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Chapter 424: Punishment (4)

Despite going through all sorts of events with Kang Jin-Ho before, she had never seen him this angry. How should Choi Yeon-Ha describe this feeling...?

\'I\'m scared...!\'

This fear was different from what she felt from that mad giant. That fear was based on the giant\'s unpredictability and his apparent state of madness. However, the fear born from looking at Kang Jin-Ho was something else. The fear crushing down on her from simply looking at him was so indescribably chilling that it threatened to freeze her soul.

Choi Yeon-Ha understood a little bit of what the mad giant was saying earlier. The more accurate thing to say would be... She could guess what the giant meant by Kang Jin-Ho using himself to \'categorize\' people into two camps and treating those in his circles completely differently from those outside.

As far as she could remember, Kang Jin-Ho hadn\'t shown this side of himself to Choi Yeon-Ha before. Any normal person would get the shock of their life if someone they shared banters and laughter with suddenly revealed such a scary side.

What would be a good way to describe the chill she felt? A toy gun she carelessly fooled around with turned out to be a real deal? And that it had been fully loaded all this time, too? Yes, it had to be something like that. And after that experience, Choi Yeon-Ha would never treat that gun the same way.

“Ah...!” Choi Yeon-Ha gasped, her jaw falling to the floor, after realizing that she was unconsciously trying to reject Kang Jin-Ho.

Kang Jin-Ho suddenly stopped walking from her quiet little gasp. Choi Yeon-Ha held her breath and stared at him, her eyes trembling. She was scared by the thought of the look in Kang Jin-Ho\'s eyes potentially being the same as that mad giant.

Even though the time needed for Kang Jin-Ho to turn his head was brief, it still felt like an eternity to Choi Yeon-Ha.

Kang Jin-Ho slowly turned his head as if he didn\'t know about the conflict taking place in Choi Yeon-Ha\'s mind. And when their eyes met, Choi Yeon-ha let out another gasp. Kang Jin-Ho, he...

He wasn\'t ‘different’. Although he was glaring a little more fiercely than his usual self, his expression—the look on his face—was what Choi Yeon-Ha always remembered. And the terror that had been tightening around her heart like a noose instantly vanished.

Kang Jin-Ho seemed to sigh under his breath before walking up to Choi Yeon-Ha, then patted her head. “You did great, Miss Yeon-Ha.”

As she felt the warmth of his hand patting her, Choi Yeon-Ha sensed all strength abandoning her knees. But why was that? It could be because of the relief of knowing everything would be fine now. Or, maybe it was something as trivial as a rebound from standing too stiffly and nervously until now. However, she didn\'t need long to figure out the real reason.

Despite his rage, the usually taciturn Kang Jin-Ho chose to come back to Choi Yeon-Ha and pat her head out of his concern for her.

\'He\'s still the same...!\'

It was not because Kang Jin-Ho was being nice to her. Even if he had shown a side Choi Yeon-Ha hadn\'t seen before a few seconds ago, she still felt confident that Kang Jin-Ho was the same man she knew.

A warm lump of relief settled in her chest. Choi Yeon-Ha wiped the pool of tears filling up the edges of her eyes and gently muttered at Kang Jin-Ho. “You are late, you incompetent dummy!”

“...”

“I thought we were going to die, you know!”

Kang Jin-Ho staggered a little just then. As if the flood of insults wasn\'t enough to satisfy her, Choi Yeon-Ha even kicked Kang Jin-Ho\'s shin several times before collapsing on her butt. “Hah, dammit... I might get wrinkles at this rate...”

“...Are you unhurt?” Kang Jin-Ho asked while frowning a little.

“I\'m fine, but what about Min-Ji! She almost had a seizure, you know! Besides all that, who is that crazy bastard?”

“I\'m not sure, either...”

Choi Yeon-Ha shook her head. “What does it matter, though? A lunatic is a lunatic no matter what, anyway.”

While watching the grounded Choi Yeon-Ha continuously firing her salvo of curse words, Kang Jin-Ho couldn\'t help but groan under his breath again. This woman really was unpredictable, wasn\'t she? He leaned forward slightly and asked her, “Can you stand?”

“Yes, I can... It\'s just that I\'m too exhausted right now.”

