The Legendary Regressor Devours the Tower - Chapter 55

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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 55
The door clicked shut, and the smile vanished from Pyo Byung-gwon’s face.
“I made a mistake. I never thought something like this would happen while I was in Spain.”
Pyo Byung-gwon had embarked on a month-long trip to Madrid, Spain with his family, including Pyo Su-hwan.
It was just a simple vacation, so setting aside the guild’s affairs for a while and relaxing had become his undoing.
Buzz—
His smartphone vibrated.
Pyo Byung-gwon sighed and answered the call.
[Dad! What happened?]
The caller was his son, Pyo Su-hwan.
“He Awakened.”
[But… didn’t you say you’d prevent him from Awakening?]
“Su-hwan.”
At the irritated tone, Pyo Byung-gwon’s voice grew chill.
[I’m s-sorry…….]
For merely calling his name once, Pyo Su-hwan stammered and admitted his mistake.
“That’s right. People make mistakes. But if this happens again, you understand what that means, don’t you?”
Pyo Byung-gwon’s voice turned gentle once more.
[Yes…….]
“And don’t worry about Ji-hun. Just because he’s Awakening now—do you really think he’ll catch up to you?”
The reason he held the position of executive in Jingum.
It was to place his son Pyo Su-hwan as the next leader of Jingum.
So he had prayed countless times that Pyo Ji-hun would not Awaken, pouring all his devotion into nurturing Pyo Su-hwan.
Though Pyo Ji-hun had Awakened anyway, this too was part of the plan.
[Then what should I do?]
“Focus on climbing. Raise your Level, raise your Stats. To a degree that Ji-hun wouldn’t dare even look at.”
[I’ll keep that in mind.]
“Good. Let’s end the call here.”
After hanging up, Pyo Byung-gwon stared quietly at the closed door with cold eyes.
‘Ji-hun, you’re too dangerous. So don’t resent me too much.’
* * *
The 7th Floor—notorious enough to earn the name Tower of Illusions.
Even at basic difficulty, the 7th Floor with its additional difficulty tier above the previous ceiling was grotesquely severe.
“Uuaaahhh!”
With every step Seong Un took, dozens of high-level monsters came rushing at him.
Each time, Seong Un would stop and glare at them, and they would attack him once before vanishing.
Thump—
The problem was that those attacks could not be dodged, and each impact brought crushing pain through his entire body.
‘Paminro is good, at least.’
Despite the considerable intensity of the pain, Seong Un didn’t blink an eye.
The reason he could do so was thanks to the effect that Paminro possessed.
-Upon consumption: 50% increased resistance to all Illusions and mental interference-type magic for 12 hours (effect may be minimal depending on the user’s capacity)
When consumed, for 12 hours it grants a 50% resistance—half the full value—against Illusions and mental interference-type magic.
But considering the pain he felt now, the figure of fifty percent seemed greatly exaggerated.
The effect had diminished according to his capacity as a user.
The difficulty of the 7th Floor was far too high compared to Seong Un’s current capacity.
Whoosh—
‘Now.’
After carefully observing the situation, Seong Un finally drew his blade and struck down at the monster.
With a wide, glaring opening, the monster hit Seong Un head-on, and Seong Un succeeded in cutting across the monster’s waist.
Thump-thump—
The crushing pain that came this time was considerable.
Even Seong Un, who had maintained an expressionless face, twisted his face in agony.
-Huh? Isn’t that dangerous?
-Wait…… Was the 7th Floor this dangerous all along?
-No, that’s not it. The 7th Floor was never this brutal.
-And we’re still in Zone 1?
The viewers voiced their doubts at the brutal difficulty.
The difficulty had been raised by one additional tier above the previously established ceiling.
It was only natural that to them, the 7th Floor looked nothing like it normally was.
‘Are you alright? You look pretty worn down.’
Leonias’s question carried genuine concern.
‘I’m not about to collapse over something like this.’
‘I know that, but we’re only at the beginning, aren’t we? If you’re struggling this hard already, how do you expect to survive what comes next?’
‘You worry too much.’
‘Worry? Me? Ha.’
‘Either way, stay quiet. There’s nothing you can do to help.’
‘This bastard…….’
