The Regressed Martial God Monopolizes Everything - Chapter 3

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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 3. Setting Things Right (2)
His conduct had been far from upright.
His eyes were fixed on lofty ambitions, yet in all things he was lazy, indolent, and unwilling to exert himself.
The result was that by the age of nineteen, the elder son’s true strength amounted to nothing more than the first stage of the Hwan Cheon Jin-gi Realm—a meager thing indeed.
Yet this very same boy had suddenly demanded that his realm be elevated and that he be taught other martial arts.
Unlike the envious glint in his eyes that had lurked behind the scenes when he’d shown favoritism toward his second son and secretly transmitted the O Wang-mu technique, Jung Hyun-su now radiated a pure and genuine aspiration—a sight so unfamiliar it was almost unsettling.
“That is not possible at present.”
At Jung Chul’s reply, Jung Hyun-su simply nodded with calm acceptance.
“Then there is nothing to be done about it.”
He then trudged over to his bed and sat down.
“…Why do you not ask the reason?”
“If it cannot be done, then it cannot be done. What else is there to say?”
“There is a Gate dungeon to clear immediately.”
“Yes. You work tirelessly, Father.”
The change was staggering—too staggering to ignore.
“Is that all?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m telling you, that’s definitely a doppelgänger. What Hunter responds like that to a Gate expedition?”
“Young miss. Doppelgängers are most cunning creatures. Thus they mimic the behavior of those they impersonate with perfect accuracy.”
“I know that already!”
“…Yet something is decidedly amiss. The master always complained about why he selected only those Gates that brought no profit and garnered no recognition—and now…”
There are many kinds of Gates.
Some offer treasures to be claimed, and others capture public attention and build one’s renown.
But there are Gates that are grueling and fraught with danger, which most people avoid—and the Garam Guild has always volunteered to handle precisely those.
Primarily large Gates that appeared near small outlying towns established after the Gate Cataclysm Era.
If a Gate is not cleared within its designated timeframe, the monsters within pour out.
The ordinary people in the surrounding areas would be utterly swept away—yet high-ranking Hunters are scarce, and market forces dominate, so inevitably the periphery is left abandoned.
It was Garam that shouldered this burden.
In silence.
The father walked a grueling path, largely unrecognized due to interference from the other ten major Guilds and the machinations of the Association Chairman lurking in the shadows.
‘He should just keep his mouth shut…’
Jung Hyun-su felt regret for those days.
Why had he complained about not running high-profile Gates the way the bloodlines of the other major Guilds he’d followed did—?
“Is the Gate Father is visiting this time located in Asan?”
“It is.”
“The boss there will likely be an enormously large water buffalo. Strike the core hidden beneath its hind hooves, and it won’t be able to move an inch.”
“What…?”
“Go carefully.”
Immediately after, Jung Hyun-su closed both eyes as if he had nothing more to say.
It was an unmistakable order to leave.
Given that he had usually struggled to escape whenever confined, the series of things he was witnessing now seemed utterly unbelievable.
“Let us depart.”
Bewildered by Jung Hyun-su’s unprecedented composure—the very picture of confidence despite being under confinement—the family members quietly shut the door and stepped out.
“What on earth is wrong with him?”
“Perhaps a change in him would not be unwelcome?”
At the butler’s words, Jung Hyun-ah snorted.
“It’s all just for show. He won’t keep it up for long.”
Old Butler allowed himself a bittersweet smile.
He, too, naturally believed the same thing.
Yet if peace reigned for a few days, that would be pleasant enough in its own way.
The quiet would end, and the tempest that approached would be all the fiercer for it—but even so, quiet was always welcome.
Haengbok seemed satisfied, lips curled upward, as he set out for a walk with Jung Hyun-ah.
Pitter-patter!
“Come on, Haengbok! Let’s go!”
Jung Hyun-ah, a cadet of Yoram, ran at full speed yet could barely keep pace with the creature’s ferocious stride.
* * *
Some memories fade and dull as time passes; others come into sharp focus the moment one closes one’s eyes.
The day he had been certain that confinement would settle matters—only to find himself smeared with charges of illegal Artifact trafficking and even Awakened-grade narcotics dealing, forced to stand before the camera flashes—how could he ever forget such a day?
