Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1608

“Run!”

“Oooooooooh!”

“Haaaaaaap!”

Soldiers in full military gear began to sprint like madmen. The sight of a diverse group of people running in unison was truly a spectacle.

“Run faster, you trash!”

“Aaaaaaack!”

Standing in front of the robust soldiers was a massive figure that made them look like children.

A shiny head, thick eyebrows, and intense eyes!

“Repeat after me! I am a maggot!”

“I am a maggot!”

“Good! You maggots who can’t even run properly will be crushed under my boot! Run until your legs break!”

“Yes!”

Bator roared loudly.

Responding to his roar, the soldiers began to run like crazy.

Reynolds chuckled at the sight.

“I’d like to recruit him as a training instructor. Those soldiers aren’t exactly the most obedient.”

Reggie Mercer gave a wry smile.

Who wouldn’t be obedient after seeing those arms?

‘I didn’t expect it to work this well.’

Kang Jin-ho had also been here, but in terms of loyalty and trust, Bator seemed to be a better fit than Kang Jin-ho.

In the first place, martial arts are unscientific. So, while they can understand and accept it to some extent, there are bound to be issues with fundamental trust.

Especially since, unlike the Eastern martial artists who naturally accepted everything, the SOBs [Special Operations Brigade] who had lived in a world completely different from martial arts were bound to be confused about where they should go.

For them, Bator was twice as clear and twice as impressive as Kang Jin-ho.

After all, there’s an aura emanating from that body.

Kang Jin-ho, who defeats them with techniques they can’t understand or interpret, is not someone they can comprehend. In contrast, everything about Bator was too straightforward.

“Don’t walk, run!”

Look at him now.

Every action of Bator, from grabbing those who fall behind to throwing them away, exudes the spirit of a real man.

If you put a well-known muscular actor from Hollywood next to him, he’d look like a small child with padded shoulders. When someone with that kind of physique is running in the lead and shouting, what kind of guts would you need not to follow?

“He certainly seems to be a good fit for our soldiers.”

“It’s a strange thing. They say he’s Mongolian.” Reynolds smiled wryly.

America is like a symbol of a multi-ethnic nation, but looking at the General Assembly, that statement seemed meaningless. Even just looking at the upper echelons, there were Koreans, Chinese, Mongolians, and British people mixed up haphazardly, and the allied organizations were truly global.

They had the United States and Europe as allies, and were tied to China through a paper alliance. And Japan was half-subdued and under their control.

‘Anyway, he’s an amazing person.’

Others were impressed by Kang Jin-ho’s martial prowess, but Reynolds was different.

“I can see that the training is going well. So, what are the results?”

“…It’s hard to comprehend.”

Reggie Mercer shook his head.

“With just this short period of training, most of the soldiers have shown an increase of almost double their stats. Considering that the average stat increase for existing SOBs was about 8% per year…”

“Ten times?”

“That’s what the stats show, for now. Of course, this trend won’t continue, and environmental factors also play a role.”

Reggie Mercer trailed off.

But Reynolds knew what would follow.

‘Our training system is completely shattered.’

It wasn’t his doing, but the work of his predecessors, so he had to be careful with his words. But, looking at the results, it was clear that the training the SOBs had been doing for years had been ineffective.

‘Perfectly scientific training…’ Reynolds chuckled.

It was obvious when he thought about it. Martial arts are a field completely separate from science. Attempts to scientifically analyze martial arts have never succeeded.

They tried to analyze the unanalyzable and create a system, so how could it have worked properly?

“Is it a limitation of direction?”

“We’ve been too dismissive of what they’ve built up. New things aren’t necessarily better.”

“Hmm.”

“Of course, that’s not everything.”

“Hmm?”

Reggie Mercer said with a determined look.

“We can never be the best by simply following the methods someone else has built. What we need to do is to create our own method by referring to what they do.”

“That’s right.”

Reynolds smiled.

‘And that’s not our job.’

His gaze shifted slightly backward. The cameras filming the training ground from all angles caught his eye.

“How is it?”

“The speed increased by 0.3% compared to yesterday.”

“It’s definitely slowed down.”

“Slowed down? Don’t be ridiculous, Jerry. Olympic athletes spend five years to increase that 0.3%. Showing a 0.3% improvement every day is revolutionary.”

“Of course, it is. But compared to the rapid initial increase, it’s definitely slowed down, isn’t it?”

“Well, I don’t think so? Rather, we should see it as entering the elite realm.”

“The elite realm?”

O’hen nodded.

