Chapter 21. Rapid Inner Core Completion Course!
Chapter 21. Rapid Inner Core Completion Course!
When word spread that the mid-boss Chen Li had died in such a ridiculous way, the Black Dragon Society exploded into chaos.
The Society urgently dispatched five executives to Korea.
All of them were bloodfiends with power comparable to Chen Li—among the strongest forces the Black Dragon Gang possessed.
“You expect me to believe that? His head exploded from one punch?”
Liu Xiang, the leader of the group rushed into Korea this time, frowned.
“He’s fairly famous in Korea. Choi Cheolmin… they say he doesn’t lose to anyone in a fight.”
“So what? He’s still just an ordinary human! How can he stand up to bloodkin?”
The man reporting to Liu Xiang in a panic was the same one who had pulled out a pistol and fired in the room salon.
“I think he has some kind of special power, like Chen Li or you, Liu Xiang. He even neutralized bullets fired at close range.”
“Neutralized bullets?”
“I aimed and fired right in front of him, and the bullet missed. I fired three more shots after that and they all missed. You know my shooting, Liu Xiang. It shouldn’t be possible.”
“Choi Cheolmin… Fine. Even if I give you a hundred concessions and assume he has monstrous strength, I can at least understand Chen Li’s head bursting. But how did he make bullets miss?”
“That’s why we didn’t attack rashly. We’ve been gathering information on him while waiting for you, Liu Xiang.”
“Orders came down from the top. They say the bloodkin Discipline Corps is moving. They told us not to display bloodkin power at all. If the Discipline Corps takes interest in us, the Black Dragon Society is finished.”
Liu Xiang said, stroking his smooth, hairless jaw.
“We brought in a large quantity of firearms. How about we wait for an opening and handle it with guns or explosives?”
“Yeah. Let’s do it that way. If we move by human methods, the Discipline Corps won’t have anything to grab onto.”
Someone answered Liu Xiang.
“Too late, isn’t it? You’ve already been grabbed.”
At the ominous voice booming through the room, Liu Xiang broke into a cold sweat.
The Discipline Corps had arrived.
The Discipline Corps—the grim reapers of the bloodkin.
Liu Xiang desperately tried to argue with an unseen opponent.
“What are you talking about? We haven’t broken bloodkin discipline even once.”
“That’s for me to decide.”
The darkness in one corner clumped together, took on a human shape, and Saroki rose from within it.
From Saroki’s body, wavering like shadow-darkness, red blood vessels lashed out like whips.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
The man who’d been reporting stepped forward and fired his pistol, but the bullets couldn’t pierce Saroki’s body. They lodged halfway, then were pushed back out.
Then, as Saroki swung a whip-like blood vessel, the shooter was split in half and collapsed.
“Don’t do this! We don’t want to fight the Discipline Corps either!”
Liu Xiang’s eyes turned red and fangs lengthened from his mouth, but he still wanted to talk.
Saroki, however, absorbed the slick blood smeared on the floor into tentacle-like blood vessels and approached.
Muscles swelled across Liu Xiang’s body, ripping the buttons off his clothes.
Behind him, the Black Dragon Gang bloodfiends also lit their red eyes and raised their momentum.
A five-on-one fight.
On paper, it favored the Black Dragon Gang.
“Ridiculous. Fight? You’re not fighting. You’re being executed.”
When Saroki snapped his red blood vessels like whips, Liu Xiang hurriedly dodged. Even though it only grazed him with wind pressure, Liu Xiang’s tough skin—skin that could block blades—split open in jagged cracks.
“Newbies who haven’t even been bloodfiends for thirty years think they can come at me?”
Saroki spoke coldly and drew even more blood-made tentacles from his body.
Realizing they had no chance, the Black Dragon Gang bloodfiends tried to retreat and scatter, but it was useless. In an instant, all five were cut into dozens of pieces and fell in wet lumps.
A few seconds later, the bloodfiends’ corpses turned into black ash and disappeared.
“I wasted too much time waiting for these idiots to come to Korea.”
Muttering that, Saroki searched his phone for a photo of the next target.
Choi Cheolmin.
