The 7th-Run Regressor Collects Calamities - Chapter 78

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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 78. Harvest Festival (3)
The first move fell to Jonathan Walker.
Not that it could be called a move, really. He’d simply swung his arm—as though the building in his way annoyed him, indifferent and careless.
That half-hearted stroke cleaved the structure in two. Not an explosion, not a collapse—literal severance.
Hundreds of tons of concrete and rebar split like modeling clay, crashing to the ground with a sound that arrived late.
Crash-crash-crash—
The dust cloud from the collapsing building surged across the perimeter barrier.
S-rank Hunters reaching the final stages of Mental Corruption, their corruption index at 100, weren’t called Calamities for nothing.
They were given that name because they destroyed everything, burning even their own lives in the process.
“The area’s been cleaned up nicely.”
Song Ji-hu spoke curtly, waving his hand to settle the dust.
The path of destruction he’d carved was completely erased from the map—six full blocks. Multi-story buildings snapped at their middles, leaning against their neighbors; asphalt roads lay grotesquely overturned, their entrails exposed.
From each torn-out fire hydrant, water jets rose, painting rainbows. Few sights were as bizarre and ironic as a rainbow suspended above the ruins.
‘I never get used to this….’
Song Ji-hu studied Jonathan Walker with his eyes and shook his head slowly. How many S-rank Hunters had he dealt with personally?
Some had been colleagues who fought alongside him; others, enemies. And none of them had been without their reasons.
The dust settled, and Jonathan Walker’s form emerged.
—Body Mutation-amplified Super-Regeneration….
The steadfast symbol of Western Coastline defense. A national hero who had held the line alone through three major Gate Breaks, saving the city from catastrophe.
That same hero now stood atop the ruins, bearing the designation code Calamity Six.
Crash—!
“Damn it… what a crude brute.”
Matsumoto Leo appeared from behind and swung his blade, only to have it easily deflected by the skin mutations born of corruption.
With each ragged breath from the three-meter-tall frame, the surrounding air warped like heat shimmer.
—Have you ever properly faced a rogue S-rank Hunter?
Song Ji-hu’s question drew a shake of the head from Matsumoto Leo.
—How could I have? The international protocol is to eliminate them before engagement even becomes necessary.
Ollie Barkley nodded in agreement. Usually the Hunter Association handled such matters independently.
—Then follow my lead. Don’t try to stand and fight on your own.
Poisonous miasma seeped from his entire body, and the asphalt within a radius of several meters began to blacken with discoloration.
—Tch, full of himself.
Yet despite his words, neither Ollie Barkley nor Matsumoto Leo moved easily; both waited for Song Ji-hu’s instruction.
“Uggh… ughhh… ah….”
Eyes without focus, their pupils dull and turbid, wandered through empty air. From his mouth came strange, formless sounds.
“…No… can’t… run… die!”
He spoke of death and escape simultaneously—proof that some part of him understood what his hands were doing, that he knew even as he could not stop.
That was the true terror of the Harvest Festival. Not merely the Gate Breaks it triggered, the monsters it unleashed, the massacres it wrought.
But that it twisted the heroes the public had worshiped into monsters.
With his own hands, he destroyed the city whose people had once chanted his name.
And when this catastrophe ended, all those citizens would fling his entire glorious life into the gutter and mock him.
That was the Harvest Festival’s true aim, its true malice.
‘Which is why.’
Song Ji-hu’s ash-gray eyes, fixed upon Jonathan Walker, grew hollow.
‘Killing him outright—that’s the ending they want. A perfectly cooked offering, ascending to the Sovereign’s table.’
Execution was not disposal. It was a sacrifice.
“Jonathan….”
Ollie Barkley stepped forward, teeth clenched.
“It’s me. Ollie….”
When those blood-red eyes fixed on him, Ollie Barkley’s hand, gripping the revolver, trembled faintly.
Of course, being acknowledged didn’t restore his reason or halt his assault—only the raw killing intent returned.
Jonathan Walker’s massive form blurred, and in the next instant, a black fist fell from above Ollie Barkley’s head.
