Sungjun gestured for her to sit.
Opposite him, Seongha leaned back on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, and stared at him sharply, and spoke. "Oppa, Pavel got its missing rdx, a week ago, isn’t it?"
Sungjun nodded while still having his gaze on the reports.
Seongha continued to speak sharply. "We defeated Black Dragon and all of its 14 allies in the war, gaining control over 37 cities in various countries of southern Siberia. The war was officially over 3 days ago, wasn’t it?"
He nodded silently again.
"Yesterday, Pavel also made the announcent and distributed the gains to your subordinate gangs, didn’t you?"
As Sungjun silently nodded again, she then spoke. "Then, when will the promise you gave to be upheld?"
Sungjun finally reacted. He closed the file, placed it aside, and leaned back, lips curling into a small smile. "Nothing to worry about," he said, looking at her. "The boss already went in person the mont your task was done."
Seongha blinked. "Boss? What do you an?"
Sungjun’s eyes glinted strangely in response— like light refracting through glass. Then, a mont later, his entire body went to transform.
Before she let out three breaths, he transford into soone else, an old man in his 70s who had a rough face but a calm gaze. Seongha instantly recognized the person. It was the mansion steward who had been here since the forr lord’s days.
Seongha froze. "What... Steward Zhang?" she whispered, standing up slowly. "Where’s Alex-oppa?"
The man smiled faintly and got up. He turned to the window, hands clasped behind his back, the sunlight outlining the faint scar running along his neck.
"Your father will be free soon," he added. "The Boss promised you, and you have been seeing him since your childhood. He doesn’t make promises that he can’t keep."
Seongha stared at him, her heartbeat thundered in her ears as sothing terrifying clicked in her head. "Don’t tell ..."
anwhile, far away from the location, in northern Siberia’s Velmira nation, Sungjun was seen in a prison uniform, stepping through the narrow corridor with his hands cuffed in front of him. The orange prison uniform hung loosely from his fra, with his sleeves rolled halfway up. His eyes seed quite calm, for soone walking inside one of the strongest prisons in the entire world.
Beside him, a prison guard walked lazily, swinging a baton at his side.
The long corridor slled faintly of disinfectant and rust. The faint echo of shouting from another block carried through the vents — laughter, cursing, tal scraping against tal.
When they reached the last cell, the guard tapped a code into the keypad. A low buzz followed, then the door slid open with a groan.
Inside, the cell was dimly lit by a single bulb overhead, looking exactly like any typical cell one would see in the movies. The space was narrow — two bunks, a sink, a small steel toilet in the corner.
However, the cell wasn’t empty. Sitting on the lower bunk was a man, huge with muscles thick like cords under his tanned skin, and his arms covered in scars and faint tattoo lines that vanished under his sleeves.
As Sungjun entered after his anti-mana cuffs were removed, the man’s eyes lifted slowly, and for a second, Sungjun thought he was looking at a bear. It reminded him of Gri, one of the eight generals of Pavel.
anwhile, the guard chuckled, giving Sungjun a forceful shove on his back. "Lucky you," he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "You just got assigned to the worst cell in the block."
Sungjun stumbled forward a step due to the sudden push, catching himself against the fra of the bunk. He instinctively looked up — the big man hadn’t moved, still staring at him and unblinking.
The guard then slamd the door shut with a tallic clang.
As the footsteps faded away, Sungjun straightened his posture, rubbing his wrists where the anti-mana cuffs had chafed earlier. He didn’t speak at first and just looked around. The cell slled faintly of sweat and damp tal. For a long mont, the two n just stared at each other.
The big man on the bunk shifted his leg to the side, stretching lazily. Then he turned his head, giving Sungjun a curious glance, half a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "A Zhonggou guy?" he said, his voice deep, mocking, yet oddly casual. "Huh. Don’t see many of your kind here in Siberia, much less in the underworld. So, what’d you do to end up in Level 2? Smuggling goods or drugs? I highly doubt it is weapons thought. Your skin is too smooth for that kind of sht..."
Sungjun didn’t answer that.
Instead, as planned, he started walking forward, slow and steady, with his eyes locked on the man like a predator asuring distance. The air between them thickened, the bulb above flickering once as if even the light hesitated to stay on.
The man frowned at this newcor’s behavior. "What—" he got up to his feet, looking down...
However, before he could even finish, Sungjun stopped right in front of him. He had to tilt his chin up slightly — the guy was enormous, at least seven feet and five inches tall, his physique comparable to that of professional wrestlers.
Sungjun then looked straight into his eyes and said flatly, "I don’t like your eye level."
The man blinked, confused. "What?"
"Kneel," Sungjun said.
The silence that followed lasted barely a second before the big man’s face twisted into anger. "The hell did you just say, you little—!"
He swung a punch with his large fist, but Sungjun shifted slightly, letting the fist cut through empty air. His expression didn’t even flicker. In the sa motion, he drew in a quiet breath, pushing mana deep into his bones, and then he struck back.
It was a simple, short, brutal punch. And when it landed square in the man’s ribs, the sound appeared wet and sharp — like soone snapping a thick branch. The big man’s eyes went wide as saliva and air burst from his mouth. His massive body flew backward, crashing against the steel bed rail before sliding to the floor with a grunt.
He wheezed, clutching his side, trying to get air back into his lungs.
Sungjun then walked up to him slowly with a calm face but looked terrifying for this giant.
He stopped above him and said quietly, "This is how our eyes should et."
The man looked up, panting with a mix of pain and disbelief spreading across his features. Sungjun crouched slightly, speaking in a low but clear voice in a Siberian local accent. "If you still don’t understand the difference between us... I’ll take my ti teaching you."
He raised his right hand, flexing his fingers once — the sa hand that had dropped him, and then continued speaking. "For your earlier question, I was arrested for smuggling drugs, but this hand... has killed dozens. Those people aren’t so innocent bystanders or weaklings who couldn’t protect themselves. Every one of them I killed was a gangster who thought power ca from shouting louder."
He tilted his head slightly, narrowing his eyes. "So if you understand," he said, "Accept your place first and then answer my questions."
The guy nodded like a chicken, gulping his saliva as his heart rate spiked up in fear.
Sungjun’s voice hardened as he interrogated his cellmate, easing down onto the lower bunk as if the tal fra were a throne. "Who are you? And what’s your story?"
The big man sat up but continued to kneel and wiped a sar of blood from his lip with the back of his hand. After staring at Sungjun for a long beat, he answered, or atleast tried to answer as honestly as possible in a steady tone, masking his fear.
"Sir, my na’s Steve Smith. Used to be with the Iron Brotherhood until the cops made sure there wasn’t much left of us." He shrugged, like listing the weather. "After that, I shifted to weapons smuggling. Ruled the profession for a few years before getting caught in a police operation. I was sentenced to twelve years. Been five in this place."
Taking a pause, he flexed his fingers as he further said, "Also, I don’t like subordinates because of a lack of trust in this place. But I got a few who still listen and have generated enough reputation over the years to stay unbothered. With around, at the very least, nobody’s gonna bother you right from the start."
Sungjun studied him for a mont, seeing the confidence in this man’s eyes. Then he stood and walked to the cell bars. "Stand," he said after a mont, without looking back.
Steve rose without hesitation, like he’d been rehearsing the motion for years. He planted his feet squarely, waiting for an order.
Sungjun then turned, the light catching the corner of his jaw. "I need you to tell everything about this place," he said plainly. "Gangs, troublemakers, the ones we can use, the ones we avoid. Which guards look the other way, and which will beat you for even spitting?"
Steve nodded once, slow and sure.
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