The real challenge began after descending to the third floor via the emergency stairs.
Even before opening the door, he could sense the presence of soldiers.
Expanding his Aura Sense further, he roughly counted about twenty people.
Among them, about fifteen were moving around, or so it seemed.
Taking them down wasn’t a concern.
The problem was that they weren’t all gathered in one spot but stationed all around…
If even the slightest sound was made and a guard in another location noticed the intrusion, the entire Bucheon City Hall would be alerted, and eventually, the main base would also learn of his presence.
At times like this, he wished he had some form of stealth technique, but Projection Step was far from stealth—it was more like loudly announcing, “Hey, I’m here!” with its flashy movement style, making it useless for sneaking around.
Could he suppress his presence using internal energy?
No way. Yohan’s understanding of internal energy wasn’t high enough to pull off such an impromptu move without training.
“What should I do…? Oh right, there’s Ghost Step! How could I forget something so useful?”
Yohan recalled Ghost Step, a technique he had learned but rarely used, and almost forgotten.
At that moment—
Thud.
A faint vibration spread through the entire building.
“An earthquake? No way.”
It was nothing like an earthquake.
Sure enough, Yohan’s hearing caught the guards’ voices.
“Hey, we’re screwed. Another dragon-like creature appeared.”
“What are you talking about, Lieutenant? No radio messages have come through.”
“Sergeant Kim, the radio might be down. Damn it. I was just smoking and saw it outside the window.”
“You heard wrong?”
“I saw it! Where’s Jongshik? Jongshik! Radio operator!”
“Private Kim, Jongshik!”
“Send a radio message to the Commander immediately! A dragon-like monster appeared in front of City Hall!”
“What?”
“What? Are you kidding? A soldier saying ‘What?’ like that?”
“Sorry, I’ll send the message right away.”
Hearing the soldiers’ conversation, Yohan immediately made his way to the top floor of City Hall and headed to the rooftop.
“Damn it…!”
Beyond Bucheon City Hall, specifically in the direction of Yaktaedong, a massive presence had appeared.
As darkness was falling, it looked like a huge mountain, but Yohan’s expression immediately soured when he focused his internal energy.
“…A turtle?”
It was an enormous turtle.
Although it looked even more monstrous than a turtle, anyone could tell it was a turtle.
The creature stretched its four legs and craned its head out from inside a shell so solid it seemed like it wouldn’t budge even if hit by a nuclear missile.
Using his scout device, Yohan confirmed the monster’s power level was 25,000.
“Oof…”
Despite the high power level, it appeared clumsy, so it didn’t seem intimidating at first glance, but it was even more daunting to fight than Drake.
Wooooooaaaaaahhh!
The turtle monster, its head raised to the sky, let out a terrifying roar that shook Yohan’s eardrums.
“No, no, what the…?”
Yohan covered his ears, his eyes wide open.
The turtle moved.
No, it ran.
Though slow for its size, the creature was surprisingly fast.
Well, compared to its massive body, it seemed slow, but even slight movement from something that big was incredibly fast—laughably faster than any human runner.
The problem was that this creature was heading straight toward them.
-To the troops in Bucheon City Hall: There is no way to counter the giant monster. All personnel are to evacuate immediately, taking only essential supplies and equipment, and move to the main base. I repeat: Effective immediately…
With a siren blaring, a loud voice echoed through City Hall, likely from someone using a megaphone.
The sound of marching boots filled the entire City Hall, and below, soldiers hurriedly gathered.
-Ah, no, it’s moving faster than expected. Run immediately! Get into vehicles!
Yohan noticed the turtle was gaining speed.
He had no idea why the creature was heading to City Hall, but he knew he had to get out quickly.
He glanced around and saw soldiers gathering in the parking lot, about to run in the opposite direction but hesitated.
“Wait, there’s no guarantee it’ll definitely reach City Hall, right?”
Who could understand a monster’s mind?
It could change its mind and stop or head somewhere else.
Now was his chance.
“While the soldiers are busy evacuating, I need to take care of the command center properly.”
Yohan hurried down the stairs to the third floor.
Since the situation was urgent, he sensed no soldiers nearby and opened the door to find the command center.
It was the largest room, so it wasn’t hard to find.
Throwing the door open, Yohan stared at the command center showing live feeds and unleashed Asura Blood God Palm to shatter all the screens.
“Think this will make it impossible to restore?”
Tilting his head in doubt, Yohan stepped back and used Asura Blood God Palm to demolish the entire command center.
“No, no, that’s not enough.”
Still unsatisfied, Yohan located the communication terminal box, smashed it to pieces, and then stepped back.
No matter how advanced the military was, there was no way they could recover the CCTV after this.
“Oh dear.”
As the overwhelming aura closed in, Yohan opened the window on the opposite side and jumped out.
Bang!
Rumble rumble rumble.
By a hair’s breadth, just as Yohan leapt out and stepped back using Projection Step, the building collapsed with a crash.
Woooaahhhh!
Through the dust, the turtle revealed itself and seemed intent on continuing its frightening charge forward.
“Wait, if it keeps going straight, it’ll get close to our shelter.”
It was hard to believe it would go that far, but the shelter wasn’t so far away that a person couldn’t walk there—and there was no rule saying the creature wouldn’t.
