Moon's Labyrinths

Tuh-buhk!

Sungyoon took another step forward.

“S-stay back!”

Jaeho pointed the gun toward Sungyoon, but he was shaking all over. In his current state, he couldn't hit a target at close range.

Tuh-buhk!

“S-Shiiiiiiit!”

Tahng! Tahng! Tahng!

The cold sound of gunshots rang out. Surprisingly, Jaeho was able to line up his shots, and the bullets flew toward Sungyoon.

Kahng! Kahng! Kahng!

Sungyoon’s body came to a stop for a brief moment. The bullets were deflected by his armor, but he felt the punch behind them.

“Mana-Knight?”

Sungyoon became surprised that Jaheo possessed something so expensive. No, it was beyond expensive. Jaeho had acquired such a rare commodity and processed it into bullets.

‘He made great preparations for this plan.’

“Why! Why isn’t it working?”

Tahng! Tahng! Tahng! Tahng!

The barrel of the gun continued to spit fire. However, all the Mana-Knight bullets bounced off of Sungyoon. Sungyoon no longer hesitated.

“I don’t know where you got that. However, I’m the one mining most of the Mana-Knight in circulation. It means I have connections to those who create items using Mana-Knight. I have access to their experiments. Do you really think I was unaware of Mana-Knight bullets created for small firearms?”

Chelsea was very passionate about this subject, so in turn, Sungyoon had heard about all the special qualities of Mana-Knight bullets.

“You can’t pierce through Jewel rank armor with a weapon of that size.”

His words sounded like a death sentence to Jaeho.

‘That son of a bitch! This is different from what he promised!’

The hooded man had boasted that this weapon would take down Sungyoon. It was true that Mana-Knight was effective against Connectors, but it was contingent on the fact that the Mana-Knight weapon hit the body of a Connector.

Tuh-buhk!

Sungyoon took another step. The distance between Sungyoon and Jaeho was slowly closing.

“H-hey, Yoon-ah.”

Yoon-ah! The suffix was an endearment term used between friends, and the term was what Jaeho used to affectionately call Sungyoon by in the past.

Was it unexpected? Sungyoon came to a stop.

As if Jaeho had seen a ray of light that would allow him to live, he started blabbering.

“I-I was wrong. I lost my mind for a little bit. Please let me go for old times sake.”

Jaeho's intense desire for revenge lost to his desire to live. Sungyoon looked down at him with disgust in his eyes.

‘He was callous with the lives of others, yet he treasures his own life.’

However, it was to be expected from a person like Jaeho. Sungyoon’s gaze then headed lower to look below Jaeho.

“Did you do that to her?”

Miyun was in a wretched state, and her body had suffered all kinds of torture. She barely hung onto her life. Jaeho rolled his eyes back and forth at Sungyoon's question.

“…Hu…bb…b…”

Miyun had been beaten so severely that her mouth only had a couple of teeth left. She barely wheezed out a word. The word she wanted to say was ‘Hubby'. It was an embarrassing term of endearment that she used to call Sungyoon a couple of years ago.

Sungyoon suddenly laughed. In the past, he had wanted to maintain those titles. They meant nothing to him now, yet his former friend and ex-wife were using them to plead for their lives.

One referred to himself as Sungyoon’s friend; the other referred to herself as his wife.

‘Yes.’

Sungyoon once again reaffirmed a fact.

‘I only have Shinhae.’

His eyes turned cold once again. However, it seemed the two in front hadn’t noticed the change in his eyes.

“This… bastard… My… Father… Mother…!”

“I'll apologize! I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! Y-you didn’t like them in the first place!”

Sorrowful tears fell from Miyun’s eyes, while Jaeho tried to make excuses for his actions.

“You knew this, yet you tried to use them as hostages?”

“I never planned on using them as hostages!”

“Then why?”

Jaeho refused to answer him. Sungyoon didn't need an answer. He could guess it. From the beginning, Jaeho just wanted to vent his anger on Miyun and her family. They were toys that he could abuse and boast about. They were targets of his revenge, just like Sungyoon was.

‘If he had any brain inside that head, he would have already known they weren’t worth much as hostages against me.’

