The Mutated Shadow Wolf did not stay down.
With a guttural, wet roar that sprayed dark blood and purple sparks across the crushed sedan, the beast forced its massive hind legs to flex. The sheer kinetic energy of its thrashing shattered the car’s remaining windows into a million glittering shards. It rolled off the ruined vehicle, its crimson eyes fixed on Min-jae with a terrifying, intelligent hatred.
It was a D-Rank predator. On day one of the Convergence, a monster of this caliber was effectively a god to the unawakened populace. Its pride had been deeply wounded by a at-sack that didn't even possess a drop of visible mana.
Hiss...
The ink-like fur along the wolf’s spine began to stand on end. The surrounding shadows—cast by the abandoned cars and the looming skyscrapers under the curdled red sky—began to stretch and bend, creeping across the asphalt toward the beast like living liquid. It was absorbing the ambient darkness to regenerate its fractured jaw and reinforce its hide.
Min-jae stood ten paces away, his breath coming in asured, heavy cycles.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
His right knuckle was split, dripping thick, crimson blood onto the pavent. Without True Ki to buffer the impact, striking a D-Rank monster's bone structure was like punching a block of reinforced concrete. The skin had peeled back, exposing the pale gleam of his bone. Yet, thanks to his advanced 10 points in Constitution, his hand hadn't shattered. The structural alignnt of his wrist had held firm.
"Grrrrr..." The Shadow Wolf lowered its torso, its claws digging deep furrows into the solid asphalt.
It’s abandoning its magic projectiles, Min-jae analyzed, his perception expanding to catch the subtle shift in the beast's center of gravity. It realizes I can exploit the activation delay. It’s going to rely on raw, physical speed and shadow-shrouded lee.
Fshhh!
The wolf vanished.
It didn't just run; it literally rged with the encroaching shadows. A dark, localized blur zipped across the pavent at a speed that completely transcended mortal reaction tis. To a normal human eye, it would look like a phantom teleportation.
Left flank. Three o'clock.
Min-jae didn't look with his eyes; he listened with his skin. The subtle displacent of air pressure and the faint sll of ozone gave the beast away.
He threw his torso backward, pivoting on his left heel just as a massive, shadow-coated claw swept through the space his chest had occupied a millisecond prior. The wind generated by the strike was so sharp it cut a clean line across the fabric of his black t-shirt, leaving a faint red scratch on his skin.
Before Min-jae could even reset his stance, the wolf twisted mid-air with impossible, magical agility. Its massive, heavy tail—thick as a tree trunk and wrapped in razor-sharp shadow tendrils—ca whipping around in a brutal, horizontal back-hand strike.
There was no ti to dodge. The arc was too wide.
Min-jae crossed his forearms in front of his face, locking his elbows tightly against his ribs, clamping his jaw shut, and driving his weight down into his heels.
BOOM.
The impact sounded like a sledgehamr hitting an anvil. The sheer, unadulterated weight of the D-Rank beast propelled Min-jae backward. His running shoes skidded violently across the asphalt, smoking from the friction as he was dragged ten yards across the road, leaving two deep, black rubber burns on the street.
"Khh!"
Min-jae lowered his arms. His forearms were bruised a deep, angry purple, and the flesh was bleeding where the shadow tendrils had scraped his skin. His internal organs jarred against his ribs, a tallic taste of copper rising in the back of his throat. He forced himself to spit the blood out, refusing to let it disrupt his breathing rhythm.
[Warning: Your Constitution is absorbing severe blunt-force trauma.]
[Current Integrity: 74%]
[The 'Mortal Flesh' barrier is reaching its structural threshold.]
"Shut up," Min-jae growled internally at the system prompt. "I know."
The wolf didn't give him a chance to breathe. Sensing its opponent was injured, the beast leaped high into the air, its massive fra blotting out the red sun. It extended its front claws, intending to pin Min-jae to the earth and crush him under its multi-ton weight.
Min-jae looked up at the descending mass of muscle and shadows. He could use Formless Step to dive out of the way, but his instinct—honed by a decade of desperate combat—told him that the mont he rolled, the wolf's shadow tendrils would expand, binding his limbs to the ground.
He had to et it head-on. He had to break the beast's montum, or he would be eaten alive.
But I don't have enough physical strength to match a D-Rank kinetic drop, Min-jae thought. Unless...
He turned his internal gaze toward his lower abdon. The True Ki pool was sitting at an absolute zero. But the Breathing of the Primordial Core was still operating at maximum capacity, churning the air inside his lungs, drawing out every scrap of biological energy his cells could provide.
The system had said his physical attributes were capped for the 'Mortal Flesh' realm. It ant his body was hiding latent reserves—energy that a human brain normally kept locked away to prevent the body from tearing its own muscles off the bone.
