#Scene 1. [A Sound Louder Than a Scream]
The sky had been torn open.
Rain pounded the asphalt of Gyeongseong like it meant to grind it to nothing.
In the back alleys of Jongno, the streetlamps drowned in the spray—cattered into pale,
hazy afterimages.
"Damn it, I can't see a thing."
"Damn it, I can't see a thing."
The military police corporal slammed the steering wheel, glaring at the shrieking wipers.
The heavy army truck shuddered violently each time it hit a puddle.
In the cargo bed, three captured independence fighters tumbled like loose luggage,
slamming against the wooden floor.
"Don't slow down! They might have picked up our scent."
The lance corporal leaned out the passenger window, shouting.
Then it happened.
KWAAAANG—!
Not thunder.
The truck's steel frame screamed. Three tons of iron launched into the air
as if it had struck an invisible wall—hen nosedived into the asphalt. A dead stop.
Like inertia had never existed.
"Wh—what is this?! Did we crash?"
"Front! Man in front!"
In the thick beam of the headlights. A man.
A white suit, soaked through and plastered to his skin.
White shoes—obscenely clean against the mud.
He didn't move. Not even a flinch.
Rain streamed off the wide brim of his hat and dripped in cold lines down his jaw.
"Move! You crazy son of a—!"
The corporal leaned on the horn and floored the accelerator.
Before the engine could even roar The man moved.
A white blur, slicing through the rain. Surging up onto the hood.
Thud.
A heavy weight pressed onto the windshield.
Through the glass—he eyes of a beast, blazing.
Vertical pupils. Amber irises burning phosphorescent in the dark.
They locked onto the corporal's gaze and wouldn't let go. His heart dropped to his feet.
"Wh… what is…"
The man raised his fist. No hesitation. No windup. It drove straight into the reinforced glass.
CRACK—!
The glass burst like a spiderweb. Shards drove into the corporal's face.
He screamed and fell back into his seat. In that moment—he man.
Lee Kang. He grabbed the passenger door.
SCREECH— CLANG—!
The metal shriek of tearing hinges battered the eardrums.
The steel door ripped away like wet paper.
Crack.
The price of twisting steel was brutal.
Three fingers on Lee Kang's right hand were bent at grotesque angles.
His hand trembled violently—bones threatening to tear straight through the muscle.
The pain of tearing flesh and shattering bone struck his brain like a hammer blow.
Not a single groan escaped his lips. He bit through the flesh inside his cheek, swallowed it,
and seized the lance corporal by the collar with that wrecked hand—driving him into the asphalt.
"Gkk—!"
The lance corporal's head burst like a watermelon.
Red blood and white brain matter mixed with the rain and spiraled into the gutter.
From the back of the truck, military police leapt down, rifles up.
"Fire! Open fire! Kill that bastard!"
Rat-a-tat— Rat-tat-tat!
Muzzle flashes split the dark. Lee Kang didn't dodge.
Bullets punched through his shoulder, grazed his thigh. Flesh flew. The white suit turned red.
Pain didn't stop him. It became an accelerator. It drove his whole body faster.
"RAAAGH!"
"RAAAAGH!"
Lee Kang unleashed a beast's roar and charged the nearest MP.
His fist punched through the man's breastplate.
Crack.
The sensation traveled up through his fingertips—ibs snapping, puncturing the lung.
At the same moment, Lee Kang's own elbow joint snapped in reverse.
White bone tore through skin and jutted out.
'It hurts.'
A scream surged to his throat.
'It's burning. Feels like my bones are melting.'
There was no thrill in the slaughter. Every swing of his fist ground his own bones to dust along with his enemies'. Torn muscles tangled back together. Broken bones forced themselves into alignment. The heat generated from all of it scorched through him. Like boiling lead poured straight into his veins. The pain never stopped.
"Mo— monster…!"
The last MP stumbled backward, face drained white. What he was looking at wasn't human.
