The Regressed Martial God Monopolizes Everything - Chapter 88

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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 88. Shifting Tides (3)
Ibhan is slow-witted. But being slow-witted didn’t mean he understood nothing at all.
“Is it perhaps a skill that cannot be taught?”
Shortly after Ultra Regeneration manifested, Ibhan had heard about skill transmission, and he desperately wanted to share it with his precious younger siblings somehow.
However, he lacked the means to obtain high-rank Skill Books due to his poverty, but at least he couldn’t teach them that way either.
How could he possibly teach regeneration?
It was a question born of mere hope. In truth, he hadn’t held much expectation.
But then.
“Hmm… it doesn’t seem impossible.”
“So it is impossible after all.”
Ibhan nodded his head as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“No, brother. Listen to what’s being said properly. Hey, sorry, but could you not twist your words like that with our brother?”
At Nikita’s words, Jeong Hyun-soo realized his mistake.
“Nikita. What are you saying right now?”
“Wait a moment, brother. Let me ask instead.”
Nikita stepped forward in front of Jeong Hyun-soo.
Still cautious. Though she had said what needed saying by maintaining her submissive posture toward him, Nikita now understood just how frightening the world could be.
The heir to Garam, one of the Ten-Rank Guilds like Song Gwang’s. Called the Sacred One, and it was this Jeong Hyun-soo who had destroyed Song Gwang, who had terrorized them.
Though the memories weren’t clear since she’d been unconscious, she could still vaguely recall the backs of her brother and Jeong Hyun-soo standing guard.
And because of that.
Frightened and resentful as she was, Nikita could find her words.
“You’re saying you can teach our brother the skill he wants?”
“Conditionally, probably if he clears a Quest.”
“Brother, did you understand?”
“I know what a Quest is.”
“The problem is what kind of Quest it is. If it’s complicated and difficult, does brother have to do it alone?”
What Nikita was most worried about wasn’t how difficult the Quest might be. Rather, it was whether Ibhan could even comprehend it, more than any enemy they’d face.
“Just follow my lead.”
“Wait, that’s even more dangerous.”
Though Nikita opened her mouth, Anna still didn’t trust Jeong Hyun-soo. Or rather, perhaps she wouldn’t trust the world itself for some time to come.
“Why would you send them out alone? What other risk are you trying to make him take?”
“It might help to look at the situation rather than the person. Right now, with all the other Ten-Rank Guilds and everyone who knows about this incident, all eyes are watching how things unfold.”
Naturally, Jeong Hyun-soo’s blunder could serve as a pretext within the standoff between the fractured Ten-Rank Guilds.
It would become good prey for those keeping Garam and Hanul in check, now that they’d made an emergency escape by destroying Song Gwang.
Of course, Anna was clever, but she hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“…You really need to think this through carefully.”
“If there’s something to learn, I’m going.”
Ibhan’s stubbornness was hard to break. With intelligence so difficult to grasp, once he made up his mind, there was little that could be done about it.
* * *
After apologizing to Ibhan and, before forgiveness could come, concluding the conversation to make a vow receiving the conditional choice from Ibhan Drakoff to transmit the Immortal Destroyer Divine Art, Jeong Hyun-soo devoted himself to recovery.
His body was changing day by day.
“…What are you so busy with that you’re only showing up now?”
“Is that what you call speaking?”
Four days after Jeong Hyun-soo’s recovery, Kim Chun-sik who came to visit looked half-dead.
“Because of you, I’ve only managed to catch a few brief naps since that day…….”
“No wonder your eyes were so dark.”
“That’s because I got hit by my sister!”
Kim Chun-sik wore an aggrieved expression.
“I shouldn’t have met you in the first place…….”
I’ve lost my mind.
Watching the sighing Kim Chun-sik, Jeong Hyun-soo grinned.
“You’re laughing? Finding this amusing?”
“Impressive, Kim Chun-sik.”
