The air in the cramped one-room apartment reeked of stale cigarette smoke, cheap soju, and fresh blood.
Kang Yeon-woo, sixteen and scrawny, clutched his four-year-old sister Soo-ah against his chest. Her small body trembled as the screams echoed through the thin walls. He had one hand clamped over her mouth, tears streaming down his own face, mixing with the sweat and snot of pure terror.
"Hyung… Mommy… Daddy…" she whimpered through his fingers.
"Shh. Don't look. Please, Soo-ah, don't look."
In the main room, the loan sharks were finishing their work.
The parents lay in a spreading pool of blood. Father's face was pulp—nose smashed, teeth scattered across the dirty floor like broken pearls. Deep gashes across her chest and stomach still leaked from her ripped-open blouse. The leader, a greasy pig of a man named Dok-go, wiped his machete on her hair and spat on the corpses.
"Fucking deadbeats. Thought they could hide forever?"
One thug chuckled. "Kids are next, right, boss? Clean slate."
Yeon-woo's heart exploded. He bolted for the back door, Soo-ah in his arms. Rain hammered the alley outside as he ran barefoot over broken glass and garbage, legs pumping. The damp night air burned his lungs.
"Run! Just run!" he gasped to his sister.
They didn't make it far.
A heavy hand grabbed his hoodie, yanking him backward. Yeon-woo slammed into the wet concrete, Soo-ah tumbling from his grip with a sharp cry. Before he could scramble up, boots rained down, stomping his ribs, his back, and his face. The world became a blur of pain and muffled curses.
"Little rat thought he could run?" Dok-go laughed, grinding his heel into Yeon-woo's stomach. "Where are you gonna go, brat? Huh? No parents, no money, nothing."
Yeon-woo coughed blood, curling around the kicks like a broken animal. Every blow sent fresh agony through his body. A rib cracked. His vision swam. But through the haze, he saw them drag Soo-ah by her tiny arm.
She screamed for him. "Hyung! Hyung, help!"
One thug—a skinny bastard with rotten teeth—yanked her close and grinned. "Cute little thing. Four years old? Perfect. We'll sell her to the traffickers tonight. Drop her straight at the brothel in the red district. She can start paying off Mommy and Daddy's debt on her back, soon as she learns how to spread her legs."
Another thug laughed and reached down, rough hands pawing at the terrified child's clothes. "Boss first? Or should we break her in right here?"
Soo-ah's wide, innocent eyes filled with horror as dirty fingers tugged at her shirt.
Something inside Yeon-woo shattered.
The pain vanished. Fear evaporated. Only white-hot, animalistic rage remained.
One could see his eyes glowing green; he lunged like a rabid dog.
His hand closed around the machete one thug had dropped. The blade came up in a savage arc. As the man reached for Soo-ah, he screamed because his hand was severed at the wrist, and blood sprayed across the alley wall like black rain in the dim streetlight.
Yeon-woo didn't stop.
He roared and threw himself at them. No skill or technique. Just animal fighting to protect
The machete hacked into the skinny thug's shoulder, nearly severing the arm. He buried it in the man's neck on the backswing, twisting viciously until the head lolled at a sick angle. Blood gushed hot across his face.
Dok-go swung at him with a knife. Yeon-woo took the cut across his forearm without flinching and tackled the bigger man into the wall. They crashed down together. The machete rose and fell, rose and fell. Chunks of flesh flew. Dok-go's face became a ruined mess of meat and bone. Even after he stopped moving, Yeon-woo kept chopping—again, again, again—until the blade scraped concrete.
The last thug tried to run.
Yeon-woo caught him from behind, stabbing through the spine, then dragging the blade upward in a wet rip. The man collapsed, twitching in the filth.
Silence fell except for the rain and Soo-ah's broken sobbing.
Yeon-woo stood over the carnage, chest heaving, covered head to toe in blood. His left arm hung limp from a deep gash. Ribs screamed with every breath. His face was swollen, one eye already closing. The machete dangled from his trembling hand, dripping.
He dropped it and staggered to his sister.
Soo-ah stared at him like something out of a nightmare. But when he reached for her with bloody hands, she still crawled into his arms, burying her face in his ruined hoodie.
"Hyung… scary…"
"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice hoarse and cracking. "I'm so sorry."
He picked her up and ran, ignoring the white-hot pain shooting through his body. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance. More of these bastards would come. The circles, the gangs—they were all connected now in this rotten city.
He ran and ran and ran; even when his legs were giving out, he still ran
There was no going back.
That night a monster was born from a single, desperate will:
Protect her. No matter what. No matter the cost.
He limped and ran and ran.
Ladies and gentlemen, sit tight, tight, and relax
The legend of "The Monster" had begun.