Chapter 674
Chapter 674
“Master?”
“You’d do better to deal with one more of them instead of looking at me like that.”
Damho spoke coldly and pointed behind Jetoya with a finger.
Jetoya hurriedly turned around, and his expression twisted.
A two-headed leopard was charging straight at him.
“Kgh!”
Instinctively, Jetoya dodged its attack and threw a punch.
His fist shot straight forward and slammed into the left head of the Two-Headed Leopard.
Crack!
The left head shattered into pieces.
—Kuaaah!
The unharmed right head screamed as it lunged to bite Jetoya’s shoulder.
At that moment, Jetoya’s body spun like a top, and his elbow smashed into the right head.
Bang!
With a thunderous impact, the right head exploded as well.
Jetoya stared at what he had done with an expression of disbelief.
“This...?”
It had been a completely reflexive movement.
After being beaten and taught by Damho so many times, it had become engraved into his body.
—Kwaaang!
At that moment, another monster charged at Jetoya.
Without another thought, Jetoya slipped into the beast’s guard and drove out his fist.
‘Castle-Breaking Punch!’
That was what Damho had called it—a punch named for its ability to destroy a fortress with a single blow.
Boom!
It was not yet powerful enough to shatter a fortress, but it possessed more than enough force to crush the head of a low-grade monster.
Such power from fists that had not yet fully matured.
A smile spread across Damho’s lips.
Jetoya was now standing in the very center of countless monsters.
Everything surrounding him was a monster.
No matter how exceptional a martial artist was, in such a situation their hands and feet would grow disordered, and it would be impossible to make calm judgments.
Jetoya, too, was moving in a fluster, as though his mind had gone blank.
The difference was that, even in the midst of it all, he somehow found the path to survival.
Even while unable to think properly, he instinctively located the places where the tangled mass of monsters could not fully exert their strength and moved there.
He claimed positions so cramped that only one or two beasts could attack him at a time.
Then he attacked using the techniques Damho had taught him.
After the Charging Step came the Castle-Breaking Punch.
Simple, yet devastatingly destructive.
With each strike, a monster’s head exploded.
Covered from head to toe in the blood of monsters, Jetoya continued moving in search of the next path to survival.
That instinct—to constantly move toward the position most favorable for survival—was not something that could be taught.
It was something one had to be born with.
That was why Damho had chosen Jetoya.
Unlike Damho’s homeland, this world awakened people to their talents through the process of Awakening, allowing them to use skills.
Because of that, the Awakened here could become powerful at remarkable speed.
Without much effort, they acquired overwhelmingly powerful means of attack in the form of skills. Of course, improving those skills required personal effort, but their starting point itself was already different from that of ordinary people.
Perhaps because of that, every martial-type Awakened here had weak fundamentals.
To Damho’s eyes, they looked as precarious as children swinging enormous iron hammers.
The Awakened he had met at the Steel Fortress, the prison guards of Neo Seoul—none of them had impressed him.
Then he had noticed Jetoya.
To everyone else, he was merely an ordinary martial-type Awakened.
But Damho had seen the tremendous potential he possessed.
Exceptionally developed survival instincts and instinctive movement.
Techniques that flowed out exactly as they had been engraved into his body.
Jetoya’s talent for martial arts was truly extraordinary.
“Hyaaa!”
Boom!
Jetoya rampaged like a mad beast.
Every time he threw a punch or swung a kick, low-grade monsters were shattered.
He did not use a single skill.
He fought the monsters using only the techniques Damho had engraved into his body.
Damho controlled the number of monsters so Jetoya could fight to his heart’s content.
At present, the strongest monsters Jetoya could handle were only C-rank or D-rank.
After all, he had trained under Damho for only a very short time.
Even so, that alone was already astonishing.
But it still fell short of what Damho wanted.
‘I don’t know how long I’ll remain in this place, but at the very least, I’ll make sure he masters the fundamentals perfectly.’
Just then—
—Kyaooo!
With a roar, a gigantic monster appeared.
It was an ogre, considered the strongest among bipedal monsters.
The ogre advanced straight toward Jetoya.
It was still beyond what Jetoya could handle.
“Do not interfere.”
Damho spoke coldly as he threw a punch.
It was the same Castle-Breaking Punch Jetoya used.
But its power existed on an entirely different level.
Boom!
With one simple punch, the ogre’s upper body exploded.
Splatter!
The remains of the ogre rained down in a shower of blood.
Damho’s robe was stained red with the ogre’s blood.
Even so, he did not so much as blink, keeping his eyes fixed on Jetoya.
Jetoya was too busy fighting the low-grade monsters to even notice that Damho had killed the ogre.
After that, Damho quietly adjusted the number of threatening monsters without Jetoya ever realizing it.
Under Damho’s careful protection, Jetoya continued his fierce battle against the monsters.
Watching from atop the wall, Brielle’s jaw dropped.
“That’s possible?”
It was a sight completely beyond her understanding.
Zeon was just as astonished.
Damho’s strength and insight far exceeded even his expectations.
It was as though everything within dozens of meters of Damho lay under his control.
He adjusted the number of monsters exactly as he wished, prevented those outside the area from recklessly entering, and helped Jetoya train.
monsters of A-rank or higher did not even come near Damho.
They instinctively sensed how powerful he was.
