….
Not gradually, in the usual manner one by one building up power - he went straight to the Fourth Gate.
Fourth Gate: The Gate of Pain.
The effect was immediate and overwhelming.
Golden energy erupted around Jin-Ho's body, visible even to non-hunters.
The air itself began to fluctuate, rippling outward in waves as his mana surged to levels that made the atmosphere feel heavy, dense, almost liquid.
The golden aura wasn't subtle - it blazed like a second sun, painting everything nearby in warm light that seemed to pulse with each heartbeat.
His hair, naturally blonde, began to glow brighter, turning into a brilliant gold that seemed almost metallic, catching and reflecting the light until it looked like he had been crowned in flames.
People around them could feel it.
Normal civilians with no mana sensitivity whatsoever suddenly felt the hair on their arms stand up, felt pressure building in their chests, felt the instinctive urge to back away from whatever was generating this suffocating presence.
Airport security guards stumbled backward. Reporters lowered their cameras, suddenly more concerned with survival than footage.
Even experienced hunters in the crowd took involuntary steps back, recognizing the signature of power that far exceeded what they'd initially assumed.
However, Dongsoo - already committed, already furious, already convinced this was just some A-Rank upstart who had gotten lucky - made a fateful decision.
He changed his approach entirely.
Retreating? Backing down? Accepting defeat in front of cameras and his brother and these worthless civilians?
Never.
Instead of trying to pull his fist back, Dongsoo pushed forward.
He poured every ounce of his strength into crushing Jin-Ho's palm, into overwhelming whatever technique was holding him, into proving that S-Rank power was absolute.
Mana flooded through his arm, his muscles coiling with superhuman force, his quirk activating as flames began to dance across his skin.
Jin-Ho didn't budge.
Didn't move backward even a millimeter, his feet stayed planted, his golden aura intensifying, his telekinetic grip unwavering.
But the people around them were finally understanding what they were witnessing.
This wasn't just a confrontation, or just an S-Rank hunter intimidating a civilian.
It was a fight between monsters.
An S-Rank hunter had just tried to attack a member of the Yoo family, one of Korea's most influential families, the ones building that new guild everyone had been talking about.
And some unknown hunter had stopped it.
Was actively fighting back and matching Hwang Dongsoo's strength without giving ground.
The crowd took another step back.
Then another.
Several people just started running, deciding that being near this confrontation was actively dangerous to their health.
"Who is that?" someone whispered urgently.
"I don't know! He just appeared!"
"He stopped an S-Rank's punch! Is he S-Rank too?"
But a few reporters, the ones who had been covering hunter news for years, who followed the awakening registries and family politics - suddenly recognized Jin-Ho's face.
"Wait... isn't that—"
"The Yoo family's youngest son!"
"The first awakener in their family! Yoo Jin-Ho!"
"The troublemaker? The one who keeps disappearing?"
Jin-Ho didn't know it, but back in Korea, he had gained a certain reputation during his absences.
The rich kid who had gone to America for 'higher studies' and then proceeded to vanish for months at a time without explanation.
The most recent disappearance had lasted almost an entire year.
People had assumed he was just some spoiled brat doing rich brat things.
Partying abroad, wasting his family's money.
The kind of entitled behavior that came with being born into wealth and privilege.
But something else was bothering the people who recognized him.
"Wasn't he supposed to be just a B-Rank?"
"Maybe low A-Rank at best?"
"How the hell is he stopping Hwang Dongsoo?!"
While a few people started to piece together Jin-Ho's identity, the majority of the crowd was more concerned with taking several more steps backward - two, three, four steps away from the epicenter of this confrontation.
Because it was becoming increasingly clear that this wouldn't end with a single exchange.
"Let's see who asks for whose death." Dongsoo growled, and this time, the promise was absolute.
He poured his full strength into his trapped arm, muscles coiling with raw mana, his entire body becoming a weapon.
But instead of continuing to push with that fist, he did something that made several onlookers gasp.
He swung his other fist, aiming straight for Jin-Ho's head with all the force of an S-Rank hunter who had stopped holding back.
Before it could land—
Jin-Ho caught that one too, he also opened the fifth gate.
The Gate of Limit - OPEN.
The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic for everyone nearby.
Jin-Ho's golden aura exploded outward in a wave of pure pressure that sent everyone within twenty feet stumbling backward.
The intensity of his mana output doubled, then tripled, reaching levels that made the airport's mana sensors, designed to detect illegal quirk usage, start screaming alarms throughout the building.
His hair blazed even brighter, golden light seeming to radiate from within each strand.
His eyes took on a golden sheen, pupils dilating as his perception accelerated to superhuman levels.
The marble floor beneath them didn't just crack - it shattered, chunks of stone fragmenting and lifting into the air from the sheer force of opposing manas colliding.
For a moment frozen in time, it looked like two forces of nature had collided and locked together in perfect stalemate.
Dongsoo drove both arms forward with enough power to shatter steel, to demolish concrete, to send cars flying.
Every muscle in his body strained, mana flooding through his system in torrents, flames erupting across his shoulders and back as his quirk activated at full intensity.
But Jin-Ho stood firm, immovable.
His golden aura blazed brighter, veins straining at his temples from the sheer pressure of maintaining the Fifth Gate.
The marble floor beneath their feet began to crack, spiderweb fractures spreading outward as waves of invisible force rippled through the terminal like shock waves from an explosion.
The pressure was suffocating.
People further back in the terminal felt it - a weight pressing down on their chests, making each breath feel like work.
The air itself seemed to vibrate, thick with concentrated mana that made reality feel slightly wrong, slightly warped.
