The Night Black Snake Burned
The fire broke out in the Entertainment District.
Startled by the sudden blaze, the district's denizens erupted into chaos. Fire suppression units installed across the streets whirred to life, dousing the flames with cascading water.
In the distance, sirens began to wail.
A dog-shaped cube robot stood motionless, watching the building burn.
The raging inferno reflected perfectly in its lens.
"YggON."
[Scan complete. No individual matching Wolya detected inside the building.]
Ryu Hwi linked the cube robot's feed with YggON's data and began tracing Wolya's movements.
[Checking surrounding CCTV feeds. Reviewing recorded footage.]
CCTV networks were supposed to be closed systems — impossible to access without a direct physical connection. But YggON sliced through the surrounding cameras with casual, effortless ease.
The footage from after Ryu Hwi and Wolya's last exchange was projected into his field of view.
Multiple angles appeared at once, and Ryu Hwi combed through every single one without missing a frame.
About three minutes after the two had finished talking, the cameras caught Wolya stepping out of the shop.
Her new prosthetic frame was a silver-haired woman wearing an enormous mascot costume. Why on earth she'd chosen such a bizarre body was anyone's guess.
Waddle, waddle.
Wolya headed off somewhere — but a few minutes later, she came hurrying back to the shop, visibly panicked.
She moved like something was chasing her.
Sure enough, men in black suits soon stormed the store.
They smashed straight through the shop's door and barged inside. There should have been a security system wired to the authorities, yet even as time passed, no police appeared.
At last, the men in black dragged Wolya's limp body out of the shop.
There was a wound at the back of her head — someone had struck her — and she hung unconscious between her captors.
After hauling her out, the men set the shop ablaze and vanished into the night.
[Match found. The faces correspond to the individuals who have been surveilling you, Master.]
Iron Blood.
Ryu Hwi now knew exactly who had kidnapped Wolya.
"They pulled this off right under a whole network of CCTV cameras. Sure, they're running recognition-jamming gear, but that's hardly foolproof."
Their behavior was bold to the point of absurdity.
"The police showing up this late, too... Ha. Do the Entertainment District cops even bother doing their jobs?"
Ryu Hwi suspected some manner of connection between Iron Blood and the district police.
"YggON, I'm handing over control of the cube robot. Track them."
[Understood.]
YggON immediately began tailing Iron Blood. In the meantime, Ryu Hwi had business of his own to attend to.
'They' appeared on screen after screen of the CCTV footage.
'They' came first.
Luga, leader of Black Snake, was terrified.
For days now, he'd been keeping watch over Jucheongwang on Iron Blood's orders. The original directive had been to surveil Ryu Hwi, but once the man abruptly dropped off the map, the target shifted to the shop itself.
Luga owed Wolya, the owner of Jucheongwang, more than he cared to admit — but he couldn't refuse Iron Blood's orders.
If Black Snake was a pack of delinquents, Iron Blood was a full-blown criminal syndicate that had carved out its own corner of the Entertainment District.
Cross them, and Black Snake wouldn't live to see tomorrow morning.
So Luga and his gang had obeyed, cornered and out of options.
Day after day, they watched the shop.
Tedious, yes — but there was nothing else they could do.
For reasons he didn't understand, Iron Blood had it out for Ryu Hwi.
Luga ground his teeth at the thought of him.
If it weren't for Ryu Hwi, Black Snake would never have been dragged through any of this.
Then one day, mid-slog, Iron Blood issued a new directive.
They were going to raid Jucheongwang, and Black Snake would assist.
Luga couldn't say no.
Jucheongwang was burning.
The fire suppression units, belated as ever, finally began to extinguish the blaze.
An absurdly late arrival by any measure.
The police, too, only now shuffled onto the scene with studied unconcern.
Long after Iron Blood had finished the job.
Luga watched it all from a distance.
It was Iron Blood that had ordered Black Snake to set the fire.
