The Regression of a Challenger-Level Player - Chapter 27

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 27. Because I Can (2)
The sky darkened, stained in murky grey.
[A Calamity Giant, ‘■■’, descends!]
[Warning! Your opponent far exceeds your current level!]
[Balance has been severely compromised.]
[Stats are being adjusted.]
It was good news, hearing it like that.
If this truly was a monster from outside, it would need to be at least Platinum rank to stand any chance against it.
That – that – that – !
Crash!
The giant plummeted to the ground.
Its massive frame befitted its name, writhing black tentacles sluggish and deliberate.
“God, it’s disgusting.”
The revulsion doubled because it clumsily maintained a human form—or tried to.
This was what they called the Uncanny Valley.
Whoosh!
Tentacles from its arms unspooled and fired straight at me.
Dozens of barrages filled my entire front with no gaps.
Hum!
I’d already conjured a sphere of magic power swollen to soccer-ball size.
From the slight gap between my lips, a pure, azure glow spilled forth.
[Gravity Field
]
A violet barrier unfolded, spreading outward to crush everything within.
The tentacles streaking through the air slowed dramatically the moment they crossed into the boundary.
That – that – ? – !
Before the creature could process what was happening,
I gripped the hammer in both hands and swung with speed and precision.
Crack! Splat! Bang!
Each swing pulped a tendril, sending it flying away severed.
But this wasn’t the end.
‘According to the records, this thing regenerates endlessly.’
Already, the mangled tentacle ends bubbled like liquid, preparing to regrow.
There was only one way to stop the giant.
Destroy every single eye on its body.
“Guess it’s time for some parkour.”
I gripped the hammer in one hand and planted the other against the ground.
Then I bent one knee, steadied my stance, and flowed magic smoothly through my body from sternum to toes before—
Boom!
I scaled the tentacle.
With each footfall, I felt the tendril beneath me crumple under the pressure.
The increased weight from gravity channeled through my magic—I was stomping with everything I had.
‘Every step I take—’
To this thing, it’s the same as swinging a blunt weapon!
Crackle – crackle – crackle – snap – !
The creature regenerated ruptured tentacles rapidly while simultaneously deploying fresh ones to swing at me.
“Output amplification.”
I narrowed the barrier’s radius.
The gravity intensified, and I felt the hammer grow heavier, more lethal in my grip.
“I still have no class, no fancy skills worth mentioning, but—!”
A hammer swing amplified by gravity
“will hurt worse than most skills!”
Like a baseball player taking a home run swing, I gripped the handle long and concentrated magic into my shoulders and arms.
A blunt weapon isn’t swung by arm strength alone.
You use your entire body—twist at the torso, shift your center of gravity.
Thundercrack!
A perfect arc, flawlessly executed.
Dozens of tentacles shattered and flew apart simultaneously.
Seizing the opening, I leaped toward one of the sluggish eyeballs writhing on its torso.
“First – one!”
Then he struck dead center.
The sensation of fruit pulping beneath the blow, and blood gushed forth in a torrent.
Gah—ah—ah—ah!
The creature shrieked and convulsed wildly.
“Now that’s starting to feel like actual damage.”
He shook the blood from the hammer.
The thing, maddened by pain, fixed what remained of its eyes squarely on him.
Shaaaaaak!
Both arms and legs came free, unleashing a tsunami of tentacles that crashed over him.
‘If I try to block all of that, my stamina will give out first.’
He steadied himself in mid-air, then seized a single tentacle with precise timing.
Light as swinging across an iron bar, he vaulted atop it, then moved through the tangle of tentacles like parkour through empty space.
-Getting dizzy…
-That movement is straight-up impossible
-Is he a monkey or something?
-Think I’m gonna be sick
Tentacles he could plant his feet on and move across.
Tentacles he could dodge.
Tentacles he had to smash with the hammer.
He sorted them into those three categories constantly and acted accordingly.
