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Chapter 10
The first thing that came to Su-hyeok’s mind was his fight with the Awakened Kim Jong-chan in the alley behind the club.
Even though he had been wearing the Reaper’s Robe, Kim Jong-chan’s heightened senses as an Awakened had still detected Su-hyeok’s faint presence.
It had taught him a painful lesson.
Stealth alone could not completely deceive even a low-ranking Awakened.
“But with this skill… that’s a different story.”
A cold smile spread across Su-hyeok’s lips.
No matter how sharp an Awakened’s senses were, if the very process of someone approaching them was skipped entirely, there was no way they could react.
He pictured it in his mind.
Conceal himself with the Reaper’s Robe, wait in his target’s blind spot, then instantly close a ten-meter gap with Reaper’s Step.
Appear directly behind them—
—and sever their neck with the Reaper’s Scythe before they even had a chance to defend themselves.
“That’s a perfect assassination combo.”
He still lacked experience fighting other Awakened.
He would need more training, more experimentation, and more real combat to refine his techniques.
Over the next three days, he devoted himself to mastering Reaper’s Step and the Reaper’s Scythe.
Every drop of sweat would eventually become strength etched into his bones and muscles.
* * *
After three days of nonstop training, Su-hyeok decided that the first thing he needed to buy was the Pouch of the Dead.
The Reaper’s Scythe was already a bound item that could be summoned and dismissed freely, so hiding it was never a concern.
The Reaper’s Robe and the Wraith Compass attached to his scooter, however, were another matter.
He constantly had to carry them in his delivery box or hold onto them himself, making them both inconvenient and easy to lose.
The Pouch of the Dead solved all of those problems.
It was essentially the inventory system found in video games.
Besides…
Among all the newly unlocked items, it was also the cheapest.
Only 200 Hell Points.
That alone made it the easiest goal.
“I already received 100 Hell Points from the achievement for buying everything in the Hell Shop. I only need another hundred.”
Leaning back on the sofa, Su-hyeok reviewed everything that had happened and reorganized his plans.
The targets he most wanted revenge on were crystal clear.
The knife-wielding assassin who had stabbed him in the stomach.
Kim Kyung-soo, who had been using Detective Lee Chi-sang as his puppet.
Iron Mask, the owner of XX Club who had ordered everything.
“And the man above Iron Mask… the boss of the Cheolsu Gang.”
Those four formed the core of the Cheolsu Gang.
Every one of them deserved to be sent to Hell.
But after he destroyed the drug factory, every clue leading to them had disappeared.
There were only two ways to solve this problem.
He could wander around on his scooter searching for clues like before.
Or…
He could purchase Echoes of Hell from the Hell Shop and interrogate the souls of the people he had already killed.
“Echoes of Hell costs 400 Hell Points. That’s impossible for now. If I prioritize buying the Pouch of the Dead first, I’ll need a total of 600 Hell Points.”
That wasn’t an amount he could earn by hunting one or two street thugs or drug couriers in neighborhood alleys.
There was an old saying:
A gentleman’s revenge is never too late, even after ten years.
Even if it meant taking a detour, he had no intention of wasting endless time chasing the Cheolsu Gang after they had erased all traces of themselves.
“I’ll wipe out other criminal organizations instead.”
After all…
The Cheolsu Gang couldn’t possibly be the only rotten criminal syndicate in the country.
“Now… which one should I target?”
As Su-hyeok absentmindedly flipped through television channels with the remote, a breaking news report suddenly caught his attention.
Breaking News
“A series of mysterious kidnappings and disappearances has recently occurred in the OO-dong area.
Last night, a large-scale armed clash erupted between major criminal organizations fighting over control of the district, with both sides blaming each other for the disappearances.
Nearby residents are living in fear as violence continues to escalate.”
A dark parking garage.
Inside a black sedan with its engine turned off, Kim Kyung-soo and Kim Tae-soo silently waited for someone.
Breaking the silence, Kim Tae-soo, seated in the passenger seat, spoke quietly.
“Hyung… he’s here.”
The headlights of an expensive foreign luxury car swept into the parking garage.
Their target had arrived.
Jo Tae-joon.
Vice leader of the Black Moon Gang.
The true second-in-command of Black Moon Entertainment, an organization involved in illegal prostitution and human trafficking.
“Let’s move.”
At Kim Kyung-soo’s brief command, both men exited the vehicle without making a sound.
The moment Jo Tae-joon stepped out after parking his car, the brothers closed in from both sides.
Jo Tae-joon had once been an E-Rank Awakened before retiring and joining organized crime.
Instinctively sensing the murderous intent closing in on him, he twisted his body.
“Who’s there?!”
he shouted.
As the dim parking lot lights revealed the faces of the two men surrounding him, his eyes widened.
“Kim Kyung-soo… from the Cheolsu Gang?!”
He recognized them immediately.
Confusion and anger filled his voice.
“What the hell is this?! Are you declaring war on the Black Moon Gang?!”
“Come quietly.”