Currently staying at a motel in Seoul.
Just as he had appeared, Saroki vanished into the darkness.
Cheolmin hyung thanked me and treated me to beef again.
No matter how much beef I eat, I never get sick of it.
They say Koreans run on rice power, but meat suits me better.
Was I a foreigner in a past life?
After stuffing myself until my belly stuck out, I felt great. Bella was also inhaling meat beside me—she looked like she wasn’t even chewing, just swallowing.
Did she grow up not getting to eat much?
She looks pretty, but when she goes crazy at the sight of food, it’s annoying—and then it turns pitiful.
After eating beef until I was about to burst, I parted with Cheolmin hyung and Bella on the first floor and went up to the rooftop. Looking at the night sky, I drank a cup of mix coffee.
After a meal, mix coffee is the best.
I ran through my assets for a moment.
180 million saved over five years, 1.4 billion left to me by a man named Yoonseop, and 1.5 billion provided by Cheolmin hyung.
A total of 3.08 billion won.
They say this motel is worth 12 billion—if I save 9 billion more, I can buy it.
It’s an absurd number even if I tighten my belt and save harder, but it’s a dream I can definitely achieve someday.
I don’t have wasteful habits like Bella and Cheolmin hyung, blowing money like I’m rich.
But 12 billion is too expensive.
If I asked him to cut the price, how would the owner respond?
He’s the type to demand more, not give a discount…
While I was seriously thinking about the future, I saw something far away hopping—step, step—across buildings.
It was wrapped in black, shadow-like darkness, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. I had no idea how it could wrap itself in darkness like that.
Even when I examined it with telekinesis, it was hard to figure out the principle.
But when I looked inside the shadow, there was a man with the same vampire-like appearance I’d seen before.
Red eyes. Long fangs.
He spotted me sitting on the rooftop, came all the way to the motel roof, and hid in a corner.
It was already a dark, tucked-away spot, and with that guy hiding while wrapped in black shadow, a normal person wouldn’t be able to find him at all.
After hiding, he caught his breath for a moment, then started laughing nastily.
“Kehehehe.”
I watched silently, wondering what he wanted.
Then, with only his eyes showing from the darkness, he began to rise.
“Who are you?”
When I asked, he laughed unpleasantly and said,
“Kehehehe. So you’re the tracksuit. You and Choi Cheolmin…”
I heard that and just crushed his head.
He was obviously a monster that came for revenge over the Incheon incident, and it didn’t feel worth hearing his business.
With his skull shattered, he quickly turned to ash and disappeared.
“Ah… my identity got exposed. How did he know to come here?”
If he knew my name and Cheolmin hyung’s name, it meant the China side had already dug up Koreans’ personal information.
The more I thought about it, the more infuriating it was.
“We, the Intersection Gang, want to come under the Isu Gang.”
A skinny man with a sinister face knelt before Cheolmin. He was known as cruel and vicious—someone who wouldn’t kneel to anyone—but in front of Cheolmin, he had no choice.
“You know the Isu Gang’s policy and you’re still saying that?”
At Cheolmin’s stern question, the man answered without lifting his head.
“Yes. We’ll follow your will as well, hyung.”
There had been small friction for a few days, but once martial-arts master Cheolmin wiped out ten Intersection Gang punks by himself in one go, they immediately tucked their tails.
People say punks these days have no loyalty or romance, but that’s all bullshit.
Punks worship strength the most.
Show overwhelming power, and everyone bows like this.
But if you can’t crush them completely, they hold grudges and stab you in the back.
After word spread that Cheolmin had smashed the vicious Incheon faction, then chased them to the hospital and killed them all, no organization dared oppose him.
In just two weeks, Cheolmin seized control of all of northern Seoul.
Cheolmin held deep in his heart his master’s command to use power for justice.
He disbanded organizations running illegal businesses and was transforming them into legal groups. He couldn’t fully drop money-making businesses like private lending, but he enforced legal interest rates and banned illegal debt collection.
He also pushed into security work, and recently, he assigned strong members into moving companies and cleaning companies.
It didn’t bring huge money, but the pay was enough to keep members’ livelihoods comfortable.
