Chapter 14 - The Edge of the Abyss
Min-hyuk was thrown ten feet through the air, hitting the industrial mooring bollard with a sickening thud. His vision swam with ringing static, the taste of copper filling his mouth.
He pushed himself up onto his elbows. Beside him, his loyal lieutenant lay motionless in a pool of blood, having absorbed the brunt of the shrapnel blast with his own body. The man coughed weakly, his eyes meeting Min-hyuk’s through the swirling smoke.
"Go... Boss..." the dying soldier gasped, pressing a remote detonator into Min-hyuk’s bloody palm. "Charges... on the ship's... rudder..."
Min-hyuk gripped the detonator, his teeth grinding together as he forced his battered body upright. Every breath felt like inhaling broken glass. His side wound had ripped wide open, blood soaking through his clothes and dripping onto the gangway as he hauled himself up the stairs one agonizing step at a time.
He reached the main deck. The crew had already fled or were barricaded in the engine room; the ship’s engines were rumbling with a low, bone-vibrating thrum as the mooring lines snapped under tension.
At the bow of the ship, standing near the anchor winch, Chairman Song stood clutching two aluminum cases, surrounded by three remaining bodyguards. When Song saw Min-hyuk emerge from the smoke—bloody, limping, but with eyes burning like twin stars of pure hatred—the old man’s face drained of every drop of color.
"Kill him! Kill him now!" Song shrieked, dropping the briefcases.
The three bodyguards raised their weapons, but Min-hyuk didn't bother aiming his rifle. He slammed his hand down onto the remote detonator in his grip.
A massive underwater explosion rocked the stern of the vessel. The shockwave tore through the hull, lifting the rear of the ship out of the water before dropping it with a terrifying screech of twisting steel. The deck tilted violently at a forty-five-degree angle. The three bodyguards lost their footing, sliding over the wet, oil-slicked deck and plummeting forty feet down into the icy, churning harbor waters between the ship and the concrete pier.
May you like
Song grabbed frantically onto the anchor chain, dangling over the abyss, his knuckles whitening as his shoes slipped against the tilted deck plates.
Min-hyuk walked down the sloping steel, his boots finding traction on the welded ridges, until he stood directly above the man who had stolen his life.
