Highlights
The moment my mouthguard went in—
"Shin Yugyeom."
The waiting room door swung open without warning.
"We're holding you at the entrance cue."
"Understood."
I turned to the Master and Namrae.
"It's time."
"Whew... I swear, this kid really might cause a disaster out there tonight."
Namrae muttered under his breath, and the Master gave a firm nod.
"Go show them what you've got!"
"Let's gooo!"
Buoyed by their thunderous encouragement, I stepped out of the waiting room. As I made my way down the corridor toward the passage that opened onto the arena, staff members came into view.
"Shin Yugyeom. You can stand here."
They positioned me before a row of cameras waiting like a photo line. And a few moments later, I heard it—Now We Are Free, flooding every corner of the arena.
The instant that majestic melody reached my ears, my past life unspooled before me like a panorama. Perhaps it was because the song was born from a film about the very era I once lived in—despite the vast gulf of years between us, I could feel the timeless inspiration of a master's hand at work. And then—
"WAAAAAAHHHH—!"
The roar was far more vivid than it had been from the waiting room, a wave of sound that raised the hair on my skin and roused the beast sleeping within me.
"Walk out! Walk out!"
At the staff member's cry, I set off. Outside, five thousand seats brimmed with a sea of spectators. Compared to the Colosseum I had known in my past life, this stage was laughably small—yet an arena filled with an audience never failed to give me that dreamlike feeling.
"WAAAAH—!"
Escorted by the cheering, I walked to the cage and stopped. I shared a brief embrace with Namrae and the Master, then clamped down hard on the mouthpiece the Master held out. Shirt off, shoes off next. Like a sacred ritual performed step by measured step, my chest swelled with rising fervor until I spread my arms before the cutman.
"Body check, glove check."
As he ran his hands down my sides and I presented my wrapped fists, he examined them closely, confirmed the tape was sound, and nodded.
"Enter the cage."
"Thank you."
At last I climbed into the cage. Feeling the rough, cold canvas beneath my feet, I walked in through the gate—and a wave of cheers rolled toward me from even the farthest seats.
Then the arena lights shifted, and the champion's entrance music poured out. Inside the cage, I bounced to the rhythm, throwing out a few light punches as I waited for my opponent. After an eternity compressed into a handful of moments, Choi Woo-seung finally stepped inside.
Facing him within the cage, he looked far bigger than he had at the press conference—but no more so than Raoul Bisio, the former Senkai champion, or Moon Tae-jeong at lightweight, so it stirred nothing in me. I'd always been more at home in open-weight competition anyway; I didn't particularly concern myself with an opponent's dimensions.
"Thank you for waiting! KFC 077! The main event of our numbered show! We now introduce both fighters! First, from the blue corner! Height, 173 centimeters! Weight, 65.7 kilograms! Pankration base! Professional record, 1 fight, 1 win, 1 KO! The youngest fighter in KFC history! The prodigy of the fight game—'KRATISTOS' SHIN! YU! GYEOM!"
"WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
Kratistos.
It was the name of my past life, meaning the strongest of all, and the name of my YouTube channel—I'd submitted it as my ring name half as promotion, half on a whim, but hearing it pass through the ring announcer's lips stirred a strange feeling indeed.
Would that name take root in the crowd's minds tonight, and be chanted from their lips again and again?
Probably. Yes, it would.
"And from the red corner—the champion who accepted this reckless newcomer's challenge! The irreplaceable king! The legend of the KFC featherweight division! Height, 178 centimeters! Weight, 66 kilograms! MMA base! Professional record, 11 wins, 1 loss! 4 KOs, 3 submissions, 4 decisions—'STEEL HEART' CHOI! WOO! SEUNG!"
"WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
"Both fighters, to the center."
I stepped to the middle of the cage. Choi Woo-seung approached and squared off with me. Above his sharply jutting cheekbones, small eyes glinted with murderous focus.
