The guards charged all at once. Seongji did not flinch as they swarmed him. He grabbed the first man by the top of his skull and slammed him into the others.
CRACK!
The force of the impact sent a whole row of men to the floor. The remaining guards stumbled back and stared at him. Their faces twisted with a new kind of fear.
"Something is wrong with this guy," one whispered.
Seongji spent years training in ssireum. His hands were thick and calloused from decades of grip work. Having six fingers on each hand gave him a hold that no ordinary man could break. He did not need fancy techniques. If he grabbed someone, it was all over.
"You are not human!" a guard screamed.
Seongji ignored the shout and kept walking. He moved like a machine through the crowd. This was not a fight anymore. It was a demolition.
The guards collapsed one after another. None of them could survive more than two exchanges with his hands. Seongji stepped over a pile of groaning bodies.
"You attacked first," Seongji said. "Vin Jin, we are leaving."
A fist suddenly slammed into his stomach. Seongji slid back half a step on the dirt. He absorbed the shock and looked up.
Yamazaki Shigeaki settled into a low stance.
"I asked you to become a Yaksha," Shigeaki said. "I did not ask you to come here and slaughter people."
He kept his eyes locked on Seongji.
"I should have killed you back then," Shigeaki said. "I should never have let you grow into this."
Seongji stepped forward and squared his shoulders.
"It is too late for that now," Seongji said.
A hand shot out from his blind spot. It caught his wrist and twisted hard. Seongji felt his feet leave the ground as he was thrown through the air.
THUD!
He hit the ground and pushed himself back up. Kojima Hiroaki stood next to his brother in the exact same stance.
"Was ruining the ritual not enough?" Hiroaki asked. "Now you want to take the offering too?"
Seongji stood up and untied his jacket. He wrapped the sleeves tightly around his waist to keep his movement free.
"Ask yourselves if you can actually stop me," Seongji said.
"That will not be necessary," a voice interrupted.
Shinmyung walked through the crowd with a cigarette between his lips. He lit it and took a long drag. He waved a hand at the villagers and told them to move back.
Vin Jin felt his entire body go stiff. He watched the shaman exhale a cloud of grey smoke.
"My head hurts," Shinmyung said. "What a miserable day. It was already going badly before someone came down from the mountain to make a scene."
He tilted his head back to look up at Seongji.
"Did you come here to steal the offering?" Shinmyung asked.
He blew a mouthful of smoke directly into the taller man's face.
"Hey," Shinmyung said. "You son of a bitch. You think you are special? I only let you live this long because I could not be bothered to kill you."
He did not look back as he spoke to his men.
"Grab him," Shinmyung said.
Two guards behind Vin Jin locked their hands onto the boy's shoulders. Seongji tensed his muscles to spring forward.
"Stay still if you want him to keep his eyes," Shinmyung said. "If you move, the kid goes first."
One of the guards looked at Shinmyung for instructions.
"What do we do with them?" the guard asked.
Shinmyung sighed and looked at the sky.
"It is over," Shinmyung said. "Hold him down and kill him. Throw the body in the reservoir."
The guards moved in and forced Seongji to his knees. He did not struggle against their grip.
"You will regret this," Seongji said.
Shinmyung raised an eyebrow and laughed.
"You are about to die and you are trying to threaten me?" Shinmyung asked. "Do you think I am scared of you?"
Seongji looked him in the eye and smiled.
"You cannot kill me," Seongji said.
Shinmyung creased his brow in confusion.
"And why exactly can I not do that?" Shinmyung asked.
WHACK!
WHACK!
The two guards holding Vin Jin collapsed into the dirt.
"Because you forgot about me," a voice said.
Baki walked out from the edge of the crowd. He dusted his hands off and stared at the shaman. Shinmyung's expression shifted.
"Get him!" Shinmyung barked. "Kill him now!"
Thirty guards surged toward Baki at once. Baki stood perfectly still as they closed the distance.
The lead guard swung a wooden club at his head. Baki tilted his chin and let the weapon whistle past his ear. He drove his fist deep into the man's stomach. The guard's eyes went wide as his breath left him.
BOOM!
Three more men lunged at him. Baki dropped low and slipped through the gap between them. He drove his palm upward into a man's jaw. The guard flew backward and knocked over the two men behind him.
Another man tried to tackle him. Baki caught the man's wrist and used his momentum to flip him. The guard crashed into a cluster of his own allies.
The rest of the guards stopped moving. They circled him but stayed out of reach. Baki looked around at the circle of men.
"Are you done already?" Baki asked.
Ten men screamed and charged him from all sides. Baki dropped into a low crouch and exploded forward like a spring.
His fist shattered the leftmost man's jaw. The man crumpled and Baki used the falling body as a stepping stone. He launched himself into the air and drove his knee into a guard's temple.
CRUNCH!
He landed and pivoted on his heel. His hand chopped sideways into a man's throat. He did not stop moving. He grabbed the back of a neck and slammed the man face-first into the ground.
The guards looked at their bleeding friends on the floor. No one wanted to be next. Baki rolled his shoulders to loosen up.
"I was hoping for more of a challenge," Baki said.
One last guard ran at him with a scream. Baki stepped to the side and tapped several points on the man's torso. The sequence was so fast it looked like a blur. The guard froze in place. His legs stopped working and he fell to his knees.
The remaining guards dropped their weapons and ran away. Baki did not chase them. He turned his attention back to Shinmyung.
Shinmyung stood frozen with his mouth open. Baki walked toward him and stepped over the fallen bodies.
"You said you could not be bothered to deal with us?" Baki asked.
He stopped inches away from the shaman's face.
"Even if you wanted to, you could not do it," Baki said. "You are just a coward who hides behind other people."
Seongji stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. The guards who were holding him had already been dealt with.
The cigarette fell out of Shinmyung's mouth.
Two punches suddenly slammed into Baki's jaw. They were hard and fast. Baki's eyes went blank as his head snapped back.
Shigeaki landed in front of him and reset his stance.
"Do you understand what you started today?" Shigeaki asked.
Baki grabbed his own jaw and cracked it back into place. A wide grin spread across his face.
"A war?" Baki asked. "I like the sound of that."
He lunged forward.