Kai stood there, his expression unnerving as he watched Yung Mai leave from his sight.

Water dripping sounds echoed when Kai turned from the direction Yung Mai trod.

In the corridor of the buildings he moved past, eyes fell on him like a god among men. Sweat streamed on his face when he saw two of the men he trained with walking toward him.

He lowered his head, hoping to move past them without drawing their attention, but as he passed them, one person tapped on his shoulder.

"Hey, kiddo," the big-head guy said, his voice echoing like a blast.

Kai didn't respond; he stood there, his back facing them.

"What's at his back? Let's take it as we do with his food," the big-head guy added, drawing the attention of the slightly skinny but well-structured body guy.

Kai swallowed hard, clenched his fist, then closed his eyes.

The big-head guy stretched his arm, touched the handle of the sword, and tried to pull it from the boy's back.

Before he could pull it up after wrapping his fingers around it, Kai turned, causing the guy's arm to flee from the handle.

"Hey!" the big-head guy raised his hand and screamed, ready to land a slap on the boy's face.

"What is going on here?" a voice, carrying the coldness of the water around the building, echoed, letting the big-head guy's arm hover above Kai's cheeks.

'Why now?' Kai's thoughts screamed, spotting Jack standing a few meters away from him.

A soft crackling sound erupted around Kai's arm as he loosened his clenched fist.

"Do you think your body is a match for him?" Jack's voice echoed again, drawing the two men's attention to him.

The big-head turned to the well-structured body guy and laughed.

"I thought it was that lonely master," he folded his arms on his chest and straightened himself toward Jack's direction.

"What a pity," Jack spat on the ground and shook his head.

Chills ran down the two guys when they noticed Yung Mai erupting behind Jack.

"WTF!" The well-structured body guy's face tensed as he turned toward the big-head.

They exchanged shocked glances whenever they saw Yung Mai take a step forward. Before they could turn on the fifth turn, a wind blew on their faces.

In a blink, they were sent flying and crashing into the metal pillars of the buildings facing each other in a circular manner.

"Ouch!"

Both of them screamed, placed their arms on their heads, and pushed themselves up from the floor.

"You dare bring a fight to our land?" Jack's footsteps echoed like thunderclaps as he neared where the guys were.

A heavy wind spiraled around him the moment he stopped and stared at the big-head.

Without touching the guy, part of the spiraling wind moved from the one circling Jack and pulled the guy upward.

The more Jack's face tensed, the more the air turned in a circle around the guy's head, suffocating him.

At the brink of death, as the guy's face reddened, Yung Mai sighed. "Let them be; they don't deserve your anger."

Jack turned a sharp glance at Yung Mai. In that instant, the air spiraling around him calmed, leaving the one suffocating the big-head guy.

'Fuck!' Jack cursed in his thoughts, noticing Yung Mai's expression changing. There, he stretched his left arm at the guy.

In that instant, the air suffocating the guy drifted into Jack's arm and vanished as it touched his skin.

A loud crashing sound echoed when the guy slid and landed on the ground.

Fear clothing him, he placed his arms around his neck and gasped heavily for air. His colleague crawled closer to the feet of Jack, begging.

"Please, please, I didn't do anything." He clapped his arms together and slammed his head on the ground in front of Jack's black boot five times.

"You can rise," Yung Mai's voice made the guy pause on his sixth bow.

Jack turned a sharp gaze at Yung Mai and frowned.

"From here, go back to where you came from," Yung Mai's voice tensed. "You're no longer a disciple of the Shadow Cult."

The ground shook, letting debris fall from the metal pillars the guys slammed into and dressing the two men's bald heads.

Jack slapped his arms against his black and white trousers and turned toward Kai's direction.

The white cloth at Jack's waist flapped in the air as he moved.

Reaching the boy's side, he closed his eyes, placed a hand on Kai's shoulder, and exhaled.

He didn't speak, yet Kai felt a force slamming on his face, almost as if Jack was blaming him in his head.

