The Rescue of Park Dahyun (2)
As Jaehyuk and Jeonghan climbed the stairs, the gangsters who had heard the commotion on the first floor came rushing down from above and attacked them.
“Die, you son of a bitch!!” The gangster in front swung a sashimi knife at Jaehyuk. He dodged the strike and, without a single second of hesitation, drove the blade of his own knife into the man’s abdomen.
With the blade still buried in the gangster’s stomach, he moved his body with blinding speed to evade the others’ attacks. At the same time, he twisted the knife clockwise roughly ninety degrees and ripped it free.
Jeonghan, busy swinging his iron pipe to fend off the gangsters attacking him with pipes, stared at his friend in utter shock. The Jaehyuk before him now looked nothing like the person he knew.
What the hell…? He’s stabbing people with a knife… without the slightest hesitation…? Was Jaehyuk always a psychopath? Or did what happened to Dahyun completely break him?
Thinking this, Jeonghan dodged the incoming strikes and swung his pipe at non-vital spots—their legs, shoulders, and arms.
While Jaehyuk neutralized three or four gangsters with ruthless knife work, Jeonghan barely managed to disable one using non-lethal blows.
Damn it…!! Maybe I shouldn’t have followed him after all?!
A short while later, the two friends reached the second floor and continued their brutal fight against the gangsters in the hallway. Jeonghan, caught in a panic, swung his iron pipe wildly in every direction. He managed to disable several enemies in the process, but one gangster spotted an opening and smashed a baseball bat into his exposed leg.
“Ugh!!”
Jeonghan staggered. In that instant, the gangsters swarmed him.
“Stomp him! Stomp him to death!”
But Jaehyuk saw it coming. He charged into the cluster of gangsters surrounding his friend and began stabbing them without mercy—again and again.
“Aaaargh!!”
“Stop him! Fuck, blo—!!”
“Glurk!!”
“Guh…!! Keuk…!!”
The sickening sounds of blades slicing through wet flesh, piercing, and tearing filled the air. Some of the gangsters screamed in agony as their skin was flayed open. Others clutched at the intestines spilling from their stabbed abdomens, staggering and groaning in pain. Still others had their throats slit or chests pierced, gushing blood as they died.
Having watched his closest friend nearly die in front of him once again, Jaehyuk’s eyes had gone completely feral. He glared at the remaining gangsters with blood-soaked fury, not even blinking.
“You worthless insects…”
His stance was like a tiger baring its fangs and growling at its prey.
“…How dare you touch her?”
Jeonghan was utterly bewildered at the sight.
What the… He just killed those people… without batting an eye… so horribly…?
His gaze swept across the carnage—the corpses with guts slightly protruding from stab wounds, tangled with blood and yellow fat, and the ones still twitching as they bled out from slashed throats and punctured chests.
“Jaehyuk… This… What the hell is this…”
But Jaehyuk didn’t hear a word. His mind was consumed by a single thought: these pieces of trash had nearly killed his best friend right in front of him. He wanted nothing more than to tear them apart and vent his rage. Nothing else registered.
When one gangster tried to smash Jeonghan’s skull with an iron pipe, Jaehyuk snatched a hand axe from the floor and hurled it in one fluid motion. The axe buried itself in the man’s head.
The iron pipe stopped inches above Jeonghan’s skull. The gangster’s eyes slowly rolled back to white as blood and brain matter dripped from the wound. He collapsed sideways, dead.
There was no reason left to show these bastards any mercy.
Jaehyuk kept fighting in a frenzy. Whenever he lost one weapon, he grabbed another and continued the slaughter. The rage and madness had turned him into something unrecognizable. He no longer looked like a high school senior. He looked like a seasoned killer who had waded through years of gang warfare.
In truth, he was exactly like the thirty-year-old Jaehyuk from before the regression—the one who had massacred the Gangryonghoe thugs that relentlessly hunted him and his comrades, shaking off their pursuit dozens of times.
When the blood-soaked massacre finally ended, Jaehyuk rose unsteadily and looked at Jeonghan, who was staring at him in pure panic. A bitter expression crossed his face.
“Jaehyuk… You… What the hell did you just…”
“……Sorry you had to see that.”
Jeonghan was beyond confused. His best friend of ten years—the one he thought was kind at heart despite his temper—had just slaughtered people without hesitation. It was a sight that would shake anyone.
“……Let’s save Dahyun first. We’ll talk later.”
Jeonghan barely regained his composure, remembered their true purpose, and spoke. Jaehyuk nodded and began opening every door along the hallway.
The scenes that greeted them were horrific.
At that same moment, near a building in Incheon. On the surface it looked like an ordinary abandoned structure, but it was actually the headquarters of the Honglyeonbang’s Korean branch, where key executives and main forces of the Taiwanese Triad had gathered.
Several Starex vans were parked near the building.
“When did Executive Director Shin Taebum say he would arrive?” Ju Taeyeol asked, slowly examining the German H&K USP 9mm pistol fitted with a silencer in his hand.
“He said he’s almost here.”
Before the words had fully left his mouth, four or five more vehicles stopped near their vans. Kim Hyun’s phone vibrated.
“Is that Director Shin?”
“Yes. We’ve just arrived.”
Taebum answered from the back seat of one of the cars. In his hand was a Gil Hibben Recurve Karambit knife, its blade curved inward unlike a standard model.
“Understood.”
Kim Hyun ended the call and turned to Taeyeol, hand axe already in his grip.
“Move out.”
The moment the order was given, the Gangryonghoe men poured out of the vans in perfect formation, weapons ready, and stormed the Honglyeonbang headquarters.
They showed no mercy. Gangryonghoe members beat visible enemies with blunt weapons, stabbed vital points with blades, and cut lives short without hesitation.
“What the hell?! What is this?!”