They're running recognition-jamming tech, so nobody'll catch us. Should I do it? Or not?
In the end, Luga and Black Snake had caved.
Now they stood gazing at the flames swallowing Jucheongwang, their own handiwork, an involuntary tremor running through their chests at what they'd done.
"Boss... are we really gonna be okay?"
One of his underlings asked in a shaking voice.
"Shut up! Just shut it!"
Luga barked.
He had no room for composure. Gnawing compulsively at his fingernails, he wore his anxiety on his sleeve.
They'd crossed a line that could never be uncrossed.
The black suit he'd thrown on as a disguise hung on him like a lead weight.
"Damn it. This is all because of that bastard. If he'd just never existed, none of this would—"
He hurled all his rage at Ryu Hwi. The guilt, the dread, the gnawing anxiety — he dumped every last cause at that man's feet.
It was the only thing that made him feel even slightly better.
In that instant, a chill swept up his spine. Luga flinched and whipped his head around.
In a dark alley off the Entertainment District, he caught the silhouette of someone standing with their back to the glittering streetlights.
The backlighting made the face impossible to make out, but Luga knew, instinctively, exactly who it was.
His body trembled.
Goosebumps crawled up his skin.
Every instinct screamed at him to run.
The terror he'd tasted that day — that exact moment — crashed over him again.
"Black Snake."
The instant that voice rang out, Luga let out a pathetic little "Hup!" before he could stop himself.
Step.
Step.
Footsteps echoed through the alley.
To Luga and his gang, those footsteps sounded like a grim reaper closing in.
"You've managed to piss me off not once, not twice, but three times now?"
Ryu Hwi.
The moment the man emerged, the garish lights of the boulevard blazing behind him, a few of them were so stricken with fear that their legs simply gave out and they collapsed on the spot.
"I trust you came prepared for that?"
Ryu Hwi glared at the Black Snake gang with eyes cold as ice.
The CCTV footage had caught them, black and white, dead to rights.
While YggON handled the pursuit of Iron Blood, Ryu Hwi had shown up in person to shatter Black Snake first.
"Luga, was it?"
At the sound of his name, the Black Snake leader flinched hard.
"I know you've been colluding with Iron Blood. I know you hit Wolya to get at me."
Ryu Hwi advanced, step by unhurried step.
Step, step.
With every echoing footfall, the gang shrank backward.
Even though there was nowhere left to run.
"Want me to tell you the one way you all walk out of here alive?"
Ryu Hwi rested his sword across his shoulder as he spoke, his voice flat and unbothered.
"Tell me everything you know about Iron Blood. Every last detail."
Beneath that placid tone smoldered a fury so intense it made the listener's skin crawl.
"S-Shut up!"
Luga shouted, as if defiance could hold fear at bay.
"We're not the Black Snake of the old days anymore! You think we're just gonna roll over like last time—"
"Let me guess. You've joined up with Iron Blood?"
"......!"
"Then you're Iron Blood too, aren't you? Well, that's just a shame."
Ryu Hwi clicked his tongue.
"I was planning to sweep every last one of those Iron Blood bastards off the map anyway — they've gotten on my nerves. And since you're part of that crew now, I might as well sweep you up in the same pass."
Luga's voice died in his throat.
Iron Blood was a syndicate with a stranglehold on part of the Entertainment District — lawless criminals who thought nothing of violence, theft, and murder.
And Ryu Hwi had just declared he'd wipe them all out.
If anyone else had said it, Luga would have laughed it off as empty bluster. But there was something uncanny in this man's words.
Some part of him genuinely believed it was possible. Luga clenched his jaw, as if to shake off the feeling.
"Cut the crap!"
Ryu Hwi let out a sigh and let his sword sink low.
"Whether it's crap or not, we'll see soon enough. And I have a bit of unfortunate news for you..."
The moment Luga's eyes went wide at the sudden disappearance and he blinked—
"You made the wrong choice."
