By Zephyria 
With a brightly smiling, handsome face, Kwon Rae-i was brazenly next to Woo Tae-hwon, whom Kwon Tae-oh was desperately searching for, provoking him. It was beyond taunting. No, it was outright mockery.
Even Kwon Tae-oh’s subordinates, who were standing behind him, lost their words after seeing the photo.
Kwon Rae-i had taken a friendly commemorative photo with the traitor Woo Tae-hwon, shoulder to shoulder? And he had brazenly left it in President Hwang’s office for display?
Kwon Tae-oh’s fingertips trembled as he flipped the photo over. On the back, a short message was scrawled in a hasty hand.
“Tae-oh, if you surrender now, I’ll spare your life.”
Kwon Tae-oh’s neck flushed hotly. His heart pounded fiercely.
“Kwon Rae-i, you bastard…!”
His voice grew loud enough to burst. Kwon Tae-oh, who was always calm and collected, couldn’t maintain his composure at this moment. He felt like he would spew out curses from his twisted emotions. His expression contorted as anger boiled within him.
However, he couldn’t show such emotions in front of his men. He had already been mocked by Kwon Rae-i, and he couldn’t afford to lose his reason and show a disgraceful figure because of that mockery. Kwon Tae-oh suppressed the anger that overflowed within him and crumpled the photo in his hand. His heart was as sharp as a knife, but his face remained coldly composed.
“……”
“……”
The men behind him glanced at his face and remained silent. They noticed the anger hidden in his face but couldn’t say anything. It seemed they had been thoroughly outsmarted. They didn’t know exactly what had happened, but the Jeun Faction bastards seemed to have anticipated the attack and fled in advance, and Kwon Rae-i had even left a photo and message to mock Kwon Tae-oh.
But, it didn’t end there.
It was then that one of the men noticed something strange.
“Hmm…?”
Faintly, the smell of gasoline wafted from somewhere. Looking around the room, he discovered a liquid seeping from the corner of the floor. A faint shimmer was soaking the carpet on the floor.
It was oil.
In an instant, several puzzle pieces came together in his mind. But it was too late.
“Um… there’s a strange smell.”
Just as someone was about to report from behind, a huge explosion erupted.
The entire room turned red, and the large glass windows shattered into pieces. The flames that ignited in an instant engulfed the walls and ceiling, and the Gyeongjeong members screamed in confusion and scattered in all directions.
“Aaaagh!”
“Fire! Get out!”
Some fell to the floor, while others ran to escape the flames.
Kwon Tae-oh instinctively crouched down and lay flat on the floor. But he soon got up and ran towards the stairs. He escaped through the complex corridors and threw himself down the narrow staircase.
The commotion and screams of his men behind him, the heat of the flames engulfing the building, and the acrid smell. He could no longer maintain his reason. The surging anger pierced his chest.
Kwon Rae-i’s brazen face, that photo.
All of this was a trap. A meticulously prepared trap for Kwon Tae-oh alone!
Kwon Tae-oh shuddered and ran down the stairs. With each step, the faces in that photo flashed before his eyes. His clenched fists trembled uncontrollably, and all sorts of vulgar insults and cruel desires for revenge surged in his mind.
‘I’ll kill them.’
Definitely!
‘I swear on my name and the dignity of Gyeongjeong. Kwon Rae-i, Woo Tae-hwon. I will tear those two bastards apart and kill them!’
Damn it, damn it, damn it…!
Kwon Tae-oh, who had run down the long staircase as if fleeing, barely managed to escape to the entrance of the building. The heat of the still-burning flames seemed to melt his skin. Coughs erupted from his throat as he inhaled the acrid smoke.
“Keuh! Haa!”
There were still members who hadn’t escaped inside.
Kwon Tae-oh looked up at the Jeun building engulfed in flames with enraged eyes. Black smoke covered the night sky, obscuring even the moon. They were in danger of being burned to death.
But then. A lifeline descended from the sky to save him.
It was perhaps the greatest stroke of luck in Kwon Tae-oh’s life.
Rumble!
Thunder rumbled as if the sky was splitting, and thick raindrops began to pour down. The members who had barely escaped ran into the downpour. The heavy rain cooled and soaked the members who had barely managed to escape.