"No headbutts, no groin strikes, no strikes to the back of the head, no soccer kicks. Protect yourselves at all times and fight fair, and obey my instructions at all times. Touch gloves if you wish."
Choi Woo-seung extended his glove first, and I gave it a light tap.
Tap.
We each retreated to our corners, and the referee asked us both:
"Ready?"
We both nodded—
"Fight!"
Clap!
The instant the referee's hands came together, I surged out of my corner. The moment distance naturally brought us together, I measured the range—just past punching distance, and my eyes flicked to his lower body before I could think.
Whum— His rear leg rose, and reading the timing, I arched my back like a drawn bow to slip the kick's arc. And then—
Thud.
Planting my rear foot into the canvas, I sprang forward like an arrow.
Tang!
Riding in on his kick, I threw the rear hand, then hoisted a lead uppercut.
Crack—Thwack!
The two punches hammered in one after another, and his rigid high guard shattered—but no clean shot landed.
The price came due at once. He was lunging in, throwing his rear hand as he tried to close the distance.
Shhh—
Turning my head along the path his head took, I slipped the counter and pushed away the head driving into my hip. At the same time I cleared my rear leg and pivoted—and he jabbed an uppercut at me.
Whoosh!
In the instant the wind swept across my face, I planted the rear hand flush on him.
Crack!
He staggered, and the copper stink of blood bloomed through the air. Instinct took over and I swung the lead hand, but he fell back and the punch grazed past by a hair. Even as it did, his rear leg came up for my ribs.
Bam!
"······!"
The kick buried itself deep on the inhale, and my breath seized in my throat. It was a strike fired with the fanatic devotion of a man who would trade every one of his toes for a rib.
Maybe a rib really had gone. Maybe only his toes had, or maybe we'd both broken something—the only thing certain was that at this moment, adrenaline detonating through both of us, neither of us could feel a thing.
So I braced my core and drove straight forward, stepping in with the lead foot. Together with it, I whipped a rear-leg calf kick.
Crack!
My shin slammed into the calf of his lead leg, and he buckled hard all over again. Even so, he loaded his weight onto the lead leg and swung a hook. I turned my head and let it slide past.
Thwack!
And in the same breath, rotating my hips along the path my slipped punch had traveled, I buried a fist into the flank across from me.
Smack!
"Ugh."
He shot out a hand, trying to snatch a collar tie on my neck. But I dropped my hips lower, angled my head to the outside, and folded my arm out of the hooking motion. In the same beat, my elbow drove into his face at point-blank range.
Crack.
He had turned his head chasing mine at exactly the wrong moment, and the heavy impact dumped him onto his backside.
Thump.
Yet even in his daze, he drove forward with his lead leg. From his seated position, his upper body flailed toward me without an ounce of momentum behind it—so I seized his head with my lead hand and vaulted over him. Then, spinning my body around in one motion, I looped my arm under his neck and hooked a leg with the other.
Sqeeeeze.
Falling back, cutting off his air, locking my legs in as well. In a single instant, the rear-naked choke had been sunk in to perfection. The man caught in the technique said to kill even a lion couldn't manage even a token resistance, his strength draining away fast. He'd been rocked long before the choke was ever locked on—no thrashing, no tap.
The moment I loosened my grip on the arm sealing off his carotid and windpipe, the referee—reading the moment and sprinting over—pried me off him and shouted:
"Stop!"
His arms crossed over each other.
"It's over!"
Only then did the roar reach my ears, breaking through the wall of concentration that had sealed them.
"WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
Round one.
Submission.
"Haha."
Laughter burst out of me as I peeled myself off him. Exactly as I'd foretold, the promise had been kept—clean as a whistle.
"······WAAAAAAAH!"
Shaken awake by the swelling roar, Choi Woo-seung couldn't piece together what had just happened. The last images he could recall were taking a shot that spun his head into darkness and dropped him—and then, on pure instinct, reaching for his opponent's leg. Too close to shoot a knee. The timing was never there. So why was he lying on his back when he opened his eyes?
