitude, and for the first time, his feet slid backward.
“Ugh…!”
But it was brief. Im Jae-hyuk clenched his teeth and drove his sliding feet back into the earth.
‘Hold the line. No matter what.’
So long as his comrades were behind him, he could not yield even a single step. And the longer he maintained his skill, the more all enemy attacks concentrated upon him.
In that moment, Song Ji-hu’s thought struck like a blade.
‘Seo-jin, behind you. Big one.’
Before the thought had even finished, Eun Seo-jin’s form vanished.
Using Frost Step to seize the massive Specter from behind, he crossed his twin blades and drove them deep. Cold radiated through that huge frame, and the colossal body froze solid.
Crack—Shatter!
Im Jae-hyuk seized the moment, bringing his hammer down on the creature’s head with a sickening crack. The massive form shattered and collapsed.
Behind Im Jae-hyuk’s shield, meanwhile—
Song Ji-hu’s gaze fixed on the armor of the Specter knight that lay scattered at his feet.
“Hmm… this metal.”
Song Ji-hu picked up a piece of it.
“It’s the exact same pattern as the armor those knights wore in the dungeon.”
That meant this world was where those knights had come from.
“A connection, then….”
Song Ji-hu’s mind began to race. If this was the knights’ original world, how had the dungeon he’d cleared come into being?
And what possible purpose could The Lord have for orchestrating something like this?
His thoughts tangled as another Specter slipped through the gap in the shield and lunged at him.
Screeeech!
Song Ji-hu flicked the Needle lightly. The silver blade severed the Specter’s neck cleanly, and it scattered into a crimson mist.
“Out of the way.”
In the same motion, he unfurled a Mental Barrier to constrain their movements, then swept the Needle with economical precision.
The three of them, bound together by Mental Connection, interlocked like gears turning in perfect synchrony.
Im Jae-hyuk held the line, Eun Seo-jin froze and shattered enemies, and Song Ji-hu cut them down. No words passed between them, yet they moved as one body that had trained together for years.
“Let’s drive them out of the Throne Hall and seal the door,” Song Ji-hu said.
The legion of Specters seemed endless, but they could not stop the party’s advance.
Im Jae-hyuk shoved enemies back with his shield while Eun Seo-jin froze and shattered them, and step by step, the three pushed the Specter army out of the Throne Hall.
Bang!
Once the creatures had been driven beyond the threshold, Im Jae-hyuk slammed the door shut, threw the bolt, and only then exhaled in relief.
“Phew… we made it.”
Im Jae-hyuk lowered his shield and slumped to the floor.
“Damn, I thought my arm was going to fall off. Next time, let’s try holding the line a bit more carefully, yeah?”
The way the banter had returned meant they’d crossed the worst of it.
“We should search now. We’re running out of time.”
Song Ji-hu drew out the violently thrumming Compass and began triangulating his position within the Throne Hall.
“This place… it’s too well-preserved.”
Unlike the torn and shattered remnants they’d seen elsewhere, the door beside the throne at the far end of the chamber was oddly intact.
As though something had deliberately left that place untouched.
Thoom!
A massive footstep shook the air. The entire castle trembled; debris from the ceiling rained down.
“Let’s go. Something’s definitely there,” Song Ji-hu said.
“Move quickly. The door looks like it won’t hold much longer.”
Song Ji-hu bolted up the stairs at full speed, ascending to the topmost level in one breath.
The higher they climbed, the more the surroundings showed the marks of plunder and ruin—yet here, for reasons unknown, time seemed to have moved differently, leaving everything weathered and worn as it should be.
“Ah….”
At the top of the staircase, a massive door stood alone, unblemished and formidable.
“Definitely strange,” Eun Seo-jin observed.
“Time flows differently here alone….”
Everything bore the weight of age, as if only this place had properly weathered the passage of centuries.
Song Ji-hu stood before the door, on which was carved an emblem identical to the Knight Commander’s Key, and withdrew the old key.
Thoom…! Thoom…!
The monster outside had reached the castle’s very foundations.
Song Ji-hu inserted the worn key into the lock.
Click.
The key turned smoothly, falling into place.
Grooooan!
The massive door, breaking its long silence, began to open slowly.
As it swung open, the first thing revealed was the sight of knights, dead where they stood, their blades still drawn against the invaders pouring in.
As though someone had fought with desperate resolve to protect this place alone.
“They died defending this place, no doubt about it,” Eun Seo-jin said quietly.
“It’s a bit tragic, really… wondering what was important enough to sacrifice everything for….”
Beyond, in the darkness, a faint luminous form drifted in the shadows.
A remnant of someone clad in old armor—a lingering consciousness that had endured eons, sealed within itself.
“A Residual Consciousness,” Song Ji-hu murmured.
The moment Song Ji-hu activated his skill upon entering the vault, his mind flooded with a panoramic vision of an entire world’s collapse.
‘This kingdom fought too. Like I did.’
On that day when the sky turned black and an endless army stretched across the horizon—the people here had taken up arms to the very last one.
Arrows rained down from the walls like a storm, and mages spewed fire until their mana ran dry.
Before the crumbling gates, none retreated even as they gripped broken weapons.
The gates shattered at last, and a black tide of soldiers poured through like a tidal wave.
One by one they fell, trampling over the bodies of comrades, picking up shattered blades, yet still someone swung a sword to the bitter end. A mage wrung out their final mana to raise a wall of fire; an archer without arrows drew a dagger instead.
There had never been any hope of victory.
They knew it themselves—that this was a battle they could never win. And yet they threw away their lives to hold the line a moment longer.
A desperate will that refused to lay down arms even knowing it could not prevail.
That heartbreaking final tableau weighed heavily on Song Ji-hu’s mind. Like Earth, this world too had fought desperately against The Lord.
And it had been destroyed. After the walls crumbled and the last knight fell.
The Lord departed the barren planet without a glance back. To him, this world was nothing but a harvested field stripped bare of all value.
“The Collector….”
But the tragedy did not end there. Above the ruined world The Lord left behind, another entity remained.
He began to plunder whatever the orphaned world had left—anything of value, taken without remorse.
Where The Lord had reaped the souls, The Collector swept up every scrap that clung to their shells.
“The Collector? That massive creature out there is the one called The Collector?”
“The plunder marks we saw on the way in must be his work, then.”
Even those who resisted to the last fell to The Collector’s hands.
But before he died, he divided the keys to this Vault into many pieces and entrusted them to those he could trust.
Hoping that even if they all perished, someday someone worthy would reach this place and inherit the truth.
It was the last resistance those facing complete annihilation could leave behind, and their final hope.
“And one of those scattered keys”
had crossed countless worlds and ages before finally coming into Song Ji-hu’s hands.
The 7th Returner Collects Calamities
Author
: Song Tan
Publication Date
: July 13, 2026
Publisher
: ACESMEDIA Co., Ltd.
Editor
: ACESMEDIA Editorial Team
Address
: 10F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work is published by ACESMEDIA Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder and may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
This e-book is protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or copying may result in legal liability.
UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260709064

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