The Fall of the Throne

"Chairman! From the lobby through the tenth floor, we've lost them all. The intruder is confirmed entering the eleventh. At this pace... we estimate he reaches your office within five minutes."

An executive delivered the report. Fear ran through his voice, and no effort of his could hide it.

A sudden intrusion. Uncommon, yes, but never impossible. How many people wanted his life? His grudges were so numerous, and so varied, that guessing who stood behind this one was difficult. And so he fixed his attention on the situation in front of him.

The enemy is alone.

This audacious intruder had walked into his kingdom by himself. Ordinarily his soldiers would have stopped the man before a report ever climbed this high. This one was different.

"...How many have we committed so far?"

Kim Seongjin asked it quietly. His voice was calm enough to startle.

"From the lobby count alone, the confirmed dead already exceed eighty. First floor through the tenth... effectively annihilated. Shock weapons, batons, attempts to drive him off—none of it works. Not the ordinary members. Not even the special security unit...."

The executive swallowed the rest at the back of his throat. Instinct had already told him there was no point in going on.

The chairman's office was cold. The screams, the debris, the chaos of the lobby never reached this high. In that stillness, the only living thing was the even sound of Kim Seongjin's breathing.

As if savoring the silence, he slowly looked down on the city beyond the glass. Unlike the orderly roads, the people spilling out of the building were fleeing in an uproar. All of it lay distant and still, like a work of art.

"...And the tools?"

Tools. The employees he meant—ordinary citizens. The executive answered at once.

"We've concentrated civilian staff on the eighth, tenth, and twelfth floors. More than three times the usual headcount on each. Friend and foe are effectively impossible to tell apart. Elite bodyguards are fully deployed on the tenth and twelfth."

"Good."

The corner of Kim Seongjin's mouth lifted, barely. It was not a smile. It was the small reaction of a plan, confirmed, clicking into motion.

"That he has not harmed a civilian until now means he is straddling a line of ethics."

He murmured it, watching the lights beyond the window.

Failure? Yes. Given the force shown so far, this might well fail. It did not matter. Success or failure, he would still be alive when he left this place.

Slowly, he reached beneath the desk and pressed a secret button only he knew. The distributed command system buried through the whole of the building came alive. This was the final defense.

Dee—dee—dee—dee!

Emergency sirens wailed, and the fire shutters and exits on every floor began to seal in sequence. But in a single direction, a single route stayed open. The King's Path, and Kim Seongjin alone could walk it.

"Now, then. It is time to move."

He settled his wristwatch and rose unhurriedly from the chair. Executives and aides followed at his back.

Like a king setting out in procession, the tyrant walked to the steel door with his vassals in tow.

A hiss of air, and it opened. A special route that answered only to Kim Seongjin's biometric signature. From the hour this building was designed, his way out had always been the roof.

The emergency passage leading up was sealed completely from the outside world. Cold steel stairs, and a single light. Through that narrow gap the black-suited executives climbed in a line behind him.

Kim Seongjin said nothing. Even the breath of the climb stayed even and quiet. His eyes were already looking past the summit. The stairs were a private passage running straight to the roof.

Within the bulletproof coating there were no cameras, no biometric snares. Because this was the King's Path. Not once had he called this road a flight.

It had always been the seat he climbed in order to write the rules of the next game—a sanctuary of vengeance in which he had never once been defeated.

When they reached the roof, the wind met them first. City noise, sirens, human screams. All of it surged up from below.

"Chairman."

One bodyguard ran up and bowed.

"The helicopter is ready. Bulletproof glass, communications blackout, ground-surveillance mode—all nominal."

Kim Seongjin nodded. When he turned his head, slowly, the whole of the city lay beneath his feet. Seongjin Group Headquarters, a tower into which hundreds of billions had been poured. He stood above it.

Before he boarded, he looked down at the building. A faint distortion crossed his face. It was not anger. It was hatred, calculated.

"One man."

He spoke it low.

"How dare he. The wretch who set a foot in this place."

As if a heretic had fouled a temple of pure white, the kingdom shook because of that single existence.

