For a moment, everyone in the arena froze, wondering if they had heard wrong. What did he just say?
“He doesn’t need his weapon?”
“Uh!”
Lee Gun’s statement had stunned them.
Of course, they had also gotten a shock when they had tried to sign Lee Gun up for this fight.
The reason had been Lee Gun’s reaction!
“Good! I already planned on spending a day or two in the US.”
“…?!”
Lee Gun had readily accepted their invitation. It had been too easy.
The sparring match would be taking place at a newly opened world-class stadium that was similar in size to the Wembley Stadium!
‘Has he lost his mind? The stadium will have a hundred thousand people there. The tickets to the seats will be sold out!’
‘Does he not mind being publicly humiliated in front of a crowd?’
Yes, the disciples’ goal was to recreate the legendary match from twenty-three years ago. In other words, this was a marketing ploy.
The disciples hadn’t told the Leo Saint about this, but they wanted him to defeat Lee Gun, like he had all those years ago in front of all those people.
The Leo temple had been using the video of the previous match for the past twenty-three years. There was a limit to how much they could use it!
Moreover, the world was currently abuzz due to the appearance of the thirteenth Saint. This was a golden opportunity for the Leo disciples.
The match would be witness to tens of thousands of people in the stadium and the rest of the world on broadcast, an incredible marketing opportunity.
Of course, the Leo disciples had assumed Lee Gun would never come to the match willingly. In fact, Oliver, who was overseeing the project, had made some preparations for that as well. “I’ve prepared enough compensation for Lee Gun. Getting him on board would be very difficult, but you have to get him to agree to the match.”
However, Lee Gun’s response was like he had found money. “Alright. I’ll fight him.”
“Thank you! Also, do not worry about your compensation! Your compensation…”
“Ah. I don’t need to be compensated.”
“What?!”
“You guys can keep it.”
“What???!”
This had surprised even the Virgo Saint and Hugo. They turned to look at Lee Gun. There was no way the mighty Lee Gun would do this.
‘So why is he being like this?’
Lee Gun had agreed to the match too easily. Moreover, he said he didn’t need any rewards.
And now, he was saying he didn’t even need to use his weapon.
The shocked high-rank Leo disciples looked at each other.
‘Has he lost his mind? Is he thinking about fighting the Leo Saint with his bare fists?’
‘Did he transition into a hand-to-hand fighter?’
The disciples’ gazes then headed toward the ax, which was now in Hugo’s hands. The weapon was whining. The ax was crying because it didn’t want to be separated from its owner.
‘As expected, it’s Heaven’s Punishment.’
‘Why would he want to fight with his bare hands when he has that weapon?’
That weapon was one of the legendary weapons all awakened beings around the world coveted.
This ax was rumored to have a consciousness, so it was known as a weapon troublesome to handle.
In truth, before landing in the Virgo Saint’s possession, this weapon had come out at an auction. Countless awakened foamed at the mouth to acquire it.
Its wicked magical energy was a problem, but its incredible weight was the biggest detriment to its use!
[No one is capable of lifting Lee Gun’s weapon]
Of course, a rumor said that this weapon was light in the hands of its owner. Everyone assumed Lee Gun had received a contract when he received the weapon.
When the ax had to be transported, they had to seal its power with a spell. Even then, a hundred awakened beings could barely move it.
‘I assumed he would use that weapon to fight our Saint-nim.’
Lee Gun had seemingly followed their gazes. He mockingly laughed as if he found their thoughts ridiculous.
“Did you really think I would use that here?”
Heaven’s Punishment cried as if it was sad.
Lee Gun clicked his tongue. “Activating it needs blood.”
“…!”
“If you don’t mind me slitting your throats with it, I wouldn’t mind using it.”
Seeing Lee Gun’s cold gaze, the disciples felt chills run up their spines.
‘He started each raid by cutting off a monster’s neck. I guess that wasn’t for nothing!’
In the videos of Lee Gun’s raids, it looked as if the ax absorbed the blood. The disciples now knew this wasn’t just their imagination.
Then there was Lee Gun’s smile and the light in his eyes. Only an asura who practically lived on the battlefield could make such an expression.