Jaeho wanted to take Shinhae as a hostage and gloat in front of everyone that he had a grudge against. But when he had seen Sungyoon's slaughter, he had known he was cornered. He was grasping at straws by holding Miyun and her family hostage.

While Sungyoon was lost in his thoughts, Jaeho and Miyun continued to talk.

Two pigs were squealing in front of him, and Sungyoon was truly surprised by his own reaction. Even if he had bad blood against these two, he never expected to feel no sympathy toward them.

‘It just means I resent them that much.’

Sungyoon had tried his best to forget about the two of them. He had done so for the best interest of Shinhae. However, his anger had been boiling underneath like magma all that time, and it had now overflowed like lava.

Tuh-buhk!

Sungyoon started walking again. The sword in his hand disappeared, and a long halberd took its place. Unlike with the others, Sungyoon had decided to let Jaeho’s corpse remain intact.

“Y... Yoon-ah!”

Sungyoon advanced with a grave air surrounding him, and Jaeho became frightened when he saw this.

“No! No! Let me live!”

Jaeho begged.

“… K-Kill…!”

Miyun wheezed as she did her best to urge Sungyoon to kill Jaeho.

“Shinhae… Like me… He said… make Shinhae like me…!”

Ggwah-doo-doohk!

Sungyoon ground his teeth. Shinhae was his only treasure, so of course, his rage surged in a rampant manner.

“Fuck this!”

Jaeho placed the gun right between Miyun’s eyes.

“Don’t come any closer! If you dare to, this bitch is dead!”

“…Hu..bb...by!”

Miyun had been egging Sungyoon to kill Jaeho, but now, her expression changed. She resembled a deer standing in front of a hunter. Her eyes became fixed on Sungyoon, but Sungyoon didn’t stop.

“I’m... I’m really going to do it?”

Click!

Jaeho was terrified, but he placed his finger on the trigger. Miyun’s eyes violently shook. The gun might not work against Sungyoon, but she was a normal human.

Sungyoon looked at Miyun’s face. She desperately moved her eyes to send some kind of message to him. However, Sungyoon coldly ignored the gesture.

‘If any of them live, they would be of no help to Shinhae.’

Sungyoon would be lucky if they weren’t negative influences in Shinhae's life. He gripped his halberd harder as he looked at the two of them.

“Ooh! Ohh-ahhhhhhhhh!”

Tahng!

The sound of the gun going off rang out inside the warehouse, and the empty shell hit the ground. Blood and powder smoke scattered into the air. The scene resembled that from a very old black and white movie shown on a muddy screen.

Tuhl-suhk!

Miyun’s head fell to the ground. She no longer wheezed, and the eyes begging for life turned lifeless. The only thing left was a large sack of flesh that would soon go cold.

Sungyoon and Jaeho froze for a brief moment when they saw this. It didn’t matter if it was a good or bad relationship; a woman who used to be an integral part of their lives had died.

“Ooh! Ooh-ooooooh…!”

Jaeho’s hands shook. The blood from Miyun’s head had splashed onto him, and his hand was dyed red.

Juh-buhk!

Sungyoon moved once again.

“This... this is all your fault.”

Jaeho still shook, but something changed within him after he had killed Miyun. He glared at Sungyoon.

“It would have all been fine if you had stayed quiet! You just had to stay down in the dirt, and none of this would have happened! You, me, and she, we all would still be happy living our own separate lives! This is all your fault!”

Sungyoon didn’t need to listen to this crap.

Jaeho didn’t have an idea about what Sungyoon had felt while desperately fighting to live down in the dirt. He didn't know that Sungyoon had thrown up blood to barely eke out a living.

That was why Sungyoon didn't reply to Jaeho's words and just raised his halberd.

“This is a joke! Do you think I will die here? I’m going to live! I’m going to inherit the Daesung group, and I’m going to live a grand life! I will not die to a lowly maggot like you!”

Chul-kuhk!

Jaeho once again raised the pistol and bared his teeth.

Tahng!

The Mana-Knight bullet accelerated and flew straight. It pierced through everything in its path. However, neither Sungyoon’s powerful body nor his hard armor greeted the bullet. What did greet it was the ax blade of his halberd.