Ryu Hwi was already standing directly in front of him.
Ryu Hwi could use the skills he'd honed in the game labyrinths in reality too.
Their potency diminished compared to in-game, but in the real world they were powers so overwhelming they bordered on excessive.
Ryu Hwi's current skill set:
Before the real fight began, Ryu Hwi had wanted to test just how far his body could take him now.
His test subjects, of course, were the Black Snake gang.
As offerings on the altar, they flailed desperately in their death throes — and the harder they resisted, the better test subjects they made.
Luga, the first to fall as a living sandbag, was trembling all over with sheer terror.
Even their last fight hadn't been like this.
Back then, the man had displayed strength beyond belief — but at least it had still fallen within the bounds of 'human.'
The Ryu Hwi standing before him now belonged to a different order of existence entirely.
Every time a faint light flashed through the dark alley, another of his crew dropped helplessly where they stood.
His eyes simply couldn't keep up with Ryu Hwi's movements.
Is this a dream? Am I actually dreaming right now?
It was enough to make him want to deny reality outright.
Luga prayed, with everything he had, for this hell to end — the sooner, the better.
A short while later.
"Whew."
Ryu Hwi exhaled lightly.
Reality and the game labyrinths really did differ enormously in how they felt to move through.
Having confirmed that fact, he glanced around.
Not a single man was left standing.
Black Snake had just re-tasted the humiliation and hell they'd endured before. No — this was worse.
Thanks to the experience he'd banked in the labyrinths, Ryu Hwi moved his body far more efficiently now, and had learned exactly how to break an opponent with minimal waste.
And he'd tested everything he'd learned there on Black Snake. Thoroughly, methodically, without exception. "Acting as my tutorial opponents twice over — I really do have to thank you."
Ryu Hwi bent down in front of the fallen Luga.
The tone was light, but his voice was cold enough to raise goosebumps.
"Consider it my thanks — I'll give you one final chance to choose. Talk. Everything."
The voice of a grim reaper echoed at Luga's ear.
In that moment, every event of his life flashed through Luga's mind.
When he'd founded Black Snake, he'd believed he could do anything.
That he and his crew could go on living exactly as they pleased, forever.
So where, exactly, had it all gone wrong?
You made the wrong choice.
The words had been true.
Luga lay where he'd fallen, weeping.
He never should have burned Jucheongwang.
He never should have listened to Iron Blood.
He should have taken Ryu Hwi's offer. No...
He never should have gotten tangled up with Ryu Hwi in the first place.
Meeting that man at all had been the mistake.
It was regret arriving far, far too late.
"Follow my words, and you'll never be connected to any of this again. I trust you understand what that means."
Luga nodded, hollow-eyed.
There was no other choice.
He had already chosen wrong, after all.
[Iron Blood's destination has been confirmed.]
The Black Snake gang was already nowhere in sight.
Ryu Hwi, leaning against the alley wall, let out a quiet sigh.
He'd pumped them for a great deal of information.
Iron Blood was a larger organization than he'd imagined — so large that no one in the district would so much as breathe its name without flinching.
[The risk factor is far too high. I recommend abandoning Wolya.]
"Their target is me either way. Tossing Wolya aside wouldn't accomplish a thing. Besides..."
Iron Blood intended to use Wolya as bait to reel him in.
"I don't survive by taking hits lying down."
Until now, Iron Blood had been shuffled to the bottom of his priority list.
But with the serious assault on the Tower looming, Ryu Hwi felt the need to eliminate loose ends for good.
"First, I'll find out why those Iron Blood bastards are after me..."
They'd done nothing but watch him until now, so he'd been content to leave them be.
But this time... this time, Iron Blood had finally crossed a line.
"They lifted that heavy ass off the couch, so I might as well put them down for good while I'm at it."
From this very moment, Iron Blood was Ryu Hwi's enemy.
And to bring down an enemy, Ryu Hwi launched himself into the night sky.