The Leo disciples gulped.
‘He might rival our Saint-nim.’
In the end, they nodded in acknowledgment.
“Understood. We’ll guide you straight to the arena…”
At that moment…
Brrrrr!
“!”
The high-rank disciples tilted their heads in puzzlement; they had received an urgent message. Then, they looked between Lee Gun and their phones. For some reason, they were tiptoeing around him.
“Excuse me, Lee Gun-nim?”
“Is it possible to check your abilities through a test?”
Hugo looked at the disciples as though they were speaking nonsense.
Lee Gun responded as his eyebrows fiercely rose. “You want me to do an ability test?”
For an instant, they could feel a murderous intent in his gaze. For awakened beings, an ability test was synonymous with a head-on clash to gauge each other’s abilities.
The flustered Leo disciples quickly denied this.
“Ah! That’s not what I’m trying to say! This is more like a form of physical examination. We Leo disciples have an examination tool.”
“Why would you suddenly ask for that?”
“Ah! That’s… Saint-nim— Kuhk!”
After stepping on his colleague, a Leo disciple put on a bright smile and said, “To make our best preparations for the match, we have to calibrate the arena to your abilities! This will be a fight between Saints! We have to know the upper limit of your and Saint-nim’s powers so that the arena doesn’t break!”
The disciple who had his foot stepped on whispered to the other disciple, “Hey! Have you lost your mind? Why would you suddenly ask for an ability check? Oliver-nim never mentioned it!”
“What can I do? Saint-nim wants us to put Lee Gun-nim through the ability test!”
“What? Why bother doing that now?”
“I have no idea! He wants us to check his power!”
The two disciples were whispering, but they couldn’t evade Lee Gun’s hearing ability.
Lee Gun grinned. He had no idea why Stevens wanted to check his strength, but it didn’t matter anyway. In fact, if he didn’t have to take the stage right now, that would be better. Why?
[Disciple 1 is being attacked.]
[Your Constructs are harming your first disciple!]
[EXP related to the fight is coming in.]
A struggle was happening between his Constructs and Sungjae. ‘Monitoring this will be fun.’
Lee Gun originally wanted to raise Sungjae to the Saint rank, but one thing bothered him.
[Disciple(Human Familiar) ranks]
[Slave ? Normal ? Rare ? Heavy Hitter ? Star ? Hero (Legendary) ? Familiar Hero God]
‘Familiar Hero God?’ Was it talking about becoming a Construct?
Anyway, Lee Gun needed Sungjae to become resilient to physical attacks if he wanted the young man to grow. He could increase Sungjae’s resiliency by beating him up, but Sungjae was basically his nephew. How could an uncle treat his nephew like Hugo?
Therefore, Lee Gun had sent his Constructs. Others might think he was being cruel, but Lee Gun didn’t care about that. ‘I doubt they’ll kill him….’
[Disciple 1 is in critical condition.]
Mmm! Lee Gun now wondered if sending the Constructs was too much. He scratched his cheek.
“Excuse me! Lee Gun-nim!”
Suddenly, the Leo disciples brought something else. This object looked like a sturdy, golden punch machine.
[The Golden Lion’s Power Measuring Instrument]
“Lee Gun-nim, please put your magical energy into your fist and punch the doll!”
Hugo’s eyes turned round. ‘That is a divine treasure!’
The punch machine contained a massive amount of divine energy. It was clearly an item of the Divine rank.
This machine probably measured the power of Constructs that the Zodiac passed down to the disciples.
Hugo was about to say something, but the Leo disciples spoke up in a knowing manner. They laughed.
“This item can absorb shocks created by Saint rank magical energy. You have nothing to worry about!”
That wasn’t the problem, however. Hugo awkwardly looked at Lee Gun. “Gun, I’m telling you this beforehand, but that’s basically a national treasure!”
Lee Gun didn’t even listen to him.
“Go for it, Lee Gun-nim!”
The Leo disciples soon tilted their heads in puzzlement. Lee Gun was shaking his head from side to side while clicking his tongue.
“Lee Gun-nim?”
“You guys should get out.”