“If you don’t want this to get ugly.”
Kim Kyung-soo’s voice remained emotionless.
Something was terribly wrong.
No one would obediently follow two armed men who had ambushed them without warning.
Jo Tae-joon immediately gathered mana and searched for an escape route.
“You crazy bastards!”
“You think I’m just going to come with you?!”
“A washed-up old E-Rank acting tough?”
Kim Tae-soo sneered as he drew a vicious serrated dagger.
Jo Tae-joon wasn’t facing monsters.
He was facing two Abyss operatives who hunted humans for a living.
Kim Kyung-soo was D-Rank.
Kim Tae-soo was C-Rank.
They each outclassed him by at least one or two ranks.
His aging body had no hope of surviving their coordinated assault.
After only a brief struggle, Jo Tae-joon’s knees buckled.
A brutal blow smashed into his face.
He lost consciousness and was dragged away.
* * *
A damp basement reeking of blood.
When Jo Tae-joon finally regained consciousness, it was because of unbearable pain.
The first thing he saw was Kim Kyung-soo’s cold gaze.
“Urgh…”
“Where… am I…?”
“Awake already?”
Kim Tae-soo grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head upward.
Covered in blood and tied to a chair, Jo Tae-joon stared through blurred vision at Kim Kyung-soo.
“We know the Black Moon Gang attacked us.”
“Tell the truth, and we’ll let you live.”
“Why did you do it?”
Kim Kyung-soo asked in an almost emotionless voice.
Jo Tae-joon spat blood running down his chin.
He had absolutely no idea what Kim Kyung-soo was talking about.
“Ptui!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ve got the wrong people.”
“It wasn’t us.”
“It was.”
“There’s no one else.”
Kim Kyung-soo wasn’t asking.
He had already decided.
The torture began.
Kim Kyung-soo repeated the same question over and over.
Jo Tae-joon desperately shook his head each time.
“I’m innocent!”
“Manager Kim, I’m telling you, I’m innocent!”
“I don’t know what happened to your gang, but we have no reason to attack the Cheolsu Gang!”
“We don’t even have that kind of manpower!”
“The Cheolsu Gang barely does anything besides selling drugs through kids! Why would we attack you?!”
“God…”
“You’re talkative.”
Stab!
Kim Tae-soo drove his vicious dagger deep into Jo Tae-joon’s thigh.
Its serrated blade tore mercilessly through flesh.
“AAAAAAAGH!!”
“The important thing…”
“…isn’t whether you actually did it.”
Kim Tae-soo leaned close to his ear, whispering mockingly as Jo Tae-joon screamed.
“The important thing is bringing someone to Boss.”
“Someone who looks like they could’ve done it.”
“Even if you didn’t…”
“…you have to become the one who did.”
“That’s the only way we survive.”
“Understand?”
The moment Jo Tae-joon saw the cold madness in Kim Tae-soo’s eyes…
He understood.
“I’m… not getting out of here alive.”
Something had dealt the Cheolsu Gang an enormous blow.
These two brothers had failed to find the real culprit and had been cornered.
Their promise to spare him if he told the truth…
…was an outright lie.
This torture wasn’t about discovering the truth.
It was about manufacturing a scapegoat.
Someone to die in their place.
Jo Tae-joon felt utterly wronged.
But inside that damp, sealed basement…
There wasn’t a single person willing to believe his repeated cries that he truly knew nothing.
“You did it.”
“There’s no other possibility.”
Kim Kyung-soo’s cold declaration echoed through the room.
Iron Mask had given them only one week.
Finding the true culprit—someone who had erased every trace of themselves—was nearly impossible.
Brainwashing someone into becoming the “criminal” was the only way the Kim brothers could survive Iron Mask’s wrath.
Three days.
For three entire days, Jo Tae-joon endured endless torture and psychological conditioning.
Meanwhile, the brothers desperately sent their subordinates everywhere in search of any clue about the real culprit.
But in the end…
They found nothing.
* * *
When Jo Tae-joon, the Black Moon Gang’s vice leader, disappeared…
The entire organization erupted into chaos.
Naturally, they had no way of knowing that Kim Kyung-soo and Kim Tae-soo were responsible.
The crude traces left behind by Kim Tae-soo during the kidnapping…
Instead pointed suspicion toward the Yaksha Gang.
And so…
On a pitch-black night…
The Black Moon Gang launched a surprise knife attack on one of the Yaksha Gang’s businesses.
Caught completely off guard and having no idea why they were under attack, the Yaksha Gang was nearly wiped out.
Had the police not intervened midway through the battle, the organization might have been destroyed entirely.
The clash involved two of the most powerful criminal organizations in Seoul’s OO District.
Even the police couldn’t completely suppress them.
They managed to arrest only the low-ranking members left behind at the scene.
The surviving members of the Yaksha Gang burned with rage.
They had no idea why the Black Moon Gang had attacked them.
But at that point…
The reason no longer mattered.
“When war begins…”
“…it doesn’t end until one side is wiped out.”