“W-what?”
“And thank you.”
Jeong Hyun-soo’s words were plain, but his calm gaze held sincere gratitude.
“Th-thank me…….”
For Kim Chun-sik, that day’s decision was truly momentous.
He’d been swept up in the moment, but if Chae Mu-sik had come that way, he surely would have died.
Ground to pulp by that brutal fist, even the blood rendered mist by the heat of that terrible power.
“I got into danger because of you, so of course I have to thank you.”
“W-what? Why do you keep acting like this? What else are you trying to make me do?”
At that, Jeong Hyun-soo turned his gaze away for a moment.
“See? When someone’s behavior changes from usual, it’s always one of two things. Either they’re about to die, or they’ve got hidden intentions. But from what I can tell, you don’t look like you’re about to die anytime soon. So it must be the second one. So what is it! What else are you trying to get me to do! Do you think I can’t see? Can’t you see I can’t see!”
Kim Chun-sik spoke as if exasperated beyond measure.
“You can do it.”
“I can’t! I’m telling you I can’t!”
“No, you can. I know you can.”
“Who do you think you are!”
Jeong Hyun-soo was someone who had witnessed Kim Chun-sik leading the Blood Alliance through its golden age in his previous life.
At his quiet, penetrating gaze, Kim Chun-sik let out a sigh.
“I’m not doing volunteer work! Hazard pay! You have to give me hazard pay!”
“Of course I will. I’ve already thought about what to give you.”
At that, Kim Chun-sik’s expression shifted, intrigued.
“…What is it…?”
“We’re going to take down Ilsung.”
Kim Chun-sik turned away without hesitation.
“What kind of compensation is that supposed to be?”
“Ilsung has fairly intimate connections with the Ha-O Clan.”
“Hmm… I’m not falling for that…”
But even as he said it, Kim Chun-sik’s mind was already working through calculations.
The Blood Alliance knew well that Ilsung and the Ha-O Clan were close allies.
Unlike the Blood Alliance, the Ha-O Clan was an organization that would do anything for profit.
They certainly had unsavory aspects, but they were thorough about identifying what was genuinely problematic and discarding it without hesitation.
“Ugh, no! Get a grip!”
Kim Chun-sik shook his head roughly.
Ilsung was no ordinary guild.
It was currently recognized as the premier guild in South Korea, and it was none other than Seon Woo-hyun’s home guild.
Publicly, Seon Woo-hyun claimed to pursue fair treatment as the Association chairman, which is why the Association policies seemed to press Ilsung with almost harsh severity…
But of course, blood runs thicker than water. When you looked at the bare facts, even the Association’s policies that seemed designed to target Ilsung always ended up benefiting it.
They were that meticulous, organized, and powerful.
Ilsung, Mirae, Sunhwa.
These three pillars controlled over forty percent of South Korea’s Hunter industry—which said everything.
“It’s not just Ilsung that needs to fall. What about Mirae and Sunhwa?”
“Of course that’s where we start. And the Ha-O Clan will bring that up.”
The Tri-Guild Axis led by Ilsung, extending into the network of Ten-Rank Guilds, appeared to make South Korea strong,
but it had made active countermeasures impossible in the era of upheaval that was soon to come.
Moreover, the regulations they had created for smooth Tower Climbing only to break them at the very limit, adjusting collapse schedules as they saw fit, had made South Korea’s clearance capacity extraordinarily sluggish, resulting in disaster when the Tower’s later phases escalated rapidly.
‘This time, we need to settle things quickly.’
He had no intention of becoming a leader and taking the helm.
What was needed was to break the solid fractures created by the Ten-Rank Guilds and turn the Hunter industry into an arena of extreme competition.
The Association’s role should stop at ferreting out and punishing illegal tricks—that was Jeong Hyun-soo’s view.
“But… how exactly do you create fractures like that?”
“We need to deploy about ten different stratagems simultaneously.”
