The Regressed Martial God Monopolizes Everything - Chapter 96

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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 96. One Stone, Two Birds (6)
— Where gears became nerves and Mana Stones became hearts. Here, divinity turns.
“What a bunch of horseshit.”
[You have entered the Third Floor Mechanism Core.]
Kwon Gang-pal’s cynical sneer accompanied the inscription carved into the wall, and the raid team members who had ascended to this final third layer gazed for a moment at the vista spread before them.
The boundaries between ceiling, walls, and floor had all vanished. At the edge of sight, a massive brass gear and its rotational axis came into view.
At the center, a colossal engine, easily three hundred meters across, was pumping with rhythmic force.
The deep crimson Mana Stone at the core of the engine blazed like a sun.
It was as though to demonstrate that every energy line in this dungeon—this fusion of mine and power plant—was converging here.
The space, rendered heavy and oppressive by the great mechanical heart’s pulsing, swirled with a haze of red steam from the Mana Stone mingled with the blue of Mana Particles.
“Ptui! Is the air actually made of metal here, goddammit?”
Kwon Gang-pal’s expression turned grave.
“This alone will wreck our lungs and we’ll all end up hospitalized. We can’t even hold our breath, damn it!”
The situation was dire.
One couldn’t fight without breathing, yet the third floor was nothing but a mad space where countless Mana Metal particles drifted freely.
For any creature that hadn’t been perfectly rebuilt as a machine—any being that still breathed with lungs—this ground was devastatingly hostile.
“Perhaps… this was a warning not to come….”
“Hack! Master! My throat burns! My eyes ache! It’s like those Ogres threw their filth all over us!”
“Mm… I believe I may be experiencing nosebleeds. I myself am managing, however….”
“Wow, you can even do that?”
The dungeon’s structure seemed to suggest: you didn’t have to come; there’s no reason to endure this if you didn’t.
“This easily warrants an S-Rank designation.”
The situation was gravely serious. Even Kwon Gang-pal would have to prepare for blood loss—the sense of crisis emanating from the final stage from its very start was anything but ordinary.
“So before this gets worse… huh?”
Yet prepared to shoulder the burden regardless, Kwon Gang-pal stepped forward—only to have Jeong Hyun-soo press something into his hands.
“What’s this? A Gas Mask?”
Looking at Jeong Hyun-soo, Kwon Gang-pal let out a dry laugh.
“Some half-baked preparation, I suppose, but it won’t help. This is….”
“Mana Particles. I know.”
“Right. Something like this is completely useless.”
Kwon Gang-pal stared at Jeong Hyun-soo, who was already wearing the Gas Mask.
“Yeah, well. If it eases your mind, that’s something, I guess.”
Oil, interpreting Jeong Hyun-soo’s offer as a command, put on the Gas Mask and bounced about with delight.
“Ooh! Master’s amazing! The air is so crisp! It’s different!”
Kwon Gang-pal laughed sourly.
Different how? If anything, breathing only gets worse.
“Wait, seriously?”
Iban, standing nearby, donned the Gas Mask and was genuinely shocked.
The prickly, jagged motes of Mana that had been scraping the inside of his mouth were actually being filtered out.
Kwon Gang-pal was baffled.
“For real?”
“Human! Did you not say a strong man needs no such thing?”
At Oil’s relentlessly cheerful voice, Kwon Gang-pal finally couldn’t help himself and cursed straight.
“Hack! Gork! Gork has arrived!”
Then, pulling on the Gas Mask Jeong Hyun-soo had given him, Kwon Gang-pal’s eyes widened in shock.
Those two hadn’t been lying.
‘Not even Ilseong Group’s level of technology…’
Whatever this engineer Jeong Su-jin that Jeong Hyun-soo had brought was—this was genuinely incredible, wasn’t it?
For the first time, Kwon Gang-pal felt a spark of hope. Garam could finally break free from the thankless burden of clearing Gates no one wanted, the dungeons that bled money.