Jung Hyun-su released the mana of the Hwan Cheon Jin-gi and sensed the approaching presences, slipping out of the estate to avoid them.
Getting caught and having to make excuses or explanations would be tiresome.
For now, what mattered was producing results.
Stepping outside and scanning the street, instead of the familiar ruins of a world on the brink of collapse, towering skyscrapers pierced the sky before his eyes.
People moved through the streets.
Those who had once trembled in fear, watching only the countdown to annihilation, now glanced casually at advertisements or hurried past each other toward their destinations.
Beyond them rose an enormous tower, standing solitary and immense.
A tower so vast that the buildings of Songpa-gu beside it seemed laughably small.
That mysterious tower—which imposed trials upon humanity and bestowed rewards upon their conquest—had to be conquered properly, decisively. If it wasn’t, Earth would face invasion from otherworldly races once more.
‘The people here don’t know.’
They don’t understand that simply climbing isn’t what matters.
Of course, there’s no fear of collapse if the floors aren’t conquered within the allotted time—
but as long as the collapse hasn’t properly begun and the hidden implications remain unknown, there’s no way they could.
Only Jung Hyun-su knew.
The methods of conquest, the rewards that followed, the methodology for how humanity could survive this world most efficiently…….
‘Even the strategies that emerged from the Tower and the Gates.’
Since his ultimate goal was to leverage those advantages and survive, Jung Hyun-su first set out to find Yoram.
It was a sweltering summer day.
Since his Mana cultivation hadn’t deepened enough to reach the Han-seo Bul-chim domain he’d once commanded, Jung Hyun-su sweated profusely.
It was genuinely hot.
Walking along the street beneath that scorching sun, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
Bang!
Cars passed constantly on the road.
In the world of collapse, they’d been non-functional, and honestly, once you reached a certain level, running on two legs was faster anyway—so he’d never given it thought. But seeing this artifact of civilization, Jung Hyun-su promptly boarded a bus.
Beep!
Beep!
[Transfer accepted!]
“Ah…….”
A sigh escaped him immediately.
He’d forgotten the basic common sense of this era—that using public transportation required a card with Transit Card functionality!
“Kid, what are you doing?”
“That card…….”
The bus driver grinned widely. Jung Hyun-su offered an awkward smile in return.
“Get off.”
The worst criminal in the Hunter world, the Dark King—called the Night King in the West with an embarrassingly grandiose epithet—an absolute being. But in this situation, there was nothing he could do.
The hooligan Jung Hyun-su of this era wouldn’t have pulled out “do you know who I am?” just because a bus driver told him to get off without a card…….
Surprisingly enough.
“Ah…….”
The trials weren’t over.
Bowing his head in apology and stepping off the bus, Jung Hyun-su encountered a very familiar face.
Not his enemy, but the owner of the photograph he kept at his bedside.
Ji Min-jeong, whom Jung Hyun-su had harbored an intense crush on during this era—what was she doing here?
Of course, Ji Min-jeong, who despised gangsters, merely glanced past him without a second look.
Jung Hyun-su, for his part, felt none of the emotions from back then. Only embarrassment.
Because the memory remained.
No matter what—she was his first love, his first crush, and here, traveling back through the long years, his first encounter in this era was getting kicked off a bus for lacking a Transit Card.
‘I’m going to lose it.’
Scratching his head, Jung Hyun-su spotted a group of girls in Yoram Academy uniforms approaching ahead.
Fairly fresh-looking…….
“Whoa, did you guys see the group chat?”
“The group chat? What came up?”
“No way! Chae Seung-jin just dragged Jung Hyun-ah away, right now? Whoa!”
“Wait, Jung Hyun-su?”
The light in Jung Hyun-su’s eyes shifted in an instant.
“When.”
“Huh? What…?”
“When did Chae Seung-jin take my sister.”
“…J-just now, supposedly?”
The moment he heard the answer, Jung Hyun-su broke into an all-out sprint.
“What, what’s with that speed?”
“Was Jung Hyun-su always this athletic…? Huh?”
“No, from what I know, he’s in the lowest tier…?”
Jung Hyun-su burst through the Hwan Cheon Jin-gi, his instantaneous speed spiking so violently that he even overtook a bus that had been stopped at a red light.
