The Regressed EX-Class Martial God Decided to Become a Thousand-Star Hunter - Chapter 58

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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 58
58.
‘It’s not enough.’
Lee Seo-ah’s eyes remained fixed on the distance, calm and settled.
At the end of her gaze.
A Monster the size of a house came hurtling toward her with a roar.
Thick hide, forearms like tree trunks, teeth gleaming with menace.
The Hunters on escort duty moved urgently to block its path.
“I’ll handle it.”
Her cool voice brought them to a halt.
The escort paused for a moment.
No protector in the world welcomes the one they guard stepping forward into danger.
But in recent weeks, they had learned.
Once that voice spoke, there was nothing left for them to do.
Lee Seo-ah stepped forward.
Before her extended pale hand, Mana began to gather.
It was a deep violet hue.
The air grew heavy.
The forest’s scent peeled back, and beneath it rose something raw—a hunger that bled into the atmosphere.
The gathered Mana soon formed the shape of an enormous maw.
The Mana split vertically, its jaws gaping open like those of a starving beast—aimed straight at the Monster.
The charging Monster instinctively tried to stop itself.
Too late.
And then.
Crunch!
The Monster’s upper half was bitten clean away by those jaws.
There was not even a scream.
The consumed Monster left no trace as it vanished into the Mana’s chasm, and only its severed lower body collapsed limply to the ground.
Thud.
The forest fell silent.
The chorus of Monster cries that had echoed from all directions moments before ceased as if it had never been.
It was instinct.
Draw near to that, and you will be devoured.
Even mindless beasts had recognized it.
“……Huh.”
The silence was broken by dry laughter from the escort Hunters.
“She really is something.”
“I always knew her talent was different, but……ever since she came back from the Mana Forest, she’s moved into a completely different league.”
“Monstrous growth. And to think she’s only been a Hunter for a few months.”
Voices mingled wonder with awe.
Lee Seo-ah’s expression remained unmoved.
She simply lowered her raised hand and brushed back her disheveled hair behind her ear.
The escorts marveled once more at her composed profile.
But the truth was something different.
‘Still not enough.’
This falls far short.
Someone she knew would swallow Monsters like this with a yawn.
The place she had promised to stand—beside him—was still far away.
“We’re withdrawing. That’s all for today.”
“Yes, Miss.”
The escorts quickly reformed their lines.
Their intended hunt was done, and there was no need to sort loot.
Perhaps the only drawback of a devouring spell was that nothing remained.
Lee Seo-ah took one last look around the quieted forest, then turned to leave.
Her step was steady, unfaltering.
She heard the low murmurs of admiration from her escorts behind her, but she paid them no mind.
Praise does not fill the belly.
What she hungered for was something altogether different.
* * *
That evening, after returning home and bathing.
Lee Seo-ah’s steps halted as she passed through the living room, still drying her hair in her robe.
The living room sofa.
Lee Young-sik sat there holding a Tablet, watching something intently.
It was a NewTube video.
A shaky screen, a purple barrier, and two small motorcycles racing across it.
Lee Seo-ah’s face lit up at once.
“Ju Do-gyeom!”
“Whoa there.”
Lee Young-sik’s shoulders jerked slightly as he turned around.
“How did you recognize him from this tiny clip? His face isn’t even visible yet.”
“Of course I can tell. It’s Ju Do-gyeom.”
Her expression said: why would you even need to ask?
Lee Young-sik’s face became difficult to read.
Whether to be pleased or worried.
As a father, it was a response that left him genuinely uncertain how to feel.
Meanwhile, Lee Seo-ah naturally settled into the spot beside him on the sofa, pulling the Tablet closer.
She’d forgotten all about the water droplets falling from her wet hair.
The video continued.
Inside the purple barrier, a tide of Monsters parted, and a stark white colossus fell from the sky, raining fire and fury in all directions.
Between the explosions, threads of blue lightning wove through it all.
As the camera zoomed in, two figures came into focus, growing larger.
Ju Do-gyeom, wielding the weight at the end of a chain.
Kim Han-ryul following behind, sweeping his firearms across the flanks.
When the front opened up, the rear held firm. When the rear was cut off, the front advanced.
Without a word passing between them, the two moved in perfect synchronization, like teeth in a gear meshing without pause.