—Up!
Ollie Barkley’s response came half a beat late. His body hadn’t hesitated—his heart had.
—Back!
Focus returned to Ollie Barkley’s eyes. Following Song Ji-hu’s command, he pushed off the ground and dodged. The fist carved a vast crater into the asphalt where he’d stood.
—Hah… thanks, bro.
Ollie Barkley landed and exhaled sharply. And he smiled. The tremor had vanished.
—Get your head straight. There’s no point rescuing him if he dies or gets injured anyway.
—Yeah. That’s all I need, bro….
—Then let’s begin.
The curtain on the battle rose in earnest.
As Matsumoto Leo moved, the shadows beneath his feet rippled.
Dozens of presences bloomed simultaneously from the shadows encircling Jonathan Walker on all sides.
Phantom forms without substance. It was the reason he had named his guild Kage, and his secret art—the Shadow Clone.
“Grraaaah—!”
Jonathan Walker reacted.
Boom—!
The indiscriminate shockwave that burst forth, blood-red and violent, tore the shadow phantoms to shreds.
But new shadows bloomed where the old ones had been torn. An endlessly regenerating target, sensory overload from the onslaught. His target had scattered into dozens of fragments.
—Ollie, now!
“Long time no see, Jonathan!”
Ollie Barkley drove straight at Jonathan Walker’s front. With his eyes stolen away by the phantoms, the tackle landed precisely in his abdomen.
Crash—!
At the collision of S-rank against S-rank, the asphalt within several meters shuddered and buckled inward.
Ollie Barkley, who had unleashed a brilliant blue aura, seized both of Jonathan Walker’s arms as he poured forth a blood-red aura.
“Hnngh—! The debt from the Desert—I’m settling it now, properly!”
A primal clash of pure strength against strength. Veins bulged from Ollie Barkley’s neck and forearms as if ready to burst.
“Graaahhh—! Damn it all, you’ve gotten stronger.”
It was Ollie Barkley who was being pushed back. The positions themselves bore the difference between ranged dealer and tank. And on top of that, the raw strength swollen by mutation.
His feet scraped against the asphalt as he was driven backward. One step. Another step.
Yet even as his teeth gritted to the point of shattering, he refused to let go.
—Bro—!
—Wait. I’m closing in.
He was someone who had once floundered in the deepest abyss and been barely pulled out. And so despair was an old companion to his body.
“I’ve… been to that rock bottom too, just like you. So.”
The aura enveloping Ollie Barkley’s body boiled up thicker and deeper blue.
“That you can come back from there again—I know that better than anyone! You… damn bastard!”
Song Ji-hu, who had activated his skill from atop the bus—crushed beyond recognition—hurled himself into the fray in an instant.
Slash—
Nothing is accomplished in a single motion. Especially not healing a hunter already in runaway state.
“Kraaaaaaaahhh—!”
Rather, like drilling holes bit by tiny bit to avoid shattering a massive dam.
—Good, fall back!
Song Ji-hu drove Ollie Barkley’s memories intensively into Jonathan Walker’s mind.
Song Ji-hu, who had climbed atop the collapsed building, surveyed the entire field below.
One ear catching Rick Wesley’s radio chatter, his eyes tracking the battle before him, his mind maintaining two mental connections while juggling other skills beside.
In times past, his temples would have throbbed and blood would have poured from his nose long before this, but now there was only silence.
Song Ji-hu’s hand drifted naturally to the ring that adorned his finger.
—It’s working.
—Good. Then let’s go all in.
Suppression stage one: block the avenues of approach.
—Ollie, keep making trouble for him.
The revolver’s cylinder spun furiously, unleashing magical bullets. The design was meant to restrict movement, not kill.
Ollie Barkley’s magical bullets chewed up every inch of ground where Jonathan Walker moved.
—Leo, make trouble for him. Like a swarm of gnats.
—Hah, gnats?! These are Shadow Clones!
Suppression stage two: intercept.
‘Unwavering Mind.’
When Matsumoto Leo seized Jonathan Walker’s attention, Song Ji-hu would slip in and deploy one skill at a time.
