The Legendary Regressor Devours the Tower - Chapter 57

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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 57
Before moving forward into the Third District.
Seong Un remained motionless before that door.
‘It was supposed to be a first-tier challenge. So why has the difficulty spiked like this?’
It was a mystery he couldn’t ignore.
Could the removal of the Upper Limit truly cause such a drastic increase in difficulty?
Or had something else intervened?
Was the first tier genuinely just a single rank elevation to begin with?
‘Hey! Don’t tell me you’re caught in an Illusion again?!’
Leoniss’s voice snapped Seong Un back to awareness.
‘Please keep it down. The noise is killing me.’
‘You’re just standing there like that. Of course you’ll look strange.’
‘Something feels off.’
‘Off?’
‘Yes. This isn’t a simple Illusion. Someone is deliberately controlling it.’
He heard it clearly.
Wait with anticipation.
There’s still much more ahead.
Which meant someone had intervened and cast an Illusion over Seong Un.
‘……Someone?’
‘Yes.’
In the First District and the Second District both.
It was far different from the seventh floor he’d climbed in his previous life.
In the First District, the difficulty had merely risen, so he hadn’t suspected anything. But the Second District was another matter entirely.
When he’d opened the door and emerged, he’d shattered the Illusion that had gripped him with his own hands.
The backlash had wiped away the Illusion that suffused the entire City as if washing it clean—which meant someone had been using those Illusions to target Seong Un specifically.
‘Wait, that’s even possible?’
‘Apparently.’
Could it be the Administrator?
No—he could adjust difficulty, but he didn’t directly interfere with Climbers.
Then…could it be Arth?
The second floor, the sixth floor.
They had melted into the NPCs, keeping watch over Climbers who passed through.
What if the Administrator had granted that Arth authority?
It had to be eliminated no matter what.
‘So that’s why you wouldn’t move forward?’
‘I’m going to catch that thing first.’
The thing was hiding in the Fifth District.
It was only accessible after breaking the Illusion with the Antidote.
But would the thing really be holed up in the Fifth District?
The answer was no.
Even if it was the Administrator, he wouldn’t have granted it authority to monitor all Districts.
To obtain such authority, the Administrator would have had to raise the original Upper Limit without restriction, not just by a single tier.
‘That thing?’
‘Yes.’
Heightened Senses had finally risen from D-rank to C-rank.
And with that rise came a faint reaction—something D-rank had never registered.
When he’d shattered the Illusion, it was only for an instant, but that was enough.
He could be certain that the thing had been watching from the Second District.
He couldn’t overstate his gratitude.
Without that Illusion, his discovery would have come far too late.
But why was it that—
The mana of that thing, which he’d sensed through Heightened Senses, produced no trace at the door leading into the Third District.
Seong Un turned back around.
‘So it’s still here.’
* * *
Shiver.
In the Ruined House where no one should have been, someone’s body trembled once.
‘What…what is this? This chilling sensation?’
He was a man in his early twenties.
His skin bore a purplish hue hardly human, marked by eyes the color of blood.
He wore the guise of the Philatia Tribe that dwelt in the City—an Arth.
This was Nahan.
‘Gaaaaaah!’
‘Aaaaaaahhh!’
It was only moments ago.
As he monitored the Climbers as usual, countless screams erupted from outside.
Startled, he bolted out—and beheld a sight that defied reason.
Not only had every last Philatia been annihilated, but the City itself had collapsed into ruin.
And before him stood a lower-floor Administrator, watching him in silence.
‘Hah…….’
Nahan recoiled in alarm, and the Administrator stepped near, whispering.
‘I have a task for you.’
‘A task……?’
‘A human has slipped into the seventh floor—one who has silenced every Arth deployed through the sixth.’
At first, he was bewildered.
Even now, countless humans were entering the seventh floor.
Though his body was singular, he could monitor everything because he had fractured across each Climber’s timeline of ascent.
In simple terms: one central processor, but millions—billions—of screens streaming from it.
Only the Tower’s transcendent computational power allowed him to endure; without it, his mind would have shattered long ago.
Yet in this timeline alone, an unprecedented phenomenon had occurred: NPCs were vanishing.
Which meant only one thing—a human had arrived here.
‘What do you need me to do, exactly?’
‘I grant you authority over the Illusion here.’
‘C-control……? Me?’
For a moment, Nahan doubted his own ears.
To control the Illusion was to control the entirety of the seventh floor.
Such immense authority—he couldn’t help but be suspicious.
‘Yes. I have heightened the Illusion across all Districts, not merely the Fifth where you stand.’
‘…….’
‘Is this not a golden opportunity? Not only did I alert you to his arrival, but I grant you power besides.’
He couldn’t deny it.
Nahan had shifted his focus to vigilance—all because of the one human slaughtering Arths.
His new task was to prevent that human from ascending further; failure meant taking his own life.
‘……I accept.’
He didn’t know why the Administrator offered such critical intelligence and authority, but there was no reason to refuse.
‘Good. Now I embed this control directly into your mind.’
And so Nahan left the Fifth District and made his way to the Second.
‘So this is the wretch who’s caused us such trouble.’
The first time he saw the human, he felt it clearly—something set him apart from the rest.
A human with strength of presence so formidable it seemed impossible he’d only just arrived.
‘I’ll end this here.’
Nahan steeled his resolve and began to move.
With each step the human took, Nahan manipulated the Illusion to hound him.
Yet the human never hesitated, pressing straight into the Ruined House.