After two minutes, Jack removed his arm from Kai's shoulder and moved past him, still angry.

Following Jack's movement, Kai spotted a purple glow glowing violently around Jack.

And for the first time since he became a disciple of the Shadow Cult, a genuine thought struck Kai like lightning.

'They are back,' he said low in his thoughts, but his lips parted, giving way for the words to move out without his approval.

The big-head and the well-structured men stood up hastily and ran toward the direction of the main entrance of the Shadow Cult.

The big-head turned when he reached the already open gate and stared at Kai.

From a far distance, Kai saw the guy stroke his thumb at his neck, almost in a death-sign movement.

Kai shook his head when the second guy also reached the gate and repeated the same action the big-head did.

Kai exhaled and moved forward when he noticed Yung Mai turning back to where he came from.

Reaching the door of the room he had been using for one and a half years of becoming a Shadow Cult disciple, he opened the all-black door and entered.

He unwrapped the sword from his back, placed it carefully beside the bed, and sat down. His breathing came in hastily at first, but started to dim as he tilted his gaze at the wall.

"What is that?" He squeezed his eyes, spotting words that had been written in blood that kept tilting down.

Instinctively, he rose, moved to the wall, and touched the red liquid. After smelling the red liquid, his tensed face softened.

"Tomatoes," he giggled and shook his head.

He slowly tilted his gaze at the words written with the tomatoes and frowned.

"We are not done with you, yet." Instantly, the big-head guy's smile tore into Kai's head.

Instead of feeling scared, Kai stood there, smiling. He brushed his left palm across his face and threw himself on the bamboo bed.

A groaning sound erupted, echoing loudly from the room.

With one breath at a time, Kai's eyes, which were gazing at the ceiling, began to blink as sleep crept over him.

At the back of his open window, the sounds of water dripping echoed as fish hopped in the stream of water.

The more the dripping sound echoed, the more sleep swallowed Kai's vision. Not seeing any light or the wooden structure of the ceiling, darkness dwelled in Kai's vision.

…

Around the building at the far-right side, away from Kai's own, loud wood groaning sounds echoed as the base of the building kept raising and smashing hard on the solid ground.

Inside, Jack stood there, drenched in sweat, while the skin at his knuckles reddened. "Why do I always have to let them go?"

He slammed his left fist hard on the metal pillar at the center of his room, which made the pillar tilt sideways.

Slamming back on the ground and straightening, heavy spiderwebbed lines dressed the pillar in an enormous state, and the straight metal pillar bent.

"I'm not that weak! Why?!" He slammed the metal pillar with his right fist.

The impact sent the pillar flying toward the side of his room. It crashed into the wall and remained between the cemented building as if it were there when the building was being constructed.

His breathing came in heavy pants that seemed to be forming a circular ring in front of him.

Meanwhile, outside the cemented building Jack was in, tension stirred in the atmosphere.

Eight meters away from the building, four monks in their mid-twenties stood there, their nostrils forgetting how to breathe.

Their wide eyes stared at the black metal pillar fixed between the cemented wall.

"Was that there this afternoon?" A black-haired guy broke his stillness and turned toward the three guys standing beside him.

"…No! That wasn't there," a bald guy said, also breaking his stillness and turning toward the black-haired one.

"…You sure?" the black-haired guy's voice echoed in an unstable tone.

The walls of the building, the black pillar was stuck in, vibrated heavily as the bald one neared it.

"DON'T GO NEAR IT!"

All three guys, including the black-haired and the remaining two who had just broken their stillness, shouted.

Immediately, the bald guy neared the wall and touched the metal. Despite how much he saw the wall vibrate, his soul left his body.

A loud clanging sound erupted as the black metal shot out from the wall and slammed the bald guy's head backward, breaking it completely.

The mouths of the three guys opened wide as they spotted Jack standing in the space now available, panting heavily as sweat traced down his skin like blood.

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