He didn't hear it. The only thing he heard was the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears, a tidal wave of pure, distilled hatred.
"Break my jaw?" Ha-jun stood up.
His movement was unnatural. He didn't push off the bed; he simply was standing. The muscles in his legs, the Myriad Beast Sinews forged by the System, fired with a snap.
Jang Myung frowned.
Something was wrong.
The runt looked the same, but the air around him felt heavy, suffocating. The shadows in the corner of the room seemed to be stretching toward Ha-jun, clinging to him.
"You deaf?" Jang Myung stepped forward, raising a hand the size of a ham hock to deliver a backhanded slap. "I said sit down and—"
Ha-jun moved.
It wasn't a technique. It wasn't a calculated martial arts move. It was an explosion of kinetic energy.
Ha-jun stepped inside the slap. His left hand shot out, not in a fist, but with fingers hooked like talons. He didn't aim for the face or the chest. He grabbed Jang Myung's wrist.
The Adamantine Skeleton withstood the impact of the giant's swing without a tremor. The Myriad Beast Sinews contracted.
CRACK.
It sounded like a dry branch stepping on a gunshot.
Jang Myung's eyes went wide. His mouth opened to scream, but the sound hadn't traveled from his brain to his throat yet.
His wrist wasn't just broken; it was crushed. The radius and ulna were ground together, the pulverized bone fragments tearing through the skin from the inside.
"You like breaking bones?" Ha-jun asked, his voice devoid of humanity. "You like the sound?"
He didn't let go. He yanked the massive boy downward. Jang Myung, outweighing him by a hundred pounds, was rag-dolled, his face meeting Ha-jun's rising knee.
THWACK.
The sound of cartilage exploding was wet and sickening. Jang Myung's nose collapsed into his skull. Blood sprayed in a fine mist, coating Ha-jun's face.
The two lackeys in the doorway froze, their brains unable to process the image. The "runt" had just dismantled their leader in a single heartbeat.
"Monster!" one of them shrieked, fumbling for the wooden training sword at his belt.
Ha-jun didn't look at him. He was focused on the work of art beneath his hands. He grabbed the back of Jang Myung's head, his fingers sinking into the greasy hair, and slammed the giant's face into the wooden support pillar of the hut.
Bam.
"This is for the leg," Ha-jun hissed.
Bam.
"This is for the arm."
Bam.
"This is for the twenty years of eating scraps!"
Splinters flew. The wood cracked. Jang Myung was no longer fighting; he was limp, a sack of meat being tenderized. But Ha-jun didn't stop.
The rage wasn't draining; it was feeding on itself. The newly forged Undying Furnace Dantian spun wildly, pumping adrenaline and raw energy into his limbs, demanding more violence.
[Warning: Excessive force detected. Target is incapacitated. Continued trauma may result in fatality.]
[Query: Does the Host wish to initiate 'Mercy' protocol?]
"Mercy?" Ha-jun laughed, a wet, choking sound as he hurled Jang Myung's unconscious body across the room. The giant hit the far wall and slid down, leaving a smear of crimson on the plaster. "I am the mercy! I am saving the world from his incompetence!"
He turned to the lackeys.
They were terrified. They scrambled backward, tripping over each other in the doorway.
"We... we didn't do anything!" one cried out, holding his hands up. "It was him! It was all Jang!"
"You watched," Ha-jun said. He walked toward them. He didn't run. He didn't rush. He walked with the heavy, inevitable gait of an executioner approaching the block. "You laughed. You held me down while he poured the urine on my bedding. Do you remember?"
Ha-jun certainly remembered.
The System had reconstructed his brain, sharpening his memories to crystal clarity. He could remember the specific pitch of their laughter from a decade ago.
He lunged.
The first lackey swung the wooden sword. It was a clumsy, panicked strike.
Ha-jun didn't dodge. He raised his forearm.
Clack.
The solid oak training sword hit his arm and shattered into splinters. The Adamantine Skeleton was harder than iron; wood was nothing to it.
The lackey stared at the broken hilt in his hand, horror dawning in his eyes. "What... what are you?"
"I am a ghost," Ha-jun whispered.
He grabbed the lackey by the throat with an iron grip and squeezed hard. Not enough to kill instantly, but enough to compress the windpipe, to make the eyes bulge, to let the boy feel the cold approach of death.
Ha-jun lifted him off the ground. The boy kicked helplessly, his heels drumming against Ha-jun's shins.
"Please..." the boy gurgled.
"Did I beg?" Ha-jun tilted his head, genuinely curious. "When you broke my ribs behind the mess hall... did I beg?"
He threw the boy. He didn't toss him; he pitched him like a javelin.
The lackey flew through the air and crashed into the second lackey, sending both of them tumbling out of the hut and into the dirt of the courtyard.
Ha-jun stepped out into the night. The cool air hit his blood-soaked skin.
The commotion had woken the other disciples. Heads were poking out of nearby huts. Lanterns were being lit. They saw the carnage, and Jang Myung, who was unconscious and bleeding in the room. They saw the two lackeys groaning in the dirt, limbs bent at unnatural angles.
And standing over them was Moyong Ha-jun.
He looked demonic. Blood, not his own, dripped from his chin.
His eyes were glowing with a faint, terrifying luminescence, a side effect of the Eye of the Sword Sovereign activating unconsciously.
His stance was loose, relaxed, yet radiating a pressure that made the air feel heavy.
He looked at his hands. They were stained red.
For the first time since waking up, the screaming in his mind quieted. The confusion was gone.
The dissonance between his old soul and new body vanished.