The Legendary Regressor Devours the Tower - Chapter 1

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

Episode 1
Earth was dying.
Or more precisely, the environment in which humans could survive was dying.
Perhaps that was why.
[This dimension’s lifespan has expired.]
[After lengthy deliberation, the Transcendents have decided to grant a new opportunity before erasing this dimension.]
[Climb the Tower and seize victory from the elite legions.]
[If you reach the summit, the erasure will be rescinded.]
A colossal tower materialized without warning, and countless invitations were dispatched across the world.
‘What is that……?’
‘An invitation? But I’ve already Awakened?’
Those who received an invitation automatically underwent their Awakening, and soon after, they were forcibly drawn into the Tower and began their climb.
Climbing was a life-or-death endeavor, and those lacking strength had to offer their lives in that place.
Yet still, people did not stop climbing the Tower.
‘Wow, this is incredible?’
‘With this power alone, I could do anything!’
They could obtain transcendent strength, and the stronger they became, the more power, wealth, and fame skyrocketed in turn.
But while they reveled in their newfound power, Earth was slowly crumbling away.
And so forty-five years passed.
Earth had long since ceased to exist as a functioning world, with fewer than ten thousand survivors remaining.
Crash!
Floor 80.
“Cough!”
A man fell to his knees, his body torn to shreds.
Everything around him lay in ruins beyond recognition, and corpses of monsters towering twenty meters high were stacked like mountains.
The countless slash wounds covering the bodies testified to the extraordinary power of the man’s blade.
Yet his flesh had already reached its limit.
One eye was blind, his left ear and arm torn away, bleeding uncontrollably without cessation.
His skin bore scarcely an unmarred inch, ravaged with lacerations, and most of his bones were fractured.
His organs too were so devastated that his abdomen gaped open in a horrifying display of exposed matter.
Still, the man remained upright, leaning upon his sword driven deep into the earth, his will alone sustaining him.
“Cough…….”
He coughed up a clot of blood as he fixed his gaze upon the enemies before him.
Transcendent Colossal Divine Soldiers.
The beings that lurked on this floor.
“Truly persistent.”
“Had it been any later, this would have been disastrous.”
“To think a mere human would reach floor 80.”
The Divine Soldiers regarded the man with genuine admiration.
Earth was surely a world inhabited by inferior races.
Yet somehow, someone had pierced through to this floor.
And that someone was but a single human.
Truthfully, they could kill him on the spot, but curiosity stirred in them regarding one who had come this far.
“Human, we salute your valor. Is there anything you wish to say before the end?”
The Divine Soldiers were offering what mercy they could.
A single human from an inferior race who had erased twenty percent of their collective power.
The very ground beneath them had cracked in two, and all the temples nearby lay half-ruined.
Every last vestige of destruction was wrought by this one human alone.
‘Regrettable,” the human muttered softly.
“Regrettable?”
The Divine Soldiers tilted their heads in confusion.
“Had I climbed the Tower properly from the start…… sweeping you aside would have been nothing.”
He had received his invitation only fifteen years after the Tower’s appearance.
By then, the Tower had already been scaled to its thirtieth floor.
He received his invitation late, and entered the Tower to begin his climb.
With monstrous talent, the man climbed, and at floor forty-eight, he obtained the Heart of Immortality, accelerating his ascent further still.
By the time he reached floor fifty-five, he had earned the title Sword God.
Sword God Seong Woon.
‘In truth, my actual level remained far beneath that name.’