‘Hyun-woo…’
Kang Hyun-woo’s face flashed through his mind. If he’d known Garam could have a future like this.
But no.
A human heart couldn’t help but summon the memory of a traitor you’d spent decades beside, but Kwon Gang-pal chose to push it away.
A traitor was a traitor, after all.
So, wearing his new equipment, Kwon Gang-pal pressed forward.
With the Mana Particles filtered out—stripped of their simple but relentless dot damage—morale surged even higher.
The Third Floor entrance. The lift shaft leading to the central engine.
The moment the anti-gravity lift launched, they shot upward sharply on the backflow of steam.
As they entered the brass sphere’s interior, a passage revealed itself. The Mana density had visibly thickened, but the Gas Mask proved flawless.
The passage’s interior resembled the structure of veins flowing backward, and rays of Mana Stone light pulsed along the walls like a heartbeat.
Spark—spark—
The floating infected Mechanical Spirits revealed themselves.
Before them, Kwon Gang-pal immediately began his rampage.
A furious advance with nothing held back, a blunt instrument’s swift onslaught.
If the Immortal King could pass on the Tyrant’s Art to others through a quest like he did, there was no one better suited for it than this man.
[The Unnamed King lets out a scoff.]
The Tyrant sneered as if dismissing the notion entirely, but Jeong Hyun-soo sensed something in that reaction.
The fact that the Tyrant—whom he would normally ignore without a second thought—had responded meant one thing clearly: there was genuine possibility here.
Crackle! Snap-crackle!
The spirit conducted electrical currents through contact, inducing paralysis, but Kwon Gang-pal overwhelmed everything through sheer physical force, endured it, and crushed it beneath the difference in power.
“Where is it, where!”
Jeong Hyun-soo watched Kwon Gang-pal’s frenzied assault with a satisfied smile.
‘Bringing him along was the right call.’
The dungeon would have been clearable without Kwon Gang-pal, naturally, but the ease of it was incomparable.
Normally it would have required hacking through Oil to neutralize the spirits, consuming considerable time, but he’d simply blasted through with overwhelming force.
Boom!
As they burst through the elevator shaft and entered the tower’s core engine, the structure comprising the Mechanism Core came into view.
Twelve massive cogwheel-shaped floating platforms orbited around the core.
“Impressive.”
And stationed on each platform was an Administrator Ogre—entities that had shed all pretense of living creatures, constructs of machinery and nerve networks in hive form.
But of course, he hadn’t come merely to observe.
Boom!
An Administrator Ogre positioned at mid-height suddenly opened fire.
The lower levels held melee combatants, mid to upper-mid levels held ranged attackers, and the highest level clearly had Ogres stationed for recovery and repair.
“Iban, Oil!”
“Yes.”
“Master! Your orders!”
“Handle those at the lower level.”
Then Kwon Gang-pal and Jeong Hyun-soo exchanged glances.
“What the hell.”
“You need not explain, do you?”
“How’d you know I wanted to sleep?”
“You’ll recover and rest afterwards.”
“So damn sleepy. Let’s finish this quick. What’re you doing, you damned Orc?”
Kwon Gang-pal kicked Oil’s rear without hesitation, and the Orc, sent flying like a shell, grabbed his Battle Axe mid-air.
“Ogerrrrrrrrr!”
Oil descended rapidly onto the Ogre, leading the charge.
“Slaaaaaash!”
“Hey, you’re awfully talkative when fighting Ogres.”
Oil’s Battle Axe, appealing to his different race only when at a disadvantage, split the Administrator Ogre’s crown.
Spewing steam and oil, the Administrator Ogre collapsed. But beyond it, three more Administrator Ogres waiting in reserve sealed the passage firmly.
Click! Click! Click! Click!
And from another elevator below, modified Orcs began pouring out.
