Baki charged at Shigeaki.
Shigeaki didn't back off. His palm drove forward and caught Baki square in the chest, killing his momentum dead. Before Baki could reset, Shigeaki was already in close, knee driving into his flank.
Baki sidestepped to shed the force, but still ate most of it. A short grunt left him.
Shigeaki didn't stop. He spun and swung his rear hand across, catching Baki on the temple. Baki's vision lurched and he gave up two steps.
"This is the great Ogre everyone talks about?"
Baki steadied himself and went in again. Shigeaki was already moving — three punches in rapid sequence, landing on the ribs, the gut, the diaphragm. Baki blocked two of them. The third came through and broke his breathing rhythm.
Shigeaki pressed forward. A jab to set the distance, a hook to the body, an uppercut coming up toward the jaw. Baki slipped the first two. The third grazed him and his head rang.
Blood in his mouth.
Some of the downed guards nearby started making noise at the sight of it.
'This guy is faster than me.' Baki was thinking quickly, stepping back to reset the distance. 'And his power isn't far behind mine either. Taking him straight on isn't going to work.'
Shigeaki came after him — a high kick, a low kick, a spinning elbow, all of it flowing together without a gap. Baki blocked the high kick. The low kick landed on his shin and his footing wobbled. The elbow swept over his head and missed by a margin.
"Where did that confidence go, Ogre?" Shigeaki said evenly. "What happened to the energy you had when you were taking apart my men?"
A straight punch drove into Baki's stomach and doubled him over. Shigeaki grabbed the back of his head and pulled it toward a rising knee.
Baki's hand shot up and caught the knee.
Shigeaki's motion stopped completely.
Baki straightened up slowly. The blood at the corner of his mouth was still there, but he was smiling.
Baki's grip tightened around Shigeaki's knee.
Shigeaki pulled to get the leg back. It didn't move. Baki's fingers had found the junction of bone and nerve cluster around the kneecap and were pressing in, slow and deliberate. Shigeaki's expression shifted. He sucked in a sharp breath.
Baki rode that moment upward and put an uppercut straight into Shigeaki's jaw.
Shigeaki staggered back, his footing breaking for the first time. Something flickered in his eyes.
Baki rolled his shoulders. "My turn."
Shigeaki gritted his teeth and came in faster than before.
But Baki was different now.
The jab came. Baki slid sideways by an inch. The hook came. He ducked under it and let it hit air above his head. The kick came. He stepped inside the arc before it could build any force.
Shigeaki's rhythm cracked. "How are you—"
Baki's palm drove into his gut. "Spending your life working under a con-artist shaman doesn't make you strong." He brought his knee up into Shigeaki's flank. "I still remember the beating you gave me the day my mother died."
Shigeaki bent forward trying to create space. Baki didn't let him. He locked the wrist, bent the arm against the joint, putting the radius and ulna under simultaneous pressure. Shigeaki's arm started shaking. Baki used that break in his balance to slip behind him, arm coming up around the neck — not crushing the windpipe, just cutting the blood flow.
"I am Hanma Baki," Baki said quietly near his ear. "I don't need to prove anything to anyone."
Shigeaki's vision started going dark. His elbow drove backward in desperation. Baki was already releasing, borrowing the force of that movement to send Shigeaki airborne.
He hit the ground and dust rose around him.
Baki walked over, dropped one knee, and held it suspended directly above Shigeaki's sternum.
Shigeaki looked up, blood at the corner of his mouth, eyes fixed on him. "...You're a monster."
"No," Baki said, standing up. "I'm just stronger than you."
---
Seoul. A dim private booth somewhere.
Kwak Jichang had a cigarette between his fingers. The smoke drifted upward and dissolved. Across from him sat his two younger brothers, Kwak Jibeom and Kwak Jihan, both watching him.
Jibeom broke the silence first. "Hyung. Is it true you fought the King of Cheonliang?"
Jichang didn't answer right away. He picked up the whiskey glass from the table and finished it in one motion, then poured another.
Jihan leaned forward. "Who won? Between you and the King of Cheonliang?"
The booth went quiet.
Jichang looked at the drink in his glass, took a drag from his cigarette, and let the smoke out slowly.
"Who won doesn't matter," he said. His voice wasn't loud, but there was something in it that made pushing back feel pointless. "What matters is what I understood from that fight."
"What did you understand?" Jibeom asked.
Jichang pressed the cigarette out in the ashtray. His eyes settled into something heavier. "Right now, there is no regional king who can beat Yuk Seongji."
A beat of silence in the booth.
Jihan's voice dropped. "Not even you, hyung?"
Jichang stood up and walked to the window. "That's what I want to find out." He looked out at the city. "If either of you ever runs into him — don't think about winning. Think about how to survive."
Neither brother said anything.
---
Back at the ritual site.
Seongji stepped in front of Hiroaki and finished tying his jacket around his waist.
Hiroaki settled into the exact same stance his brother had used.
"Your brother is already down," Seongji said. "Do you still need to do this?"
"I'm loyal to my contractor," Hiroaki said.
"Alright then." Seongji loosened his wrists. "What are we waiting for?"
Hiroaki exploded forward. Four punches — jab, jab, hook, uppercut — each one carrying enough force to crack stone. Seongji slipped the first three. The uppercut clipped his jaw and snapped his head back.
Hiroaki pressed without pausing. A low kick, then he grabbed Seongji's shoulder and went for the throw. The technique was clean and efficient. A real practitioner.
Seongji's center of gravity dropped slightly and he slipped out of the grip. Hiroaki adjusted, swinging his elbow in hard toward Seongji's temple.
It cut through air.
'Fast.' Hiroaki's eyes went slightly wide.
Seongji's hand was already there.
Twelve fingers locked around Hiroaki's wrist. The bones ground together under the pressure and pain shot all the way up his arm. Before Hiroaki could process it, Seongji's palm heel had already landed in his stomach and emptied his lungs.
Hiroaki staggered. Seongji grabbed him, loaded the throw, and put him down.
Hiroaki's back hit the ground and the earth cracked beneath him. Seongji stayed with it, holding the arm, bending the joint the wrong way.
"You lost," Seongji said.
Shinmyung stared at what was in front of him, his voice changed. "The Ghost Brothers... both of them?"
He stepped back. "Stop! Stop it! Take Vin Jin! Just take him and go!"
Baki and Seongji looked at each other.
Seongji nodded and walked toward Vin Jin.
Baki didn't move.
His eyes had found Shinmyung, and they stayed there.
Shinmyung felt it. He stepped back another half pace. "I said you can go—"
Baki was already moving.
The first punch landed in Shinmyung's stomach and folded him in half. The second caught the side of his face and sent him into the pillar behind him. He slid down it slowly. Baki grabbed his collar before he hit the ground and hauled him back up, fist already rising again.
"Baki."
Seongji's voice came from beside him. Not loud. Just clear.
Baki's fist stopped in midair. But he didn't let go of the collar.
He looked down at Shinmyung's face, his chest rising and falling hard, something burning behind his eyes that hadn't gone out yet.
'This man,' he thought. 'This is the man.'
Seongji walked over and placed a hand on Baki's shoulder. No force behind it. Just there.
"That's enough," he said.
Baki stood there without moving.
Several seconds passed.
He let go.
Shinmyung dropped to the ground and stayed there, hand over his face, no words coming out.
Baki turned away and didn't look back at him. He started walking toward Vin Jin. After two steps he stopped, still not turning around, his voice flat and even.
"Shaman, I will come for you again. Then my fist won't stop."
Then he kept walking.