“Kyaaaah!!!”
“It’s an ambush! We’re under attack!!!”
The unprepared Honglyeonbang members were steadily pushed back, but several of them soon returned fire with pistols.
“Shoot! Shoot and run!!!”
“Don’t worry about the fallout—just shoot!!”
They managed to drive the attackers back for a moment with a hail of gunfire, but it didn’t last.
With the muted thumps of suppressed shots, roughly half the pistol-wielding Honglyeonbang members instantly collapsed, heads exploding in sprays of blood and brain matter.
From behind the Gangryonghoe line, Ju Taeyeol aimed his smoking pistol at the enemy and gave a low command to the men who had frozen at the sudden gunfire.
Ju Taeyeol
Choi Kyungsoo’s Subordinate
Former Navy Special Forces UDT/SEAL
“Keep pushing forward.”
With exceptional marksmanship, Taeyeol continued picking off Honglyeonbang members while supporting his own forces. Nearby, Taebum carved through enemies with his knife in a deadly dance.
“Die!!”
Several Honglyeonbang men charged Taebum. He spun the knife—blade pointed downward—in a dazzling display and ended three or four lives in an instant.
When another man aimed a Chinese Type 213 pistol at him, Taebum grabbed the nearest Honglyeonbang member and yanked him forward to use as a human shield. He flipped his grip so the blade pointed upward, drove the knife deep into the shield’s back to pierce a lung, then vanished from the shooter’s view.
What…? Where did he…??
Suddenly, like a ghost, Taebum appeared beside the shooter with murderous eyes. The knife—now blade down—swept toward his neck. By the time the man saw him, it was far too late.
When the hell did he…??
The blade sliced cleanly through the man’s throat. Arterial blood sprayed everywhere in a crimson arc.
Meanwhile, the scene before Jaehyuk and Jeonghan was something else entirely.
Young women in their early to mid-twenties, wearing nothing but short-sleeved shirts or hot pants, sat leaning against the walls, staring blankly into space. Purple bruises dotted their pale arms, and suspicious syringes lay scattered across the floor around them.
“What the fuck… What is all this…?”
“An illegal porn filming site. This is all Burning Island’s doing.”
“Burning Island? That club run by Giant Bomb’s Victory…?”
Jaehyuk moved on to search other rooms for Dahyun. The women inside turned their completely unfocused eyes toward Jeonghan, who had been staring at them, and smiled.
“Hey, handsome oppa. I’ll make you feel good. Come here and play with me…”
The woman spoke as if trying to seduce him, her eyes vacant.
“You like it rough…? Then come over here.”
It resembled scenes from porn videos, yet something felt deeply unnatural. It was as if they were drugged. Their completely glazed eyes and listless, drained voices made them seem like emotionless robots. To Jeonghan, the sight was disturbingly grotesque.
With no time to dwell on the horror, he snapped back to his senses and urgently checked the remaining rooms alongside Jaehyuk.
Inside they found more young women lying on mattresses in revealing outfits. Heavily intoxicated, they performed obscene gestures and spoke vulgar invitations the moment they saw the two boys, as if trying to lure them in. Jaehyuk, having witnessed such things before, remained unfazed. Jeonghan, however, was horrified.
This… What the hell is this…? Fuck, what is any of this…?
Then Jeonghan spotted one firmly shut door. He grabbed the handle, twisted it violently, and rattled it. From inside came a faint but desperate voice.
“Help me…!!! Please, help me…!!!”
The soundproofing made it hard to hear clearly, but it was unmistakably Dahyun’s voice.
Jeonghan didn’t hesitate. He slammed his body against the door with all his strength.
“Dahyun!!! Just hold on!!!”
Jaehyuk turned toward the room where Jeonghan was repeatedly ramming the door. On the fifth impact, the doorframe splintered. Jeonghan burst inside.
What he saw was Dahyun, on the verge of suffering something unspeakable.
“Who the hell are you?!” One of the men holding the partially undressed Dahyun stood up.
He charged at Jeonghan and swung an axe. Jeonghan rose, dodged, and drove his right elbow into the man’s head. When the attacker didn’t go down and only staggered, Jeonghan blocked the axe hand with his left, smashed the back of his right fist into the man’s face, then swept his leg out from under him.
“You son of a bi—”
The other gangster, wearing only underwear, cursed and prepared to rush Jeonghan. But then his eyes met Jaehyuk’s. The blood-drenched figure stood there holding a knife that dripped crimson. The sheer murderous aura rolling off him froze both men in terror.
Jeonghan immediately sensed the bloodbath that was about to unfold and shouted.
“Dahyun!! Close your eyes!!”
She squeezed her eyes shut. The moment she did, Jaehyuk charged the men who had been about to do unspeakable things to her and began butchering them without mercy.
Blood sprayed in every direction. The revolting sounds of blades punching through flesh and ripping it apart echoed through the room, mixed with the agonized screams of beasts having their throats torn out. The horrific noise of the slaughter drilled mercilessly into Dahyun’s ears.
Using the moment, Jeonghan pulled the still-blindfolded Dahyun to her feet and hurried her out of the room, warning her in a low, urgent voice.
“Don’t open your eyes until I say so. Understand? Do not open them. No matter what.”
Once they reached the hallway, Jeonghan ducked into the adjacent room and grabbed some clothes and slippers. He helped the still-blind Dahyun dress and slipped the slippers onto her bare feet.
“Let’s get out of here first.”
“Jeonghan oppa… That sound just now… Was that my brother…? What the hell is my brother doing…?”
Dahyun had guessed that the source of the horrific noises was her brother, Park Jaehyuk. Jeonghan didn’t answer, only evading the question.
“I’ll explain later. Let’s go.”
Together, Jeonghan and Dahyun hurried out of the building.