The Regressed Martial God Monopolizes Everything - Chapter 51
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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 51. Tit for Tat (6)
“Summoning… a what?”
Marshall stared at the massive orc that had suddenly burst into the fray, shock rippling through him.
More precisely, the shock came from Jeong Hyun-soo, who had summoned it.
This was no low-grade orc of the sort you’d find in the lower floors of the tower—it was a named-rank monster radiating an aura that pegged it at least at the Gold Rank Hunter level.
Moreover, he’d never heard of a summoner anywhere in the world who could command orcs.
“Screeeeeee!”
Who could have predicted that an orc would appear from the rear of the apprentice mages’ formation, shrieking like a madman as it swung a battle-axe with frenzied abandon?
“What the hell is that thing!”
Kang Hyun-woo was equally stunned.
‘A reward from the tower?’
Having pushed to the tenth floor at SSS Rank, he’d vaguely expected to obtain something remarkable—but this fell far outside those parameters.
Yet what mattered most right now was something else entirely.
Kill Marshall as quickly as possible. Then fabricate a story.
No one would suspect that Kang Hyun-woo alone could have slaughtered Marshall and his purge squad—so as long as he secured the hostage the Association Chairman wanted, he’d be fine.
‘It’s a stroke of luck that this woman showed up here like an idiot.’
With Jeong Su-jin present, this had become an opportunity too perfect to pass up.
The Chairman didn’t ask questions about the process—results were all that mattered. Once that was settled, he’d have plenty of time to acquire the O Wang Mu.
Boom!
Kang Hyun-woo launched himself skyward. At the apex of his ascent, his body inverted into a plummeting dive.
The Yong Hang Pa—a shattering-type impact technique that concentrated all his force into a downward strike—descended upon Marshall.
“Damn it!!”
Marshall deployed a Mana Barrier.
Crash!
The impacts fractured in succession. From the instant of contact, Marshall’s intent was to predict and reverse-calculate his opponent’s force, neutralizing the shock.
“Raaaaah!”
Rather than stop there, he gathered fresh condensed magical power and released it explosively, seeking to widen the distance between himself and Kang Hyun-woo—
Zing! Ziiing!
Marshall’s instincts screamed a warning. He flinched and spun reflexively, only to find that Jeong Hyun-soo had already closed the gap.
Having entrusted the apprentices to Oil, Jeong Hyun-soo had joined in to deal with the most troublesome obstacle: Marshall.
The Demon-Slaying Sword swung in his bulging forearms came down with tremendous force, slamming into Marshall.
“Ugh!”
Marshall desperately generated a shield to block the strike. But Jeong Hyun-soo’s true aim lay elsewhere.
A young, savage beast—its jaws stained with the blood of the purge squad—seized Marshall by the throat.
A blue windstorm erupted.
Crash-crash-crash-crash-crash!
Still gripping Marshall’s neck, Jeong Hyun-soo charged forward.
“You insane—!”
Boom!
Marshall collided violently with the wall of Anga, sharp pain lancing through every inch of his body.
“You damn bastard!”
When he counterattacked, Jeong Hyun-soo dodged the magical beam as though he’d predicted it.
And Kang Hyun-woo, following close behind, pressed the assault.
“Hack!”
Marshall’s composure began to fray.
He’d thought this would be a hunt—something to savor—yet instead he was the one being torn apart.
“You mad bastards. You think you’ll walk away from this?”
“I’ll handle my own cleanup, so shut your mouth.”
“Hah! Who trusts the Association’s background work? You think I’ll die quietly?”
Madness flickered across Marshall’s face. Though he accepted his death as inevitable, his eyes gleamed with a terrible anticipation.
“This son of a—!”
Kang Hyun-woo’s expression shifted to alarm.
Violet veins bulged across Marshall’s skin. His complexion drained to a sickly pallor as his entire body swelled—the signs unmistakable.
“Jeong Hyun-soo, get back! He’s detonating!”
It was no mere explosion of internal magical power.
