It sat at the end of a quiet road—sandwiched between a sleazy bar with flickering neon and a tired love hotel with fogged-up windows. The rest of the area was alive with laughter, music, and drunken chatter, but the stretch near the apartnt complex felt abandoned, like even the city itself avoided breathing near it. Just a few bored passersby walked by, eyes down, never looking too long.
Jin stood in front of the three-story building, staring at it as if it stared back. His black bomber jacket clung tight to his chest, the cool fabric damp with nervous sweat. It wasn't armored, but it would absorb a blow or two—maybe give him a second of survival.
He had no gun. Not in Japan. If this were Arica, maybe he'd have a rifle, a sidearm, and a Kevlar vest. Here? Just two knives. A long blade sheathed behind his back, and a smaller one strapped to his ankle.
Jin placed a hand over his chest. His heartbeat was frantic, slamming against his ribs like a trapped bird.
Believe in the template, Jin, he told himself. You can do this.
But his legs still wanted to run.
What if I have to kill soone?
The thought cut through him like cold steel. He didn't want to be a killer. He hadn't signed up for this to beco a murderer. He'd grown up thaught that life had value, that killing left scars that never healed. But that was when he still lived in a world where justice ant sothing. Where children didn't get kidnapped.
There's no choice now.
He pushed the fear down and slipped the larger knife into the back of his jacket, hidden under the waistband. The smaller one stayed tucked in his ankle strap. It was ti.
Jin walked calmly toward the entrance, where two n stood smoking beside the gate. Both wore scuffed leather jackets, cigarette smoke curling around their faces. One looked up.
"Oi," the thug grunted. "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm Jin," he said, voice even. "I want to speak with your boss—Kenjiro Muto."
The thug scoffed. "You think any punk can just show up and ask for the boss? Scram before I break your nose."
He raised a hand and slapped Jin across the face.
Jin didn't flinch.
"Please," he said, holding his ground. "This is about business. A proposal. Just tell him soone want to do business with him ."
The second thug stepped forward, sneering. "Look at this bastard—talking about business with a busted lip."
He swung a fist toward Jin's face.
Jin caught the punch.
The thug froze—only for a mont. But that was all Jin needed. Jin focus in . he have to be decisive from now .
Jin twisted the thug's wrist, forcing him down and flipping him over with a harsh slam. The other guard lunged forward, but Jin ducked under the swing, drove an elbow into the man's gut, and followed it with a sharp knee to the face. Both n collapsed in groaning heaps.
No wasted movent.
No rcy.
The mont their bodies hit the ground, the hallway lights flickered.
Shouts echoed from inside. tal clanged. Footsteps thundered. The entire den was waking.
Now or never.
Jin kicked open the door, sliding into the narrow corridor like a blade. Five thugs ran toward him, weapons drawn—steel pipes, broken chair legs, a rusted crowbar.
He moved first.
The nearest swung a bat. Jin ducked under it, snatched the man's arm mid-swing, twisted the joint, and snapped the elbow in one fluid motion. Before the man even scread, Jin shoved him backward into the second attacker.
Third ca at him with a pipe.
Jin caught the man's wrist, stepped in, and drove his shoulder under the chin. The thug reeled, choking. Jin yanked the pipe free and slamd it across the man's shin. One crack, down. Jin hurled the pipe like a spear at the fourth man's face—it connected with a thunk, sending him crashing into the wall.
Fifth thug hesitated.
Jin didn't.
He surged forward and tackled him against the corridor wall. Two rapid punches to the gut. One palm strike to the throat. The man collapsed, gasping like a fish.
10 seconds. Five n. Hall clear.
Jin exhaled once. Calm. Controlled.
More ca—rushing from a stairwell like floodwater. Six. No, eight.
He backed into the common room. More space.
A man lunged with a boxcutter. Jin side-stepped, grabbed his collar, and yanked him forward—knee to the jaw, head snapping back. As he dropped, Jin lifted the man's body and threw it into the next attacker like a sack of rice.
Another swung with a tal rod. Jin blocked it with a forearm, winced at the sting, then retaliated—two jabs, one hook, then a spinning elbow to the temple. Out cold.
Soone tackled him from behind.
Jin stumbled but rolled with it, using the montum to flip the man over his shoulder. They both crashed to the ground. The attacker groaned.
Jin didn't stop.
He retrieved a broken pool cue from the floor, twirled it once, and jamd the blunt end into a thug's stomach. As he doubled over, Jin shattered the stick across the side of his head.
A blade flashed in his peripheral.
Jin ducked, swept the attacker's leg, then jamd his smaller knife—drawn from the ankle—in between the man's ribs. A shallow stab. No fatal organs. Just enough to end the fight.
He wasn't here to kill. Just to break.
He advanced.
Blood on the walls. Groans behind him. A broken trail of wreckage.
More shouts.
Stairs.
Jin sprinted up to the second floor. Four n blocked the landing.
They didn't wait.
The first swung wild—Jin slid low, kicked his shin out from under him, and rose with a spinning backfist to the next. The third grabbed Jin's jacket—mistake. Jin headbutted him, took the montum, and slamd the man into the railing hard enough to crack plaster.
The last one pulled a tanto blade.
Jin hesitated—not out of fear, but calculation. His knife was still sheathed. He drew it with reverse grip, locked eyes, and moved.
