All the Yakuzas lunged at Seongji Yuk. He grabbed one by the skull and slammed him into the others. In that moment, a single thought flashed through everyone's mind: He turned his disability into an advantage.
Seongji, who had trained in Ssireum for years, had forged his own unique fighting style. His sixth finger gave him grips far firmer than any ordinary man's could achieve. The guards were terrified beyond reason.
"No way... You can't be human!"
Everyone could see it now. The thing they were fighting wasn't a man—it was a wolf. A beast. Despair settled over the guards as they watched Seongji Yuk dismantle them with ease.
This couldn't be called a fight anymore. It was a feast.
Seongji looked at the fallen guards. "You attacked me first. Now I'll be taking Vin Jin."
Suddenly, a powerful punch connected with Seongji Yuk's stomach. He slid backward to minimize the impact.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, bastard?" Seongji said, anger flashing in his eyes.
Kojima Shigeaki assumed a battle stance. "I asked you to become a Yaksha, not a hunter. I knew I shouldn't have kept you alive. I should have killed you back then, before you had the chance to grow strong."
Seongji rushed at Shigeaki. "Too late for that now."
But another figure caught Seongji Yuk's hand mid-charge and executed a spinning piledriver before he could even reach Shigeaki.
"Too late for what? Wasn't screwing up today's ritual enough for you? Did you really need to steal the offering too?" The newcomer—Kojima Hiroaki—assumed the same stance as his brother.
Seongji Yuk rose and began tying his jacket around his waist. "Are you asking me if it's possible? Before that, ask yourselves whether just the two of you can stop me."
Suddenly, Shinmyung intervened.
"There's no need. You should end things here. It seems you've been holding something against me, Seongji Yuk. Let's not spill any more blood and sort this out with words."
He turned toward the villagers and urged them to leave.
Vin Jin, who thought everything was finally over, froze as he watched the shaman light a cigarette.
Shinmyung took a deep drag. "Whew, my head hurts. What a shitty day. It's already been going shitty, but some random bitch had to come down from the mountain and cause a scene."
Shinmyung stood face to face with Seongji Yuk. It was rather comical—Seongji was so tall that Shinmyung had to look upward to meet his eyes.
"Why'd you come down the mountain? To steal the offering?"
He released a puff of smoke in Seongji's face. "Hey, Seongji, you son of a bitch. You aren't taking me seriously because of how I look, are you? You think you've been able to survive this long because you're so great? I'll tell you the real reason you haven't died yet. It's because I'm lazy, you fucking bitch."
He suddenly ordered two guards behind Vin Jin: "Grab him."
Seongji Yuk immediately tensed as more guards seized him. Shinmyung said, "If you don't want a stick going through his eyes, I'd advise you to relax. If you resist anything I say, the kid dies."
One of the guards asked, "What should we do?"
Shinmyung replied, "What do you think? Can't you see that everything is over? Catch him, kill him, and throw him into the reservoir."
Seongji Yuk, bound by the guards, suddenly said, "You'll regret it."
Shinmyung sighed. "With death at your doorstep, you think you can intimidate me? Do you really think I'll be scared by anything you say?"
Seongji looked at Shinmyung and smiled. "You won't be able to kill me."
Shinmyung asked, annoyed, "And why wouldn't I be able to do that?"
Thud. Thud.
Suddenly, a voice echoed through the ritual site. "Because you forgot about me, Shinmyung."
Baki said this as he finished off the two guards who had been pinning down Vin Jin.
Seeing Baki, for the first time, panic flashed in Shinmyung's eyes. He immediately ordered, "Capture him! Kill him at all costs!"
The guards rushed at Baki. Twenty, maybe thirty of them. Baki didn't move.
The first guard lunged with a club. Baki tilted his head slightly, letting the weapon whistle past his ear. His hand shot forward in a blur—a precise strike to the man's solar plexus. The guard's eyes went wide as he crumpled, gasping for air. Baki had struck the diaphragm's nerve cluster, temporarily paralyzing his breathing.
"One," Baki counted calmly.
Three more charged. Baki dodged their attacks with ease. He ducked under a horizontal slash.. As he rose, his palm struck upward into the second attacker's chin, precisely angled to rattle the brain stem. The man collapsed instantly.
The third guard tried to grab him. Baki caught the man's wrist and, in one fluid motion, twisted and pulled. The guard flipped through the air and crashed into two others who were approaching.
"Four, five, six."
The remaining guards hesitated, fear creeping into them. They could see, it wasn't a man they were fighting—it was The Ogre.
"Come on," Baki said quietly. "Don't keep me waiting."
Enraged by his taunt, ten guards attacked simultaneously. Baki's expression didn't change. His feet shifted into a low stance. Time seemed to slow. The guards' bodies broke down in his vision—reduced to bones and muscles.
Baki exploded into motion.
His fist drove into the left guard's knee, collapsing the leg. As the man fell, Baki used him as a springboard, launching himself into the air. His knee connected with another guard's temple. Before landing, his hand shot out in a spear-hand strike to another man's throat.
He landed in a roll, came up behind a guard, and struck the back of his neck at the exact point where the spinal nerves clustered.
"Seventeen."
The remaining guards looked at their fallen comrades in horror. They weren't just beaten—they were being dismantled.
"Is this really all?" Baki asked, rolling his shoulders. "I was expecting more."
A guard charged with a roar. Baki sidestepped, his hand formed into a blade-like shape, fingers pressed tightly together. The Hand Blade.
His hand shot forward with incredible speed. The blade-hand slashed multiple points in rapid succession. The guard didn't even understand what happened before his legs gave out.
"Eighteen."
The remaining guards broke formation. They charged at him wildly now.
Baki moved faster than them. He grabbed one guard's punching arm, using the man's own momentum, Baki threw him into three others. They went down in a tangled heap.
Two guards remained.They dropped their weapons and stumbled backwards with fear.
Baki spared them. His eyes found Shinmyung, who stood frozen.
"You were saying something about being too lazy to kill us?" Baki asked, "But as you can see... you can't."
He walked toward Shinmyung, stepping over the groaning guards. "Do you think you're great because you have men serving you? No. You're just a coward—a coward hiding behind a bunch of men."
Nearby, Seongji Yuk finished off the guards who had pinned him down.
Baki stopped a few feet from Shinmyung. "So here's what's going to happen. You're going to let everyone go. And you're going to pray we never have a reason to come back. Because next time..." His eyes hardened. "I won't be so gentle."
The cigarette fell from Shinmyung's lips.
Whoosh... whoosh.
Suddenly, a powerful punch connected with Baki's chin. His eyes went blank for a moment.
Shigeaki assumed his fighting stance.
"What are you doing? Are you ready for the war you've caused, Ogre?"
Baki twisted his jaw to reposition it and said, "War? Hahaha! I like that."
With that, he rushed at Shigeaki.