The clicking of forty-one split jaws echoed through the narrow, stone-walled corridors of Ihwa-Dong like the rattling of dry dice.
The Ash-Weaver Ghouls did not possess human intelligence, but their collective, system-generated instinct recognized an absolute structural barrier. The human vessel standing barefoot on the stone steps was a void in their sensory ledger. He had no level, no mana footprint, and yet the kinetic shockwave of his casual right hand had just turned one-forty-second of their horde's total mass into inert grey fertilizer.
"GURRR—VRAAA!"
The front-line aberrations lunged simultaneously. They didn't stagger their advance or attempt a wide tactical flank; the geotric constraints of the narrow terrace staircases forced them into a tight, three-abreast column. Three eight-foot titans of calcified bone and liquid-rust mana descended upon Min-jae, their six charcoal scythe-blades cutting the air into a frantic, crisscrossing grid of burning black soot.
[Warning: Multiple 'Ash Plight' vectors are overlapping your coordinates!]
[The system calculates a 94% probability of physical degradation upon contact.]
Min-jae didn't retreat a single inch. He took half a step forward, his bare soles locking into the concrete step with the absolute, unyielding leverage of a hydraulic anchor. His [Golden Axis] spun along his spine with a smooth, infinite velocity, distributing the raw structural mass of his 120 Constitution across his entire fra.
He didn't draw upon his internal energy pool to cast a shield. He kept his hands open, his fingers relaxed.
Formless Style: Flowing Millstone.
With his Agility sitting at a massive 110, Min-jae’s arms did not just move—they blurred into a continuous, circular distortion that intersected the descending charcoal blades. He didn't block the strikes head-on; his bare palms caught the flat sides of the charcoal scythes, using the precise geotric leverage of his [Jade Bone] wrists to deflect their kinetic vectors outward into the stone walls of the alley.
CRACK-CRACK-CRUNCH.
The three Ghouls violently overbalanced, their charcoal blades buried deep into the brickwork of the abandoned houses, their liquid-rust mana channels sputtering as their montum was completely neutralized.
Before they could reset their stance, Min-jae stepped inside their combined guard. His movents were clinical, terrifyingly precise, and completely decoupled from the system's standard combat animations.
A short, lateral open-palm strike to the central core of the first Ghoul. A compact elbow thrust to the cervical matrix of the second. A sweeping low kick that sheared the calcified knees of the third cleanly off the concrete.
BOOM. CRASH. THUD.
Within less than four seconds, the three front-line aberrations violently disintegrated into three identical piles of coarse grey ash and bone fragnts that rained down across the lower steps.
[You have defeated three Level 38 Ash-Weaver Ghouls.]
[The Overmaster System converting entities' vital essence...]
[You have gained 36 points of 'True Ki'.]
[Current True Ki: 168 / 500]
"Next," Min-jae murmured, his voice a low, solid vibration that completely silenced the clicking jaws of the remaining horde.
He didn't wait for them to mount a secondary charge. Min-jae executed the first movent of the [Formless Step], his silhouette dissolving into a gray distortion as he launched himself downward, straight into the center of the column.
What followed was not a standard raid battle; it was a clinical deconstruction of a system parater. To Choi Sung-min and the civilians watching from the upper ridge of the sanctuary, it looked as if a lone, ivory-tinted shadow was systematically carving its way through a forest of charcoal wood. Every strike Min-jae delivered was compact, short-range, and carried the absolute chanical efficiency of a multi-ton press.
An open-palm wedge to an interlocking hip joint. A thumb-strike to a pulsing liquid-rust node. A double-fist hamr that collapsed two chest cavities simultaneously.
CRACK. BOOM. CRASH.
The Ash-Weaver Ghouls tried to swing their charcoal scythes, they tried to activate their stacking Ash Plight degradation modifiers, but their system-guided movents were simply too rigid. They relied on a screen code to tell their muscles how to move, while Min-jae operated on pure, unadulterated geotry and physical leverage. He slipped into their blind spots before their internal data tracks could even register his velocity.
Ten ghouls. Twenty ghouls. Thirty ghouls.
The stone staircase of Ihwa-Dong was completely buried beneath a thick, foot-deep layer of non-magical grey ash that drifted away on the midnight breeze like dry snow.
When the last remaining Aberration—a slightly larger vanguard leader standing nine feet tall—attempted a desperate, dual-scythe overhead execution strike, Min-jae didn't even lift his hands to parry.
He took a single, precise three-inch step forward, allowing the two burning charcoal blades to slice through empty air a re hair's breadth from his left ear. He drove his right fist straight forward in a short, compact punch that didn't displace a single wisp of the surrounding ash smoke.
Formless Style: Sovereign Rupture.
THUD.
The punch caught the giant square in the center of its calcified skull matrix. The raw 100 points of his Strength traveled cleanly through the bone structures, the kinetic shockwave violently erasing the central mana core holding the aberration together.
CRASH-CLANK.
The final titan of the horde burst outward into a cloud of fine grey dust that blanketed the lower terrace line.
[You have completely defeated forty-two Level 38 Ash-Weaver Ghouls.]
[The Overmaster System aggressively converting entities' vital essence...]
[You have gained 504 points of 'True Ki'!]
[CRITICAL ALERT: Your True Ki pool has exceeded its current maximum capacity!]
[Current True Ki: 672 / 500]
[Your 'Golden Axis' is experiencing massive volutric compression stress!]
A profound, suffocating heat blood deep within Min-jae’s chest cavity. The 672 units of highly concentrated golden force were spinning through his twelve ignited channels with such terrifying velocity that his skin took on a blinding, translucent tallic brilliance that illuminated the dark mountain ridge for half a mile around.
He slowly turned his head to look up at the upper ridge, his golden-ringed pupils flaring with an unyielding, predatory brilliance as his internal engine prepared to force the excess energy into the next boundary layer of his vessel.
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