In the midst of the rising chaos, a heart burned crimson, pulsing with terrible intensity.
Karna’s heart.
The magical current flowing through its circuits reversed course, shifting in color. The inscribed magic circles constricted his heart.
A scarlet aura roiled at the center, and the ambient mana throughout the area began to churn into a raging tempest.
“There’s no escape. Don’t you know what my ability is?”
Marshall had already thrown up a Mana Barrier around the immediate area.
“Damn it…!”
Unlike Kang Hyun-woo, whose panic had reached its peak, Jeong Hyun-soo appeared remarkably composed.
“Oil. Ready the final shot. Just like we prepared beforehand.”
“What…?”
The moment he murmured something incomprehensible, an elliptical bomb materialized above their heads.
“You bastards! Was it you? Was it you?! Kahahaha!”
Marshall burst into maniacal laughter.
“You think you’ve won against me, you idiots? Huh?”
An AMP detonating inside the barrier he’d created meant that even his final self-destruct spell would be neutralized.
Yet Marshall felt only exultation washing over him.
“You used forbidden items so openly, and you think I wouldn’t have prepared a countermeasure, you morons? This is why inferior worms like you never succeed! Kahahahahaha!”
Marshall drove his thumb into his own throat.
Blood erupted from his carotid artery, spraying forth before evaporating into vapor.
His mouth opened and closed, but his vocal cords were too damaged—all that emerged was a wet, rasping sound.
“You’d have positioned condensed Mana Stones nearby to counter the AMP. Using those as conduits, you could continue the self-destruct chain.”
As Jeong Hyun-soo spoke, he pulled the Dark Heaven Return Origin Art to its peak.
The void-returning martial art—the art of drawing all things back to emptiness. He hadn’t grasped its true essence, but he’d learned enough to use it adequately.
Crack!
“However, to concentrate on those Mana Stones, you can’t move your body at all—something you surely haven’t discovered yet, have you?”
At Jeong Hyun-soo’s whispered words, Marshall’s eyes trembled violently.
The magical heart burning within him grew cold.
He couldn’t fathom why this was happening.
‘Is this… possible?’
Marshall understood then that Ballak, who’d been slaughtered earlier, hadn’t simply fallen to the AMP.
One.
Even as his final escape route was sealed and death approached, Marshall laughed.
“What?”
“Surely you believed it was being transmitted in real-time to the Association every moment, since you obviously couldn’t fall for this twice.”
Kang Hyun-woo flinched.
“…There’s technology like that?”
It was still an era where electronic devices handled communication systems primarily.
Before the true energy revolution of the Mana Stone epoch would arrive,
a select few within the Association had secured a genius in Mage Engineering whom they’d imprisoned—one who could operate communication devices through Mana Stones rather than rare Artifacts drawn from towers and Gates.
Rendered invisible through camouflage, transmitting both location and audio-visual feeds—a discovery of historic proportions, except…
“Forgot something? The developer is right here.”
Shock flashed across Marshall’s eyes.
“That’s why I brought her. I can’t dismantle it myself.”
But Marshall heard nothing more after that.
At the moment before death, he only saw Jeong Su-jin gazing at him coldly from across the distance, and understood that everything had failed.
Yet someone remained alive—and shocked.
“You… what are you saying…?”
“This battlefield was already my design, traitor.”
A killing intent unlike anything before radiated from Jeong Hyun-soo’s body.
[Oil has consumed all Summon points and returns to Seongso.]
[Cooldown time remaining: 7 days.]
“Jeong Hyun-soo? Snap out of it. What are you saying right now?”
“The Association dispatch mission was groundwork that started long ago. I’ve been the Association President Seon Woo-hyun’s faithful dog, working to destroy Garam.”
“Ha, are you out of your mind? What nonsense is this?”
“I already have evidence of your secret contact with the Songgwang Guild Master to stage a surprise attack on Garam. Three months from now, in the twelfth lunar month.”
A fury more terrible than ever before blazed in Jeong Hyun-soo’s eyes.
