Everyone rushed in at once.
Seongji grabbed the first man by the skull and drove him into the crowd.
A whole row went down.
The guards stumbled back two steps. For the first time, something close to genuine panic crossed their faces.
'This guy... something's wrong.'
Seongji had trained ssireum for years. Those hands hadn't been ordinary hands for a long time. The grip that came with six fingers was stronger than anyone had accounted for. He didn't need technique — whatever he grabbed stayed grabbed.
One of the guards shouted, "You're not human!"
Seongji didn't answer. He kept walking forward.
This wasn't a fight anymore. It was demolition.
The guards went down one after another. Nobody lasted two exchanges in his hands. Seongji stepped over the bodies, looked down briefly, and said, "You attacked first. Vin Jin, we're leaving."
Then a punch landed in his stomach.
Seongji slid back half a step, absorbed the force, and looked up.
Yamazaki Shigeaki settled into his stance. "I asked you to become a Yaksha. Not to come here and slaughter people." He kept his eyes fixed on Seongji. "I should never have let you live. I should have killed you back then, before you had the chance to grow into this."
Seongji pushed forward. "Too late for that now."
A hand shot in from the side, caught his wrist, twisted, and threw him.
Seongji hit the ground, pushed himself back up, and looked at the new arrival.
Kojima Hiroaki settled into the exact same stance as his brother. "Wasn't ruining today's ritual enough? You have to take the offering too?"
Seongji got to his feet and started untying his jacket, wrapping it slowly around his waist. "You're asking me if I can do it? Ask yourselves first whether the two of you can stop me."
"That won't be necessary."
Shinmyung walked in, a cigarette already between his lips. He lit it, took a drag, and waved a hand toward the surrounding villagers, gesturing for them to clear out.
Vin Jin had thought it was almost over. Then he saw the shaman light that cigarette, and his body went stiff again.
Shinmyung exhaled slowly. "God, my head hurts. What a miserable day! It was already going badly, and then someone just had to come down from that mountain and make a scene."
He tilted his head back to look up at Seongji. The height difference forced him to. "What did you come down here for? To steal the offering?"
He blew a mouthful of smoke directly into Seongji's face. "Hey. Seongji Yuk, you son of a bitch. You think you're not taking me seriously because you're something special? Let me tell you the real reason you've stayed alive this long. It's because I couldn't be bothered. You miserable bastard!"
Without looking back, he said flatly, "Grab him."
The two guards standing behind Vin Jin locked their hands onto his shoulders.
Seongji's muscles went tight. Shinmyung said, unhurried, "If you want his eyes to stay in his head, stay still. Any move you make, the kid goes first."
One of the guards asked, "What do we do with them?"
Shinmyung sighed. "What do you think. It's over. Hold him, kill him, throw him in the reservoir."
Seongji stood there under the guards' grip. After a moment he said, "You'll regret this."
Shinmyung raised an eyebrow. "You're at death's door and you're trying to threaten me? You think anything you say right now is going to scare me?"
Seongji looked at him and smiled. "You can't kill me."
Shinmyung's brow creased. "And why exactly can't I—"
Thud.
Thud.
The two guards holding Vin Jin dropped one after the other.
"Because you forgot about me."
Baki walked in from outside the crowd, dusted his hands off, and looked at Shinmyung.
For the first time today, something shifted in Shinmyung's expression.
He snapped immediately, "Get him! No matter what it takes!"
The guards surged toward Baki. Twenty, maybe thirty of them fanning out.
Baki didn't move.
The first one came in swinging a club. Baki's head tilted slightly and the weapon sang past his ear. His hand shot forward and drove into the man's stomach. The guard's eyes went wide and he folded without making a sound.
Three more came together. Baki dropped low and slipped through the middle of them. Coming back up, his palm heel drove upward into the second man's jaw. The man flew backward and took down two others on the way.
Another one lunged to grab him. Baki caught the wrist, turned with it, and the man arced through the air and crashed into a cluster that hadn't reached him yet.
The rest pulled up short. Nobody moved.
Baki looked them over. "What's this. Already done?"
Ten of them let that get to them and charged at once.
Baki's stance dropped and he exploded forward.
His fist went into the leftmost man's knee. The leg buckled and the man crumpled, and Baki used his back as a step, launching upward. His knee found another man's temple on the way through. Landing, his hand drove sideways into the third man's throat.
He didn't stop. He landed, pivoted, found the back of a neck, and cut his hand down across it.
That man folded.
The guards looked at the ones on the ground. Nobody stepped forward.
Baki rolled his shoulders. "Is that everything? I was hoping for more."
One more came screaming in.
Baki stepped aside, brought his fingers together, and hit several points across the man's body in a rapid sequence that was over before it was visible. The man didn't understand what had happened. His legs simply stopped working and he went to his knees.
The last two dropped their weapons and backed away.
Baki didn't chase them. He turned around and found Shinmyung.
Shinmyung was standing exactly where he had been, and for once he had nothing to say.
Baki walked toward him, stepping over the guards on the ground. "You said you couldn't be bothered to deal with us?" He stopped in front of Shinmyung and looked down at him. "But as you can see. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't."
He held Shinmyung's gaze. "You think having men behind you makes you something? It doesn't. You're just a coward who hides behind other people."
Nearby, Seongji had finished with the guards who'd been holding him. He stood up and brushed off his clothes.
The cigarette slipped from Shinmyung's lips.
Two punches came in hard and fast, one after the other, landing on Baki's jaw.
Baki's eyes went blank for a moment.
Shigeaki landed and settled into his stance. "Do you understand what you've started today, Ogre?"
Baki worked his jaw, repositioning it. The corner of his mouth pulled up. "A war? Ha. I like the sound of that."
He charged.