"I will smash him. Every means I possess, every method."

He said it, and he meant that he would stake all he had. He would not care if he burned half of Korea to take that one man.

"Every judge, every prosecutor, every lawmaker, the press, the police. All of them are beasts I fattened on my money."

He looked back at his executives.

"The moment we return, secure everything on him. If there is no face, scrape up the remains and reconstruct one. Find the family first. If there is none, then schools, hospitals, military records. Tear through every channel."

And last, he said:

"Wherever in the world he hides, I will make a wasteland of every inch of earth beneath his feet."

With that, he boarded the helicopter.

The rotor began to turn, and in the vortex of violent wind the hem of Kim Seongjin's coat snapped and flew. The helicopter lifted.

Below it, a kingdom ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠burning. A tower of power he had designed with his own hands and raised in blood. A single shadow stirring all of it.

But he knew. This was not flight, but withdrawal. Not evasion, but rearrangement.

Thuk-thuk-thuk-thuk!

Bearing a vow of vengeance, the helicopter began its slow climb into the sky.

From the lobby ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the ninth floor, breaking through had not taken even five minutes.

The time to arrive was short. In that brief span, though, I had been able to clear out hundreds of the Seongjin Syndicate—garbage crusted over with every sin there is.

And so I reached the tenth floor. I opened the door that had been shut fast.

"Kyaaah! Kyaaaah!"

"Please, please spare me...!"

"Aaaaagh!"

Screams crashed over me like a bombardment. All at once, the people trapped on that floor came pouring out.

Men in neckties. Women in white shirts. An old man collapsed and sobbing. A man who seemed disabled. Even children, as if they had been fetched from the company daycare.

Every one of them was crying. Fear, terror, desperation. Those feelings filled the air, heavy as weather.

...I see.

I understood the situation in an instant. Gathering them all in one place had been meant to breed chaos, so that civilian and syndicate member could not be told apart.

But they had misjudged one thing. I was nothing like an ordinary person. I was one of those called the Awakened.

Tss—tss—tss!

I could see. The evolved Eye of Judgment, the History of Judgment, showed me straight through those loathsome shells.

Above the old man's head:

Above the man who appeared to be disabled:

And a girl who looked no more than five or seven:

And among the crowd—

"H-help me!"

A female employee screamed and tried to throw herself into my arms. But my eyes were on the palm of the hand reaching to seize me.

A sharpened sense of smell read it. A nervous-system blocker, smeared inside the leather glove. A paralytic poison meant to enter through the veins.

So I twisted her wrist and snapped her shoulder. The joint wrenched and broke like a doll's.

"Agh!"

She screamed once and went down. That was not the end.

Seven agents, identified. Different faces, different feelings, different voices, they drove through the gaps in the civilians and charged me. But their sins, their Karma, were far too clear.

I drove a blow into the abdomen of the woman wearing a little girl's shape and stopped her heart. Two more came at once, left and right. I pivoted on the ball of my foot, slipped them, and slammed both skulls caught in my hands straight into the wall.

KRASH!

The wall split. Blood burst apart.

"Aaaagh!"

"He killed a person?!"

"A m-monster?!"

To the citizens' eyes, it was a sight that could not be sorted. To me, it was perfectly clear. I did not touch a single innocent, nor anyone whose sins ran comparatively thin.

I cut out only the evil hidden beneath the masks.

"Agh, aaaagh!"

"Run!"

I passed through the real citizens as they screamed. Where I had been, there were only the corpses of elite assassins, tumbled like rag dolls.

I broke the trap they had prepared in an instant. What met me next was a metal shutter.

Steel and carbon fiber, crossed with shock-absorbing polymer. A composite protective shutter, the stoutest access barrier in the whole building. It meant nothing to me.

BOOM!

My fist met it, and the metal bent and twisted with a scream. The second blow tore the frame inside. By the third, it collapsed as if it had exploded.

And it was not only one.

Bang—KRAAASH!

Every protective shutter barring my way ripped apart like paper. Beyond them lay the secret passage. I followed that passage, built for someone, up—and farther up.

