The Orc Chieftain wallowed in the crater of its own making, all six of its eyes wide with a mixture of concussive shock and unadulterated fury. Its remaining two heads snapped violently from side to side, coughing up black, tusk-stained bile. No mortal weapon had pierced its flesh, yet its entire left side felt as though it had been liquified by a siege engine.
To a creature born from a dimension where might dictated the laws of reality, being brought to its knees by a hairless, mana-less ape was a metaphysical insult.
"GURRAAAAH!"
The central head unleashed a roar that vibrated the very teeth of the onlookers. Shunning the broken executionerâs axe, the Chieftain drove its right hand into the concrete, ripping a jagged, four-hundred-pound chunk of stone from the plaza floor. With a sickening crunch of its back muscles, it hurled the boulder straight at Min-jaeâs chest from point-blank range.
The air shrieked as the massive stone projectile tore through the space between them.
"Look out!" the Helios Mage screamed instinctively.
Min-jae didn't even blink. His Perception stat of 15 tracked the erratic, spinning trajectory of the boulder down to the millisecond. Stepping back wasn't an optionâthe air pressure behind the stone would create a vacuum that would disrupt his stance.
Instead, he took half a step forward, sinking his weight into his rear leg. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, forming a rigid, triangular wedge with his forearms.
Formless Style: Deflecting Mountain.
The boulder slammed into his crossed arms. But instead of crushing his bones, the kinetic energy met a mathematically perfect slope. Min-jae twisted his hips by a fraction of an inch at the exact moment of impact, converting the brute force of the projectile into a rotational spin.
CRASH.
The massive stone exploded into fragments, deflected harmlessly to his left and right, leaving Min-jae completely unscathed. The sheer 20 points of his Constitution had absorbed the remaining vibrations, turning the lethal impact into nothing more than a stiff breeze that rustled his hair.
Before the dust from the shattered rock could even settle, Min-jae blurred forward.
[Active Skill Initiated: 'Formless Step'.]
The Orc Chieftain, still recovering from the strain of throwing the boulder, saw a human silhouette appear directly in front of its central face.
Min-jaeâs remaining 5 units of
True Ki
erupted from his core, flowing through his right arm until his veins glowed with a faint, internal gold. He coiled his fist back, his entire body compressing like a massive iron spring. He didn't look at the monster's face; he looked at the invisible nexus where the three necks joined the main collarbone matrixâthe structural keystone of the anomaly's anatomy.
"This is the difference between an earned fist and a granted sword," Min-jae said coldly.
Formless Style: Sovereign Rupture.
He drove his fist forward.
The punch was silent. There was no flashy explosion of light, no system-generated shockwave animation. It was the absolute, pure delivery of 22 points of Strength and highly compressed internal force into a space smaller than a coin.
Thud.
The sound was remarkably quiet, like a wooden mallet striking a hanging carpet.
The Orc Chieftainâs central head froze. The furious roar stuck in its throat. A microsecond later, a series of muffled, wet explosions rattled deep inside the creature's chest. The golden
True Ki
didn't punch through its thick leather hide; it echoed inward, turning the monsterâs internal organs, its secondary nervous pathways, and its central mana core into a slurry of useless flesh and shattered data.
The six glowing crimson eyes of the Chieftain went dark simultaneously.
The massive, nine-foot-tall iron-bound body stood rigid for a single, breathless second, before collapsing forward like a demolished building, slamming face-first into the ruined concrete at Min-jaeâs feet.
[You have defeated a Level 22 Mutated Vanguard Commander (C-Rank Anomaly).]
[The Overmaster System converting high-density vital essence...]
[Conversion successful. Purging foreign data matrix.]
[You have gained 20 points of 'True Ki'.]
[Your True Ki pool has expanded! Current Capacity: 20 / 30]
[Hidden Scenario: 'The Pioneer of True Force' has been concluded.]
[Evaluating contribution... 100% Solo Kill of an Anomaly.]
[Reward: Passive Skill 'Iron Thread Meridian' has been unlocked.]
A sudden, fierce heat bloomed in Min-jae's chest. The 20 new units of
True Ki
didn't just pool in his stomach; they began to run along his nervous system like liquid gold, carving out new, permanent pathways that reinforced his inner anatomy. His breathing grew even deeper, the rhythm of the
Primordial Core
expanding his chest cavity until his skin took on a faint, healthy luster.
Min-jae exhaled a long stream of grey, stagnant vapor from his mouth, completely ignoring the notifications as he looked down at his right hand. The split skin on his knuckles was already closing, the raw vitality of his new meridian system sewing the flesh back together within seconds.
"Hey... you..."
A weak, coughing voice dragged him out of his internal assessment.
Min-jae turned around. Park Jin-woo was propped up against the base of the stone monument, his expensive silver armor caved in at the chest, a trail of dark blood running down his chin. The future master of the Helios Guild looked at Min-jae with wide, bloodshot eyes filled with a terrifying mixture of humiliation, envy, and desperation.
"What... what class are you?" Jin-woo wheezed, his fingers clawing at the concrete as he tried to look at Min-jae's status screenâwhich, to him, appeared as an unreadable blur of golden static. "The system... it didn't announce your awakening. Where did you get that strength? Who instructed you?"
To Jin-woo, who believed the World Tree System was the absolute arbiter of human value, Min-jaeâs existence was a logical paradox. He had an A-Rank class, yet he had been broken like a twig, while this unranked, unarmored commoner had slaughtered a calamity boss with his bare hands.
Min-jae walked over to where Jin-wooâs glowing steel broadsword lay in the dirt. He picked it up by the hilt. The sword hummed, a blue prompt appearing before his eyes.
[Item: Blessed Steel Broadsword (Rare-Grade)]
[Requirement: 30 Mana or Knight Class.]
[Warning: User lacks the required energy source. Item efficiency reduced to 0%.]
"A pretty toy," Min-jae murmured.
With a casual flick of his wrist, he circulated a single unit of
True Ki
into the blade. The pure, physical pressure of his internal energy violently clashed with the delicate, synthetic mana woven into the steel.
CRACK.
The rare-grade broadsword spider-webbed with fractures before shattering into a dozen useless pieces of scrap metal, dropping into the dust.
Jin-woo gasped, his face turning entirely pale. He felt the destruction of his weapon through his system link, a chunk of his own mana pool forcefully draining away. "You... you crazy bastard... do you know how much that cost to materialize?!"
Min-jae looked down at him, his expression devoid of hatred, anger, or pity. It was the same look an experienced mechanic gave a poorly calibrated machine.
"You rely too much on the screen, Park Jin-woo," Min-jae said, his voice carrying the heavy, resonant undertone of his newly forged meridians. "You think because the system gave you a grade, you own the power. But the moment an anomaly appearsâthe moment the rules changeâyou're just a child holding a heavy stick."
"What do you know?!" Jin-woo snarled, coughing up more blood. "I am an A-Rank! The government... the guilds... they will need me to lead!"
"Then lead from the back," Min-jae said, turning his back on the future guild leader. "Because if you stand in front of me with that weak foundation again, the next thing I break won't be your sword."
Min-jae stepped away, his body blurring into a grey mist as he executed the
Formless Step
, leaving the frozen members of the Helios squad alone in the quiet, blood-soaked plaza.
He didn't care about their politics or their future guilds. The timeline had mutated. A C-Rank boss had appeared on day one. It meant that the world wasn't going to give him ten years to get ready this time. If he wanted to become undefeated, he had to reach the next realm before the gates truly began to open.