By Zephyria 
The blade gleamed blue. The butterfly knife, which had been circling his hand, quickly folded and unfolded, showing off its tricks.
Kwon Hyeon-oh, who had been enjoying the knife tricks as if it were a game, suddenly and without warning grabbed the knife and slashed. Just below the left collarbone, his shoulder was deeply cut horizontally. The flesh split open redly, and blood soaked into the cut fabric.
“…!”
Not satisfied, Kwon Hyeon-oh slowly stirred the wounded shoulder with the tip of the knife. The cleanly cut flesh roughly split open, and the flesh was painfully gouged.
“Heok…! Aagh!”
“See? This is how you use a knife.”
“Kuh, heuk!”
Kwon Hyeon-oh twisted his wrist playfully as he stabbed the knife, causing blood to gush out and the wound to become even more mangled.
Tae-hwon gasped and heaved his chest.
Red.
Dark red.
Torn away.
Flowing down.
His fingertips trembled from the excruciating pain of his flesh being torn. The flesh was being thinly sliced. It was a cruel act intended only to inflict pain.
“You should have known your place when I was treating you well.”
“…”
“Taking the money I gave you, being entertained, acting like a Sangmu. Huh? I didn’t even ask you to pledge your loyalty. All I wanted was your usefulness. Was that so unappealing to you?”
The knife, which had been inflicting terrible pain for a long time, finally fell away.
“Haa, ugh.”
Tae-hwon caught his breath and gritted his teeth. He was quite injured, but it wasn’t a fatal wound. He hadn’t been stabbed in a vital spot, and his internal organs weren’t damaged.
After all, even Kwon Hyeon-oh couldn’t kill Woo Tae-hwon, a wanted man of Gyeongjeong, as he pleased.
Woo Tae-hwon, whom they had been searching for for months.
The traitor of the organization that had taken Chairman Kwon Jung-il’s life, the one who had dragged Gyeongjeong’s reputation through the mud.
He couldn’t be allowed to die so pointlessly in a place like this.
No matter how much his life deserved to be taken, Woo Tae-hwon’s life could not be easily disposed of. At least, to the Kwon brothers, who claimed to be the successors of Gyeongjeong, he had a more useful value. He had to be made an example to restore the tarnished dignity of Gyeongjeong.
‘Of course, that’s not all.’
Woo Tae-hwon was also a useful tool for gaining merit. If the second son, Kwon Hyeon-oh, captured the man whom the first son, Kwon Tae-oh, had been searching for everywhere, it would create a major opportunity to increase his power. Kwon Hyeon-oh had always been wary of his brother, Kwon Tae-oh.
‘But that means they can do anything as long as they don’t kill me.’
“Let’s see. I can’t hear an answer?”
Kwon Hyeon-oh raised the knife and tapped Tae-hwon’s cheek with the flat side. Each time the cold knife touched his already badly beaten face, a chill ran down his spine.
“You lost your memory and became a complete idiot. To the point where you can’t even recognize who you should be crawling to?”
Tae-hwon silently endured the terrible treatment and racked his brain. He was already at the edge of a cliff, but he couldn’t just give up and do nothing.
Tae-hwon’s eyes slowly sank. His black pupils shone like black beads, taking on a murderous aura. Even in his miserable state, he was still not broken.
“…Hyeon-oh Doryeonim.”
Tae-hwon retorted sharply and spat out the blood in his mouth.
Ptooey!
The blood he spat out hit Kwon Hyeon-oh’s smooth cheek squarely. Red blood trickled down his chin and fell onto his white suit chest, as if he had pinned a rose on it.
“Eat my Dick.”
“Huh…?”
Kwon Hyeon-oh cursed and wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. He looked like a fop, and his distorted face was quite a sight.
“Wow, damn it? You motherless bastard?”
“You don’t have a mother either.”
“What?”
“We’re both motherless. Let’s not talk about each other.”
Kwon Hyeon-oh’s lip twitched as he seethed with anger. Tae-hwon didn’t stop there and lashed out even more harshly, to shake him up. That way, even a fleeting opening might appear.
“Haha. Still, it’s a pity you don’t have a father. I don’t remember at all, but they say I killed your father.”
“……What kind of, son of a bitch deserves to be torn apart and killed……?”
“Don’t be too resentful. You, young master, must have harmed countless decent people while living, too. You just turned that doctor over there into a rag.”
Tae-hwon gestured with his eyes towards the back. Under the sofa, Han-seon was lying face down, trembling.
