Scene 1. Eruption
Lee Kang burst up through the ceiling.
Earth and splinters of wood surged up with him. Through the hole torn in the bunker's ceiling. Lee Kang's body broke through the dust and rose to the surface. The night sky was visible. There were no stars. A sky with smoke lying low across it. Beneath it, the slum reduced to ruins. Pillars burned black. Cooling ashes.
Lee Kang's feet landed on the ashes.
The instant he landed, light poured down.
It was muzzle flash. From every side. From every shadow of the ruins. From behind every collapsed wall. The Imperial Army was there. Regular forces. Dozens. Surrounding Lee Kang. Encircling the place where the ceiling had collapsed. Like men who had been waiting for Lee Kang to burst up.
A volley began.
A Japanese fire order dropped. Short and sharp. To that order, dozens of rifles spat fire. Gunfire filled the ruins. Bullets flew toward Lee Kang. From every side. All at once.
Lee Kang did not stop.
In the same stance he had landed in. He gathered strength in his legs. Leapt again. Toward the nearest enemy line. Head-on. Into the middle of the flying bullets.
The first bullet grazed Lee Kang's shoulder.
The flesh split. A hot line drawn. The second bullet lodged in his side. Lodged. Not a graze but driven through the flesh and in. The third in his thigh. The fourth in his back.
Lee Kang's body took the bullets.
Taking them, it advanced. There was pain. Unmistakably. The pain of flesh being pierced. The pain of hot things lodging inside his body. But that pain did not stop Lee Kang's legs. Because Lee Kang's brain was processing that pain differently.
The pain pointed a direction.
Each time a bullet lodged. Each time flesh split. That pain pointed one way. The main house. Father. The one who had made Lee Kang like this. The pain was a compass aimed at that place. The more it hurt, the more clearly it pointed there.
Lee Kang reached the enemy line.
Into the middle of the Imperial soldiers who had been firing. Two steps. Three. Before a soldier reloading his rifle. Lee Kang's hand caught that soldier's head.
The war began.
Scene 2. Dismantling
Lee Kang's hand twisted the soldier's head.
Crack.
The soldier's body went slack. Lee Kang took that soldier's rifle. He did not fire it. He gripped the rifle backward and swung the buttstock at the soldier beside him. The sound of a cheekbone breaking. That soldier fell.
A third soldier thrust a bayonet.
Toward Lee Kang's chest. Lee Kang's hand caught the bayonet. Bare-handed. The blade split his palm. Lee Kang pulled that bayonet. The soldier's body was dragged in. Lee Kang's knee drove into the soldier's solar plexus. The soldier folded. Lee Kang's hand caught the soldier's arm. The arm holding the bayonet.
He pulled it out.
From the shoulder. The arm whole. The sound of flesh tearing and a joint leaving its socket. The soldier's scream. Lee Kang threw that torn-out arm. At the next soldier. The arm flew and struck the soldier's face.
Blood burst like a fountain.
From the torn-out shoulder. Onto Lee Kang's face. Onto his chest. Lee Kang was drenched in that blood. He did not wipe it. Blood soaked Lee Kang's body. His own blood and another's blood could not be told apart.
The Imperial soldiers closed in on Lee Kang.
With bayonets. Firing. To encircle. Lee Kang's body turned in the middle of them. Fast. When he caught one man, he used that man as a shield against the next bullet. When he threw that man, the next man fell. Everything his hands reached became a weapon. A torn-out arm. A broken rifle. A corpse.
In Lee Kang's eyes, the Imperial soldiers were not people.
They were green cloth. The green of uniforms. Green masses blocking the way. Things to be cleared. Meat-obstacles laid along the road to the main house. Lee Kang's hands dismantled them. Without hesitation. The way a slaughterhouse butcher breaks down meat. Precisely. Mechanically.
He snapped necks. Pulled out arms. Broke spines.
The green masses piled up on the ashes.
Beneath Lee Kang's feet. One man. Five. Ten. Too many to count. Blood seeped into the ashes. Across the gray, dark red pools spread. Lee Kang stepped over them and went to the next enemy.
The Imperial Army's formation began to waver.
The soldiers at the rear were drawing back. The voice of the officer who had ordered the volley was trembling. Because it was not a human army fighting against humans. Because a human army was being slaughtered by a single monster.
Lee Kang's amber eyes saw that wavering.
The wavering formation. The retreating soldiers. Through them, a road appeared. The road to the main house. The direction where the enemy grew thinner.
Lee Kang's feet turned that way.
Scene 3. Real and Fake
From behind the encirclement, something else came.
Not the Imperial Army. Bigger things. Faster things. Leaping over a collapsed wall. Rising from the shadows of the ruins. Two enormous forms ran toward Lee Kang.
They were Ookami.
The finished type. The same sort Lee Kang had torn apart in the bunker. Wearing uniforms but not human beneath them. A metallic sound came from their joints. An eerie sound. As if bone and iron were mixed.
Lee Kang's nose caught the smell.
Rotted blood. The smell of the main house's cellar. Father's smell. That smell came off the two Ookami. Strong. In Lee Kang's head, the killing intent grew colder.
The first Ookami fell upon Lee Kang.