"You okay?"
The referee's voice filtered through, mixed into the arena's thunder.
Did I lose?
He nodded—and at the same time, looked up at the big screen.
How?
The highlight replay was already playing. After dropping to the elbow, he'd reached for the opponent's lead leg right in front of his face. In that instant, the opponent had hauled his head down, vaulted over him, whirled around, seized the back, and sunk the choke. A movement so drilled it was practically reflex.
Faster than lightning itself.
"Ah."
Once he'd confirmed exactly how he'd been finished, Choi Woo-seung could finally understand the fervent cheers pouring from the stands. The crowd wasn't even seated anymore—they'd leapt to their feet, applauding on their feet.
"······What a clean way to go out."
It was no fun getting dismantled so thoroughly, but there would be no lingering regrets. Not a single one.
"You alright?"
His coach asked.
Choi Woo-seung nodded and looked past the cage fence. There stood his wife, crying.
"You said you wouldn't cry······."
"What?"
Choi Woo-seung answered the coach's question.
"No, I'm sorry. I wanted to finish my retirement fight in style, but······ not one punch he threw had to land on me, and I couldn't even close the distance. I never closed the distance, not once, to the very end. This one's on me."
"It's not your fault. He was just too strong!"
Choi Woo-seung pulled off his gloves and set them down on the cage floor.
Tap!
He pushed himself up. Shin Yugyeom stood before him.
"Why······."
Before the word could finish, Shin Yugyeom bowed his head. Bent at the waist, a full ninety degrees.
"Thank you for giving me this chance."
Choi Woo-seung let out a hollow laugh, shook his head, then pulled Yugyeom into a brief hug and pounded his back.
"Good work out there, and plenty more hardship coming your way. You're going to make it big. Far bigger than the rest of us fighting here in Asia."
He added it while shaking his hand:
"If you ever quit fighting and go do something else—mind if I sponsor you?"
Shin Yugyeom's eyes went wide as a rabbit's.
I looked at Choi Woo-seung, one of his eyelids swollen into a heavy lump.
A sponsorship. I hadn't even considered it.
Which meant he saw a future for me bright enough to invest in.
Next time we met, perhaps we'd be friends rather than rivals.
Even in my past life, there had been rivals I chose not to kill—and because of that, they'd become true companions who understood and honored one another more deeply than any friend.
"Give me a call sometime."
We took our places on either side of the referee. Then he gripped my wrist and thrust it skyward.
"Your winner—and the youngest KFC featherweight champion in history! KRATISTOS! SHIN! YU! GYEOM!"
"WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
A middle-aged man with the hard-bitten look of a regional district chief climbed onto the cage and cinched the championship belt around my waist.
"Congratulations, Shin Yugyeom!"
"Thank you!"
Then the ring announcer raised the microphone to his mouth.
"Shin Yugyeom prepared these remarks in case he won! Sometimes this world throws things at us stranger than the movies—and today, we're all sitting in the front row for one! Coming out of nowhere like a comet and wrapping the championship belt around his waist with overwhelming skill—tell us how it feels, and what comes next!"
"Luck was on my side and the timing lined up, so I was able to seize the opportunity. But I don't think I deserve to be called a real champion yet. I still have two more fights on my contract, and in that time I want to show everyone that I belong in this seat. First I'll clear out the featherweight contenders, and then I'll give Ji Hyeon-tae—whose title shot I took from him—the chance to challenge me for it."
The arena's giant screen caught Ji Hyeon-tae's face. He wasn't far away at all. He was in the very front row, glaring up at me.
"WAAAAH······."
Held breaths mingled with the spectators already salivating at the mouth.
"Any time."
I spoke to him directly.
"Pick whichever night you want to sleep well, hyung. That'll be the night."
In a recent interview, he'd said the stolen title shot had given him insomnia.