The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 60

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

Episode 60. Upon the Spider’s Web (2)
‘A tactic I’ve seen many times before.’
Song Ji-hu’s eyes darted back and forth as memories surfaced.
The spider’s phantoms rushed at him from all sides, yet Song Ji-hu’s stride remained steady.
In his previous three cycles of life, colleagues had been caught in a trap and annihilated by the Abyss’s Information Disruption.
That incident—the one that had planted the trauma of betrayal deep in Song Ji-hu’s heart.
‘Back then, I endured it blindly, but not anymore.’
Looking back, it wasn’t just that one event in the third cycle. In each cycle, doubt would sprout among his allies at critical moments, solid information would be twisted, and those he trusted would turn their backs. Across countless lives, the tragedies he’d dismissed as mere misfortune were nothing but the thrashing of prey caught in a spider’s web, completely unaware.
Every cycle he’d attributed to bad luck was merely him struggling against invisible threads.
‘And unlike the past, I have far more cards I can play now.’
Dodging the dazzling movements of the phantom duplicates, Song Ji-hu charged straight toward the real spider.
Whoosh—!
Song Ji-hu activated Mental Sensing. After all, phantoms were just phantoms, not the genuine article.
There was always a difference in the density of malice emanating from the true body.
“Hmm… a curious human, indeed.”
The spider began to sense something wrong. This human was responding to the situation far too naturally—as though he knew its patterns beforehand.
“…!”
Creating another phantom, and finding it useless, the spider’s eyes wavered grotesquely.
‘Could my information have been leaked to this opponent?’
It had hunted in shadow for a lifetime, never revealing its identity, its methods, or anything else.
A foreign and chilling sensation crawled up the spider’s spine.
‘This one is dangerous.’
The spider instinctively studied Song Ji-hu again. It needed to know who this human was, how he saw through everything about it.
And in the briefest moment when the spider’s countless eyes focused on him properly—
The spider detected something deeply familiar emanating from Song Ji-hu as he rushed toward it.
First: the deep traces of the Shepherd and the Gardener embedded within him.
Second: the scent of the Collector emanating from the blade.
‘The Gardener, the Shepherd, and the Collector.’
The spider’s countless eyes bulged outward all at once. The scattered fragments of information interlocked, forming a single thread.
The Apostles had believed these were separate incidents. They had merely suspected—vaguely—that two or so unknown threats had emerged.
“One person.”
Three incidents, not two enemies.
All of it had been the work of this single monster.
“It was you.”
The spider’s voice cracked terribly.
“Not two. One person.”
The spider’s voice, which had maintained its composure even as it attacked, was no longer cordial.
Dozens of eyes stared at Song Ji-hu—as though unable to believe it. How could one human accomplish all of that alone?
“This doesn’t… make sense.”
The moment it realized the prey’s true identity, the spider’s shock bloomed into primal fear.
A vague dread that it, too, might end up like that.
‘I have to escape.’
The spider’s composure evaporated completely. Among the six Apostles—now five remaining—the spider was the most informed.
Fight this human to the bitter end here? Too risky, and for what purpose?
‘Abandoning the priestess and retreating would be the wisest move.’
Years of effort had gone into it, but discovering this being’s identity was the greater gain. And no risk could compare to one’s life.
Corrupting an S-Rank takes considerable time and effort, but it’s hardly impossible.
“Trying to capture you—”
The spider began retracting its web without hesitation.
“—was my mistake.”
Clinging to a fight already lost was something only a butcher would do.
The spider began withdrawing the sticky web that had blanketed the Mental Realm.
The countless threads binding Ayase Haruka were instantly collected and hurled at Song Ji-hu.
***
‘The escape is written all over its face.’
Song Ji-hu dug in his heels, readying himself. It was crystal clear what the spider was thinking.
‘Not the reckless type like a butcher would be….’
A brief lull. The spider was undoubtedly calculating profit and loss in its mind.
‘Not an environment where fighting makes sense.’
Not like when he’d fought Eun Seo-jin or Oli Barkly. If they fought here, he couldn’t predict what harm might befall Ayase Haruka.
‘But I can’t let it show.’
The moment Spider sensed that, he’d take Ayase Haruka hostage and do whatever it took.
‘At minimum, I need a piece of him.’
With just a fragment, tracking would be possible. That’s why Song Ji-hu had no intention of simply watching him flee.
‘Killing him without collateral damage would be ideal.’
The day he’d captured the Collector, Song Ji-hu became certain of one thing: Apostles could be killed.
Even caught within the loops of Regression, those monsters who had always stayed just beyond his reach—this time, he could draw them out one by one.
More than that, he could finish them completely, just as he had the Collector.
“Not on my watch!”
He drew the Compass Needle to its limit and sliced through the web streaking toward him.
Then he rushed forward as Spider retreated step by step. His entire body screamed in protest, but he’d accepted that price long ago.
“Next time won’t be like this.”
Spider left those words behind as he withdrew.
“Now I know who you are.”
Dozens of overlapping eyes glinted in the darkness, and Song Ji-hu let out a bitter laugh.
“Fleeing prey always say the same thing. That next time will be different.”
Song Ji-hu already had more than enough favorable variables. It was only a matter of time before his identity became known anyway.
