{ Monster of Blood and Ash}
The sound of weapons being cocked and chambers loaded was enough to take one's breath away.
Sharp metallic clicks rang out one after another within seconds,
until the barrels of pistols and rifles were all trained in a single direction: toward Ian.
specifically aiming at his head.
Gong Nam-min stood there,
his features distorted by greed and madness, and shouted in an commanding tone:
"Drop your gun, ian!"
A deafening silence enveloped the room for a few seconds.
Ian stared into his eyes with a piercing gaze.
Seconds felt like an eternity before he slowly lowered his gun,
yielding to the threat, and the weapon hit the cold floor.
Ian said in a low, tense, and dangerous voice:
"Do whatever you want with me... just let Tyla go."
An unhinged, short, and mocking laugh escaped Gong Nam-min's throat before he roughly reached out and pulled the cover off the head of the captive girl sitting in front of him.
At that exact moment, shock struck ian's features like a thunderbolt.
His eyes widened, and his entire body froze. The girl...
was not Tyla!
He took a small step forward and said in a stunned, panic-stricken voice full of denial:
"Who is this?! Where is Tyla?!"
Gong Nam-min's mad laughter echoed, filling the place with mockery,
as he relished tearing apart the nerves of the young man who thought he was in control-the abyss of traitors.
Meanwhile, in a dark corner of that abandoned building,
Tyla was locked inside a small room. The room was pitch black,
its darkness broken only by a faint light hanging from the ceiling by a bare wire,
swaying slowly and casting eerie shadows on an old black leather couch.
Fear was gnawing at her chest, and her heart was pounding violently against her ribs. Her shallow, gasping breaths mingled with the hot tears washing down her cheeks.
She began to strike the iron door with all the strength her trembling hands could muster,
screaming:
"Open the door!
Let me go! Who are you?! Ian!! Where are you, ian?!"
She received nothing but the echo of her own weeping voice,
bouncing back to her from the cold concrete walls,
driving her deeper into terror and hopelessness.
Back in the arena of confrontation, the look of shock vanished from ian's face,
replaced by a chilling side-smile... a smile emerging from the depths of death itself.
He yelled with a force that shook the walls:
"You old bastard... you will regret this! I swear you will regret this!"
Gong Nam-min replied with a provocative coldness,
his eyes gleaming with malicious intent:
"Did you like my show, 'Black Monster'?"
He pointed his finger mockingly at his men and said curtly:
"Take him."
Before Ian could move a single inch,
a treacherous shot was fired from behind him. It wasn't
a lethal bullet, but a tranquilizer dart-the kind used to control dangerous, predatory animals.
Ian felt the sting of the serum coursing through his veins. The world spun around him,
his eyelids grew heavy, and his body collapsed to the ground,
losing consciousness.
Ian woke up to the shock of freezing water splashed violently onto his face.
He gasped sharply and coughed heavily, struggling to catch his breath.
A blinding headache tore through his mind, and his vision was blurry and distorted.
He blinked for several seconds until the image began to clear.
He found himself tied with thick ropes to a hard wooden chair.
His old hand wound had reopened and was bleeding profusely, staining the floor.
A few steps away, Gong Nam-min sat proudly and relaxed in a luxurious black leather chair,
crossing one leg over the other. Beside him was a small wooden table topped with a bottle of fine wine.
Ian's wet hair hung over his forehead and eyes,
but from behind those scattered strands, his eyes burned with a scorching rage capable of setting the entire place ablaze.
He immediately hissed in a terrifying tone:
"Where is Tyla?"
The old man laughed mockingly,
sipping from his glass with provocative calmness as he said:
"You will never see Tyla again... You are going to die here,
but very slowly. This is the punishment for anyone who dares to desert my syndicate."
Ian retorted sharply, his eyes widening with sparks of fury:
"You killed my father! You wore a mask of innocence and dignity, and you trained me only to be one of your dogs and followers!"
Gong Nam-min shouted arrogantly, pointing at him:
"I am the one who saved you! I am the one who discovered this monster inside you-the 'Black Monster' lurking within!"
İan screamed as he strained against his ropes:
"Remember that name well... the name you created yourself,
you bastard! But it is not my true self-you forced me to become this!"
