Assault on Burning Island (2)
The moment Jaehyuk and his friends stepped inside the club, the scene that greeted them was utterly horrific. Men in suits or casual clothes lay sprawled across the floor, their torsos and necks slashed open, blood still oozing from the wounds. Most of them stared upward with wide, glassy eyes, already dead. The few who were still alive groaned in agony, dragging their mangled bodies toward the exit in a desperate crawl, but it was clear they wouldn't last much longer.
Just then, one suited man—his body riddled with stab wounds and slashes, drenched in blood—crawled toward the entrance. His strength finally gave out. Gasping for air, he looked up at Jaehyuk with a trembling voice.
He reached out a shaking hand toward Jaehyuk, but his head dropped forward. Like the others, he died with his eyes wide open, staring blankly ahead.
"Let's go," Jaehyuk said casually, as if the carnage meant nothing to him. He had witnessed scenes far more brutal hundreds of times before.
Jihun and Jeonghan stared at the gruesome sight with dazed expressions, clearly unaccustomed to such horror. Su-hyeok, Jihun's bodyguard, clicked his tongue as he examined the bodies.
"Whoa… As expected from Director Im's special ops team. They turned this place into a damn work of art."
"They only struck vital points. Looks like their objective from the start was total annihilation," Kanguk added, then turned to the still-stunned Jihun. "You said there was someone you wanted to beat the shit out of yourself, right? If this is too much for you, just give his name and details to the uncles and wait in the car."
"Yeah. A kid still in high school probably isn't used to sights like this," Su-hyeok agreed.
As he spoke, Su-hyeok watched Jaehyuk stride forward into the club without sparing the blood-soaked corpses a second glance. 'Most people would react like Jihun if they hadn't seen something like this dozens of times… Is that kid really unfazed? It looks like he's experienced scenes like this dozens of times already. Normally, standing among corpses like these would make anyone tense up from the sheer discomfort…'
Jihun scanned the bodies for a moment, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then spoke to Kanguk and Su-hyeok.
"I'm fine. That bastard—I'm going to take him down myself."
"Alright. If it gets too uncomfortable, say something right away."
Jaehyuk then turned to Jeonghan. "You okay? If you can't handle it, you can wait outside."
Jeonghan hesitated briefly. The image of Soo-yeon lying in her hospital bed and the women he'd seen at the illegal prostitution site run by Burning Island flashed through his mind. His resolve hardened.
"No. Even if I leave, I have to beat the crap out of the bastard who did that to Soo-yeon first."
The five of them pushed deeper into the club. Inside, Gangryonghoe operatives and Burning Island guards were still locked in fierce combat.
Amid the chaos, Jaehyuk snatched a steel pipe from the floor and smashed it down on the head of a suited guard, dropping him in one blow. Another guard swung an axe at him, but Jaehyuk dodged effortlessly, then cracked the man's leg with the pipe. As the guard crumpled, Jaehyuk brought the pipe down hard on his skull.
Jaehyuk swung the steel pipe wildly at any guard who charged him. He hurled it at one man's face, then scooped up a knife from the ground. Three guards rushed him at once. Jaehyuk dodged, blocked, or even yanked nearby guards over to use as human shields. His knife slashed out without hesitation. One guard's carotid artery was sliced open, spraying bright red blood everywhere like water from a sprinkler.
Blood splattered across Jaehyuk's face and body, but he didn't seem to care. He attacked every Burning Island guard in sight. Occasionally he'd use a knee strike or elbow blow to disable them, then ruthlessly carve them up while they were helpless. The sickening sounds of bones shattering, flesh tearing, and blades slicing through meat mixed horribly with the other gruesome noises echoing through the club.
Jeonghan grabbed a short steel pipe from the floor and swung it at the guards. With agile movements, he dodged incoming attacks and quickly struck their legs, necks, and heads to incapacitate them.
Suddenly, Jeonghan spotted a guard behind Jaehyuk raising an axe to strike the back of his head.
'It's too loud in here to call out to Jaehyuk. In that case…'
Realizing his voice wouldn't carry in the chaos, Jeonghan snatched a sashimi knife from the floor and hurled it without a moment's hesitation. The blade spun through the air and buried itself in the guard's shoulder. The man let out a short, pained scream and froze, his axe strike interrupted.
Jaehyuk caught the scream through the noise and whipped his head around. Seeing the guard with the axe, he drove his knife mercilessly into the man's now-exposed abdomen and shoved him backward.
Kanguk, who had seen Jeonghan throw the knife amid the melee, was impressed. 'Oh… He hit the shoulder from that distance? It seems like he deliberately aimed there because he has an aversion to killing… Even so, that's incredible skill.'
Kanguk swung his own axe at the guards rushing him, dropping them one by one. His colleague Su-hyeok was busy cutting through enemies with a knife. Jihun, meanwhile, was fighting with his fists. He used a mix of MMA techniques and brutal street-fighting moves to dispatch the guards with ease.
Jihun dodged incoming attacks cleanly, then drove punches into jaws, solar plexuses, and livers. He shattered legs with low kicks or used judo throws and leg sweeps to bring guards crashing down.
At one point, a massive guard charged Jihun, grabbed him, and tried to slam him to the ground. When the man mounted him and raised a fist to pound his face, Jihun arched his back sharply, twisted his body, and threw the man off balance. Still on the ground, Jihun raised both arms to block a barrage of steel pipes from other guards. Enduring the blows with sheer toughness, he grabbed a fallen knife and stabbed it into the tops of their feet before forcing himself upright.