“Though they don’t seem to realize the same goes for us.”
After today, the Apostles would mobilize their intelligence networks to find him. And it wouldn’t be long before they learned the name Song Ji-hu.
But enemies on the move meant they’d reveal their openings. That’s why Song Ji-hu felt almost grateful for Spider’s warning.
“If they don’t come to me, I’d have gone to find them anyway. Now I won’t even need to.”
Song Ji-hu raised the Compass Needle high. Toward the core of the retreating Spider, the needle blazed with brilliant blue light and descended.
“Damn it!”
Even as he fled, Spider’s dozens of eyes locked onto the needle.
One trying to escape, one refusing to let go. And just before the needle struck—
Hummmmm—
A black door appeared, and Song Ji-hu seized the web stretching behind Spider like a tail, wrenching it back.
As Spider’s body began to slip through the dimensional rift—
Crack—!
He managed to sever just the very tip of one of Spider’s legs. In that instant, all the webbing coiled around the entire underground of the Shrine went slack, losing tension.
“Tch.”
Song Ji-hu picked up the body fragment Spider had shed and absorbed it directly into the Compass.
[Tracking Target]
ㄴ Gardener
ㄴ Shepherd
ㄴ Spider (NEW)
All the while, the dense webbing that had been constricting the space from all sides sagged limply, and the webs that had been tightening to devour Ayase Haruka’s sense of self lay loose on the ground.
With Spider present and without him—the difference was night and day.
“Things just got considerably easier.”
Now that the Spider who had directly controlled the webbing was gone, nothing of real threat remained among what was left.
‘Ha. Even fleeing, it planted seeds.’
Spider had no intention of withdrawing completely empty-handed.
Looking at the seeds of deception he’d scattered deep in Haruka’s core—seeds that would sprout again someday—it was clear.
But that posed no real problem for Song Ji-hu. Seeds without a sorcerer, if swept away before they could take root, were no threat at all.
“Huh… first things first, though.”
Regret lingered, but Song Ji-hu didn’t dwell on it. What mattered was fully restoring the priestess before him.
***
Song Ji-hu pushed through the fluttering webs, making his way to the deepest part of the Shrine.
The webbing, now stripped of control and slack, crumbled to ash in his hands and scattered into the air, while the dead threads beneath his feet broke apart like dried leaves.
And in the deepest darkness of the Shrine, a priestess wearing Ayase Haruka’s face waited for him.
“You will fail.”
The Spider sorcerer had fled, but the lies carved into this place across long ages remained like inertia, still guarding the space.
And behind her, the real Ayase Haruka hung trapped, bound tight in webs.
Deeper than the first time, more exhausted and withered.
“Well, that’s possible.”
It was proof of how long and relentless the lies had whispered to her.
“I’m the real one. Every oracle you’ve heard is a lie planted by her.”
The false priestess released mechanical whispers. But now that Spider was gone, those whispers lacked their former power.
Like a wind-up doll moving one last time on its last reserves.
“Yes, you’re trying hard.”
Song Ji-hu passed by the fake and carefully pulled down the real Ayase Haruka, who hung suspended in the spider’s web.
Song Ji-hu reached out a hand toward the crouched Haruka.
Still trapped in the deepest recesses, Ayase Haruka remained pinned beneath the weight of false voices and could scarcely lift her head.
“Come to your senses. Remember.”
Yet as the warmth from Song Ji-hu’s fingertips reached her, Ayase Haruka began to stir back to awareness.
“This memory—it’s the one you identified as real. The only one.”
It was the memory he had planted during the first cycle. The one connected to Matsumoto Leo.
“Unravel it from here, working backward.”
“That memory is fake! That one’s fake too!”
The fake shrieked, cords standing out in her neck. No matter how intricately the threads of falsehood were tangled, there was always a beginning point.
And that beginning point—the thread that would lead him back to it—was the memory Song Ji-hu had planted during the first cycle’s treatment.
“Ungh…”
Song Ji-hu waited with quiet patience. Rather than fret or unravel the thread for her, he cast light upon the path she herself had to walk.
‘The core principle of Mental Dive. The contaminated subject must possess their own will to escape.’
According to that principle, it was hers alone to navigate this moment.
“Try to distinguish. You can do it now. There’s a warmth to distinguishing the real from the false.”
Ayase Haruka felt the warmth emanating from the true memory beneath her fingertips.
“Ah…!”
Ayase Haruka slowly lifted her head and faced the fake priestess.
“The crucial thing is… to listen.”
A priestess’s nature was to be a vessel that heard truth. And nothing more than to convey it.
Haruka had at last reawakened to that truth.
She had heard so much falsehood that she had come to distrust her own ears—and that distrust was the sickness Spider had planted in her.
“It mixed truth and lies so I couldn’t hear…”
A clear light began to return to her eyes.
“Yes. You’ve awakened to it.”
The moment she recognized it was not her fault, but a curse planted with malice by another.
The shadow of long self-reproach began to lift from Ayase Haruka’s gaze.
The Seventh Cycle Regressor Collects Calamities
Author
: Song Tan
Publication Date
: July 21, 2026
Publisher
: ACES Media Inc.
Editor
: ACES Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work has been published by ACES Media Inc. in accordance with the copyright holder’s agreement,
and no part of its contents may 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
—————