In the dark room, Tyla had collapsed physically onto the leather couch after exhaustion took over her weeping body.
She looked at her trembling hands helplessly,
her mind on the verge of exploding from the sheer volume of questions: Where are she now?
Was Ian okay? How would she escape?
And what was Ian's true identity that he hid behind all this mystery?
Suddenly, the silence of the place was pierced by the sound of heavy, nearby gunfire.
Tyla pressed her hands tightly over her ears and curled into herself, trembling with terror.
But suddenly, the door lock clicked, and it swung wide open. She raised her head in panic,
only to find Ian standing at the threshold, panting, with the clear marks of battle upon him.
Tyla whispered in disbelief, tears freezing in her eyes:
"SEO Joon..? Is that you?"
SEO Joon said as he rushed toward her, aiming his weapon outward:
"Ma'am! Are you alright? Now get out quickly, we have to leave!"
She ran toward him, grabbing his clothes, and asked directly with a burning heart:
"Where is Ian?! Tell me where he is?!"
SEO Joon replied with a tense expression:
"He is in this building too... We are looking for him now, but the place is not safe!"
He had barely finished his sentence when a large group of Gong Nam-min's men rushed toward them. SEO Joon and his crew engaged them violently.
Tyla seized the utter chaos and ran away, slipping through the dark, ruined corridors,
searching for Ian without any awareness of the danger surrounding her.
The ominous building was half-destroyed,
and the sounds of bullets and punches echoed in every corner as Ian's men clashed with the old man's men.
Inside the torture room, the interrogation continued.
Ian asked, his eyes locked onto the old man:
"Why did you kill my family?"
Gong Nam-min replied with a cold, inhumane callousness:
"Your father tried to expose me... and that is why I had to dispose of that piece of trash."
İan erupted in rage, the veins in his neck bulging terrifyingly.
The old man took another sip of his wine coldly,
so ian's tone suddenly shifted into a chilling assignment-the calm before the storm:
"True... you killed my father,
you deceived me, you made me the Black Monster,
and you trained me... but there is one thing you never have and never will obtain... success."
The old man stopped drinking, his eyes narrowing,
as Ian continued with a vindictive smile:
"I am the one who succeeded in the end... I became the head of the largest mafia network, and I managed to become famous and feared.
But you? I exposed you, the police have been hunting you down for a whole year,
and you are hiding here like a pathetic rat in the sewers."
These words provoked Gong Nam-min to the absolute limit,
and his coldness vanished, replaced by utter madness.
He let out a psychotic, terrifying laugh and raised his gun.
At that exact moment, Ian whispered:
"Laugh... laugh because your end is near, you wretched old man."
With supreme skill and professionalism, and through hidden movements that no one noticed,
Ian had freed his hands from the ropes. Swift as lightning,
he slipped off the chair, grabbed the heavy wine bottle from the table,
and brought it down with all his might upon Gong Nam-min's head.
The old man stumbled back,
screaming in pain, holding his head which had begun to bleed.
But his killer instinct was faster; in a fraction of a second,
he drew his pistol and fired a shot that lodged directly into ian's abdomen.
Ian staggered and fell to the floor, placing his hand over his stomach wound from which hot blood was gushing.
The old man laughed with a twisted sense of victory and said, panting:
"You cannot kill me,
Ian... Before you die, I will torture Tyla,
the darling of your heart... I will torture her so much that she will wish for death but will not find it!"
İan felt the pain of the wound tearing through his insides,
and his consciousness began to waver due to the severe bleeding and the previous tranquilizer.
But hearing Tyla's name threatened with torture ignited his final embers.
Before Gong Nam-min could raise his gun to shoot Ian in the head, Ian kicked the pistol from his hand with a swift,
flashing strike that knocked the weapon far away.
With insane speed, Ian picked up the sharp,
broken half of the wine bottle from the floor and lunged forward, stabbing Gong Nam-min in the stomach.
The old man let out a muffled scream of agonizing pain,
but Ian did not stop there. He lifted him by the neck with one hand, choking his breath away,
and slammed him with immense force against the wall.