"Where's Jeonghan? Haven't you seen him?" Jaehyuk asked Jihun. He was covered in blood, knife still in hand.
Jihun answered while knocking out a charging guard with a right hook to the jaw. "Not sure. Where did that guy go?"
As they searched for Jeonghan, he came toward them, smashing guards aside with his steel pipe.
"Looking for me?"
"We're going after Lee Seunghun and Jung Jinyong. Let's find them quick and fuck them up properly."
Jihun's eyes burned with rage as he asked Jaehyuk, "Is that son of a bitch Lee Seunghun the one who tried to touch our Soo-yeon?"
"That's right. More precisely, he's the bastard who built a disgusting cartel centered on this Burning Island and committed every crime imaginable."
"What a fucking piece of shit."
Chatting like that, the three friends tore through the guards blocking their path and headed up to the second floor.
Inside the room where Lee Seunghun and his clients were holding their party, the debauchery continued without pause. Seunghun, along with celebrity friends, corrupt police officers, and what appeared to be corrupt prosecutors, reveled in the obscene and extravagant festivities. None of them had any idea that outside, a bloody war was raging between Gangryonghoe gangsters and club guards.
The partygoers, high on drugs, were indulging in all sorts of lewd acts when suddenly a guard pounded on the door with a loud thud. Seunghun opened it with clear irritation.
"Director!! Gangryonghoe just broke in!!"
Seunghun's annoyed expression froze into shock. "What…? Gangryonghoe…? Why the hell would those bastards suddenly show up here?!"
He tried to regain his composure and ordered the guard, "Contact the Honglyeonbang! Tell those Taiwanese guys to get over here right now!!"
The guard hesitated. "Well… I just tried contacting them… They're in the middle of their own war and say they don't have anyone to spare. Their operations back home and their businesses here in Korea are being attacked simultaneously…"
"God fucking damn it!!! What the hell is this bullshit situation!!!"
"You need to evacuate immediately, sir. The Gangryonghoe bastards are killing their way here right now!!"
Seunghun hurriedly grabbed the clothes he'd thrown aside and started dressing. The guests around him looked confused.
"Director Lee… where are you going??"
A middle-aged man with a dignified face and glasses asked him. Another middle-aged man with an affable appearance and a prominent M-shaped hairline also spoke up.
The faces of the guests who weren't completely wasted on drugs or alcohol hardened instantly. Jung Jinyong, who had been hugging a drugged woman wearing only underwear, asked him, "What is it? Something happen?"
But Seunghun, now fully dressed, said nothing. He grabbed the second-generation Glock 17 pistol he'd received from Tae-won and rushed out of the room alone. He barked orders at the other guards inside the club.
"Yes, sir!!"
Several guards moved in perfect sync. Seunghun ran off somewhere with the rest of them.
Meanwhile, outside Burning Island.
The incident inside the club had thrown the entire area into chaos.
"Ha… This is driving me insane," Gain sighed from the driver's seat of a gray Sonata parked near Burning Island. He was watching the crowded building through a pair of binoculars.
"Did you tell President Jang?" Dong-hyeok asked.
Gain handed him the binoculars and relayed their superior Jang Seongyun's reaction. "Yeah. He seemed pretty shocked too. He was totally baffled, asking why that kid would go in there. Said he'd send President Seo over."
"You know… the Prince really seems different from a few weeks ago."
"Right? Until just a few weeks ago, his eyes looked so gentle and different from the boss's… but now that look in his eyes is exactly like his father's. Like father, like son."
Just then, a motorcycle pulled up beside the Sonata. The rider lightly tapped on the driver's window. Gain rolled it down and saw a man wearing a helmet.
"President Seo?"
When the man removed his helmet, he looked like an ordinary civilian at first glance. But his dark eyes carried a subtle, threatening aura and a faint killing intent.
"The Prince?"
"We've confirmed he entered the club. We don't know the situation after that."
"Any further contact from President Jang?"
"No. He only said to keep observing the situation and report back to him…"
Kanghyuk let out a long sigh and grumbled with clear annoyance. "Ha… That bastard Jang keeps calling the Prince his nephew this and nephew that, but he never steps up himself. I was the one who cleaned up the Jungnam-pa and disposed of the Gangryonghoe's philopon last time. This son of a bitch…"
Kanghyuk mentioned the ethnic Korean-Chinese gang Jungnam-pa, which had been mysteriously wiped out by unknown forces, along with the philopon they had stolen from Gangryonghoe—whose whereabouts were now unknown.
"This guy served with me in the Naval Special Warfare Unit and even carried out North Korea infiltration missions, yet now he refuses to move a finger himself."
"But wasn't it our boss who provided the information you needed to act?"
"Ha, you're really going all out defending your direct superior, huh?"
"And this time he did step up personally. When he heard the Princess had been kidnapped, he went full boss-mode, eyes bloodshot, grabbed a gun and his men, and moved out himself… Only to find the Prince had already taken care of everything."
"I get it. I get that your boss is insanely busy, you little shits."
Kanghyuk got off his motorcycle and quietly slipped toward the back entrance of Burning Island, avoiding the crowd. He looked down silently at the guards' bodies that had already been taken down by Im Kanghun's subordinates.
'Looks like the Gangryonghoe bastards have already gone in.'
Kanghyuk pulled out a Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol fitted with a suppressor from his coat. He entered through the club's back door, gun raised, scanning the area as he moved forward.
'For now, I'll move as stealthily as possible. Securing the Prince's safety is the top priority.'