“…?”
Ji Min-jeong, sitting by the window, tilted her head at the sight of him.
* * *
Jung Hyun-ah was in a foul mood because of Chae Seung-jin and his cronies, who’d shown up at dawn and hadn’t stopped smirking since.
“Man, our Hyun-ah. Every time I see those eyes, they’re just electrifying, aren’t they?”
“Shut it and get to the point.”
“Point? Ah, right. I’ve got a first-class matter that’ll make our Hyun-ah absolutely fall for me, no joke.”
Chae Seung-jin, who had the third-year class at Yoram wrapped around his finger, raked his eyes over Jung Hyun-ah with naked desire burning in his gaze.
Jung Hyun-ah was the daughter of the Garam Guild Master—one of the top-tier guilds—but Chae Seung-jin was equally positioned as the heir to Songgwang, another powerhouse outfit.
“Go ahead. Spill it.”
Chae Seung-jin grinned wickedly and pulled a USB drive from his pocket.
“Hyun-ah. You know what this is?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“A major scandal my friend Hyun-su pulled off. Pretty entertaining stuff if it goes public, yeah?”
Jung Hyun-ah’s face twisted.
“What?”
“Your brother’s going in irons. There’s video footage of him illegally distributing unregistered Artifacts on it.”
Artifacts were strange, powerful objects that appeared as rewards from Gates and tower climbs.
When an Awakened wore one, they could wield tremendous strength—which is why the Association kept strict watch over their distribution and held people criminally liable for violations.
The heir to a top-tier guild caught illegally distributing Artifacts?
‘No wonder he was being so unusually nice yesterday.’
And he’d gone and done something like this.
Honestly, Jung Hyun-su ending up in prison didn’t matter to her in the slightest.
But the thought of Garam’s name being dragged through the mud over this made her skin crawl.
“To be honest, even for a top-tier guild, that’s survivable damage. But here’s the thing.”
“There’s something else?”
“Seems Hyun-su threw in some Mana-gia too.”
Jung Hyun-ah’s jaw fell open.
“Mana… gia?”
Mana was the force that Awakened Hunters commanded. Blended with “gia” from the word Fantasia, it was essentially a drug synthesized from the English term “mana” itself.
When Awakened used it, the hallucinations were staggering, but the side effects included personality annihilation and berserker rages—carrying it alone brought brutal punishment. So why…?
“Don’t be stupid. Hyun-su’s garbage, true, but he’s a coward. He’d never touch something like that.”
“You really think so?”
Chae Seung-jin’s smirk was layered with confidence.
To make such a blatant move, he’d need solid circumstantial evidence—there was no other way.
Chae Seung-jin was a punk, sure, but even he wasn’t reckless enough to waltz up to the direct heir of the Garam Guild like this without regard for consequences.
He was more like a hunter who’d already set a perfect trap and was simply waiting to spring it.
“…What do you want?”
Chae Seung-jin licked his thin lips.
“Three options. Pick one.”
“Three… options?”
“First is you dating me. Starting today, we become very, very, very close. That kind of close.”
His gaze swept across her, brimming with lust.
“Stop messing around and say what you mean.”
“Or, starting today, you don’t breathe in Yoram without my permission. Last option is you go tell your father to drop by Songgwang quietly, all on his own.”
Each one was humiliating and appalling.
And the real objective was obviously the last one.
Songgwang and Garam were destined to collide eventually.
‘Jung Hyun-su…….’
The smirks of Chae Seung-jin and his gang echoed in her ears.
“So, choose. Surely I’ll take good care of my girlfriend? You might end up as my sister-in-law, so I’ve got to look out for you from now on, yeah? Hehehehe.”
Jung Hyun-ah was about to squeeze her eyes shut and make her choice when—
“All of that’s pure nonsense. You don’t need to listen.”
The voice of the very person she’d been cursing came through.
When Jung Hyun-ah whipped her head around, there stood Jung Hyun-su, drenched in sweat, stepping into their hideout.
To be continued ▶
The Sole Devouring Regressed Martial God
Author
Cheon Ya
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Inquiries: [email protected]
Publication date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260515012
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution are prohibited.
Violation of this prohibition may result in criminal and civil legal liability.
※ Pentagram awaits your precious manuscript.

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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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