Sand Mage of the Burnt Desert Chapter 669

Chapter 669

Jetoya fell, then got back up again dozens, hundreds of times.

Damho's training method was truly brutal.

He personally sparred with Jetoya, correcting every movement of his style.

Zeon did not know much about how martial-type Awakeners trained, but there was one thing he knew for certain.

Not a single martial-type Awakener of the current era trained like this.

With the convenient tool known as skills, there was no reason to rely on another person's strength.

Skills improved and evolved on their own. There was no need to borrow someone else's power to master them.

But what Damho was teaching was different.

Not once did he utter the word .

It was as if he had never learned such a thing to begin with.

Instead, he claimed that skills were obstacles that blocked the path to greater heights.

Speaking words Zeon could not understand, Damho relentlessly drove Jetoya forward.

“A martial artist whose thinking is trapped by form can never hope to advance. Think only of your fist... and your enemy.”

The enemy Damho spoke of was himself.

He had Jetoya continue throwing punches at him.

Close the distance in a single step, then launch the punch along the shortest path.

No matter how foolish someone was, after repeating the same movement hundreds of times, they would inevitably become familiar with it.

Much less Jetoya, who was no fool and was a martial-type Awakener.

After being knocked away hundreds of times, he had gained an insight.

He was beginning to grasp what Damho was trying to teach him.

Bang!

The air exploded from his punch.

Even though he had not used a skill.

At that moment, Jetoya felt tremendous exhilaration.

The joy of breaking through a wall through nothing but his own strength.

Damho pressed him even harder.

“More!”

“You lack the force to drive off the earth.”

“Are you saving your strength to take it with you when you die?”

It was instruction engraved into the body.

Whenever Jetoya's movements were even slightly off or his strength scattered, Damho's fist came flying.

Before long, Jetoya's entire body was covered in dark bruises.

Only because he was a martial-type Awakener could he endure it. An ordinary person would have collapsed—or died—long ago.

But in the end, even Jetoya reached his limit.

“Graaah!”

With a hoarse cry, he collapsed unconscious.

Damho gently caught Jetoya's falling body.

After looking at him with a brief expression of pity, Damho turned his gaze toward Zeon.

Zeon had been holding his breath and watching quietly, but Damho had already sensed his arrival.

“I've heard there's something called a potion. Could you get me one?”

“I happen to have one.”

Zeon took a Healing Potion out of his subspace and handed it to Damho.

It was Brieel's specially made potion.

Damho carefully fed the Healing Potion to Jetoya.

As expected of a potion personally made by Brieel, its effects appeared almost immediately.

The dark bruises covering Jetoya's body disappeared, and color returned to his face.

Once Damho judged that Jetoya had recovered enough, he carefully laid him on the floor.

Then he began massaging Jetoya's body with his hands.

Seeing Zeon's puzzled expression, Damho explained,

“This is a technique called acupressure on the meridians. By channeling qi into the hands and kneading the entire body like this, the circulation of qi becomes smoother and the body's recovery ability increases. My master used to do this for me as well.”

“Have you accepted Jetoya as your disciple?”

“I sensed martial talent.”

“Does this 'martial talent' mean aptitude?”

“That's right. It means the talent to learn martial arts.”

“Are these martial arts the skills you've mastered?”

“They aren't skills. They are simply methods of becoming stronger. Martial arts are the methods that strengthen humans through extreme training.”

Zeon looked puzzled at Damho's indifferent answer.

“You're saying that any ordinary human can become as strong as you without skills?”

“With proper teachings, a proper master, and proper martial talent, it's possible.”

“Can Jetoya become as strong as you?”

“No one knows that. But there is one thing I can say with certainty.”

“What is it?”

“If he trains according to the methods I've engraved into him, then one day Jetoya will become stronger than any martial-type Awakener in Neo Seoul.”

“Hmm.”

Zeon let out a low murmur.

He could tell that Damho's words were anything but empty boasts.

As he brushed the hair back from the unconscious Jetoya's forehead, Damho said,

“I don't know how long I'll remain in this world, but I'd like to leave behind at least some trace that I was here. Jetoya will become that trace.”

---

Chapler was leading a monster hunting team.

His mission, under contract with City Hall, was to patrol the area around the open-air mana stone mine and hunt monsters.

The open-air mana stone mine had now become a fortress.

Tall defensive walls had been built, so there was little need to worry about ordinary monsters breaking in. Even so, it was Chapler's duty to regularly eliminate the monsters in the surrounding area to keep it safe.

All monster byproducts belonged to Chapler and his hunting team.

Since City Hall covered all operational expenses, it was an unbelievably lucrative contract for the monster hunting team.

Naturally, the bidding competition had been fierce.

Having defeated every competitor to become the new team responsible for hunting monsters around the mana stone mine, Chapler wore a bright smile.

After signing the contract with City Hall, Chapler recruited numerous Awakeners into the hunting team.

Every one of them was a veteran, a true expert at hunting monsters.

Chapler divided his two hundred members into three teams to patrol around the mana stone mine.

Today, Team One, led by Chapler, was scheduled to patrol the northern sector.

Their patrol radius extended fifty kilometers from the open-air mana stone mine.

Chapler glanced behind him.

Five buggies, two large armored buses, and a huge truck for carrying monster byproducts followed behind.

The buggies and armored buses were packed with heavily armed Awakeners.