Kwah-dook!

The bullet split into two.

Kahng! Kahng!

But the bullet pieces continued with the same momentum and hit Sungyoon’s armor. However, they were just deflected into the surroundings.

After splitting the bullet, the halberd cut through the gun and continued spinning toward Jaeho.

Suh-guhk!

The spear blade of the halberd easily pierced through Jaeho’s neck and created a big hole.

“Ggoo-rook! Ggoo-roo-rook!”

The intelligible noises died down, and the only sound in the warehouse was that of Jaeho choking on his blood. Jaeho grabbed at his neck as he looked at Sungyoon. His eyes were as wide as they could be, but he couldn’t see any emotions on Sungyoon’s face. There was no reason to look for it anyway.

Boom!

Jaeho’s body fell over. It shook for a brief moment before coming to a complete stop. Sungyoon looked between the corpses of Jaeho and Miyun.

That was how the famous Connector and the Knight of London, Sungyoon, ended the worst relationships of his life.

***

Jimin increased her pace. Her temperament always oozed calmness and composure, yet her footsteps were erratic now. She pushed through the group of reporters to reach her destination.

Inside the large building, several people moved around with the cold steel bars of a jail cell in the background. The security in this place was much stricter than that in a normal police station. The atmosphere was heavy and formal. This building belonged to the department that investigated Connectors.

“Mr. Sungyoon!”

Jimin found Sungyoon, who was seated next to a detective. She quickly approached him.

“Ah! President.”

“What happened?”

“There isn’t much to say. Lee Jaeho lost his mind and hired Connectors to ambush me. I just fought back in self-defense.”

Jimin closed her mouth. She knew Lee Jaeho wouldn’t go down without fighting, but she never expected him to go as far as hiring Connectors to attack Sungyoon.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

“As you can see, I’m fine.”

It was as he said. Sungyoon didn’t look injured. Moreover, he made no efforts to hide anything, and oddly, he looked unburdened and better than ever before.

“If you are done, do you mind if we continue our inquiry?”

“No. Please wait for a moment.”

Jimin turned the detective's request.

“My lawyer will be here soon. You can continue your inquiry then.”

The detective’s expression worsened a little bit. It was always a pain in the ass to deal with lawyers. Jimin's lawyer soon arrived, and the inquiry started in earnest afterward.

Jimin stood a bit away as she listened to the story. She went over the conversation that she had just overheard and engraved all the important points in her mind. Her mind started churning to deal with the consequences.

***

As expected, Sungyoon’s case made headlines all over the world.

The most famous Connector on Earth had killed people, but the public sentiment was unexpectedly on Sungyoon's side.

“I knew it would turn out this way.”

Hyunwoo mumbled while watching the TV.

“This is an amazing fight for public sentiment. Daesung used all their connections and money to fight it, yet it was entirely ineffective. They are out of their element here.”

Jinsoo was impressed.

“Jimin is a smart child. Moreover, she has money and personal connections too. Above all else, Woo Sungyoon's public image is miles better than Daesung. The result was obvious considering how many cards she had at her disposal. Also, Daesung has to cover up and distort the truth. Unlike them, Jimin just has to shine the light on the truth. It’s easy to tell which side would have the upper hand.”

The fact that Jaeho had hired Connectors to ambush Sungyoon couldn’t be changed. Moreover, Jimin had exposed the complicated relationship between Sungyoon, Jaeho, and Miyun.

Sungyoon’s wife and his rich friend had betrayed him. Yet, he had continued to treasure and raise his daughter as he matured as a Connector. His life was like a story out of a drama, and it captured the hearts of the public.

The public's opinions toward Jaeho worsened even further, and they cussed him out for becoming hostile toward Sungyoon.

“This is already over. Daesung Energy is done, and Daesung group will have to worry about their own existence from now on.”

The boycott had already started. Celebrities refused to appear in commercials related to Daesung, and the group's stock had hit rock bottom.

“It might be better that Lee Jaeho is dead. If he were alive, he would have to witness the empire that he coveted fall because of his own actions.”