Right.
Yohan gathered all his internal energy and unleashed Asura Blood God Palm Fifth Form: Suranodo at the turtle monster.
“Wow…!”
Perhaps recognizing the power of Suranodo, the creature instantly withdrew its head and limbs into its shell.
The solid shell only suffered minor scratches from the attack, without a single crack or fracture.
Seeing it up close stirred Yohan’s fighting spirit.
A red Heavenly Demon’s Strong Energy ignited throughout his body, and he began unleashing it frantically.
Bang! Kwang! Kwaaaang!
A red burst of Strong Vital Energy hammered the turtle’s shell but to no avail; the shell showed no signs of breaking.
“What is this thing made of?”
Pouring so much power into his dantian that it felt overwhelming, Yohan gathered the last of his internal energy to form a spear shaft of Heavenly Demon Strong Energy in his Heavenly Demon Spear.
He focused all his internal energy into the razor-sharp Heavenly Demon Spear and aimed it at the one spot on the shell with the minor scratch.
Just as he swung the spear toward that spot—
Kkiririk.
The turtle’s shell moved.
Like a perfectly solved cube, the hexagonal plates of the shell shifted one by one until eight plates fully opened.
Thud thud thud!
Through the open shell, something began to emerge.
“What the hell is that?”
Yohan’s eyes widened in shock.
What the turtle spat out were more monsters.
They looked similar to the giant turtle monster, with hard shells like turtles, but had long legs and walked on their hind legs, while their front legs ended in long claws, showing hostility toward Yohan.
“Ninja Turtles?”
He never imagined a monster could spawn other monsters.
Meanwhile, the giant turtle continued spewing out small turtles nonstop.
Just counting the ones that popped out, there were easily over a hundred.
Now he understood why the creature was running toward them.
It was aiming to set up a base like a command center in the vast flatland of Central Park and spawn units.
“Where do you think you’re going, you little brats!”
Seeing the small turtles rush at him, Yohan swung his Heavenly Demon Spear and instantly cut down five heads before retreating.
In the meantime, the giant turtle had already spat out another batch of small turtles.
“This won’t do.”
The internal energy he poured into trying to break the turtle’s shell hadn’t yet recovered.
Even though Heavenly Demon Divine Art allows internal energy to build naturally without practice, the difference between that and active internal energy cultivation was huge.
He could absorb the Power Stones from the monsters he killed to keep fighting, but unless he killed the giant turtle, it would be like pouring water into a bottomless pit.
Watching the mass of ninja turtles rush toward him, Yohan finally turned and fled.
Heading back to the shelter, Yohan thought about the giant turtle.
Things might change once he ascended to the Heavenly Demon Divine Art Second Stage, but for now, it had a shell so solid that no amount of attacks from him or his entire family would break through.
It seemed slow, but its reflexes were sharp when reacting to attacks.
Its sheer size was enough to kill on contact, and thankfully, it didn’t appear to have any powerful breath attacks.
Of course, spawning hundreds of human-sized small turtles offset that advantage and then some…
“Wait a minute.”
“A walking aircraft carrier.”
On top of that, it had strong defense on its own without needing escorts like a cruiser.
“How do you kill something like this?”
He could try hiding and praying it wouldn’t invade their shelter, hoping the threat would vanish if the fight never happened.
But that monster’s title was far too tempting.
Right now, every title, ability, and item was desperately needed.
There was a military force boasting overwhelming firepower and manpower that had turned a dragon into scrap, and this kind of force would only grow.
Yohan’s faction was just his family.
Unless he could train an elite few to be a one-man army, survival with such limited numbers would become increasingly difficult.
***
“Dad! Wow! That thing’s huge!”
As soon as he arrived at the shelter carrying Drake’s Power Stone from the warehouse, Sejeong’s eyes widened as she stared at the stone in Yohan’s hands.
Yohan patted Sejeong’s head and said,
“Dad caught a dragon.”
“Wow, really? No wonder it was exploding and all! Did you do that, Dad?”
“No, that wasn’t me. That was the soldiers.”
“There are still soldiers around?”
“Exactly. Dad didn’t even know at first. What about the others?”
“They went to move stuff in the mountains!”
“You left her alone?”
“No, we have Janggooni and Meonggooni!”
As Sejeong smiled brightly, the two who recognized their names perked up their ears and ran toward Yohan.
Spitz and Pomeranian, resembling common neighborhood dogs in size and appearance, were actually monsters that could toy with most humans effortlessly.
[7,300]
[7,321]
If they were this strong already… how strong was Menggun’s Mother? At least twice as strong, surely.
Beyond strength, their loyalty was exceptional, and they had now become guardian dogs protecting Sejeong, who was especially dear to them.
For Yohan’s household, which always had to keep a full power reserve because of Sejeong, their presence was welcome.
That aside…
“Alright, thanks for guarding the house, Sejeong. Dad has to deal with this in the warehouse, so play with Janggooni and Meonggooni. Tell your sister and brother not to come into Dad’s room when they get back. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, Dad! I’ll guard it with Janggooni and Meonggooni!”
“Good, thank you.”
Clutching the Power Stone tightly, Yohan entered the warehouse, determined to grow even stronger.