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GOT Chapter 23: One Punch, One Beast
🕑 Added 2025-07-17 01:37:50 +0000 UTCKal’s sudden outburst startled the wild Aurochs, who had only just led its herd down to the river for a drink. It immediately jerked its head around, glaring wide-eyed at the approaching human whose intent was anything but friendly.
It didn’t understand a single word Kal had shouted.
But even a dull beast like it could tell—this guy was clearly up to no good.
He was planning to knock it down, bring it to its knees, and then… turn it into a celestial st—AHEM.
This human was clearly out to hunt it!
After all, this wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened.
If the man had looked like those terrifying upright apes it had seen before—armed with long sticks, swarming in packs, and casting their “magic” from afar—it might’ve immediately turned and fled without hesitation.
But this one wasn’t just alone—he wasn’t even trying to escape. He was charging straight at it.
Unforgivable!
So the largest Aurochs in the herd—the one Kal had set his eyes on—stepped forward without hesitation.
It let out a low, thunderous bellow, calling the other aurochs—especially the females and young—to retreat and shelter behind it.
Then it faced Kal head-on, lowered its head, tensed its neck, dug its hind legs into the earth, and its eyes turned bloodshot.
Its thick nostrils flared wildly, snorting like twin bellows.
Every inch of its muscular body quivered with pent-up strength, clearly bracing for a full-on charge.
Kal saw this—and felt not the slightest fear. On the contrary, his already elated heart surged with even greater excitement.
Kal suddenly raised his right hand, fingers clenched tightly into a fist.
His knuckles stood out, defined and sharp, slicing through the air. Under the sunlight, his fist shimmered faintly—holding the clear intent to take down this golden dragon of a beast in a single blow.
The wild aurochs, seeing that Kal neither dodged nor flinched in the face of its charge and instead continued rushing toward it, grew even more enraged.
Then came a deep, guttural bellow from deep within the aurochs’s chest. It had long since readied itself. With a powerful scrape of its front hooves and a push from its hind legs, the thick muscles in its back haunches visibly contracted.
The next instant—
All four hooves kicked off the ground at once. Driven by sheer strength, the beast surged forward. Head lowered, horns glinting—its most prized weapons, the ones that had earned its dominance—now aimed mercilessly at the lone, reckless human.
“Hahaha! That’s more like it!”
“Come, aurochs—let Grandpa give you a swift death!”
Man and beast clashed in a sudden and violent charge. The force of it surpassed even the mightiest jousts between knights in full plate with lances drawn.
At that moment, distance became meaningless.
In the blink of an eye, there was no distance left between them at all.
Neither man nor beast slowed.
A fight to the death—neither showed an ounce of fear.
But just as the two were about to collide—everything blurred in a flash, like a streak of lightning cutting through the sky.
At the very moment they made contact, their incredible speeds halted instantly, shifting from full motion to utter stillness in a heartbeat.
Impact.
Kal’s scalp tingled. A deafening boom echoed in his ears, as if thunder had cracked open the void itself.
And in that instant, where time itself seemed frozen, Kal’s face still carried the excitement from just a moment ago.
The fist he had prepared was now planted squarely on the aurochs’s forehead.
Yet the aurochs’s sharp horns—its deadliest weapons—were still a palm’s breadth away from Kal’s chest.
In that space—a single palm—the line between life and death had been drawn.
The wind passed.
Time moved forward once more.
His fist had struck the thickest part of the aurochs’s skull. Kal could feel it sink in ever so slightly under the sheer force of the blow.
But before his fist could drive in any deeper, the next moment, the ground beneath them—unable to withstand the titanic force of the collision—gave way.
The aurochs, having met Kal at the perfect angle for a head-on clash, now faltered.
Its thick neck couldn’t absorb the shock. It tilted slightly to one side, the faint sound of cracking bone just audible beneath the groan of impact.
The force and momentum it had carried came to an abrupt halt—stopped cold by Kal’s fist.
And in that moment, driven by inertia, the unstoppable aurochs was sent flying.
With its skull as the pivot, the beast’s entire body was flung skyward, twisting through the air like a ragdoll.
Here, strength was laid bare in its most brutal, breathtaking form.
It was a moment of raw, visceral power—so awe-inspiring it stirred something primal in the soul.
The sheer violence of the strike had launched the massive aurochs into the air, where it seemed to hang for half a second before gravity dragged it back down.
And when it hit the ground—it hit hard.
“Mooo...!”
Before it even had time to react, the massive aurochs crashed into the ground. Its mind dazed from the blow, it let out a final, instinctive cry of pain.
But no matter what, that sound would be the last it ever made in this world.
As its limbs twitched involuntarily, the beast—once the dominant force among the local aurochs—completely lost its life.
And in the next second, perhaps startled by the chieftain’s final call, or perhaps frightened by the sight of their guardian being struck down before their eyes, the remaining dozen or so females and young aurochs turned and fled without hesitation, panicked hooves tearing across the distant grassland.
Kal made no move to pursue them. Instead, he withdrew his fist, placed his hands on his hips, and laughed heartily where he stood.
He really did prefer a life like this.
Unrestrained.
Free.
And with no need to overthink anything.
As time drifted by in this peaceful moment, not a single thought crossed his mind—only the purest, simplest joy remained.
Like a lazy afternoon with no responsibilities, not even a stray thought dared linger.
And yet, it was in that fleeting moment of unthinking peace that a seed was quietly planted—a blur he would reflect on years later.
Why do people live?
Kal wondered.
For power? For desire?
But in this moment, everything troubling his heart had been blasted away with that one punch. It made him feel as if he had returned to who he used to be.
Then Kal lowered his head, gazing down at the aurochs whose spasming body now lay in a shallow pit of upturned soil.
“Thank you, beast.”
As he spoke, he drew his longsword from his waist and thrust it straight into the center of the creature’s brow.
With a reflexive groan, the aurochs tensed one last time, then slackened completely. Its suffering had come to an end.
Staring at the now-lifeless creature, Kal thought for a moment, then raised his sword again and sliced across the neck.
A surge of thick, pulsing blood gushed out from the gash, spilling eagerly to the ground.
“Better to drain the blood—otherwise the meat won’t taste right.”
“But I should still get it back as quickly as possible.”
Having decided how to deal with this windfall from the heavens, Kal grabbed a handful of nearby weeds, carefully wiped the blade clean until no blood remained, then sheathed his longsword again.
He reached down and seized the beast by the horns. Muscles bulged in his arms as he gave one great pull, dragging the massive carcass down to the riverbank.
That would make it easier to drain the blood from the neck.
Now all that remained was to wait.
But Kal didn’t just stand around idly—instead, he was already pondering how to transport the aurochs back, and how exactly he wanted to roast it.
Yet just then, an unexpected voice called out from behind him—
“What is that?!”
Hearing the voice behind him, Kal instinctively turned his head.
Not far away, a tall boy with fair skin and golden hair, dressed in a short velvet robe of red and gold, was dismounting from his horse and looking in their direction. He was quite handsome, with green eyes and lips habitually pressed together in a self-satisfied smirk. Right now, he was staring curiously at the fallen aurochs next to Kal.
Even though he was addressing Kal, he never once looked at him directly, as if this man wasn't even worth his gaze.
Just standing there, he radiated an air of arrogance that was instantly off-putting.
In simpler terms—he looked like he deserved a good beating.