Bap-pa-pa-pat!
There’s a saying, isn’t there.
Chaos is merely order that hasn’t yet found its method.
No matter how impossibly complex an attack appears, if you look closely enough, there’s always a path through it.
He simply followed that path forward, and then—
Whoosh!
He attacked.
Crack!
He burst through the tsunami of tentacles and shattered another eye.
The creature writhed, unleashing an even more grotesque and deafening shriek.
Gah—gah—gah!
According to the records, after the second eye shatters, the attack pattern changes.
From merely thrashing tentacles—
Click-click-click!
To relentless pursuit and slashing.
The tips of the tentacles sharpened into blade-edges, and their appearance grew even more sinister.
“So you don’t intend to go quietly.”
Neither did he.
“Range expansion.”
His barrier expanded, trapping more tentacles within his gravitational field simultaneously.
“One at a time. Let’s take this step by step.”
There was time enough.
***
The hunt for the giant continued.
Each time an eye shattered, the creature adapted with fresh tactics, and Shin Jae-ha countered each one methodically, relying on the records Iris had provided him.
-Would’ve been impossible without those records from Iris lmao
-Isn’t the fifth eye pattern a bit much? A surprise sneak attack from behind all of a sudden?
-Guess it’s no wonder the kingdom fell kkk
He’d never faced a single boss with such a varied arsenal of patterns.
When the ground trembled, blades erupted from below; when a mangled tentacle’s cross-section was exposed, three new tendrils would regenerate; sometimes the creature’s body itself would suddenly shift backward to strike from behind.
“Haah…!”
The longer the battle stretched, the more cuts—large and small—accumulated across his body.
Without the buff Iris had cast, it might have been genuinely difficult.
But he was someone who’d fought through countless encounters more grueling than this.
‘No ground tremor. No body shift tells. Five tentacles on the flank, thirteen on the rear, twenty on the front.’
The moment a new pattern emerged, he etched it into his body like a subroutine.
Until he could react without conscious thought.
Boom! Crack! Crash!
He demolished every tentacle in front while evading the pursuing ones, driving forward.
Thanks to the gravitational field, the pursuing tentacles were relatively manageable.
Hiss!
The remaining body’s eyes rotated in wide circles.
This was a precursor to Rearward Movement.
I twisted my body immediately, drove the Hammer down hard against the pursuing tentacle, then launched myself into the air.
“Three… two… one… now!”
At the precise moment, the Calamity Giant’s body materialized exactly where I’d calculated.
Deactivating the Gravity Field, I hurled a piece of debris I’d grabbed from the ground before takeoff into empty space.
The instant it reached the giant—!
Crack!
I swung with full force and sent the fragment flying.
The shard traced a straight line through the air and smashed directly into the remaining eye.
Keeeee—!
The moment it lost all its eyes, the creature convulsed, spraying blood from its entire body.
—Did he pull that off?! Did he actually pull that off?! Did he really pull that off?!
—Honestly, after we hit pattern four I stopped following what was happening lol
—How is he calculating all this?
—This is seriously an Unranked-tier scenario? Doesn’t feel like it. Gold would struggle.
—But Shin Jae-ha did it and he’s Unranked.
—True. Guess I’m worse than Unranked…
In the chat, viewers had already begun celebrating.
But the cork on the bottle wasn’t popping just yet.
“This isn’t over.”
According to the records, when it descended the second time, even the kingdom managed to destroy all its eyes.
Which only made sense—if every pattern was already catalogued.
The real problem came after destroying every eye.
The creature rumbled and convulsed.
The final pattern.
All the tentacles moved in grotesque synchronization, weaving together into a single solid mass.
As if forming a chrysalis for metamorphosis, the tentacles tangled chaotically, reshaping themselves into the form of a massive egg.
Soon the tentacles fell away, and from within emerged a new entity.
A giant with the appearance of a Cyclops—massive as a full moon, with a single enormous yellow eye.
