Scene 1 [A Rupture Louder Than a Scream]

  The sky seemed to have been torn open, unleashing a torrential downpour. Rain hammered the asphalt of Gyeongseong with the force to pulverize it, and the streetlights in the back alleys of Jongno were trapped in the spray, scattering into hazy afterimages.

  “Damn it, I can’t see a thing.”

  The military police corporal struck the steering wheel, glaring at the creaking wipers. The heavy military truck convulsed roughly every time it trampled a mud puddle. In the cargo bed, three captive independence fighters rolled like luggage, slamming against the wooden floorboards.

  “Don’t slow down! They might have caught our scent and followed us.”

  The lance corporal in the passenger seat leaned out the window, shouting.

  It was then.

  KWA-ANG—!

  It wasn’t thunder.

  The truck’s steel frame screamed. The three-ton mass of iron soared into the air as if it had collided with an invisible wall, then nosedived into the asphalt. It was a forced halt that ignored the laws of inertia.

  “Wh-what the hell! Is it a crash?”

  “Front! Man in front!”

  A single man was embedded in the thick beams of light spewed by the headlamps.

  A white suit, wet and clinging like a second skin. White shoes, grotesquely pristine amidst the mud.

  The man did not twitch, even as the deluge pounded him. Rainwater flowed down the brim of his hat, dripping coldly along his jawline.

  “Move! You crazy bastard!”

  The corporal slammed on the horn and crushed the accelerator.

  Before the engine could even roar, the man moved. A white afterimage cleaved through the rain and surged onto the bonnet.

  Thud.

  A heavy weight settled onto the windshield. Through the glass, a beast’s eyes flashed. Vertical pupils, amber irises burning with a fluorescent glow in the darkness, ensnared the corporal’s gaze. His heart dropped to his feet.

  “Wh... what is...?”

  The man raised his fist. There was no hesitation, no wind-up. The fist sliced through the air and embedded itself in the reinforced glass.

  CRASH—!

  The glass exploded like a spiderweb. Shards embedded themselves in the corporal’s face, and he fell back into his seat, screaming. Seizing the opening, the man—Lee Kang—gripped the passenger door.

  SCREECH, CLANG—!

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The metallic shriek of tearing hinges battered their eardrums. The steel door was ripped away like wet paper.

  Crack.

  The price of twisting steel was gruesome. Three fingers on Lee Kang’s right hand were bent at grotesque angles. His hand, twisted as if the bones were about to pierce through the muscle, trembled violently.

  Agony, tearing flesh and crushing bone, battered his brainstem. Yet, not a fragment of a groan escaped Lee Kang’s lips. Swallowing the chewed-up flesh from inside his cheek, he grabbed the lance corporal by the collar with his tattered hand and slammed him onto the asphalt.

  “Ugh...!”

  The lance corporal’s head burst like a watermelon. Red blood and white brain matter mixed with the rain and were sucked into the sewer. From the back of the truck, MPs jumped down, aiming their rifles.

  “Fire! Open fire! Kill that bastard!”

  Rat-a-tat! Bang!

  Muzzle flashes sliced through the dark. Lee Kang did not dodge. Bullets pierced his shoulder and grazed his thigh. Flesh flew, and the white suit was dyed crimson.

  Pain did not stop him. Instead, it became an accelerator, speeding up his entire body.

  “RAAAGH!”

  Lee Kang vomited a beast’s roar and surged toward the nearest MP. His fist punched through the soldier's breastplate.

  Crunch.

  The sensation of ribs snapping and piercing lungs traveled up his fingertips. At the same time, Lee Kang’s elbow joint snapped in the reverse direction. White bone tore through his skin and jutted out.

  ‘It hurts.’

  A scream rose to his throat.

  ‘It burns. It feels like my bones are melting.’

  There was no thrill in the slaughter. Every time he swung his fist, his own bones were pulverized along with his enemies’. The heat generated from torn muscles tangling together and broken bones forcibly realigning seared his entire body. Pain, as if boiling lead were being poured into his veins, dominated Lee Kang.

  “M-monster...!”

  The last remaining MP stumbled back, his face pale. What was reflected in his eyes was not a human. It was a massive tiger, staggering under a veil of blood.

  Lee Kang, letting his dangling right arm hang loose, gripped the MP’s neck with his intact left hand.

  “...Scram.”

  A voice laced with the scratching of iron pierced through the sound of rain. It was less a threat and more a plea. A scream begging him to run away, to end this terrible agony.

  But the terrified MP drew a dagger and thrust it upward into Lee Kang’s abdomen.

  Shluck.

  Lee Kang’s eyes rolled back. In the space where reason had snapped, the beast took over. Grrr. A growl vibrated from deep within his throat. Ignoring the blade buried in his gut, Lee Kang tightened his grip.

  Snap.

  With the sound of a dry branch breaking, the MP’s head lolled limply to the side. The last soldier collapsed into the mud.

  Again, only the sound of rain remained. Lee Kang stood alone amongst the corpses.

  The bespoke white suit, made of the finest English fabric, was now a mess of blood and grease, its original color lost. He stumbled toward the truck’s cargo bed. Every time his dangling right arm swung uncontrollably, a horrific spike of pain stabbed his brain. He tore open the canvas cover.

  The eyes of the gagged independence fighters, shoved into the corner, trembled with terror. They were not looking at a savior. It was the gaze of herbivores frozen before a far more vicious predator.

  Lee Kang forced the protruding bone back in with trembling hands and spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the floor.

  “...Go.”

  Spitting out that single word, Lee Kang collapsed to his knees. His legs gave out. The sensation of his broken shinbone rattling inside his flesh was vivid.

  ‘I want to die.’

  Lee Kang buried his face in the mud. The touch of the cold sludge cooled his feverish cheek.

  ‘I just want to die like this and never wake up again.’

  But his cursed flesh forced his heart to beat again. White steam rising from his wounds mixed with the cold rain, creating a dreamlike fog.

  The night in Gyeongseong showed no mercy, not even to a weeping tiger.