It was merely a title given to the human who wielded a sword best.
He knew better than anyone that his actual skill fell far short of the true Sword God realm.
And so regret lived perpetually in one corner of his heart.
If only he had climbed the tower even slightly faster.
If he had secured rewards with high clear scores from the beginning and grown steadily.
If he had seized the hidden opportunities.
He could have become incomparably stronger than he was now.
Could he not have reached the true realm of divinity, rather than merely being called the Sword God?
“I’ll grant you this—you are extraordinary. But to cling to arrogance even unto death… it is truly repugnant.”
Even as the Colossal Divine Soldier spoke, he acknowledged Seong Woon’s words to some degree in his mind.
Had that human consumed every last reward the tower offered, not only himself but those above him would have been endangered.
Which made it all the more necessary to end him here and now.
And to ensure he could not pull off any tricks, to erase even his soul completely.
“So I’m going to try again.”
With those words, Seong Woon drew something from his pocket with trembling hands.
It was a pocket watch covered in rust.
“Hm? What are you planning to do with something already broken?”
The Colossal Divine Soldiers who recognized the watch tilted their heads in confusion.
“What am I doing? I’m turning back time.”
“Ridiculous. Reversing time that has already passed is something no one can possibly——”
The Colossal Divine Soldier’s words never finished.
The rusted pocket watch’s hands began to turn backwards, and everything around them froze as though time itself had stopped.
* * *
The Divine Pocket Watch.
He had acquired it on the 78th floor.
If asked how he obtained it, he would have to say it was by chance.
He discovered an abandoned village during his search, and found it while resting there.
The watch was kept in a wooden case alongside a single note.
[Divine Pocket Watch]
-Do you regret the past? Do you believe that if you returned, things would be different? If you hold such conviction, this watch shall grant you a new opportunity.
‘To return to the past…?’
He never imagined finding such an item on the 78th floor.
But he had no intention of using it immediately.
It would be a lie to say he harbored no regrets, yet twenty years had already passed since he began climbing the tower.
After devoting so many years to reach the 78th floor.
It was not only skill that brought him here—chance and fortune had played their part as well.
He had survived countless times through fortunate coincidences, and gambles that seemed impossible had found their mark, catching his enemies off guard and ending their lives.
He did not wish to erase those twenty years it took to climb this far.
‘For now, I’ll simply keep it.’
If the day came to use it, it would be when death stared him in the face.
* * *
In the end, the pocket watch was used.
When consciousness returned, he lay in a shabby One-Room Apartment.
His broken body had been healed completely, and pain no longer touched him.
“Have I returned to five years before entering the tower?”
The One-Room Apartment where he had begun living once he turned twenty.
A place he had not even lived in for a full year, yet opening his eyes here now meant he had returned to age twenty.
In other words, Seong Woon’s current age was twenty.
He had returned to a point ten years after the tower’s emergence.
By current reckoning, humanity was in the process of conquering the 24th floor.
Seong Woon gazed at the pocket watch in his hand.
The mysterious item that had sent him to the past remained in his grasp, its hands that had turned backward now vanished without a trace.
“Five years…”
He had been twenty-five when he received the invitation.
At that time, humanity was still struggling at the 30th floor.
He had advanced time by a full five years.
But there was one problem.
“Which means I have to wait five years to receive the invitation.”
To climb the tower, he needed an invitation, but Seong Woon would not receive his for another five years from now.
Which meant advancing five years had rendered everything meaningless.
“I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
So I’ll have to act myself.
Seong Woon gazed out the window at the colossal tower rising in the distance.
It soared so high that clouds obscured its peak—a monument piercing the sky itself.
As absurd as it sounds, that tower is merely a sample.
The real tower climbers ascend exists somewhere beyond Earth, not here on this world—accessible only to those bearing an Invitation.
Then why does this sample exist at all?
To sharpen the awareness of climbers, one might say.
Just like now.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
The ground shook as though struck by an earthquake.
Fragments erupted from the sample tower, scattering across the nearby buildings and adhering to them in dense clusters.
The structures touched by these fragments rapidly darkened, transforming into small towers in their own right.
‘That’s exactly why.’
What they called Mini Games.
If the colossal tower was the main attraction, these smaller towers were the secondary theme.
When climbers weren’t ascending the great tower, they could scale these Mini Towers to harvest modest rewards.
Moreover, the Mini Towers had to be cleared quickly—monsters poured from them constantly.
‘My first objective.’
If no one grants me an Invitation, I’ll tear one free by force.
Not selected randomly to fill vacancies, but acknowledged by a Transcendent for my qualities—that’s how you ascend a tower.
To achieve that, I must climb a Mini Tower myself and eliminate its boss.
‘Should I call it good fortune? This was before it was ever discovered.’
A tower laden with opportunity.
It happened in the Apartment Complex where Seong Woon lived, and because of that cursed tower, he’d had to move out in less than a year—the memory remained sharp.
“Aaahhh!”
A scream pierced the air outside his window.
A green creature with an elongated nose and spindly limbs, its bloated belly protruding grotesquely.
A Goblin.
The Goblin brandished a wooden club, threatening a woman.
‘Now’s the time.’
A smile crossed Seong Woon’s lips.
He retrieved the box he kept in his drawer.
Inside lay a black Short Dagger—a defensive implement for confronting monsters prowling the streets.
Crafted from processed Mana Stones obtained in towers, it was more than adequate to dispatch a Goblin.
Seong Woon grabbed the Short Dagger, rushed out the door, and descended to the ground floor.
He bounded down the stairwell in great leaps, burst through the first-floor entrance, and locked eyes with a terrified woman.
“P-please… save me…”
Her voice wavered, barely holding back tears as she begged for help.
Fortunately, he’d arrived in time.
Seong Woon picked up a small stone nearby and hurled it at the creature.
The stone struck true, hitting its forehead dead center.
“Hey, come after me instead.”
“Kerrrk!”
The hit caused no real damage, but the provocation worked perfectly.
The creature’s attention snapped away from the woman, and it charged toward him.
Whoosh—
The Goblin swung its wooden club with reckless fury.
Seong Woon stepped back with his right foot and dropped his stance, letting the club whistle past through empty air.
It was a powerful strike—easily crushing an ordinary person’s skull—yet to someone who had survived countless battlefields, it seemed clumsily telegraphed.
‘One decisive thrust.’
Seong Woon drove his Short Dagger clean through the Goblin’s neck.
Thwack!
“Ghhhk!”
Green blood sprayed from the punctured throat as the Goblin’s body convulsed violently.
Seong Woon yanked the dagger free, and the creature crumpled forward, dead before it hit the ground.
[You have achieved a remarkable feat.]
[You have hunted a monster without having undergone an Awakening.]
[The system has begun to take notice of your latent potential.]
[You have fulfilled the requirements for Awakening.]
An Unparalleled Regressor Devours the Tower (Serialized)
Author │ Yeon Iyeo
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyeong
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok
Address │ 401, Ace Tech Tower 8, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
© Yeon Iyeo 2026
This work has been published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder. The contents may not be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the company and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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