CH 245

Kang Jin-Ho's withdrawn eyes scanned the group of balaclava-wearing men. The black fabric hid their faces and made it difficult to see their expressions, but their eyes, visible through the eye holes, were enough to convey the emotions tumbling within their hearts right this moment.

Firstly, it was confusion, then fear. Kang Jin-Ho was not a fan of either of those emotions. As a matter of fact, he would not stop until 'fear' was gone from their expressions and replaced by pure despair.

“Next.” Kang Jin-Ho's voice echoed within the factory, and the balaclava-wearing martial artists momentarily flinched.

Their trembling gazes shifted toward their colleague collapsed on the floor... No, the corpse of a man they used to call their colleague mere seconds ago. Seeing a headless corpse spewing a fountain of blood left all the men here momentarily dizzy.

Hadn't they seen people die before? Of course. Countless times, in fact. They couldn't even count how many people had died by their hands, too. But never before in their lives had something like this happened. Their targets until now had been... 'humans,’ after all.

Despite having killed so many before, not once in their lives had these men considered the possibility of a person getting their head yanked off clean off this easily! They were talking about a person here, not a toy doll!

However, the grisly spectacle laid out before their eyes weren't from a horror movie and definitely not from a manga. No, it was an unavoidable reality. The corpse on the floor was not some intricate dummy cooked up by a special effects department, but a human being who had been sharing banters with his colleagues only a few minutes ago!

“Son of a b*tch...”

The balaclava-wearing men had many thoughts swimming in their heads. But none of those wanted to transform into words and leave their mouths. Like a little child with an extremely-limited vocabulary, the things popping up in their heads couldn't be expressed in mere words, and all they could do was tremble.

Their bodies betrayed their wills and started trembling by themselves. Their visions ever so slightly grew blurry while their hearing went numb and deafened.

The moment these men came face to face with a situation completely out of their imagination was when they stopped being martial artists and reverted back to being mere mortals.

Indeed, mere mortals... And when Yi Jae-Seok recognized that he was just another human being, another realization dawned on him.

A frail human being had neither sharp claws nor sharp fangs to tear flesh and break bones in an instant. So, even he could tell how stupid it was to challenge or even resist a monster like Kang Jin-Ho.

'...I-I gotta get out of here!'

Wouldn't it be cowardly for a martial artist to think about running away without even fighting their opponent? Absolutely rubbish.

The headless corpse rolling around on the dirt also used to be a martial artist, not some common thug roaming the streets for a score.

A martial artist capable of quite literally leaping high into the air and ripping steel plates in half couldn't even put up any fight and ended in that grisly state, so what about resisting who now?

This was not the time to joke around. Alarm bells were ringing madly in Yi Jae-Seok's head, telling him to run without even bothering to look back. The ringing was so visceral it was robbing him of nearly all the other thoughts in his head. However...

'But how can I escape from here?'

All escape paths were sealed. They had chosen this abandoned factory to stop Kang Jin-Ho from fleeing, but it was now preventing the balaclava-wearing martial artists from running away. Kang Jin-Ho had shoved those metal doors into the only available exit, completely cutting off any avenues of escape.

Since that was the case, just how were they supposed to escape? Yi Jae-Seok suddenly realized this factory was like the inside of a large cage. Not just any cage but one populated by a vicious wild beast. And he and his colleagues were prey tossed inside to sate the beast's hunger.

Preys that couldn't escape nor put up any resistance...

“I said, who's next?” Kang Jin-Ho asked in a composed voice. His voice was so composed and unmoved that he couldn't have been the same monster that took the life of his fellow human being as if it was a child's prank.

Yi Jae-Seok's forlorn eyes took in the sight of Kang Jin-Ho. That monster's whole body seemed soaked in the blood gushing out of the dead man. Staring at that expressionless face half-covered in blood brought out this dreadful feeling of the boundary separating reality and fantasy gradually collapsing into pieces.

“Damn it...”

A quiet little curse coming from somewhere behind sobered Yi Jae-Seok up.

'...What the hell am I doing?'

This was reality. And a monster was getting closer and closer to rip his head off. So, why was he stupidly standing around in a daze doing nothing as if he was watching a damn movie?!

Yi Jae-Seok shuddered before taking a small step back. Then, he whispered, “...Wake the hell up!”

His words seemed to have some effect as his colleagues reacted to him right away.

“Remember, we are superior in numbers…” Yi Jae-Seok muttered, even though he didn't think his analysis would be much of a help. After all, what he said was obvious, and the momentum carried by Kang Jin-Ho against the balaclava-wearing martial artists couldn't be overturned simply with superior numbers.

“It's kill-or-be-killed! You think that monster will let you go if you shiver in fear and wet your pants?”

Those words had a little more effect than before. Yi Jae-Seok sensed more people flinching behind him.

“Don't be a cowardly loser. Get your sh*t together. If we don't kill that f*cker, it'll be us burying our bones here tonight.” Yi Jae-Seok growled those words out to his colleagues. He was also trying to hypnotize himself while doing so.

In a way, this situation didn't make much sense. This group of men could be called the top elites of the Yeongnam Group, yet they were frightened silly by a lone individual to the point that they couldn't even lift a finger. How did that make any sense?

They were supposed to be the symbols of fear toward other people; they weren’t supposed to get frightened out of their wits by someone else! If their peers learned about this situation, how much would they mock and jeer at Yi Jae-Seok and his colleagues?

Yi Jae-Seok couldn't understand it himself. He always thought that—without his grit and ballsiness—he would be nothing but a corpse. However, not only did the sight of a colleague dying right in front of his eyes fail to rouse his anger, it instead stoked the flames of pure fear in his heart.

Obviously, he still hadn't fully gotten rid of his fear. However, at the very least, he recognized that his current behavior could not be normal.