‘What? Why can’t I touch that place?’
The problem was simple—the Ruined House was beyond his reach.
‘Damn this Administrator!’
Nahan cursed silently toward the one who’d given him this task.
If you grant authority, grant it properly.
It’s full of holes!
There was nothing for it.
When the human emerged from that house, he would concentrate the Illusion across the entire City and finish him.
Whoooosh—
Driven by urgency, Nahan marshaled the Illusion and coalesced it before the house’s entrance.
No matter how formidable the human’s presence, enduring this depth of Illusion would be far from simple.
Come out, then.
This Illusion will fray your mind and drag you into death.
To guard against the unexpected, he watched the door from a safe distance.
Before long, it burst open, the coalesced Illusion shattered, and its force crashed down upon the human.
‘Success!’
Nahan exulted inwardly.
The human’s eyes lost their focus, his closed mouth falling open slightly.
His body went rigid, refusing to move.
It was proof that the Illusion had taken hold properly.
‘Let me go see for myself.’
Nahan penetrated the power of the Illusion and slipped into Seong Un’s unconscious mind.
All that remained was to drag him deeper and shatter his spirit—
‘You thought an Illusion could fool me?’
Almost there, but the man noticed the Illusion and his consciousness rose to the surface.
As the Illusion shattered, Nahan was violently expelled and scrambled to hide in the nearest empty building.
The pupils of Nahan’s eyes trembled as if the ground had quaked.
‘How on earth did he break free?’
No matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t make sense of it.
The man hadn’t manifested any special ability—could it have been sheer force of will alone?
No.
There was no way a lowly human could possess such formidable mental fortitude.
He’d finish him once and for all in the next District.
‘But why won’t he advance? I can’t use Illusion right now.’
The problem was that the man stood at the doorway without moving.
After expending so much of the Second District’s Illusion reserves, he had almost no strength left to torment the man here.
Without advancing, he had no means of dealing with him, yet for some reason, the man showed no intention of moving forward.
‘!’
What was that?
After the chill, Nahan watched nervously and saw the man turn his body and begin walking toward the center of the City.
‘Danger, danger.’
Nahan instinctively sensed the danger, rose to his feet, and fled the building, moving quickly.
Yet somehow, rather than the distance between them widening, it was closing rapidly.
No matter how desperately Nahan fled in every direction, the human pursued without hesitation or confusion.
“This bastard…!”
Nahan’s face began to darken with panic.
He changed tactics in desperation, mobilizing every last shred of power he possessed.
With this power, he would deceive all of the man’s senses and flee to the Third District, there to devise a new strategy.
“You look quite good when you’re running so desperately.”
As Nahan was gathering his strength, the human finally appeared before him.
* * *
Found him.
Arth’s puppet.
‘That’s the one?’
‘Yes.’
On the surface, it wore the appearance of the Philatia Tribe, but that was merely a facade.
Its true essence was Arth.
Seong Un drew his blade.
“Fuh-heh, I don’t know how you found me, but this is where it ends.”
A sardonic smile played across Nahan’s lips.
“It’s futile.”
“Is it?”
Nahan, having made his preparations, reached out his hand toward Seong Un.
Seong Un’s vision darkened as if under a veil, then fractured and shattered.
He had dismantled the Illusion before it could even begin.
“Didn’t I tell you?”
Seong Un smiled with unmistakable confidence.
He had already endured a far more potent Illusion once before, using the same method.
He would never fall for the same trick again.
“Kuh…”
Nahan let out a groan, his lips trembling with the shock of defeat.
“What’s strange is—how can a wretch like you even touch the Tower’s Illusion?”
“……”
Nahan remained silent, his gaze murderous.
“Well, you don’t have to tell me. It’s obviously that Administrator bastard anyway.”
“How did you…… Shit!”
Nahan let the confession slip out carelessly before snapping his mouth shut.
But it was already too late.
“So it was as I thought.”
The part I’d suspected didn’t come as much of a shock.
Looking at the Illusion alone, he must have strengthened it just enough to hit the Upper Limit, then applied that first-stage enhancement value to Arth’s puppet. In other words, if I killed Nahan, the climb ahead would become far easier.
That meant eliminating him would smooth the path considerably.
“No! You’re wrong!”
Nahan’s belated denial was pointless.
“There’s no need to hide it. I came here already knowing everything.”
Seong Un pushed off the ground and launched forward.
The distance closed in an instant, and Nahan’s right hand shot toward his waist.
A Dagger gleamed at his hip.
He was trying to draw it and respond, but it was already too late.
[Activating Vital Point Strike.]
Seong Un’s blade pierced straight through Nahan’s chest.
“Gahhh!”
As his chest was skewered, Nahan’s eyes went wide and blood spilled from his mouth.
With his heart struck true, there was no hope for him.
Seong Un wordlessly withdrew the blade, and Nahan’s body crumpled forward.
“Ugh, p-please…… save…… ugh…….”
Nahan coughed blood and reached his hand skyward.
Desperation for life clung to him.
“Go now.”
Thump—
Seong Un raised his blade and brought it down across Nahan’s neck, cutting off his last breath.
[You have eliminated Arth’s puppet. Bonus points awarded.]
[With the Controller’s death, overall difficulty drops by one level.]
An Elite Returnee Devours the Tower (Serialized)
Author │ Yeon Iyeo
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 401, Ace Tech Tower 8th, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Yeon Iyeo 2026
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder, and 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.

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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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