Slave Orcs carrying drills from their labor, experimental Orcs festooned with neural cables crawling their way up.
“Whoa, hold on.”
And it was obvious that to stop this, they’d have to reach all the way to the highest level.
And Jeong Hyun-soo and Kwon Gang-pal were charging upward.
“Haah!”
Kwon Gang-pal concentrated his magical power and threw a fist strike.
Bang!
A powerful surge of magical force toppled the Ogre cannon soldier aiming at Oil and Iban. Jeong Hyun-soo took a footwork step using the Ethereal Myriad Phenomenon Technique.
Toward Jeong Hyun-soo, who soared upward riding the current of steam, an Administrator Ogre began preparing a spell.
Consecutive strikes established rhythm. Kwon Gang-pal, now with his rear foot forward, threw another fist strike.
Bang!
The mage’s body wavered, and that was all they needed.
Jeong Hyun-soo would not fail to dodge a magical shot whose trajectory had gone awry.
Whoooosh!
Just two exchanges.
Jeong Hyun-soo, perfectly utilizing Kwon Gang-pal’s support, cleared even the magical cannon in one breath and touched down on the tenth-floor platform.
The Magnetic Field’s recovery stage.
The entire platform was wrapped in a blue magnetic field, and all the mechanical weapons nearby were drawing power from it.
‘It said it would recover again.’
Moreover, it couldn’t be destroyed by mere physical force alone.
But Jeong Hyun-soo possessed more than just the Heavenly Tyrant Return King Martial Art.
Jeong Hyun-soo drew upon the Dark Heaven Return Origin Art.
In the life-or-death battle with Paekwon and Chae Mu-sik—the strongest he’d encountered just after his return—Jeong Hyun-soo had learned a great deal.
No matter how formidable he’d been in his previous life, the Five Kings Martial Arts were something he was learning for the first time in this one.
The heightened sensations that emerged in the face of death, the insights and responses that came from it—all of it drew his awareness and the Five Kings Martial Arts closer together, enabling a deeper understanding.
With his newfound capacity to explore the depths of Return Origin power, Jeong Hyun-soo moved beyond mere execution of technique;
he felt the magnetic field coursing through his hands and instinctively grasped how to reverse its force.
[Dark Heaven Return Origin Art has reached Grade 10.]
The sensation that he must twist a path through this magnetic field, absorbing it like it had been sculpted by magical engineering.
And to achieve that sensation, he realized he needed to apply stimulation not where his hands made contact, but through vibrations that began at his feet.
Crack!
Where the small Return Origin power had once been forcefully pressed down, now understanding effortlessly reversed its flow.
The platform’s magical field immediately began to backflow.
The magnetic field collapsed. The ring of blue light that had been radiating outward visibly weakened.
But it couldn’t end there.
“Come.”
Watching the Ogre administrator charging at him, Jeong Hyun-soo unfurled the Ethereal Myriad Phenomenon Technique.
He’d been wasting far too much power. Intoxicated by the Heavenly Tyrant Return King Martial Art, he’d insisted on direct confrontation, but such things should only be done when necessary.
With utmost lightness.
Slipping the Ogre’s fist aside as if riding the wind, Jeong Hyun-soo pivoted his waist and drove his weight forward.
The Ethereal Myriad Phenomenon Technique grew more wondrous the deeper one understood it.
It was a skill that positioned his body perfectly for a counter-strike after evasion, no matter when or what state he was in.
The Ogre froze at Jeong Hyun-soo’s light punch.
More than that, it collapsed heavily to the ground.
As if struck by a ricochet, the Ogre administrator toppled backward, oil spurting from its mouth.
Jeong Hyun-soo moved past the Ogre administrator. Oil squelched beneath his feet.
Behind the point where the fist had driven home.
Leaving behind the deep wound carved by the gaping hole in its burst back, Jeong Hyun-soo moved toward the next platform.
To be continued in the next episode ▶
The Exclusive Return Martial God
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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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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