“Ugh, heuh.”
“I… I’m alive…!”
The members who had narrowly escaped death sat down one by one in the rain. Only the sound of pouring rain, panting breaths, and screams like coughs could be heard. The equipment they had carefully prepared and brought was nowhere to be seen.
Kwon Tae-oh slowly wiped his face with his wet hands. Sweat, ash, and rainwater mixed together, blurring his vision, but his gaze fixed on the top of the building was intense.
The flames rising from the top floor were still raging, and black smoke was soaring endlessly into the sky.
It was like a giant dragon ascending.
A jet-black dragon rising into the sky.
Its power was not diminished even by the downpour. Rather, it was as if the black dragon was controlling the rain.
Kwon Tae-oh gnashed his teeth, completely soaked. The image of the office buried in flames in the building they had just escaped from flashed vividly in his mind. The smell of gasoline that stung his nose in that precarious moment, the shock of the explosion, and of course, that photo…
“……”
The downpour intensified.
A puddle of water on the ground soaked his ankles, and the rain continued to beat against his body. Under the cold rain pouring down from the night sky, the city lights flickered faintly.
“Byun Jun-seok.”
Kwon Tae-oh called out the name of one of his subordinates who was sprawled out and panting. He startled and raised his head.
“The information that Jeun was empty today, did you bring it?”
Kwon Tae-oh muttered coldly. The black soot clinging to his face looked like poison. Byun Jun-seok, who had been Kwon Tae-oh’s loyal right-hand man for a long time, jumped up as if propelled by a spring and apologized.
“I… I’m sorry, Brother.”
“Yeah.”
Kwon Tae-oh replied coldly. Then he slowly approached him and patted him twice on the shoulder with one hand.
“You’ve worked hard.”
“Brother…”
“You must have suffered under me all this time.”
At the kind words that didn’t fit the situation, Byun Jun-seok’s face, who had brought the wrong information, turned pale. But he wasn’t even given time to argue. Kwon Tae-oh took out a knife from his pocket and stabbed it into Byun Jun-seok’s neck.
Thwack! The deeply embedded blade tore through the thick man’s neck and came out on the other side.
He had followed Kwon Tae-oh for at least 10 years, but time wasn’t everything.
The humiliation that Kwon Tae-oh had tasted today was strong enough to overcome even that time.
He forcefully pulled out the blade, and the fountain of blood that erupted mixed with the rainwater and poured onto the asphalt. The members who were lying exhausted on the ground were shocked and jumped up when they witnessed Byun Jun-seok, who had been Kwon Tae-oh’s closest aide, being purged before their eyes.
They stood straight, with their hands behind their backs, facing Kwon Tae-oh with perfect alignment. It didn’t even take a few seconds to achieve the perfect formation.
Kwon Tae-oh scanned them one by one with gritted teeth and washed the blade in the rainwater.
“Park Chan. From today, you are the second-in-command.”
“……Yes.”
* * *
After that, the landscape completely changed.
Everything changed as soon as Kwon Rae-i revealed his face to the world and revealed his true self.
In just one night, he had put dog collars on the elders of Gyeongjeong and controlled them, mocked Kwon Tae-oh, who was considered the undisputed successor of Gyeongjeong, and even occupied the main house of Gyeongjeong.
It was practically a living legend.
Even the great Chairman Kwon Jung-il, who was called the Dark Demon, hadn’t achieved such a feat in one night.
His achievements became verses that spread widely, making the name Kwon Rae-i known throughout the world. And that wasn’t all. Despite gaining great fame overnight, Kwon Rae-i didn’t stop and continued to advance rapidly.
First, he shook the elders of Gyeongjeong and took the position of director of the KJ Sponsorship Foundation, and began to absorb a huge amount of money. Chairman Kwon Jung-il’s home, which was the base of the Gyeongjeong Faction, was also transferred to the foundation after the chairman’s death, so it was naturally transferred to Kwon Rae-i’s name.
Having occupied both the KJ Foundation, which could be said to be the core of Gyeongjeong, and the base, which could be said to be the body of Gyeongjeong, he was now in a position that was almost the next chairman.