“…….”
No words came from Kang Hyun-woo’s mouth.
“Did you covet the O Wang Mu so much? Then why didn’t you just ask Father for it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ah, you knew the footage was being transmitted? But it doesn’t matter.”
Jeong Hyun-soo smiled with a bitter edge.
“I’ve been coordinating with others much longer than that.”
Before his words finished, a magic circle began to manifest above Jeong Hyun-soo’s head.
“…Why…?”
The man in the wide-brimmed hat emerged from the shadows, hovering in mid-air as he looked down at Kang Hyun-woo.
“Vice Guild Master, you’ve certainly been busy these days, haven’t you?”
……
“Thanks to you, we nearly had a catastrophe. Human Sacrifice—something the Mage Guild must never permit—artifact theft, illegal magical experimentation. You’ve left evidence scattered across the world, absolutely everywhere.”
These were the tasks Kang Hyun-woo had undertaken to become the Association Leader’s trusted subordinate.
He’d been careful to distance himself entirely, to leave no connection. Yet how long had his trail been exposed?
“Well, I suppose this charade is finally over?”
Then another familiar figure stepped into view from deeper within Anga.
It was Kim Chun-sik, the Blood Alliance’s Korea chief.
He was someone Kang Hyun-woo had been working with to resolve recent missions.
“Truth be told, tracking you has been exhausting. You’re capable enough for a vice guild master, but in the end it comes down to experience and skill gap.”
Kang Hyun-woo came from a Martial Arts Guild background.
With his sharp mind, he’d managed to stay one step ahead at each turn.
But once Kim Chun-sik—someone who’d made his living doing exactly this sort of work—followed the solid leads that Jeong Hyun-soo had provided, catching him in the act was child’s play.
“Had the operation succeeded, the Association Leader would’ve swept it all away cleanly. But you know what? If I know the Association Leader, he’d erase you too. Isn’t that right, Chairman Jeong?”
Kang Hyun-woo’s breath caught.
It was because his eyes met those of Jeong Cheol, who had stepped slowly into view after Ji Sang-wook.
The trusting gaze that normally watched over him was gone. In its place stood the iron warrior who faced enemies within the Gate—and before Jeong Cheol’s sharp, savage aura, Kang Hyun-woo’s knees buckled, dropping him to the ground.
“Sir! There’s been some misunderstanding.”
“The misunderstanding is yours, it seems.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You thought I’d listen to anything you said and swallow your lies.”
Jeong Cheol’s voice was utterly frigid.
His resolve had already been set.
Jeong Hyun-soo had joined hands with Ji Sang-wook beforehand, excavating every trace of Kang Hyun-woo from his Returner’s memory and constructing the complete circumstantial evidence.
“Damn it all!”
Kang Hyun-woo chose flight. Obtaining the O Wang Mu had been his life’s greatest ambition, but what was more precious than life itself?
Watching Kang Hyun-woo retreat rapidly, Ji Sang-wook asked a question.
“You won’t need any help?”
“I’ve already received considerable help. This Guild matter, I will handle within the Guild.”
With those words, Jeong Cheol’s form blurred and vanished.
A tempest howled forth.
Born of rage.
The storm conjured by a Guild Master’s wrath upon learning, too late, of such base betrayal from one he’d once called brother-in-arms.
‘Is this what Father would have wanted?’
Watching Jeong Cheol—brimming with the qualities to become a titan of this age, displaying his full power for the first time—a strange light flickered in Jeong Hyun-soo’s eyes.
He wanted to kill Kang Hyun-woo with his own hands right then. Yet the one truly suited to dispose of him was, in fact, Jeong Cheol.
“Aaaaaaaagh!”
Jeong Hyun-soo heard Kang Hyun-woo’s final scream and gazed up at the sky with an impassive expression.
Continued in the next episode ▶
The Sole Inheritor of the Returner’s Martial Way
Author
Cheon Ya
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Inquiry Email [email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260515012
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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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