Choi Yeon-Ha was implying that, without his assistance, she might have a tough time walking out of here, but Kang Jin-Ho remained ruthlessly uncaring. “Miss Yeon-Ha, please take Min-Ji out of here.”

“Mm? Just us two?”

“Yes.”

“Surely not! That crazy bastard is too...”

“Yes, it\'s too risky to stay, and that\'s why I want you two out of here. I\'ll quickly deal with this business and join you outside.”

Choi Yeon-Ha clamped her mouth shut, then slowly nodded. Even if Kang Jin-Ho\'s manner of speech was the same as his usual self, something about him made it impossible to go against his wishes. The image of Kang Jin-Ho immediately after he burst through the ceiling and the current Kang Jin-Ho seemed to overlap in Choi Yeon-Ha\'s mind, leaving her with no other choice but to nod in silence.

If she was being honest, Choi Yeon-Ha was scared of bringing out that terrifying side of Kang Jin-Ho again by getting on his nerves.

“I\'ll safely take Min-Ji out of here,” Choi Yeon-Ha quietly nodded.

“Thank you. I\'ll leave it to you.”

“...However, you owe me big for this.”

“Understood.”

“You promise?”

“Yes,” Kang Jin-Ho firmly nodded.

Choi Yeon-Ha smiled in satisfaction, then reached down to help Oh Min-Ji, who had also plopped on the ground out of fear. “Min-Ji, can you stand? We gotta leave now. This unfriendly uncle wants to chase us out of here. If we insist on staying next to an unlucky man like him, we might get eggs on our faces, too. So, let\'s get out of here, pronto.”

Choi Yeon-Ha helped the still-dazed Oh Min-Ji back to her feet, then glanced sideways at Kang Jin-Ho before walking out of the bathroom exit. Kang Jin-Ho accompanied them to the corridor and watched Choi Yeon-Ha walk away, his expression gradually stiffening. And, once she was gone...

“Come out.”

Almost in an instant, Kang Jin-Ho\'s aura changed.

“Come out. Now.”

Choking rage flooded out of Kang Jin-Ho. His scowl was so terrifying that a person with a weak constitution might suffer a heart attack simply by looking at him. Despite the intense atmosphere, the mad giant still slowly revealed himself from the shadows as if he was the darkness itself.

Even though his arm was bent at a weird angle, the giant still seemed unaffected and relaxed.

“Whew-whee…” The mad giant cackled glibly. “Looks like you\'re really pissed, aren\'t you, Kang Jin-Ho? To think a man who has taken over South Korea\'s martial world would get pissed at me! I should be...”

BANG!

The mad giant was cut off mid-sentence as a punch sent him flying away.

“Keuh-uhhk…!” The mad giant held his face and writhed around in pain after his nose was broken and all of his front teeth were knocked out. Even though demonic qi had saturated his brain, it still failed to block out the flood of horrible pain.

“...! Eeeeek!”

Once the momentary pain was gone, pure rage quickly replaced it in the giant\'s head.

Kang Jin-Ho...! Kang Jin-Ho! That hateful bastard stood before the giant\'s eyes!

The mad giant roared in anger. “Kang, Jin, Hooooo!”

However, Kang Jin-Ho remained expressionless as he leisurely closed the distance to the mad giant.

The mad giant wiped the blood off his face as he stood back up. “You must be dying to know, aren\'t you?”

“...”

“Dying to know why I did all this! Kekekeke...!” The mad giant roared again. “I did it because...!”

That was when he realized he had been under a mistaken assumption all this time. That was because, before the sentence could be completed, Kang Jin-Ho had reached the giant\'s position and suddenly grabbed the latter\'s jaw to clamp it shut.

Even if the mad giant was a silver-tongued devil, he still wouldn\'t be able to say anything when the force strong enough to shatter his skull in one second had grabbed his face!

The mad giant\'s ears heard the sound of bones popping and straining under the load. He wasn\'t scared of dying. If he was, the mad giant would\'ve never appeared before Kang Jin-Ho. Anyone with even a casual knowledge of how Kang Jin-Ho operated would\'ve known what it meant to appear before him and harm the people around him, after all!

Even so...

Crack, craaaack...

The sound of the facial bones failing to withstand the load and cracking began ringing inside his skull. These terrifying noises bounced and echoed within his head before hitting his eardrums.