“That’s how everyone lives until they get a knife in the back.”
At some point, the trembling in his hand stopped.
Instead, deep within his chest, his heart began to pound and resonate fiercely. The resonance grew louder and louder, echoing inside him.
“You don’t have to go far; just look at the underlings here. Don’t believe that these guys will follow you forever.”
His mind, which had been greatly shaken by the sudden and unexpected situation of Kwon Hyeon-oh’s arrival, gradually solidified. An unknown sense of elation dominated his entire body, and his deadened spirit slowly surged upward.
As if riding on a towering wave.
“You don’t know which of these bastards will stab you in the back. Maybe one of them is a mole for the eldest young master. No, two. Three. ……Or maybe all of them?”
“You son of a bitch. Shut your mouth.”
“Why should I? You were just grilling me for not answering.”
“Shut it when I tell you to!”
“Looks like I hit a nerve.”
Tae-hwon openly mocked and sneered. Kwon Hyeon-oh’s face contorted even more severely.
The resentment of being the second son, accumulated over a lifetime. The base inferiority complex. The ambition to win that couldn’t be hidden. The ruthless ambition. His intertwined psychology was as plain as looking at the palm of his hand. Although he covered it with a veil to pretend to be relaxed, in reality, Kwon Hyeon-oh was not a very profound human being.
“Well, fine. As you can see, I’m a completely screwed-up loser. I’ve been captured, and I’m about to die, so I have nothing to fear. But…… isn’t my situation not much different from yours, young master?”
His sincerity in bribing and entertaining had been ignored.
He must have been quite desperate to resort to backhanded tactics.
“If you lose to the eldest young master, the second young master will be purged immediately.”
His deeply bitten jaw was trembling slightly.
“You don’t even have to go as far as Kwon Tae-oh; even if you lose to Kwon Rae-i, you’ll be purged.”
Unlike the wavering Kwon Hyeon-oh, Woo Tae-hwon’s thoughts became more and more firm as he spoke. A certain realization filled his mind.
“Have you heard who shot the third young master to death?”
Ah.
Yes……. That’s right.
He had been foolish. Truly foolish.
Woo Tae-hwon realized his mistake and cleared his mind. His judgment had been wrong from the very beginning.
‘How foolish. To be caught up in hopeful thoughts of survival.’
He had been so focused on surviving somehow, on having to live, on preserving his own life, that he had almost forgotten what was truly important. He had been greedy for nothing, and that’s how he ended up like this.
‘Where am I going to survive?’
Question one. Can Woo Tae-hwon safely survive here today?
‘No. Absolutely not.’
He admits it. The answer to that question is ‘no.’
Woo Tae-hwon cannot survive.
Leading a weak mind and a broken body, he would at best be beaten, dragged away, and tortured. He would end up being killed miserably, worse than a dog or pig.
‘But.’
But.
Question two. If Woo Tae-hwon kills someone here today?
The answer to that life was also clearly determined.
‘Kwon Hyeon-oh…….’
None other than Kwon Hyeon-oh.
Tae-hwon had to cut off Kwon Hyeon-oh’s breath and eliminate him in this very place. Even if it seemed impossible. Even if it was an overwhelmingly disadvantageous and unwinnable fight. And even if he lost his own life as a result.
‘Even if I have to choose mutual destruction, I must kill Kwon Hyeon-oh.’
That was the reality Woo Tae-hwon faced, and it was the best he could do.
‘I don’t have to beat all those useless pyramid bastards, those big guys.’
Just one life.
If he only targeted Kwon Hyeon-oh, that bastard.
‘Then maybe I have a chance.’
If Tae-hwon didn’t get rid of Kwon Hyeon-oh now, he didn’t know what the aftermath would be. It was a problem that Woo Tae-hwon had been captured, but immediately all sorts of secrets leaked from Han-seon’s mouth. He couldn’t be sure how much information had leaked, but seeing Kwon Hyeon-oh’s personality, which terribly checked his brother, perhaps the information Han-seon had spat out had not yet reached Kwon Tae-oh’s ears.
‘If I shut Kwon Hyeon-oh’s mouth, it will be of some help to Kwon Rae-i.’
Of course, as Tae-hwon had suggested, there was a possibility that one of those underlings was Kwon Tae-oh’s mole, but that was something to think about then. For now, there was no one more threatening than Kwon Hyeon-oh.
‘So I have to kill him.’
None other than Woo Tae-hwon. The Kwon Hyeon-oh in front of him.
‘By any means and method. Absolutely.’