They knew that approaching Damho meant nothing but death, so they kept their distance or avoided him entirely.
A man who made monsters fear him without even revealing his true strength—
That was Damho.
“Huff... Huff...”
Jetoya gasped for breath.
His stamina had been completely drained from fighting monsters without rest.
Naturally, his movements had become noticeably slower.
Damho looked at the exhausted Jetoya and spoke coldly.
“Do you think your enemies will spare you because you’re tired? Instead of standing there breathing leisurely like a tortoise, throw one more punch.”
“Aaaah! Yes!”
Jetoya shouted as he forced himself to move again.
Watching Jetoya, now drenched in blood, Brielle muttered,
“I think we should bring Lemura over.”
---
“That’s possible?”
“What... am I looking at?”
There were those staring at Jetoya’s performance in utter disbelief.
They were the Awakened from the South District.
A considerable number of the South District’s Awakened were of Chinese descent and had mastered their own martial arts.
Combined with martial-type Awakening abilities, those arts displayed tremendous power.
That was why they understood.
They knew just how absurd Jetoya’s movements truly were.
The instinctive sense that found the path to survival among countless monsters.
The efficient footwork that made it possible.
The powerful finishing blows.
Such dazzling talent and ability were far too extraordinary for someone still so inexperienced.
The South District Awakened already knew what Jetoya’s original abilities had been.
There was no way they wouldn’t.
He had always been at the side of Lemura, the Saintess of the Underground City.
Unlike Lemura, however, the boy had attracted little attention.
Neo Seoul was already full of martial-type Awakened.
Although his rank was high for someone his age, there were countless Awakened of that level.
So no one had paid him any attention.
Naturally, neither had the South District.
At most, they had regarded him as little more than decoration standing beside Lemura.
Yet the very Jetoya they had dismissed so lightly was now displaying impossible movements.
“That’s not the standardized movement of a skill.”
“It’s... real martial arts.”
The voices of the South District Awakened trembled on their own.
The fact that genuine martial arts, lost for over a hundred years, had appeared in the present age sent chills through them.
Boom! Crack!
In a state of complete selflessness, Jetoya continued performing the techniques Damho had taught him.
Jetoya alone was astonishing enough.
But even more astonishing was the man named Damho.
He dominated the area so Jetoya could fight freely.
He released his presence so powerful monsters beyond Jetoya’s ability could not even approach.
And if they ignored the warning and came anyway, he crushed them instantly.
Boom!
No one even knew how he had attacked.
The heads of the approaching monsters simply exploded with a thunderous blast.
—Kwoooar!
Even a drake recoiled with a frightened cry at Damho’s overwhelming presence.
An A-rank monster had felt the fear of death simply by looking at him.
“How is that possible?”
“Is that entire area that man’s domain? How can something like this even be possible?”
“Insane...”
The South District Awakened stared wide-eyed, following Damho’s every move.
He never made large movements.
Occasionally, he would casually throw a small punch or take a few light steps.
But each time he did, catastrophe struck the monsters.
Damho was a walking disaster.
At least, he was to the monsters.
The South District Awakened were completely captivated by the movements of Damho and Jetoya.
Having at least stepped onto the path of martial arts themselves, they understood just how profound the two men’s movements truly were.
Their movements, stripped of skills, were terrifyingly efficient.
There were many martial artists in the South District, but not a single one could move with such restraint.
Gotao, who had led the South District Awakened here, could not take his eyes off Damho.
Being far stronger than the other martial-type Awakened, he could sense the profound principles hidden within Damho’s simple movements.
“Is that man a Martial God? How has someone like him remained unknown until now?”
A storm raged within his eyes as he stared at Damho.
The uncontrollable exhilaration was so overwhelming that tears unconsciously welled up.
Before anyone realized it, not a single monster remained standing around Damho and Jetoya.
They had been completely wiped out.
“Huff! Huff!”
Only then did Jetoya collapse onto the ground, gasping heavily.
His heart and lungs felt as though they were about to burst.
The taste of blood filled his mouth, and sweat poured from his entire body like rain.
His whole body was exhausted, leaving him without the strength to move even a finger.
Looking down at Jetoya, sprawled limply like a jellyfish washed ashore, Damho said,
“How long do you intend to waste time?”
“Huh?”
“Even resting must be done efficiently. Regulate your breathing.”
“Here?”
Jetoya looked at Damho with an incredulous expression.
But the moment he saw Damho’s indifferent face, he immediately sat cross-legged.
Then he began breathing exactly as Damho had taught him.
Ssshhh—
A pale mist rose from Jetoya’s body.
While Jetoya regulated his breathing, Damho stood guard.
He personally served as protector for his one and only disciple.
The mist pouring from Jetoya’s body gradually grew thicker.
Whether Damho would ever be able to return to his homeland remained unknown.
But if he truly did return someday, Jetoya would become the only gift he left behind in this world.
About thirty minutes later, the mist flowing from Jetoya’s body was drawn back into his pores.
What had looked like steam had in fact been Jetoya’s mana.
After completely recovering his mana, Jetoya stood up.
“Master!”
“If you’ve recovered, let’s go.”
“Yes!”
The two of them once again headed toward the area where the monsters were most densely gathered.
And behind them, the South District Awakened followed as though entranced.