Kim Chun-sik found it utterly absurd.
“What?”
“Unlike Song Gwang, they don’t have a critical fatal blunder. So the only way is to gather all their small weaknesses and detonate them like a bomb.”
“Could you explain at least the basics…?”
“First, we need to release substitutes for the items they monopolize.”
Something suddenly flashed through Kim Chun-sik’s mind.
That genius theoretical mage who had created a communication network connecting Garam Guild, Hanul, Blood Alliance, and Knight King.
“But… isn’t there a limit to production capacity?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
What Jeong Hyun-soo was drawing up was nothing less than the development of alternative energy and new materials.
Proper utilization of Mana Crystalline Stones.
Based on that foundation, an era would open where fossil fuels and electrical energy—still in use—would be completely replaced by Mana Crystalline Stones.
And Jeong Hyun-soo was sparing no effort in supporting Jung Su-jin with both resources and knowledge to accelerate that timeline.
More than that, though he didn’t know the theoretical gaps still remaining, he was directly observing and experiencing the intuitive brilliance of the system she had devised, providing insights and sparking inspiration,
and she had recently grasped something crucial and was now absorbed in her research.
“We secure victory in next-generation energy resources, grow our organization, and prepare to break their monopoly. Then we strike back.”
In that gap, they still exposed the weaknesses those organizations held, jabbing at the rot.
All the while, the work wasn’t Garam’s doing—it was turning them against one another.
In other words, it was crucial to stir each side’s desires and set them at odds.
“I’m not sure I follow…….”
Next-Generation Energy—where did that come from all of a sudden?
“You’ll understand once you watch. The Association will move soon enough.”
With Jung Su-jin gone, Seon Woo-hyun couldn’t help but grow desperate.
So based on the research data he’d gathered so far, he had some sense of the Mana Crystalline Stone’s potential.
And on that foundation, he’d launch a Next-Generation Energy venture to lure Jung Su-jin back—or, failing that, to steal an idea from some hidden genius equally brilliant.
“Excuse me?”
“Maybe not right away, but they’ll definitely make that move.”
“Wait—what if they don’t?”
“Then we develop it ourselves in the meantime.”
Despite the complexity of the explanation, Jeong Hyun-soo’s immediate goal was singular.
Ultimately: foundational technology development spearheaded by Jung Su-jin.
To make that happen, Jeong Hyun-soo sent Kim Chun-sik away first, then summoned Jung Su-jin.
“Uhhh…….”
Jung Su-jin appeared with eyes every bit as dead as Kim Chun-sik’s had been.
“I’m swamped. What, did you call me here to give me a snack?”
“…….”
“I can’t do anything more here. Upgrade Sai’s performance and make more samples, or I’m done!”
Jung Su-jin couldn’t hold back anymore and vented her frustration.
“These high-grade Mana Crystalline Stones! What am I supposed to do with just a handful?”
“Then rest for now. I’ll scrape together a stockpile from the mine soon.”
“Huh…?”
“You said upgrade Sai’s performance? What does that require, Sai?”
[Sai has been summoned.]
“Krack… To upgrade such a magnificent intellect as myself, naturally I would require a more exceptional central processor core. But… is that even feasible at the current level?”
“Just clear an A-rank Cyberpunk Series dungeon or so.”
“…Just? Are you joking?”
“The Mana Crystalline Stone Mine too. You’ll have to wait—I’ll bring results soon.”
Not long after, Garam Guild received an invitation to a grand guild assembly.
Ostensibly, it was to discuss post-incident procedures regarding Song Gwang under the Association’s auspices.
“They’re really about to start competing for the spoils.”
The intent was crystal clear.
Continued in the next chapter ▶
The Returning Martial God Who Monopolizes All
Author
Cheon Ya
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publisher
Grae Publishing
Inquiries [email protected]
Date of Publication
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260515012
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution are prohibited.
Violation may result in criminal and civil 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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