One year.
Three hundred and sixty-five days of running, hiding, and killing.
Gabriel was no longer the scrawny sixteen-year-old boy from that rainy night. At seventeen, his body had transformed through endless survival fights and sheer willpower. He wasn't extremely tall and handsome like most pretty boys. He was broad, dense, and terrifyingly corded muscle wrapped around a frame that looked built for war. Scars crisscrossed all round his arms, torso, and face.
365 days of being an animal. No martial arts. No fancy footwork. No named moves.
Just raw, monstrous power, animal instinct, and the burning will to protect the only family he had left.
The abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the region echoed with violence.
Gabriel stood in the center, chest heaving, blood dripping from his fists. Four of the regional King's enforcers lay broken around him. One was still twitching, his arm bent at an unnatural angle.
The fifth and last man backed away, machete shaking in his grip.
"Y-You freak… you're a monster!"
Gabriel said nothing. His eyes glowing green locked onto the man like a predator. Behind him, hidden behind stacked crates, five-year-old Pearl peeked out, covering her ears.
The thug lunged forward, swinging the machete wildly.
Gabriel didn't dodge properly. He simply powered through. The blade sliced across his shoulder, opening a fresh wound, but he didn't flinch. His fist crashed into the man's stomach like a sledgehammer. Ribs shattered. The thug vomited blood and folded.
Gabriel grabbed him by the throat, lifted him off the ground with one arm, and slammed him into the concrete floor. Once. Twice. The sound was wet and sickening.
"Tell your king," Gabriel growled, voice hoarse from disuse, "if he sends more dogs after me and my sister… I'll come for his throat next."
The man gargled something unintelligible before going still.
Gabriel dropped the corpse and staggered slightly. Blood ran down his arm and side, his breathing quickly steadying. His body recovered at a frightening rate. The "perfect physique" he had developed and probably still is developing wasn't just strength; it was endurance and resilience that bordered on the unnatural and monstrous.
"Hyung…" Pearl's small voice trembled as she ran out and hugged his leg. "You're bleeding again."
He knelt, wiping blood from his hands onto his already ruined shirt before gently touching her hair.
"It's okay. Hyung is strong now, and it's just a small scratch."
A full year on the run had turned them both into shadows. Pearl was quieter, more withdrawn. She had nightmares almost every night. Gabriel hadn't slept properly in months. Every town, every safe house, lasted only a few weeks before the King's men found them again.
He was strong. Dangerously so. He had beaten grown men, low-level crew members, and bounty hunters with nothing but instinct and overwhelming force.
But he was still unrefined. Sloppy. He took too many hits because he didn't know how to fight efficiently. Every battle left him more scarred, and one day… One day a real monster would show up, and that brute strength might not be enough.
Gabriel looked down at his bloody hands, then at his sister's tired, innocent face.
"We can't keep doing this," he muttered. "Not like this."
He had heard the rumors for weeks now.
Cheonliang.
A strange mountain town ruled by its own king, Six King, the so-called monster of Cheonliang. A man who stood apart from the other first-generation kings. Someone who valued isolation.
If they stayed here, they would eventually die.
If they went to Cheonliang… maybe they could live.
Gabriel tore a strip of cloth from a dead thug's jacket and roughly bandaged his newest wound. He picked up Pearl, settling her against his chest like he had done hundreds of times this past year.
"Hyung will take you away from this region tonight," he told her softly. "We're going to the mountains. Hyung heard there's someone there who might help us. Someone strong."
Pearl nodded sleepily against his neck, too exhausted to question anything.
As the sirens began wailing in the far distance once again, Gabriel Kang stepped out of the warehouse and into the night.
His body was covered in blood.
His will was sharper than any blade.
And for the first time in a year, he had a destination.
Cheonliang.
The place where his real strength journey would begin.