“In any sport, it’s not that difficult to improve records in the beginning. Even just doing the basics will result in noticeable improvements.”

“That’s right.”

“But when you move into the expert realm, it becomes a battle of seconds. And when you move into the elite realm, it becomes a battle of micro-commas.”

“Hmm, does that mean the SOBs before they went to Korea were just at an amateur level?”

“There’s no need to add anything to what the data proves. I hate to admit it, but that’s the truth.”

“This is a rare feeling of defeat.”

Jerry smiled wryly.

Most of the SOB’s training system was created right here.

“Is it a defeat for science?”

“The ignorant try to evade responsibility like that. This isn’t a defeat for science, but a defeat for scientists, Jerry. Science is rational, but it’s never perfect. There are many principles we haven’t yet discovered. Even if there are things that can’t be explained by the existing scientific theories, that doesn’t prove the imperfection of science. It only proves the imperfection of humans.”

“A philosopher, I see.”

“Don’t be sarcastic. I’m talking about reality.”

O’hen’s eyes fell on the graphs recorded on the monitor.

It’s almost impossible to grasp the principles of that training anyway. So, they have no choice but to accumulate the results as data and derive the process from the results.

“It’s a difficult task.”

“I think there was someone who said that’s why it’s worth challenging.”

“I told you not to be sarcastic.”

O’hen was slightly annoyed and stared at the screen.

There were a few changes.

One was that, as months had passed, they could now monitor the training situation in real-time rather than just watching recorded videos, and various sensors had been installed throughout the training ground.

There were other minor changes, but unfortunately, even these changes couldn’t analyze the results of the unscientific training that Bator and Kang Jin-ho were conducting.

“We need to fundamentally re-examine it.”

At O’hen’s words, Jerry smiled wryly.

“Do you know how many times you’ve said that?”

“Redesigning experiments is a given. It’s something we have to do again, not just a few times, but dozens, hundreds of times.”

There was not a hint of hesitation in O’hen’s words.

“Scientific… I’m honestly a bit skeptical. Look. Can you scientifically analyze that badass?”

“Hmm.”

Certainly, Bator, as seen on the screen, had an overwhelming presence.

Even just looking at him on the screen made one’s skin crawl, so they couldn’t even imagine the pressure the soldiers who had to face him directly were under.

“We need to consider the mental aspect as well.”

Jerry smiled wryly.

“The answer is in what you said earlier. Maybe scientifically analyzing them is impossible for our generation. At least, it might take decades more.”

“That doesn’t mean our current research is meaningless. Research is passed down from generation to generation. Just because I can’t produce results doesn’t mean the data or theories I’ve created will disappear, right?”

“I can’t stop you.”

Perhaps that was the most ideal way of thinking for a scientist. The problem was that most people couldn’t even keep up with that way of thinking, let alone adhere to it.

“Anyway, do as you please. I’ll accommodate your requests as much as possible.”

“Thanks. So, how about making me a cup of coffee?”

“…That’s not what I meant.”

O’hen smiled slightly as he watched Jerry grumbling and going to make coffee.

‘It’s going to be a long and arduous task.’

His gaze fell on the scene on the monitor.

Bator was grabbing a soldier and spinning him around in the air, looking angry.

‘We set the limits too low from the start.’

That was the biggest mistake.

They had only predicted that the soldiers could reach about 20% of Bator’s strength as they accepted martial arts. If they had known in advance that a martial artist could be that strong, their training system would have been completely different.

The core is very simple.

‘Extreme load, and recovery. They repeat that.’

What they pointed out was that they had underestimated the recovery power of martial artists. That was also true.

‘It’s good to catch the errors.’

All scientific research, broadly speaking, is the process of catching and proving errors in the established theory. In other words, the more errors they found in the existing training system, the closer they would get to the perfect training system he envisioned.

‘I will definitely succeed.’

O’hen’s eyes gleamed as he looked at the screen.

First, Bator.

The moment he understood Bator, the Eastern Demon King [Kang Jin-ho] would also be within his sights.

“…No. That might not work either.”

O’hen shook his head.

Recently, he had come to understand why myths exist in the world. If a being like Kang Jin-ho had existed in the past, ordinary people would have seen them as messengers sent by gods or incarnations of gods.

Like the legends of Hercules killing the giant Hydra or Bodhidharma crossing the river on a reed.

Those who showed feats that transcended human limits naturally gathered worshippers, and that worship developed into religion and created myths.

“A human with a god dwelling within… ” O’hen laughed softly.

It was a very unscientific story.