No matter how hard the mad giant tried to stay calm, that was impossible in this bizarre and monstrous situation.

Crunch, crack...!

The mad giant\'s molars seemed to have either broken or got crushed under intense pressure because indescribable pain burned inside his mouth. To make matters worse, it felt like his blood began flowing backward, too.

“Kkeuuhk... Kkeuuuwuk...!”

Unfortunately for the mad giant, all he could do to mitigate this pain was moan pitifully. He managed to gather enough strength to kick Kang Jin-Ho in the leg as the latter lifted the giant up. However, Kang Jin-Ho\'s leg must\'ve been composed purely out of solid steel. Despite the giant reinforcing his kick with qi, only his foot hurt from the impact instead!

What ruled over the mad giant\'s mind wasn\'t terror or fear. No, it was... fluster. He was shocked and flustered.

Before today\'s encounter, this mad giant had been imagining and calculating countless times how his showdown with Kang Jin-Ho would unfold. But, none of his imagination contained the situation where he was subjected to intense pain without being able to get a word in.

Which didn\'t make sense. A human should be at least curious about the cause, shouldn\'t they?!

That was when Kang Jin-Ho finally broke his silence. “Regarding who you are...”

“...!”

“And why you did all this...” The corners of Kang Jin-Ho\'s lips distorted as he spoke. “...Why should I care about those things?”

He narrowed his eyes while whispering.

“Will anything change just because you tell me the truth? You\'ll still die in the most wretched manner known to this world anyway. You think my actions will be any different after learning about who you are and why you did all this?”

What a soft-bellied idiot this man was. Kang Jin-Ho couldn\'t help but chuckle derisively.

Kang Jin-Ho had felt this way before, and this demonic cultivator reminded him of it again. The people of this era were so much more rational and pragmatic when compared to their Zhongyuan counterparts. However, that meant they were also soft. Weak-minded.

Who cared about one\'s reasons when killing an attacker? What would change even after the truth was revealed? In the end, the fact that the attack took place would never change, anyway. Besides...!

Kang Jin-Ho tightened his grip on the giant\'s face, then slammed it straight into the concrete floor.

BOOOOOM!

A loud explosion noise rocked the air, ripples of aftershock rocking the walls as if the entire building wanted to crumble.

“Kkeeuhhhk...!” A helpless gasp of pain leaked out of the giant\'s mouth after his head smashed through the floor.

“You said something amusing earlier,” said Kang Jin-Ho with a soft smirk. It was as if he was enjoying this situation so much. “I must say, I do agree with you on one of the things you said. Humans tend to see themselves as someone amazing until they experience pain. If you want to see a person\'s true face, you only need to observe how they respond to pain and suffering. Don\'t you think so, too?”

The giant began trembling as if he had developed a seizure. How unfortunate it was that he knew what Kang Jin-Ho was talking about. Kang Jin-Ho was planning to do what the giant threatened Choi Yeon-Ha with a minute ago!

“However, our methods will have to differ slightly. You see, I used to live in an era filled with idiots who only learned that being honest sooner would\'ve saved them from losing both arms. Living in such a place means I favor a more direct approach.” Kang Jin-Ho grabbed the collars of the giant, then leisurely picked him up from the crater on the ground. “So, how do I look?”

The giant\'s half-closed eyes opened. What was Kang Jin-Ho asking him this time? What did this insane bastard want to know from the giant?

“I\'m asking you, what does my expression look like to you?”

“...!” The giant\'s body shuddered faintly. He... He couldn\'t stand it.

Even though demonic qi had corrupted him to the core, turning the giant into a monster that thirsted for violence and base pleasures, he still didn\'t have the strength to endure the expression on Kang Jin-Ho\'s face right this moment!

Kang Jin-Ho wasn\'t making a scary or bone-chilling expression. No, he... He was clearly enjoying this. Like a little kid who had finally got his hands on a toy he oh-so wanted to play with!

Kang Jin-Ho quietly whispered to the giant. “If I\'m being honest... Regular humans are just too weak for me. Just a little prod from me, and they\'ll die from shock. Trying to worry about my victim\'s health while torturing them can get quite tedious and stressful, you see? And in that sense…”

A bright smile bloomed on Kang Jin-Ho\'s face.

“This encounter is a godsend for me.”

The giant\'s crotch quickly got soaked in his own urine.