“Kerrrrrrr!”
Its mouth gaped open, releasing a grotesque wail.
This was the final form of the monster known as the Calamity Giant.
“Well, at least this one’s easier on the eyes. Congratulations on the successful cosmetic surgery?”
The giant slowly turned its head toward me.
Its massive arm swept in a wide arc and struck me down.
With tremendous force, scattered debris trembled and shifted.
‘The power…!’
It was channeling all the strength its tentacles possessed, unleashing it in one concentrated strike.
Boom! Crash! Crash!
The giant hammered relentlessly with fists and legs.
The pattern itself had become far simpler, but the pressure it exerted transcended imagination.
Each time its fist merely grazed past me, it felt like a cyclone trying to drag me along—a force that would sweep me away entirely if I lost my footing.
“Keeeee!”
Having cornered me, the creature threw a punch from an angle I couldn’t escape.
“Maximum output!”
I narrowed the barrier to its limit, amplifying the gravity, then drove the Hammer forward with all my strength.
A deep, resonant boom!
When Hammer collided with fist, an explosion erupted as if a bomb had detonated.
The recoil felt like it was tearing my shoulders apart.
“To counterattack—!”
I was preparing to move in for the follow-up when the giant’s leg struck first.
A heavy impact detonated inside my body.
A concussive boom!
I rocketed backward like a shell, crashing into debris and embedding myself in it.
The sharp, metallic taste of blood touched my lips.
“Ugh…! Guh! Haha—hahahaha!”
Objectively, I was being beaten back.
But what erupted from me wasn’t panic—it was laughter.
—He laughs again.
—Shin Jae-ha is laughing) His opponent is finished now.
—Wait… but how do we even beat this? That balance is seriously broken!
—Is this Shin Jae-ha’s first loss?!
Something about this felt thrilling.
I’d never imagined meeting an opponent capable of pushing me this hard at this stage of the game.
And that such an opponent would appear in the “Story” itself—that was even more beyond expectation.
To experience gameplay that doesn’t grow stale even after regression, to approach it as someone who simply enjoys the game—how satisfying could it be?
‘Is this what I have to overcome to climb back to Challenger?’
Then let me show you.
I brushed the debris from my clothes and stood.
Thump! Thump!
The one-eyed giant strode forward from across the field.
The sight of it approaching with gleaming eyes and overwhelming presence was like witnessing a creature from mythology itself.
Fighting like this reduced the entire landscape around us to rubble and ruin.
“What I’m lacking now… is raw power.”
I needed an attack stronger than before.
Power capable of overwhelming that creature’s dominant physicality.
“Gravity Field.”
The purple barrier unfolded once more.
“Maximum output.”
I compressed the barrier’s range rapidly, intensifying the gravitational force.
‘Even this won’t be enough.’
Narrow it. Narrow it. Narrow it further still.
Down to a space barely wide enough for a single person.
To a space a single person could scarcely fit within entirely.
‘Now’s the time to apply the extreme mastery I’ve cultivated over mana manipulation.’
I focused my mind and shaped the barrier.
Scaled precisely to fit only my body and weapon.
Not stepping into the barrier—but wrapping it around my entire frame.
‘Yes.’
Like a knight donning armor before stepping into battle.
I compressed the barrier to its absolute limit and wore the gravity field like a second skin.
Boom!
The ground beneath me sank inward.
A purple gravitational armor enveloping my entire body.
[A derived skill from ‘Gravity Field’ has been born!]
[Gravity Field: Gravity Armor
](C+)
At last.
The preparations for victory were complete.
Regression of a Challenger-Class Player
Author
: Knight’s Soul
Date of Publication
: August 10, 2026
Publisher
: ACES Media Co., Ltd.
Editor
: ACES Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F, Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work has been published by ACES Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder.
The content cannot be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
This e-book is protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reprinting or reproduction may result in legal liability.
UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260730114

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————