The old man placed his trembling hands on ian's hand, trying to push it away to no avail; Ian's build and strength, fueled by pure rage, were vastly superior.
The words choked in the old man's throat as he smiled in a twisted manner despite the death surrounding him:
"So... the Black Monster... has returned..."
Ian shouted in a terrifying tone, the veins in his face on the verge of bursting:
"Don't you dare utter Tyla's name ever again with your filthy tongue, you old bastard!"
With blind madness, ian began to stab him with the broken bottle in repeated, powerful, and incredibly rapid thrusts,
emptying into him years of deception, pain, and fury.
Meanwhile, Tyla was running through the crumbling corridors, whispering in terror:
"İan? İan.. where are you?"
Suddenly,
a strange and terrifying sound reached her ears from the end of the hallway... the sound of heavy breathing, sharp panting,
accompanied by the wet,
rhythmic sound of repeated stabbings.
She stepped forward with trembling feet, her heart nearly leaping out of her chest.
She looked through a broken window overlooking the room,
and the blood froze in her veins.
A massive man was holding another man with one hand, pinning him violently against the wall,
while his other hand stabbed him relentlessly in the stomach with a broken half-bottle.
Tyla trembled entirely, clapping her hands over her mouth to choke back a scream of terror that almost escaped her throat when she caught sight of the familiar tattoos stretching across the killer's arm...
It was Ian!
She took steps backward in sheer fear and panic, unable to believe that this raging slaughterer was the very same gentle person she knew.
In her distress, she bumped into an old table behind her,
crashing to the ground along with a glass vase that shattered with a loud slam.
The sound of stabbing stopped instantly.
Ian threw Gong Nam-min's
corpse carelessly to the floor after ensuring he was completely dead. He turned around slowly toward the source of the sound.
His wet hair was scattered over his face and eyes,
his white shirt was stained with heavy patches of blood, and his hand was dripping with crimson.
The blood-soaked remnant of the broken bottle fell from his hand the moment he saw her.
When his eyes met Tyla's, she felt a terror she had never experienced before.
Her body was shaking violently, and her mind was unable to process this bloody sight.
İan advanced toward her with slow, heavy steps, and said in a panting, wounded voice:
"Tyla... are you alright?"
She screamed, trembling and practically dying of fright:
"Stay away from me! Don't come near me!"
She was lying on her back on the floor, beginning to crawl slowly backward using her hands,
trying to escape him and flee for her life. But he continued to advance with slow steps,
his eyes carrying a bizarre mixture of madness, fear of losing her, and fatal exhaustion.
"Tyla... listen to me... just listen to me..."
She kept crawling backward, tears blinding her eyes as she shrieked:
"I don't want you! You are scarying me! Go away leave me alone!"
At that moment, ian's psychological and physical balance shattered completely.
His mind was semi-conscious due to the severe bleeding in his stomach and the drug coursing through his body. Driven by a hysterical fear that she would leave him and go,
he suddenly leaned down to her level.
He encircled her small body with his blood-stained hands, pinning her completely beneath him,
trapping her with his frame. Before she could utter another word,
he descended upon her lips in a violent, forceful, and despair-filled kiss. It was an erratic kiss,
carrying all the emotions of fear, possessiveness,
and a terrifying goodbye. Tyla tried with all her might to push him away and distance herself,
but he was like someone clinging to a final hope for life,
detached from consciousness and reality around him.
The kiss lasted for seconds that felt like an eternity,
before his body suddenly went limp.
His breath cut short,
and he collapsed with all his weight on top of her body,
losing consciousness entirely.
Tyla was trembling violently beneath his weight.
With great difficulty and shaking hands, she pushed his body off her so he lay extended beside her.
When she looked at him, she was shocked and horrified to see his abdomen bleeding at an unbelievable rate; Gong Nam-min's bullet had carved its path there,
and the blood was flowing like a waterfall.
Tyla burst into loud,
sobbing wails, her terror of him turning into terror for him in mere seconds.
She fell to her knees beside him, cupped his wet face with her trembling hands,
and screamed at the top of her lungs,
shaking him in a total breakdown:
"İan!!! Please wake up!!
İan, don't leave me!!! Wake up, please!!!"