Lee Kang caught an Imperial corpse beside him. Lifted it. Threw it at the Ookami. The corpse blocked the Ookami's view. The Ookami's arm batted the corpse away. That one moment. Lee Kang bored into the Ookami's chest.
Lee Kang's shoulder took the Ookami's chest.
The sound of impact. Heavy. The sound of beast colliding with beast. The Ookami's body was pushed back a step. Lee Kang's two hands wrapped the Ookami's waist. He tried to lift it. It was heavy. Heavier than the bunker's Ookami. Lee Kang's legs dug into the ashes. He gathered strength. Lifted.
The Ookami's feet left the ground.
Lee Kang slammed that body down. Into the ashes. Dust rose. The Ookami tried to rise. Lee Kang's foot stamped the Ookami's knee. The joint bent. The Ookami did not react. Because it had no sense of pain. But it could not rise. Because its knee had bent.
The second Ookami went for Lee Kang's back.
From behind. Reaching an arm toward Lee Kang's spine.
A small thing flew.
Over Lee Kang's shoulder. A glass ampoule. From the bunker. From the hole in the ceiling. Doctor Jang had thrown it. Precisely. Toward the second Ookami's face. The ampoule broke near the Ookami's eye. Liquid splashed. The Ookami's motion stopped for an instant. Its nerves had been bound.
Lee Kang caught that moment.
Turning. He caught the throat of the stopped second Ookami. With both hands. Twisted. The seized neck turned all the way. Crack. The sound of hard bone breaking. The second Ookami went slack.
Lee Kang let go of the head.
The first Ookami was rising on its bent knee. Lee Kang turned. To that Ookami. Lee Kang's hands caught the Ookami's mouth. The upper jaw and the lower jaw. Pried them apart. Pried further. To an angle that should not open. Crk. The jaw dislocated. The head began to split in two.
Lee Kang pried it to the end.
The Ookami's head split. Black blood poured. Onto Lee Kang's arms. Onto his chest. The Ookami went slack.
From the hole in the bunker ceiling, Doctor Jang's face appeared.
He was climbing up. Yeonhwa held in one arm. The drug case in the other hand. Doctor Jang looked at Lee Kang. Lee Kang looked at Doctor Jang. For an instant. Doctor Jang nodded. Cut the road open. Lee Kang turned toward the enemy line again.
There were no words.
No words were needed.
Scene 4. The March
Lee Kang cut the road open.
Through the Imperial Army's encirclement. With corpses. With the bodies of the slaughtered. On the ashes, a road of blood formed. Everywhere Lee Kang passed, the enemy lay fallen. Green uniforms. Two Ookami. Black blood and red blood mixed and soaked the ashes.
Lee Kang stood at the end of that road.
He caught his breath. Raggedly. Red steam rose from his mouth. Lee Kang's body was soaked in blood. His own blood. The Imperial soldiers' blood. The Ookami's black blood. All of it mixed, covering Lee Kang's bare body. The bullet lodged in his side. The bullet lodged in his back. The wound in his thigh. The blade-cut in his palm. All of it was there. The pain was there too.
But Lee Kang was standing.
Corpses squelched beneath his feet. Dozens of them. A mire of ashes and blood mixed. The smoke was clearing. Dawn was coming. A gray sky was brightening in the east. Beneath that light, Lee Kang's silhouette stood revealed. Blood-soaked. Alone, having broken through an army.
Footsteps came from behind.
It was Doctor Jang. Come up from the hole in the ceiling. Holding Yeonhwa. Along the road of blood. The road Lee Kang had cut open. Doctor Jang's wet shoes drew near, treading over corpses. Behind him, the partisans came up. The ones who had survived. Rifles in hand. From the hole in the ceiling, one by one.
The partisans climbed to the surface and stood to either side of Lee Kang.
Rifles raised. Watching every direction. They began covering fire. Toward the retreating Imperial soldiers. Widening the gap Lee Kang had cut open. Relying on Lee Kang's force. Following at Lee Kang's back.
Lee Kang did not look at them.
Lee Kang's eyes were turned one direction. Not east. Not the direction dawn was coming from. A different direction. The center of Gyeongseong. The center of power. The direction where Count Lee's estate stood.
The main house.
Lee Kang's amber eyes glared in that direction. Over a blood-soaked face. With eyes that sorrow had made their fuel. Father was there. The one who had made Yeonhwa like this. The one who had made Lee Kang a monster. The one who cultivated monsters and loosed them on the city.
Doctor Jang stood beside Lee Kang.
Holding Yeonhwa. He followed Lee Kang's gaze. The direction of the main house. Doctor Jang knew that direction. What was there. What Lee Kang was turned toward.
"The road's open."
Doctor Jang said.
Beside Lee Kang. Low. In a rough voice. In the place where the days of flight, of cannibalism, of tragedy ended. In the place where something new began.
"Lead the way."
Lee Kang's feet stepped off toward the main house.
On the road of blood. Treading over corpses. With a comrade at his back. With the sorrow in his arms entrusted to Doctor Jang. With that sorrow for fuel. Toward the heart of the Empire.
The dawn light was brightening behind Lee Kang.
Lee Kang put that light at his back.
He walked toward the dark.
Toward Father.