Leonias fell silent, accepting the rebuke.
What surrounded them now were no ordinary illusions.
Typical illusions might deceive the senses—false visions, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations—tricking the mind into perceiving them. But what Seong Un faced was different: all five senses were being stimulated as though they were genuine, simultaneous events unfolding in real time.
To push through this overwhelming illusion and reach the door leading to the next section demanded absolute focus. Any distraction risked catastrophe.
Thud.
Whoosh—
A monster wielding an axe brought it crashing down toward Seong Un’s head.
Just as before, he made no move to block. Instead, he drove his blade forward, aiming for the creature’s chest.
Boom!
A violent impact slammed through him—a blow forceful enough to threaten consciousness.
Seong Un staggered, his body twisting under the shock.
‘Hey!’
Leonias’s urgent cry cut through the air.
He’d asked the man to stay silent, but clearly the shock had overridden that instruction.
‘I’m fine.’
Seong Un shook his head, offering reassurance.
[Clear Mirror Still Water activates.]
His strike against the illusory monster had triggered the skill.
In that instant, rectangular blocks materialized before him, glowing with a golden radiance.
‘Found it.’
Golden blocks—visible only through Clear Mirror Still Water, impossible to detect otherwise.
They were the source generating this illusion.
Seong Un raised his sword and brought it down hard against one of the golden blocks.
He shifted his stance, and just as the waiting monster prepared to strike—
Fade—
The creature vanished.
-Wait, what just happened?
-The monster disappeared.
-Did he strike the ground? That’s what triggered it?
-No way. Someone explain what’s going on!
The viewers voiced their confusion.
Unlike Seong Un, they had no access to Clear Mirror Still Water. From the broadcast’s perspective, it looked like he was simply striking the floor.
Seong Un moved again, his sword coming down against another golden block.
Four monsters, poised to attack, vanished simultaneously.
-Holy shit, this is incredible.
-He’s breaking through the illusion.
-When I climbed, the solution was to destroy the statue near the exit, not strike the ground.
-Same here. Had to smash the statue.
-If I’d known about this method, the climb would’ve been so much easier.
-But how would you find it? You can’t just strike every inch of the floor hoping to find something.
Normally, once a climber reached the exit point after piercing through the illusion, they would destroy the small Goddess Statue standing before them, which would end the illusion entirely.
‘There’s no exit point.’
But Seong Un had no exit point to find.
The first chamber was typically around fifty square meters.
Since it was the beginning, the illusion wasn’t extraordinarily intense and the space wasn’t vast—climbers could break through and advance quickly. But as the difficulty escalated, the exit point itself began to disappear.
Nothing remained but golden blocks covering the floor.
‘The method of breaking through must have changed.’
Seong Un pressed forward, methodically destroying the golden blocks one by one.
When he struck the final block—
[You have achieved a remarkable feat.]
[You have perfectly eliminated the illusion. Bonus Points have been awarded.]
Was it because the difficulty had been upgraded beyond the original upper limit?
Removing the illusion alone had earned her bonus points.
‘I might actually be able to aim for EX Grade again.’
A deep hum filled the air.
A shimmering blue gate materialized before Seong Un.
-So the gate actually appears like that.
-Seriously, it really does feel like Seong is climbing a completely different tower than us.
-How can you not watch this?
The viewers clicked their tongues in amazement.
‘This is where it truly begins.’
The first section had nothing left to accomplish.
A section that ended the moment you pierced through the illusion.
What mattered now was the push toward EX Grade.
Seong Un opened the door with a tense expression.
* * *
At that same moment.
Choi Hyuk, watching Seong Un’s climb through the broadcast, felt a creeping doubt.
“What is this? Why has the difficulty spiked so dramatically?”
He too was a climber with experience ascending the seventh floor.
Moreover, as the Association’s chairman, he had observed the Tower of Destruction’s mechanics countless times.
He had analyzed that tower meticulously to reach its summit, yet the Tower of Destruction that Seong Un was ascending shattered every one of his calculations.
He’d sensed it even on the previous sixth floor—the difficulty had escalated far beyond reason.
“Could it be that as the grade increases, the difficulty rises in turn?”
Choi Hyuk’s face grew grimmer by the moment.