A perfect fit.
Anyone watching could see it.
……
Lee Seo-ah’s expression grew cold without her noticing.
“Kim Han-ryul.”
She breathed out the name softly.
The name the comments below the video had helpfully supplied felt oddly wrong on her tongue.
Then—
“Ha, the more I watch, the more it feels like a waste.”
Lee Young-sik stroked his beard as he spoke, eyes still on the Tablet.
“He’d fit right into the company like this. Such a shame. Do-gyeom seems to have no interest in it at all. What do you think?”
No answer came.
“Seo-ah?”
Lee Young-sik turned his head.
Lee Seo-ah was already smiling brightly, as though that dark moment had never been.
“Well, I can’t help it then. I’ll just have to join that team and work my hardest to convince them.”
“.… Your heart hasn’t changed, has it?”
“No, it hasn’t.”
Not a shred of hesitation in her answer.
Lee Young-sik studied his daughter’s face for a moment.
She was the child who’d spent two years lying in a hospital bed.
He’d prayed countless times that simply opening her eyes would be enough, that he’d ask nothing more of life.
Yet here she was now, walking in and out of Dungeons on her own two feet, smiling as she chose her own path.
He couldn’t know where that path would lead, but as her father, he could only watch.
“Well, you choose your own way. I’ll support you.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
Lee Seo-ah smiled.
Her gaze drifted back to the man on the screen.
* * *
At that same moment, in Ju Do-gyeom’s apartment.
In the darkened room, Ju Do-gyeom sat on the floor, staring down at two objects.
These were the rewards he’d obtained from the Demonic Energy Erosion Zone.
One was an Earth Dragon Egg.
『Earth Dragon Egg – Rank: Immeasurable』
『This is an Earth Dragon Egg. To hatch it, you will need ???.』
The information window kept repeating the same message.
For days now, the egg hadn’t so much as twitched.
When he placed his hand on the shell, he felt neither warmth nor the pulse of magical energy.
It was simply sleeping.
Deeply asleep.
‘Hatching conditions, then….’
The egg that would have become a calamity of the future—an Earth Dragon.
The fact that it now slumbered peacefully in his room struck him as oddly poignant, yet it wasn’t a problem he could solve immediately.
Ju Do-gyeom placed the egg back into his inventory.
And second.
He gazed at the crimson pellet resting in his palm.
Hidden beneath the altar—the true purpose of this dungeon.
As he focused his attention, the information window materialized.
『Dragon Blood.』
『A pellet crafted from the blood of a dragon.』
『Consuming it increases ??? .』
“…….”
The same kind of description as always.
It revealed the name and materials while obscuring the actual effect behind three question marks.
The exact same tactic as the egg’s information window, which hid the hatching conditions.
The system had a mean streak sometimes.
Before his regression, Ju Do-gyeom had sat before this very information window.
And at that time, he had simply stared at those three question marks for a moment, then swallowed it.
Dragon blood—surely it wasn’t poison.
That was the extent of his reasoning.
Later, when Dang Ho heard that story, he was taken aback.
-You just swallowed it without knowing what ??? was!? Without even checking!? This man really……!
The memory of his flustered expression brought a faint smile to Ju Do-gyeom’s face.
In any case, ultimately.
He had learned the contents of those three question marks through his body.
The effects were threefold.
All ability stats rose by one rank.
His lifespan increased.
And the ceiling on his ability stats vanished.
The first two were certainly precious.
An increase to all stats was a treasure in itself, and as for lifespan—
‘Conveniently, I had paid a price as well.’
The lifespan he had spent forcibly opening the upper dantian in the Great Dragon War.
Who would have thought that debt would be repaid here.
It was always satisfying when the numbers aligned.
But the real treasure was the last one.
The elimination of the stat ceiling.
It was an effect he couldn’t feel immediately.
After all, he was nowhere near S-Rank, let alone B-Rank.
In fact, Ju Do-gyeom only learned of this effect quite a long time after obtaining the Dragon Blood.
‘To be precise, Vivian told me.’
In any case, that was how it had been in the future.
A world in which even those who approached the peak eventually hit an invisible wall.
Before that unseen ceiling, many of the strong had been forced to halt.