With this much firepower, they would not be outmatched anywhere.

It was enough strength to wipe out any ordinary monster horde in an instant.

Grinning to reveal his yellow teeth, Chapler laughed.

“If we keep earning like this, before long we'll be able to establish our own base in the Steel Fortress or the Primordial Forest.”

The dream of every raid force and guild was to establish their own base in the Primordial Forest or the Steel Fortress.

Every district and every major guild already had bases in both places.

Thanks to that, they were growing explosively.

But it still wasn't too late.

There was still space to build bases in both the Steel Fortress and the Primordial Forest.

If they paid the proper price, Chapler's monster hunting team could establish one as well.

To build up the necessary funds, Chapler encouraged his subordinates once again today.

At that moment, one of them spoke.

“Come to think of it, we've practically wiped out all the monsters around here lately. You can barely find any near the mana stone mine anymore.”

“Then should we go a little farther out? Wouldn't that be dangerous?”

“It's only another few dozen kilometers at most, isn't it?”

“Hmm.”

“If anything happens, we can always retreat to the mana stone mine. Let's go a little farther. Who knows? We might run into a mid-sized monster. We'd make far more money from one of those than from hunting hundreds of small fry.”

“That's true enough.”

Chapler pretended to ponder.

But he had already made his decision.

They had already come fifty kilometers from the mana stone mine. Going another few dozen kilometers was hardly a big deal.

Chapler gave the order.

“Alright! Let's go.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Hahaha!”

His subordinates cheered at the thought of going farther.

The farther they moved from the mana stone mine, the greater their chances of finding rare monsters.

The rarer and stronger the monsters they hunted, the greater their rewards.

There was no reason not to go.

In the end, Chapler and the monster hunting team crossed beyond the fifty-kilometer boundary.

About ten kilometers beyond it, they spotted a pack of wolves with flames burning in their mouths.

“Everyone, prepare for battle!”

“A pack of Flame Wolves!”

The Awakeners moved into battle formation with perfect coordination.

There was not a trace of fear on their faces.

Instead, dopamine surged through them at the anticipation of hunting monsters to their hearts' content.

The Flame Wolf pack was certainly a dangerous opponent.

But only when they held the numerical advantage.

Chapler's monster hunting team numbered seventy members, each equipped with excellent weapons.

There was no reason for them to fear a mere pack of low-grade Flame Wolves.

To them, the Flame Wolves were nothing more than an appetizer before the main course.

“Move!”

“Waaah!”

Chapler and the Awakeners leapt from their vehicles and charged the Flame Wolf pack.

—Kwooo!

—Kraaa!

The Flame Wolves charged without retreating.

Low-grade or not, monsters were still monsters.

Without a shred of fear, they rushed madly toward the Awakeners.

Boom!

Thud!

With explosive impacts, humans and monsters collided.

The Awakeners' swords and blades tore through the Flame Wolves' bodies.

The Flame Wolves opened their huge jaws to tear out the Awakeners' throats, but the Awakeners, protected by armor made from cutting-edge materials, suffered no injuries.

The Flame Wolves' teeth left only deep gouges in the armor.

At that moment—

Boom!

—Yelp!

With a deafening explosion, the Flame Wolf trying to bite an Awakener exploded.

A mana particle cannon mounted on the roof of an armored bus had struck it.

The roof of the armored bus was equipped with a mana particle cannon, while dozens of machine guns capable of firing anti-monster rounds were mounted along its lower sides.

They were ineffective against mid-grade monsters and above, but against creatures like Flame Wolves, they were devastating.

Under the combined assault of the Awakeners and the armored buses, the Flame Wolf pack collapsed helplessly.

—Kwaaang!

—Keong!

The Flame Wolves died one after another with pitiful cries.

Meanwhile, the Awakeners' momentum reached its peak.

“Woohoo!”

“How do you like that, you monster bastards!”

Stepping on the corpses of the Flame Wolves, they burst into loud laughter.

Chapler smirked.

“Quit fooling around and load the carcasses onto the transport truck before other monsters catch the scent.”

“Heh! Wouldn't it be even better if they smelled the blood and came to us? Saves us the trouble of searching.”

“Exactly!”

“Hehehe!”

The Awakeners laughed and joked with blood-splattered faces.

Chapler smiled as he watched them.

He had said it, but in truth he never expected other monsters to actually follow the scent of blood all the way here.

Then—

Suddenly, the cries of monsters echoed from somewhere.

“Fuck! What the hell?”

“Did they seriously come because they smelled the blood?”

The Awakeners immediately assumed battle positions.

The next instant, monsters appeared atop the sand dunes.

The relaxed expressions vanished, replaced by deathly pale faces.

“How is that even possible?”

“Where the hell did so many monsters come from?”

Countless monsters packed the ridge.

At a glance, there seemed to be well over several thousand.

Flame Wolves, Great-Horned Hyenas, and countless other species were mixed together.

The appearance of the unexpected monster army forced Chapler and the Awakeners to instinctively take several steps backward.

“Fuck!”

“Goddamn it! Are you kidding me?”

Rumble!

The next moment, the monster horde charged toward them like a tidal wave.

The Awakeners who had displayed overwhelming might against the Flame Wolf pack were swept away by the monstrous army before they could even scream.

The same scene unfolded simultaneously across countless parts of the desert.