Then immediately fall back and analyze Jonathan Walker’s movements anew.
The preparatory shift of his shoulders, the weight redistribution through his anchoring ankle, even the flow of Mana through his circuits where poison was gathering.
—Watch your back.
—Hiyah—!
Matsumoto Leo evaded the fist that came at a grotesque angle by a hair’s breadth and wiped the sweat from his brow.
—Ollie, strike the right knee. Leo, strike the left Achilles tendon.
Ollie Barkley’s attack drastically altered the angle of his assault, and through that opening, Matsumoto Leo’s blade swept in a long, clean arc.
For the first time, the massive frame stumbled.
—No… how could he read all of that….
Rick Wesley’s bewildered voice came through the earset from the drone he was piloting overhead.
—Is he some kind of oracle?
“Just keep your eyes open and you’ll see it.”
– The location is secured. If we can manage a capture, the extraction team is standing by for immediate transport.
“Understood.”
And Suppression, third stage.
Tap—
He pressed his fingertip against Jonathan Walker’s forehead.
‘Memory Imprint—!’
Jonathan Walker gripped his head and staggered, his body swaying uncontrollably.
“Guh… ugh…”
Crimson blood streamed from his entire body, and the assault momentarily ebbed.
– Hah… hah… so it’s nearly over?
Matsumoto Leo muttered, confident they’d finally cornered him, but Song Ji-hu shook his head.
– He’s going to make one last desperate move.
No escape route, the game read, his strength draining away. Even a beast without reason retains instinct—it was time for his final gambit.
Crack-crack-crack—!
On cue, the black crystals covering Jonathan Walker’s entire body began shattering of their own accord. He’d abandoned defense in favor of continued offense.
– That looks dangerous.
– Avoid it at all costs.
Instead, a crimson light pooled in the center of his chest, drawing in the surrounding toxins and airborne Mana like a black hole, swelling ever larger.
The air itself shrieked as if being torn apart, and the armored vehicles groaned under the vibrations.
– All personnel take cover! Cover now! Throw yourselves flat on the ground, no exceptions!
Amid the cacophony pouring from the earsets, Song Ji-hu issued his commands with eerie calm.
– We need to redirect the blast toward open ground. Either toward the Sea or skyward.
“Krrrraaaaaagh—!”
From the heart of the crimson radiance, now so vast it eclipsed his massive form, came Jonathan Walker’s fractured voice.
“Please… run… away…!”
The moment of absolute crisis.
– Bro, if we bail now we’ll have to come back, right? At this scale, the shockwave alone is going to be hell.
– I’m not pulling back.
Song Ji-hu’s voice was unnervingly serene.
– The sky. Simultaneously strike the hamstrings to buckle his knees, then drive his chest skyward.
Song Ji-hu walked straight toward the swelling maelstrom of death—each step a tightrope walk with his life as the stake.
The power swollen to critical mass could no longer be contained, erupting in all directions, hammering the ground beneath them.
– Bro, get back. It’s too dangerous.
– He’s right.
A mere brush would reduce a C-rank Hunter’s body to meat on the spot—such was the force radiating outward.
Yet Song Ji-hu’s advance showed no hesitation.
– Stay close. Without me, how do you plan to stabilize it?
His voice razor-edged, Song Ji-hu bent at the waist.
Half a step to the right. Head down now.
A shockwave screamed past overhead. Several strands of hair at the back of his head sheared clean away.
Three paces. Two paces.
‘There has to be a gap the instant before the energy detonates.’
And that critical point would open a single window of opportunity.
Silver light bloomed across Song Ji-hu’s ash-gray eyes—like a river of stars flowing through them.
“Now!”
At Song Ji-hu’s signal, every attack converged upon Jonathan Walker.
A Seventh-Life Returnee Collects Calamities
Author
: Song Tan
Published
: August 18, 2026
Publisher
: Aces Media Inc.
Editor
: Aces Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work is published by ACSys Media in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder,
and the contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and author.
This e-book is protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or duplication may result in legal liability.
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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