BANG!

I kicked through the door onto the roof.

Thuk-thuk-thuk-thuk!

Far off, a single helicopter was cutting the sky. Already hundreds of meters away. The rope slung beneath its wheels clacked inward, and the door was sliding shut.

And through that gap, I saw it.

An endless residue of evil. And negative Karma of more than ten thousand.

It was him. Kim Seongjin, chairman and boss of the Seongjin Syndicate, was aboard that helicopter now, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and around him stretched thousands in negative Karma and a litany of crimes.

"Running? You dare?"

Someone might have thought he had already slipped my hands. Not in the least. This was precisely why I had come to Seongjin Group, the very source of this evil.

A fact I had grasped only moments ago. To bring even one of my stats to 20 required fully one hundred thousand Karma.

It was a kind of evolution. Or a Transcendence. And I had already gathered enough Karma to transcend Agility.

And then the important part. With the three stats reaching a combined total of fifty, a special ability unlocked.

The special stat Qi, and the enlightened art Double Jump, were engraved into my flesh.

The instant I saw that, my body moved on its own.

Pat!

I kicked off the edge of the roof and leapt into the void. Agility had evolved a stage through Transcendence, and still a single jump could not cover that distance.

But in the next moment a weightless resistance wound, lightly, around my toes.

Tok.

An invisible foothold, firm as condensed air. I planted myself on it and leapt again.

Shhhk!

It felt like sprinting across the sky, splitting the wind. Thirty meters. Twenty. Ten. At last my knee slammed the helicopter's door.

KRACK!

The bulletproof door shattered outright, and I burst into the cabin.

"..."

At the unbelievable sight, an untimely stillness fell over the interior.

Shock. That was the whole of their faces. A monster that had walked in on two feet, into a helicopter moving through the sky.

A bodyguard who had boarded with them moved. His hand was on the trigger.

Thuk!

His neck snapped before the trigger could finish its pull.

Bang! Bang!

A second shot, a third—but they only punched through the shoulders and thighs of the unlucky executives beside him.

I was already behind that muzzle. I dropped low, turned, drove in the edge of my hand, sprang onto a seat, and snapped a nape.

Slow. They had no choice. I had transcended Agility by one stage, and from the moment I arrived by stepping on the air, time was bending in my favor.

Thud. Collapse. All four bodyguards were dead. What remained in the helicopter was Kim Seongjin, his executives, and the pilot.

"Ch-Chairman...."

"Shut up and fly. Unless you want to watch your chairman die."

For an instant, the pilot's eyes met Kim Seongjin's. Kim Seongjin gave a quiet nod. And so—

Thuk-thuk-thuk-thuk-thuk!

Inside the helicopter, a strange shared journey began.

"...You."

I pointed at one of the executives.

"...?"

I wasn't waiting for an answer. I took the man by the waist—negative Karma past three thousand, guilty of every crime there is—and hurled him out.

"Aaaaaaaa—"

A scream dwindling away from the helicopter. One evildoer, gone.

"What do you think you're—?!"

Another executive opened his mouth.

Thud!

I kicked him out through the helicopter door, already half torn away.

"..."

No one dared speak. Silence, though, changed nothing.

"Agh!"

"Aaaaaa—"

One by one, the executives vanished. Resist? They wouldn't dream of it.

I was the monster who had caught, with a leap, a helicopter hundreds of meters off. They had just watched me slip even bullets. They knew that whatever resistance they offered would be useless.

"Please, please spare me."

"I-if it's money, I'll give you all of it."

"What do you want? Money, power? Women? I'll give you all of it, all of—"

Every executive flapping that stinking mouth fell out of the helicopter. What remained was—

"..."

Kim Seongjin. Only him. He had stayed seated the whole time, leaned into the backrest, legs crossed, face turned to the window, pretending at calm.

But my senses were keen, and I knew. The sweat sliding down that back. The trembling pupils of prey, waiting to be eaten.

Slowly, I stood before his chair.

"Kneel."

He turned his head.

