A massive group of over a thousand men marched through the dim hallways of the underground mall. The sound of their boots echoing against the concrete walls filled the space with a low drone. Yujae walked at the front with a fox-like smile on his face. Ryu and Mugak followed closely behind him.
"The underground mall is the way to the Speed hideout."
Yujae stopped in front of a heavy metal door. Dust and grime covered the handle as if it had not been touched in months.
"This is the location I got from the guy I captured."
Ryu shifted his weight and looked at Yujae with a suspicious gaze.
"Are you sure he did not lie to you?"
Yujae pushed the door open with a slow motion.
"Only one way to find out."
The hinges groaned as the door swung back to reveal a large room. Everyone stared at the scene before them. Ryu walked into the center of the chamber and looked around at the barren walls.
"It is empty."
Mugak snapped and turned toward Yujae with a snarl. He stepped forward and grabbed the collar of Yujae's jacket.
"You bastard! You got fooled by a kid!"
Yujae looked around the room with an expression of genuine shock.
"I... I do not understand."
Ryu suddenly pointed toward a wooden table in the corner of the room.
"Wait! They were definitely here. Look at this!"
He grabbed a map and opened it fully across the tabletop. A large red circle had been drawn around a specific area with thick ink.
"Is that not the Incheon port?"
Yujae leaned over the table and gave a slow nod.
"It is. It seems their goal is the Incheon port."
Ryu folded the map and tucked it into his pocket. He looked at the group of fighters standing behind him and began to issue orders.
"Shall we go there?"
Ryu shook his head and gestured for the men to turn around.
"Cheonmu, Jamal, and Un-gi Yeom will go to the port. You, I, and Mugak will head back. We have left the base empty for too long. It is not safe."
Yujae did not refute the decision. He knew Ryu was too smart to be fooled a second time. This entire location had been fabricated by Yujae to buy time.
---
In Chinatown, the members of the Speed Circle and the two fighters from Big Deal gathered near the entrance of the fortress. Boknam looked around the perimeter of the Dark Crocodile Fort and lowered his guard.
"Huh? Why is this place empty?"
Jaegyeon Na stepped forward and checked the main gate.
"It is better this way. Let's get Daniel Park out and then we will start our counter attack!"
---
Inside the Dark Crocodile Fort, Daniel stayed low and blended into a crowd of lower-ranking members. The halls were filled with men with tattoos all over their body.
"Da bosses 'ave gone out ta 'unt dem Speed rats! Dis time, it's our duty ta watch da fort, ya hear?!"
The men roared in agreement and raised their fists. Daniel took advantage of the noise to slip into a side corridor.
A few members of the group looked back and noticed the gap in their line.
"Oy, where'd dat short fella go?"
"Wot short fella? It's just us lot, innit?"
"Nah, I'm sure I saw anuvver bloke right dere."
"Yer seein' fings, mate. Shut yer trap and keep movin'!"
Daniel moved through the secret passages of the fort with quick steps. He reached the final section of the building before the exit. A large sign hung over the doorway.
"This is the last one. A hospital?"
Daniel stepped into the room and smelled the sharp scent of antiseptic. A man wearing a green medical uniform stood in the center of the ward. He looked at Daniel with a calm gaze.
"Hey kid, are you lost? Tell me where it hurts. Is it internal, urological, or something that needs surgery?"
Daniel stopped moving and watched the man's hands. He could feel a heavy pressure coming from the opponent. Even though he couldn't understand the language, the way the man stood told Daniel that he was facing a professional killer.
Daniel stepped forward and threw a straight punch before the man in green could move. The blow connected with Dr. Jo's chest and sent him flying backward into the concrete wall.
CRACK!
The stone shattered upon impact and left a spiderweb of deep fissures around the doctor's body. Daniel did not give him a chance to recover and lunged forward to deliver a follow-up strike to the face. Just as the fist was about to land, Dr. Jo opened his mouth and spat a thick glob of dark blood directly into Daniel's eyes.
"Damn it! My eyes!"
Daniel staggered back and wiped the warm liquid from his face with his sleeve. When he finally managed to pry his eyelids open, the room had plunged into absolute pitch blackness. He immediately leaped backward to create distance and felt the cold air of the large ward around him.
"There was no light in our fortress for ages due to reckless expansion."
Dr. Jo's voice drifted through the void and sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once. The faint click of plastic echoed as the doctor fitted a pair of heavy night vision goggles over his eyes.
"This level of darkness is nothing to us. We have night vision goggles to see everything you don't."
Dr. Jo stood before a hidden rack on the wall where dozens of jagged surgical tools and heavy weapons hung. He strapped a spiked mace to his right hand and gripped a massive meat cleaver in his left. He jumped from the shadows and swung the heavy metal at Daniel's head.
"Let's begin the operation!"
The mace whistled through the air. Daniel tilted his head at the last possible second, guided only by the displacement of wind and the scrape of boots on the floor. He felt the spikes graze his ear as he rolled across the tiled ground.
WHAM!
The mace smashed into a metal hospital bed and twisted the frame into a heap of scrap. Dr. Jo swung the cleaver in a wide horizontal arc. Daniel dropped to the floor and performed a sweeping kick that forced the doctor to jump back.
Daniel used the sound of the doctor's breathing to pinpoint his location. He vaulted off a nearby gurney and spun in the air to deliver a powerful roundhouse kick. The strike caught Dr. Jo in the side of the head and sent his goggles flying into the darkness.
CLATTER!
Dr. Jo groaned and tried to swing blindly with his mace. Daniel caught the man's wrist and twisted it until the bone popped. He followed up with a palm strike to the chin that sent the doctor's head snapping back.
BOOM!
Daniel finished the fight with a double-handed strike to the solar plexus. Dr. Jo crashed into a row of medicine cabinets and brought the entire glass structure down on top of himself. He lay motionless among the shattered vials and spilled chemicals. Daniel took a breath.
"Sorry, but I was trained to fight in the darkness. Now, I am missing Sophia noona."