If that were true, even Seong Un might find it impossible to reach the tower’s summit.
At merely the seventh floor, the difficulty alone felt comparable to the fifteenth.
As one climbed higher, that calibration would only intensify, eventually trapping Seong Un in its grasp.
“If that’s the case… then this blasted tower is truly cursed.”
The very thought made his chest tighten.
Was destroying that accursed structure genuinely impossible?
-The village is completely devastated?
-There’s not a single NPC in sight?
-This confirms it—Seong is definitely entering a different tower than the rest of us lol
-Can the tower actually adjust its own difficulty?
The problematic second section.
That section typically began in a fairly large settlement called the Illusory City, but the section Seong Un entered was in complete ruin—a ghost town.
There were no NPCs at all, and illusions had consumed the city so thoroughly that they tormented Seong Un with relentless cruelty.
“I’ll need to move faster on this.”
He could no longer afford to sit idle.
Choi Hyuk stopped watching the broadcast and issued an emergency summons to every executive at the Association.
Despite the sudden call, the executives sensed instinctively what he meant to say.
They too had been keeping a close eye on Seong Un’s broadcast.
“Regardless of conditions, I intend to provide climber Seong Un with the Association’s items.”
At Choi Hyuk’s statement, the executives fell into silence.
The original condition had been clear: complete the ascent up to the tenth floor at SS Grade or higher.
Currently, Seong Un was climbing the seventh floor, so there were results only up to the sixth—and he’d already skipped three floors entirely using his special privilege.
Frankly speaking, the only documented results were from floors one, two, and six.
Yet no one could object, because those results were so overwhelming that even calling them impressive fell short.
“If the seventh floor also receives an EX Grade rating, then I’m in favor.”
One executive raised a conditional objection in the name of conditional agreement.
Choi Hyuk’s brow furrowed.
“Do you truly believe the seventh floor that climber Seong Un is ascending is normal?”
Not a soul could deny it.
The seventh floor that Seong Un was climbing was far from normal.
That insane difficulty level would be believable even if called mid-tenth floor.
For someone like Seong Un, who hadn’t yet fully shed the mark of a novice, the difficulty was effectively impossible to overcome alone.
And yet that executive was asking him to achieve an EX Grade under such conditions?
The executive should have known better, yet showed no sign of backing down.
“You clearly promised us that you would finish up to the tenth floor at SS Grade or higher. Skipping three floors was already problematic, and now you’re trying to skip three more? Shouldn’t you provide proof to justify such a deviation?”
“Which holds greater value—three SS Grade items or one EX Grade item?”
“Chairman.”
“Probably ninety-nine out of a hundred would choose one EX Grade item. The decision ends there.”
It was a reasonable analogy, all things considered.
Because with a single EX Grade, even three SS Grade items—or dozens of them—couldn’t compare to that one.
“You’re dismissing us entirely!”
At last, one of the executives raised his voice and laid bare his true feelings.
‘So that’s what this is about.’
They cared more for their current standing than for reaching the summit of the tower.
Choi Hyuk smiled faintly at him, then surveyed the remaining executives.
“Does anyone else feel the same way?”
“No.”
“I support it. Seong Un has achieved results that no other Climber has managed before—and repeatedly so.”
Fortunately, more than ninety percent of those present sided with Choi Hyuk.
“Then the rest are saying you’d support it pending the results from the seventh floor?”
Choi Hyuk swept his gaze across the dissenters, putting the question to them.
“Yes. If he receives an EX Grade even at that difficulty level, we have no reason to object.”
Conditional approval.
“……For now, we’ll revisit this matter once the results come in.”
If it came down to Seong Un, an EX Grade wasn’t an impossible rank.
Even if, by some remote chance, he didn’t earn an EX Grade, the item would still be handed over regardless.
He wouldn’t change course, no matter what they called it—dictatorship or otherwise.
Because it was the only path that could allow him to avenge the daughter lost in those early days.
The Legendary Returnee Devours the Tower (Serialized)
Author │ Yeon-i Yo
Publisher │ Kim Joo-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 401, Ace Techno Tower 8th, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Yeon-i Yo 2026
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder. Without permission from the publisher and author, the content may not be used in any form or by any means.
Violations of this restriction may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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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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