In that sense, one of the reasons Ju Do-gyeom could rise to the seat known as the Godless One before his regression was this crimson pellet—the Dragon Blood.
Because of that.
‘There’s no reason to hesitate.’
Ju Do-gyeom placed the Dragon Blood in his mouth and swallowed.
The effect was immediate.
Whoosh—!
As the pellet melted past his throat, a wave of heat like molten lava erupted in his belly.
Ju Do-gyeom quickly crossed his legs and activated the Cheongyeol Ki-gong.
Following the prescribed hand seals, his breath circled and his dantian received the heat.
The scorching energy began to spread through his meridians to every limb.
To his fingertips, to his toes, to the crown of his head.
Not a single drop wasted—he distributed it throughout every corner of his body.
It was going smoothly.
At least, until that moment.
A deep thrumming sound—whoosh!
The anomaly erupted in his mind.
Deep within his consciousness.
The Cheonsal-seong, which had lain dormant like a dead rat for so long, burst forth without warning.
And it collided head-on with the surge of Dragon Blood ascending through his body.
A muted thunder—boom!
A soundless roar echoing in his skull.
Ju Do-gyeom’s brow twitched.
‘What the—!’
The two colliding forces recoiled, pushing against each other.
And a standoff began.
A low, bestial growl.
Tangled above it, the familiar laughter of madness.
The dragon’s blood and the Cheonsal-seong were baring their teeth at each other within his mind.
‘Didn’t see that coming.’
Before the Regression, this had never happened.
It made sense.
The Ju Do-gyeom of that time had no Cheonsal-seong.
Ju Do-gyeom immediately invoked the Bunsim Yi-gong and descended into inner observation.
Should he intervene, or let it play out?
He needed more information.
If he blundered in and both forces ran amok at once, it was his own body—the vessel—that would break.
On the other hand, if one side was swallowed whole, that was equally troubling.
If the Dragon Blood was consumed, he’d lose a treasure outright.
As for the Cheonsal-seong being consumed—that was a scenario he’d never expected in the first place.
As Ju Do-gyeom continued his observation in breathless stillness, he grasped something curious.
‘…It’s retreating.’
The Cheonsal-seong.
That arrogant, sinister madness was backing away half a step before the Dragon Blood’s force.
The louder the bestial growl grew, the more its laughter faded.
It wasn’t being completely suppressed.
He could still feel reserves of strength in the Cheonsal-seong.
But it was plainly being cautious.
A smile crept unbidden across Ju Do-gyeom’s lips.
‘An unexpected harvest.’
He’d held it down with patience.
Calmed it with the warmth of allies.
When all else failed, he’d had to press his fingers into his own skull to suppress that madness.
And now—another force had been born within him, one that could check it.
It was premature to call it a solution.
But at least, a new card had been dealt.
The standoff didn’t last long.
The Cheonsal-seong, unsatisfied, let out one last great laugh, then slipped away sinking into the depths of his consciousness and vanished.
The Dragon Blood’s essence settled into the empty space.
The scorching heat seeped calmly through his entire frame, melting into his bones, flesh, and meridians.
Ju Do-gyeom opened his eyes slowly.
As if waiting, messages flooded in.
『Dragon Blood effect applied.』
『All Ability Stats increase by one rank.』
『Strength C- → C』
『Stamina C → C+』
『Agility C → C+』
『Mana C → C+』
『User’s lifespan increases.』
『Special Skill Fear evolves into Dragon Fear.』
“…Excellent.”
Four stat lines rose cleanly, one tier apiece.
Growth achieved without cultivation, combat practice, or cooking—earned sitting exactly where he was.
The cheapest growth he’d paid for since his regression, but given the value of a single cycle, it was far from free.
Fear had become Dragon Fear.
When he tested that energy, letting it settle lightly on his fingertip, the difference was immediate.
Where the old Fear had been a chill that ran down an opponent’s spine, this was a weight that bore down from the very hierarchy of existence itself.
Dragon blood now flowed through his body—it meant that the pressure he exerted carried with it the presence of a dragon.
But the most satisfying part came last.
“Skill Cheongyeol Ki-gong advances to Six-Star rank.”
The final barrier to reach the Godless One’s secret martial art, the Cheonji Muguk Singong, had crumbled.
Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes gleamed with light.

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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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