“What?”
“Get out if you don’t want to get flattened and die.”
“What? Why would we get flattened and die?”
Lee Gun grinned.
Sensing an ominous feeling, Hugo yelled at his friend, “Wait a minute! Gun!”
However, he didn’t even get the time to stop his friend.
Lee Gun punched, and the punch containing incredible power landed on the machine.
* * *
“What? He destroyed the measuring instrument?” The Leo Saint turned pale when he received the call. “The shock destroyed the building?”
Yes, Stevens was the one who had ordered his subordinates to check Lee Gun’s power. His disciples had advertised the fight to the whole world, so he couldn’t back out now. Therefore, Stevens had wanted to find out how strong Lee Gun was.
That treasure could measure the stats of all awakened beings and compile them into a graph or numbers.
The Leo Saint had become much stronger than the last time he had used the machine, and he had wanted to compare Lee Gun’s stats to his previous benchmark.
If the fight looked doable from the results, he would go out to the arena. So what the hell happened? Lee Gun broke the divine measuring instrument?
‘No way!’
The machine was designed to withstand any attack from a human!
‘What the hell happened?’
– Ah! Despite it being destroyed, the measuring instrument did gather some information. We’ll send the results to your phone in short order.
“!”
Despite being destroyed, the machine had shown its worth as a treasure.
Lee Gun’s stats arrived at Stevens’ phone.
Dee-ring!
Relieved, Stevens quickly checked the results.
“…”
His face froze. Sweat ran down it. At this moment, only one thought came to his mind! ‘I’ll tell them I have a stomach ache. I’ll just run away.’
However…
“Please do not worry, Saint-nim!”
The SS-rank Leo disciple Oliver’s eyes twinkled. “I’m sure you’re worried about Lee Gun running away. He could use a stomach ache as an excuse. That’s why I brought in the best doctors and the finest medicines! All the preparations are world-class. You just have to focus on fighting.”
“?!”
This bastard really!
* * *
The Virgo Saint Kevin was looking around the stadium, furious as Lee Gun had agreed to fight the Leo Saint. “Lee Gun! He won’t fight me, but he’ll fight that muscle-bound fraud?”
Just one day had passed since the Leo disciples had disseminated the news of the fight between Lee Gun and the Leo Saint. The stadium had been opened in haste, and an overwhelming number of people had gathered around it.
Tickets to all hundred thousand seats were sold, and several hundred vehicles from media stations around the world were already parked in front of the stadium.
Of course, everyone got out of Kevin’s way when they recognized who he was. However, Kevin was deaf to his surroundings.
“Ah! Why is the waiting room for that cat bastard so far away?”
That’s right. Kevin’s destination was the Leo Saint’s waiting room. He would get rid of the cat bastard, who had the luxury of fighting Lee Gun, and enter the arena in his stead.
Then there were Lee Jaewon and Goat. These two had the unenviable task of looking over Kevin. In truth, Lee Gun had tasked them to look for an opportunity to raid the Leo Saint’s warehouse, which was located within the stadium.
“Does he realize the Leo Saint’s waiting room is on the opposite side of where he is going? I wonder if he knows that…”
“Leave him alone, hyung-nim. He’s been at it for an hour. Anyway, it seems he wants to get rid of the Scorpio Saint too.”
“The Virgo Saint wants to get rid of her?”
“Yes, Hyung-nim. The Virgo Saint believes the Scorpio Saint was the one who attempted to kill Lee Gun-nim. The Virgo Saint tried to fix Lee Gun-nim by giving him herbal medicines, and he’s pissed that the Scorpio Saint took a shot at Lee Gun-nim’s life.”
An odd expression appeared on Lee Jaewon’s face. “Really? That’s odd! I’m pretty sure the Scorpio Saint has a crush on Lee Gun-nim.”
“I guess so! The Scorpio Saint has a crush on Lee Gun-nim— Wait, what? What do you mean?”
The shocked Goat tried to get the details from Lee Jaewon, but they caught sight of someone. It happened when their mouths had fallen open.
[Lee Gun! Lee Gun has made his appearance.]
The stadium erupted in cheers.
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