Windows throughout the terminal began to tremble in their frames.
Luggage tumbled from carts despite no one touching them.
A gust of condensed mana, invisible but powerful - sent onlookers staggering backward, some falling to the ground, others grabbing onto pillars and walls for support.
For many civilians, even breathing became hard. Each inhale felt thick with pressure and heat, like trying to breathe inside a furnace.
"Dongsoo, stop!" Hwang Dongsuk's voice cut through the chaos, genuinely frightened now.
He rushed forward. "This is insane! You're going to destroy the terminal!"
"Jin-Ho, enough!" Yoo Jinsung shouted from the other side, his voice cracking with desperation. "Stop this! Both of you!"
Neither younger brother heard a word. They were past reason, past diplomacy, past caring about consequences or witnesses or international incidents.
They had crossed the line from confrontation into pure combat instinct. Two predators locked in mortal struggle, neither willing to give an inch.
The power clash intensified.
Dongsoo's flames grew hotter, burning blue-white now, hot enough that people fifty feet away felt the temperature spike.
His mana output was reaching levels that would have vaporized a normal human, that was making the very air shimmer and distort.
But Jin-Ho's golden aura pushed back, a barrier of pure force that met fire with unyielding resistance.
"EVERYONE BACK!" An airport security supervisor was screaming into his radio, voice hoarse with panic. "EVACUATE THE TERMINAL! REPEAT, EVACUATE THE TERMINAL!"
People were running now, stampeding toward exits, trampling luggage in their desperate rush to escape. Hunters in the crowd were torn between fleeing and trying to help, most choosing self-preservation.
The reporters who remained, the brave or foolish ones, kept their cameras rolling, capturing footage that would dominate every news channel in Korea within the hour.
Dongsoo felt the shift in power and his eyes widened with the first genuine fear he had experienced in years.
Whatever technique this kid was using, whatever power he was channeling - it was real, enormous, and it was actively overpowering him.
His fists, which had been pushing forward with all his S-Rank strength, suddenly began to move backward.
Like trying to push against a hydraulic press that was methodically crushing everything in its path.
"Impossible." Dongsoo gasped, strain evident in every word. "You're not - you can't be—"
"I told you." Jin-Ho said. "You picked the wrong family to disrespect."
The golden pressure intensified.
Dongsoo's arms were being forced back now, muscles straining, bones creaking under pressure, his S-Rank body pushed to limits it rarely encountered.
For the first time since awakening, Hwang Dongsoo was losing a test of pure strength.
And the cameras captured every second of his humiliation.
But before the confrontation could reach its breaking point, before Jin-Ho could completely overpower Dongsoo and create an incident that would have international repercussions.
A new voice cut through the chaos.
Cold, authoritative and carrying the weight of absolute command.
"BOTH OF YOU. STAND DOWN. NOW."
The voice belonged to someone who had just arrived at the terminal, drawn by the alarm systems and the reports of an S-Rank confrontation.
"I repeat. I request that you both refrain from causing any more inconvenience to the public. If you wish to demonstrate your strength, do so somewhere suitable and appropriate."
The tone was perfectly measured, neither threat nor plea, but it carried the weight of authority.
Dongsoo blinked, his focus breaking for the first time. His gaze shifted past Jin-Ho's shoulder.
The man standing there made his stomach drop.
Because standing at the edge of the destruction zone, surveying the shattered floor and fleeing civilians with an expression of profound disappointment, was Chairman Go Gunhee of the Korean Hunters Association.
Despite his despicable personality, Hwang respected power above all else.
Which was why, at this moment, he was teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown - intimidated into silence by the chairman's presence alone
Jin-Ho couldn't yet see who had intervened, but he could feel it, an overwhelming presence that pressed down on his senses like a tidal wave.
Dongsoo pulled his hands back, instinctively retreating.
Jin-Ho didn't let it go.
"What?" he said, prodding at him. "Scared already?"
That single taunt snapped something in Dongsoo. He moved to lunge again, only to find that he couldn't. His body wouldn't respond.
His arms, his legs - locked in place, as if invisible chains had wrapped around him.
"Mr. Jin-Ho." the calm, steady voice spoke again. "I advise you not to create a scene here, and Mr. Dongsoo - your flight is already delayed. Leave while you still have some dignity."
Jin-Ho finally turned to see who had spoken.
He was broad and muscular despite his age, gray hair framing a body marked by old scars. His greenish-gray eyes now burned a vivid yellow.
There was only one meaning to that.
He was using his power.
As the vessel of a Ruler, Gunhee stood among the strongest hunters in the world.
However, his old age prevented him from using his powers to their max potential and fighting for prolonged periods of time, making him significantly weaker than the other humans who had been granted power by the Rulers in the original timeline.
Immense Strength and Speed
And above all - A Ruler's Authority.
Gunhee could command objects themselves, bending the space around him to his will.
Telekinesis.
The same ability Jin-Ho possessed, at least on the surface.
For a brief moment, Jin-Ho felt it. The sheer weight of Gunhee's power pressing outward, controlled, refined, terrifyingly precise.
Whose telekinesis is stronger?
The question ignited something inside him.
Meanwhile, Gunhee raised his voice, focused on preventing the situation from spiraling further.
With a small gesture of his hand, his subordinates, the Korean Hunter Association's response team, immediately moved into action.
"Secure the area. Clear civilians first." one of them ordered sharply through his comm.
Uniformed members rushed forward, moving through the terminal with practiced efficiency.
Their expressions were taut, their steps heavy but disciplined. Even so, the echo of shattered tile and humming mana still filled the air like a faint vibration in everyone's bones.
….
.
[To be continued…]
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