Yi Jae-Seok gritted his teeth. His opponent’s identity didn’t matter. He had already crossed the line he shouldn't have, anyway. In that case, the only thing that mattered was who would be left standing at the end of this encounter.

Just as he finished thinking that way and tried to resolve his fighting spirit, something bizarre happened…

Shu-shushushu...

A pitch-black cloud-like fog began bellowing out from around Kang Jin-Ho as weird hissing noises echoed inside the factory. And that sight cleanly wiped out all semblance of fighting spirit in Yi Jae-Seok's heart.

What... on earth was that?! Yi Jae-Seok's eyes quaked uncontrollably. The spectacle was fundamentally different from everything he knew and thought of as reality.

Could that be the result of a cultivation method? However, the cultivation techniques Yi Jae-Seok knew could not produce such fog from a person's body. The only suitable word to describe this bizarre sight would be 'mystery.’

'Is he even human?!'

Just what exactly was this monster...

At that moment, Kang Jin-Ho's figure suddenly extended like a string of spaghetti. Yi Jae-Seok freaked out and tried to retreat, but his reaction speed was no match for Kang Jin-Ho.

Grab!

Yi Jae-Seok sensed his head being grabbed by the black smoke-like something, and he started flapping around like a skewered fish.

Kang Jin-Ho quietly growled. “Now, sleep. We have a lot to talk about afterward.”

Pain indescribable with mere words assaulted Yi Jae-Seok through his head, and his consciousness started to fade away.

'No, this can't be...!'

His thoughts ended there, and Yi Jae-Seok blacked out completely.

***

How long had it been?

Yi Jae-Seok's dazed mind stopped wandering the darkness of the deserted empty ocean of his subconsciousness and slowly rose back up to the surface.

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'Where am I?'

Since when did I fall asleep?

His dazed mind prevented him from figuring anything out. It felt like he couldn't understand and remember anything. But then, his consciousness, seemingly drunk on anesthesia, was finally woken up by an acrid metallic stench.

The stench was uncomfortably vivid while also being thick and acrid enough to stab him through his nostrils and course throughout his body.

'...Stench of blood?'

Only then did Yi Jae-Seok finally open his eyes. And when he did, the slumbering molecules in his body awakened as well. The languidness flew out of his system in an instant, and his muscles contracted urgently.

Yi Jae-Seok recalled what happened just before he fell asleep. His eyes shot open wide, and he hurriedly took a look at his surroundings. His previously glazed eyes regained their focus and caught the carnage around him.

“Ah...!”

The first set of emotions washing over him contained indescribable despair and terror.

“Ah, ah-euh...!”

Blood. Blood was everywhere, and the place was utterly overflowing with blood.

The factory's floor, its walls, and even its ceiling were completely dyed in the hue of blood. This sight was so bizarre that Yi Jae-Seok momentarily thought the interior had been painted red.

And the acrid stench of blood filling up the factory left little room to wonder if all this copious amount of crimson liquid was anything else but blood.

'That bastard... He's completely insane!'

Yi Jae-Seok had been called a madman countless times before. His infamy within the Yeongnam Group, probably the most violent martial artist organization in Korea, was high. People calling him a heartless, cruel bastard was a daily occurrence by now. Some said he had no human-like feelings and that he was utterly nuts. But...

But Yi Jae-Seok still existed within the realm of 'human.’ Sure, he had killed before. Saying these sorts of things as a killer was a laughable notion, but well, he still saw his targets as human beings. At the very least, he had never treated his targets like toys or lifeless objects like what Kang Jin-Ho had done!

“You insane motherfu...” Yi Jae-Seok muttered.

He wasn't expecting any response, but the monster listening to him was surprisingly considerate. At least, judging from how quickly he responded, that was!

“Are you finally awake?” Kang Jin-Ho asked in a composed voice. It sounded far too composed, and that made him even more monstrous and bizarre.

Yi Jae-Seok's seven colleagues should all be dead by now at the hands of this monstrous bastard. However, the said bastard was maintaining his previously composed voice despite causing carnage beyond human comprehension. How unnervingly creepy was that?

“Euh, urgh...” Yi Jae-Seok tried to grip the floor.

The dirt dug in between his fingers and pricked his skin, but he had no mental leeway to care about that. That was because he could hear the sound of Kang Jin-Ho's approaching footsteps.

Clomp, clomp...

Yi Jae-Seok couldn't even think about resisting. What about running away, then? Even he could tell that was out of the question.

His fate and his colleagues' fate had been as good as sealed the moment Kang Jin-Ho burst through the abandoned factory's gate and entered the fray. Just like a cow trapped in an abattoir, no less.

All Yi Jae-Seok could do now was pray that his death wouldn't be painful and prolonged.

“Well, then...” Kang Jin-Ho stopped in front of Yi Jae-Seok and crouched.

Yi Jae-Seok panted heavily while staring at this monstrous individual. That face... it was normal—it was absolutely ordinary. It might sound weird, but Kang Jin-Ho's current expression could only be described as ordinary and unperturbed. Who could have guessed that below his calm, cool-looking facade was unimaginable violence slumbering away, ready to be unleashed at any time?

Indeed, this insane bastard wouldn't even hesitate to rip Yi Jae-Seok apart while maintaining that calm; nay, peaceful expression.

“Huff, huff, pant, pant...!”

Yi Jae-Seok's breathing grew heavier and shorter. His entire body was shivering like a wreck as buckets of cold sweat flooded down his skin like rain. His bloodshot eyes urgently darted about, unable to find a place to settle.

Kang Jin-Ho wordlessly observed Yi Jae-Seok's transformation before leisurely getting things going again. “Now, speak.”

Yi Jae-Seok couldn't disobey.