Clash.
They traded slashes—Jin parried with his forearm, then slashed the man's thigh. A quick jab to the bicep disabled the knife arm, and Jin kicked the blade out of his hand. A final knee to the chest ended it.
He snatched the discarded tanto, dual-wielding now.
Floor two cleared.
But now they knew.
They ca in numbers.
Ten n surged down the narrow stairwell like a flood of steel and sweat—pipes, knives, broken tools glinting in the dim hallway light. Their shouts echoed in the concrete, angry and bloodthirsty. Feet pounded down the steps in unison. Like a pack of wolves.
Jin stood at the landing—alone.
His breathing slowed.
Ti didn't stop, but it changed.
The air grew thick. Every sound sharpened: the crunch of boots, the rasp of tal, the shift of denim against denim. Adrenaline in his veins . His body buzzed like a drawn blade, vibrating with focus. His vision narrowed into a tunnel. Every motion, every opening, every shadow—catalogued. Calculated.
This was Tae-sik Cha's world.
This was what the template had carved him into.
He moved.
The first man ca in with a wild swing—a lead pipe arcing toward Jin's temple. Jin sidestepped, letting the pipe whistle past, then slamd his palm upward into the attacker's jaw. The man's head snapped back—he was out before he hit the ground.
The second attacker lunged with a kitchen knife.
Jin caught the man's wrist mid-stab, turned his own body inward, and used the montum to flip him over his shoulder. The thug crashed down, air knocked from his lungs. Jin kept the knife. then stab the guy before turning .
Another thug charged. Jin slashed the man's thigh—not deep enough to kill, but more than enough to drop him screaming. Blood sprayed across the tiled wall.
Behind him—two more.
Jin rolled across a nearby table, vaulting over clutter and landing behind them with ghostlike speed. Before they could react, he slamd their heads together with a sharp crack, their skulls eting like coconuts.
Two more.
Jin hurled the stolen knife across the room with a snap of the wrist. It landed clean—thud—into a man's shoulder, pinning him against the drywall like a rag doll. Jin ran low, retrieved a broom leaning nearby, and with a sharp twist of his knee, snapped it clean in half.
One piece. One weapon.
He spun it in his hand like a bo staff, then drove the splintered end into the gut of the next thug. The man folded over, wheezing, and collapsed.
Jin barely slowed.
One grabbed a stool from the floor and swung it like a hamr. Jin blocked with his arm, pain flaring, then snatched the stool, flipped it, and ripped off a leg with brute force. The jagged wood made a new club. He didn't wait. He ramd it into the man's ribs—crack. Then again—crack. The man collapsed, gasping for breath.
Disard. Reard. Improvised.
Fight. Flow. Adapt. Repeat.
His body moved with surgical precision—footwork honed by hours of training, instinct, vision locked on weak points. He never over-extended keep moving otherwise the thug would try again at him always moving . Never hesitated. Every move had weight. Every strike had purpose.
Soone tried to blindside him—Jin ducked, caught the man's belt, and flipped him over the railing.
The body landed with a heavy, wet thud below.
Still breathing, probably. Hopefully.
Another thug lunged at him with a chain. Jin let the first swing graze his shoulder, then stepped in close, grabbed the chain with both hands, and yanked it around the man's neck, dragging him forward and slamming his knee into the man's face. Once. Twice. A third ti—and he was down.
He looked like a whirlwind—fast, efficient, relentless.
Sweat dripped down his temple. His arms burned. His shoulder throbbed from the blocked stool swing. His breath was coming faster now. His jacket had cuts, and his right palm bled from a shallow graze.
They kept coming.
Jin gritted his teeth and surged forward.
Another tried to stab him. Jin parried with the broomstick shard, then jamd it through the man's bicep—a brutal puncture. Jin rolled to the side as two more rushed, then grabbed a tal tray from a shelf and hurled it like a discus. It smashed into one thug's face. Jin pounced on the other, disard his short blade mid-grapple, and turned the weapon against him—cutting across the forearm, disabling the hand.
The screams were loud now.
The corridor was filled with groans, the clatter of tal, and the sticky sound of blood hitting walls. Thug start to get back up .
And Jin keep moved.
He kicked open a side door and entered the central staircase, the one that connected all three floors. A few thugs were already waiting halfway up.
Jin didn't stop.
He charged up the steps like a shadow made of fists. The first man tried to hold him off—Jin ducked under his swing and shoulder-checked him hard into the wall. The second stabbed. Jin twisted, took the stab shallow in the side, then retaliated with a headbutt and palm strike that broke the man's nose.
He grabbed the guy's fallen baton and used it like a club, striking low and fast—knees, ribs, collarbones. No kill shots, just breaks.
That was the rule.
Don't kill. Just destroy.
Jin burst through the third-floor stairwell door, panting now, blood on his jacket, bat in one hand. His breath fogged the air. He blinked the sweat from his eyes.
The hallway was quiet.
Broken bodies getting up behind him.
And at the end—calm, composed, untouched—stood a man in a black tailored suit.
Hair slicked. No expression.
He straightened his cuffs, watching Jin like a man inspecting a dog that just survived a forest fire.
Kenjiro Muto.
The boss.
Jin took one step forward. He wiped a sar of blood from his cheek with the back of his wrist. His voice ca hoarse, steady.
"I just want to talk," he said.
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