"If I can't generate Ki from the atmosphere," Min-jae whispered, his eyes narrowing into two icy points of absolute resolve, "then I'll squeeze it out of my own life force."
He intentionally forced his heart to accelerate. Not in a panic, but in a controlled, violent surge.
Thump-thump-thump!
[Warning! User is attempting to force a 'Limit Break' without sufficient energy reserves!]
[Risks include: Permanent cardiovascular damage, ridian collapse, Cellular necrosis.]
[Do you wish to proceed? (Y/N)]
"Execute!" Min-jae roared aloud.
A profound, golden flash erupted within his mind's eye. The golden interface didn't just display text; it shattered into a thousand needles that pierced every major nerve cluster in his body.
[Forced Limit Break Activated.]
[Extracting latent potential from the 'Mortal Flesh' vessel...]
[You have generated 1 Unit of 'Overmaster True Ki' (Compressed).]
It was just one unit. But unlike the raw, wild Ki he had harvested from the goblins, this single unit was forged from his own sheer willpower and structural agony. It was pure gold, dense as liquid sun.
The energy flooded his arms. The purple bruises on his forearms instantly faded, the ruptured capillaries sealing shut as the golden current supercharged his muscular cells.
The Shadow Wolf was now only three feet above him, its maw open, its foul, acidic breath washing over his face.
Min-jae didn't step back. He stepped forward, directly into the shadow of the descending beast. He dropped his weight into a deep, stable horse stance, his left foot shattering the concrete beneath his shoe to anchor his entire existence to the earth.
He drew his right fist back to his hip. The golden True Ki didn't leave his body; it compressed further, wrapping around his knuckles until the air around his hand began to hum with a high-pitched, vibrating frequency.
Formless Style: Internal Rupture.
Min-jae unleashed the punch.
It wasn't a wide hook or a flashy haymaker. It was a straight, compact thrust directed at the exact center of the wolf's descending chest—right where its magic core resided.
BOOOM!
The collision generated a visible, circular shockwave of displaced air that cleared the dust and debris from the street for thirty yards around them. The heavy delivery truck nearby rocked on its axles from the sheer atmospheric displacent.
The wolf’s downward montum stopped instantly. It was suspended in mid-air, pinned against the sky by the tip of Min-jae’s fist.
For a microsecond, there was absolute silence. Then, the golden True Ki coating Min-jae's knuckles exploded inward.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
The energy didn't shatter the wolf's external hide; it bypassed it entirely through the logic of pure martial arts. The kinetic force traveled along the beast's skeletal structure, converting the density of its own magic armor into a destructive internal vibration. The wolf's ribs shattered into dust. Its lungs collapsed. And finally, the deep purple magic core inside its chest cavity fractured, spider-webbing with golden cracks before detonating into a harmless shower of inert sparks.
"Awooo... g-gah..."
The Shadow Wolf let out a pathetic, broken whimper. The crimson light in its eyes flickered violently before going entirely dark.
Min-jae retracted his fist. The massive, lifeless body of the beast fell forward, slamming heavily onto the asphalt at his feet, completely motionless. A thick pool of dark, non-magical blood slowly expanded from beneath its chest, staining the ruined street.
[You have defeated a Level 15 Mutated Shadow Wolf (D-Rank Anomaly).]
[The Overmaster System converting entity's high-density vital essence...]
[Conversion successful. The 'Pure Martial' path absorbs the anomaly.]
[You have gained 10 points of 'True Ki'.]
[Your True Ki pool has reached its current maximum capacity: 10 / 10]
[Condition t: First Anomaly Slain with Zero Mana.]
[Unlocking the hidden criteria for 'Mortal Flesh (Stage 1)' Perfection...]
[All physical attributes are undergoing a forced evolutionary recalibration!]
Min-jae didn't fall to his knees this ti. As the 10 units of dense, pure True Ki surged into his core, his entire body was flooded with a profound, intoxicating warmth. The exhaustion from the limit-break vanished instantly, replaced by a strength so absolute it made his previous level-12 self feel like a fragile insect.
He stood in the center of the ruined avenue, surrounded by smoke, abandoned vehicles, and the corpse of a D-Rank monster.
A short distance away, the young woman who had been trapped beneath the delivery truck stared at him, her jaw slack, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and awe. She had witnessed everything—a man who didn't use a single spell, who didn't chant a single incantation, slaying a nightmare with nothing but a bare fist.
Min-jae didn't look back at her. He turned his head toward the swirling, violet vortex of the Gwanghwamun Gate. The rifts were still pulsing, and the world was still panicking.
But as he flexed his pristine, uninjured golden knuckles, Kang Min-jae knew one thing for certain.
This ti, the at-shield was going to be the one doing the crushing.
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