"Who are you to give me orders?"

I said nothing. I pointed down with a finger.

"..."

The sky had already swallowed several of his executives. He looked at me uneasily—the man who had driven them to the cliff of death without a moment's hesitation.

He was still hesitating. For a man like that, I offered the words.

"Kneel. Beg me to spare you, and I promise I won't lay a hand on you."

I gave him the words that could let him take that one grueling step—the step that would collapse his pride. And then—

Thud!

His knees struck the floor. A posture of despair, made of nothing but the desire to live.

"..."

I looked down at him and said nothing.

"...Spare me."

At last his mouth opened. A man who had never once apologized before the countless deaths he had made. Now that his own life was the one in danger, he went on, eyes blazing.

"If you'll only let me live... anything you want... money, women, power, vengeance. I'll give you all of it, just as you wish. I have it. I have all of it. Politics and business, the press, the courts! All of it is in my hand...!"

His voice grew more urgent, and more servile.

"I'll give you what you want. I mean it. I'll give you everything you want, so please, just me...."

Not content with kneeling, he flattened himself against the floor. Cold sweat streamed through his bowed hair. With every breath he drew, his lips trembled, swallowing anxiously.

That was Kim Seongjin now.

A man who had stood higher than anyone in the world, who had priced other lives cheaper than anyone. That man was on his knees in front of me.

In front of me, who not long ago had been at the very bottom.

Lips bitten through with humiliation. Arrogance broken. And that was the picture I had wanted.

Killing him would not be difficult. Touch him, and he would break without strength. But I wanted to break him first—before I killed him.

"Do you know why I told a man with no sincerity in him to kneel, and to beg?"

I asked him. But—

"..."

Kim Seongjin did not answer. He could not. In this moment his mouth would open only to save his own life.

"Do you know what the greatest humiliation is, for filth like you?"

"..."

"A man who has strength, and money, and power, all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of it. A false king who worked people like objects because he could. And now you are begging a consumable you treated as a thing."

His pupils shivered.

"That world you worshipped. The logic you believed—that the strong take, and the weak are used—you are denying it with your own mouth, in this moment. Begging me to spare you, when not long ago I was worth less than a disposable."

I leaned in and looked at his face up close.

"Take away your background, your money and your power, and the people around you, and you are nothing but garbage begging me to let you live."

"..."

Even so, he could not speak. No denial, no surprise, no anger—he showed no feeling at all. Inside him, a small hope was still breathing.

The small expectation that I might keep my promise. In that case—

"Well done. As I promised, I won't lay a hand on you."

I keep my promises. But then I turned my gaze to the pilot, the man who had been holding his breath all this time.

"You... you...."

Only then did Kim Seongjin panic. Too late.

KRASH!

I smashed the cockpit glass and snapped the man's neck with one hand.

"No! You bastard! No! I said no!"

Too late. The stick tilted.

Whhhooooom!

The helicopter's balance collapsed all at once.

"Fuck, what are you doing?! We're all going to die. All of us!"

Kim Seongjin flailed through the cabin with the hand he had thrown out to grab me. But in a helicopter that had lost its center, his hands could not catch me.

Beneath the craft, past the spread of the city, the shadow of the nearby mountains drew near.

"You son of a bitch! Do you know who I am?! How dare the likes of you... the likes of you...!"

The wind carried his scream far.

I listened to a shriek like a death throe.

Tat!

And I leapt clear of the helicopter.

THUD!

I landed on a mountainside thick with shade.

Whooosh—

Wind scattered around me, where I had come down by stepping on empty air. I lifted my head to the sky.

Shuuuuu!

A black silhouette thrashed. Wings twisting. A craft falling. From inside it, the man's scream still reached me.

"Aaaaaaaaaagh!"

And then—

BOOM. KRA-KRA-KRA-KOOM!

The helicopter struck the ground and exploded. A tongue of flame split the dark and rose, misshapen, toward the sky. The throne of Seongjin Group—that absolute seat, which had seemed as if it would last forever—fell down the mountain in a jagged scream, and shattered to pieces.