Sometimes jobs like contracted assault requests came in too, but he examined them carefully—not by legal standards, but by whether they aligned with his master’s teaching of justice—and only then accepted.
And the venues existing gangs already owned—bars, restaurants, clubs—were so busy that they were short-handed instead.
The Isu Gang was rapidly transforming into a business organization with hundreds of members.
But Cheolmin didn’t let his guard down.
He knew it clearly.
In the darkness of this world, vicious monsters hid their identities, and Cheolmin decided he would become a guardian who protected ordinary citizens from them.
“Hey… isn’t Cheolmin hyung’s aura insane these days?”
One of the sixteen original Isu Gang members who survived said it.
“Seriously. Everyone’s trembling because they’re scared of Cheolmin hyung. The Incheon faction guys in the hospital dropped dead, and the Samhaphoe guys who came to hit us all disappeared somewhere. People think the Isu Gang killed them and buried them. And even that cop who kept biting us, saying he’d investigate—he jumped and killed himself!”
“But… the cop thing, did hyung really do it?”
“You little shit. After watching hyung this whole time, you’re saying that? Is hyung the kind of person who kills people?”
“The guys who just joined believe hyung did it for sure!”
“Let them believe it or not. Either way, Cheolmin hyung’s aura really is insane. Even if it wasn’t ten-on-one but a hundred-on-one, he’d still win. I always knew he could fight, but this time I was genuinely shocked!”
“When there’s no work, he trains on the lodging rooftop every time! The cleaning team dispatched to that motel says he swings a wooden sword all day up there!”
“He’s incredible. They say the staff guy there is his master—so did he really learn martial arts from him and get stronger?”
“Can’t we ask him to teach us too? We’re the original Isu Gang. We can’t get pushed out by the new guys coming in.”
“I’ll watch for an opening and bring it up. You’re right. We can’t get pushed out by the newcomers.”
The two who had survived life-and-death moments with Cheolmin had started to feel a sense of crisis.
A tiny group that used to be only about thirty people was becoming a major organization—if they didn’t feel crisis, that would be weirder.
“Um… Master. I have a request. Is it possible?”
In front of the tuna sashimi place we hadn’t been able to eat at before, Cheolmin hyung carefully opened his mouth.
“Yeah, what is it?”
“My guys also want to cultivate inner power, but can you help them? I tried guiding them, but I got no results at all. They can’t form a core in the first place.”
I thought for a moment.
Vampire-like things kept popping up out of nowhere, in unexpected places—like that monster suddenly appearing on the rooftop last time.
To me, it was nothing, but to ordinary people, they were monsters.
Incheon, Samhaphoe, Chinese vampire things—Cheolmin hyung’s subordinates would probably run into them a lot going forward.
And I didn’t want the original Isu Gang guys, who always bowed ninety degrees and treated me with extreme courtesy, to end up in danger.
If I helped a little—like when I first made Cheolmin’s core—it seemed like they could at least protect themselves in a dangerous situation.
While I was thinking, Cheolmin hyung continued.
“Our business scale has improved our situation, but we’re still not fully stable, so we don’t have much leeway. Still, it’s hard to ask with empty hands, so… sixteen men. One hundred million per person. If we give you 1.6 billion won as instruction fees, how about it?”
1.6 billion!
I’d been about to do it for free.
Yeah—when Cheolmin hyung proposes something, you can’t answer right away.
Is this another step toward my dream of becoming a motel owner?
Seeing my brightened face, Cheolmin hyung seemed to sense my acceptance and his face brightened too.
I raised a soju glass and offered a toast to Cheolmin hyung, then downed it. The tuna melted the moment it hit my mouth.
This tuna place had almost gotten shut down over a food poisoning incident recently, but thankfully it was back in business.
“What’s inner power training? Can you do it for Bella too?”
Bella said that with her mouth stuffed full of tuna, chewing. I refused without even looking at her.
“No.”
Bella stared at me briefly, shrugged, and went back to focusing on her tuna.
Cheolmin, in a good mood, ordered another plate of tuna sashimi.
She didn’t chew beef, and it didn’t look like she chewed tuna sashimi either.