It was a massive tiger—staggering, drenched in blood.
Lee Kang let his dangling right arm hang, and closed his left hand around the MP's throat.
"…Get out of here."
A voice laced with iron cut through the sound of rain. Not a threat. A plea.
'Please run. End this agony.'
But the terrified MP drew his dagger and drove it up into Lee Kang's abdomen.
Shluck.
Lee Kang's eyes rolled back. Where reason had snapped, the beast rushed in.
Grrr.
Grrr.
A growl vibrated from deep in his throat.
He ignored the blade buried in his gut and tightened his grip.
Snap.
Like the sound of a dry branch breaking, the MP's head lolled limply to the side.
The last soldier crumpled into the mud.
Again, only the rain. Lee Kang stood alone among the corpses.
The bespoke white suit, finest English fabric, was soaked in blood and grease—ts original color gone.
He staggered toward the cargo bed. Every time his dangling right arm swung,
a spike of pain drove through his brain. He tore back the canvas cover.
The gagged independence fighters, shoved into the corner, stared with trembling eyes.
They weren't looking at a savior.
They were herbivores, frozen before a predator far more vicious than the one they'd just escaped.
Lee Kang forced the jutting bone back in with trembling hands and spat a mouthful of bloody saliva
onto the floor.
"…Go."
That one word—nd Lee Kang collapsed to his knees. His legs gave out.
The sensation of his broken shinbone rattling inside his flesh was vivid.
*'I want to die.'*
Lee Kang pressed his face into the mud. The cold touch of it cooled his burning cheek.
'I just want to die like this and never wake up again.'
But his cursed flesh forced his heart to beat again.
White steam rose from his wounds, mixing with the cold rain— dreamlike fog curling off a body
that refused to die.
The night of Gyeongseong showed no mercy. Not even to a weeping tiger.
#Scene 2. [The Repairman of the Opium Den]
At the cliff's edge in Changsin-ong.
A shack, clinging precariously to the precipice.
Its rusted corrugated roof wailed like a wounded beast with every lash of rain.
But even that tearing metal shriek couldn't ventilate the air pressing down on the basement.
A sickly sweetness. The metallic bite of blood.
Opium smoke that needled deep into the lungs and congealed there.
Through the thick violet haze, Dr. Jang lifted the pipe from his lips.
He narrowed his clouded eyes and looked over the operating table.
"…You again."
His dry voice scattered into the smoke.
On the table lay something kneaded from rainwater and
blood— slab of meat that had once been a man. Lee Kang.
His right arm was wrenched at a grotesque angle.
The shattered shoulder blade had punched through the skin
and jutted sharply above the collarbone.
Between the gaping flesh of his flank, a pale layer of fat quivered with each shallow breath.
"Ngh… ugh…"
A suppressed groan leaked through Lee Kang's lips—like the sound of metal grinding.
Instead of reaching for the anesthetic, Dr. Jang grabbed the damp leather strap
from the side of the table and tossed it onto Lee Kang's face.
"Bite."
Lee Kang opened his trembling jaw and clamped down hard on the leather,
already soaked in sweat and saliva. Jang didn't glance at the anesthetic.
The blood boiling in this man's veins would incinerate any drug before it could even circulate.
The only way to erase pain was to bury it under greater pain.
Jang soaked a rag with alcohol and reached toward the wound.
"Breathe in. Don't bite your tongue."
CRACK.
No warning.
Jang threw his full weight into it, forcing Lee Kang's dislocated collarbone back into place.
The sickening vibration of bone grinding against bone traveled down through the table
and into the concrete floor.
"Mmmmphh—!"
Lee Kang's back arched like a drawn bow.
The jaw muscles biting down on the strap bulged to the point of tearing.
The veins in his neck swelled dangerously.
Cold sweat erupted from every pore and dripped steadily down onto the floor beneath him.
It wasn't medical treatment.
It was maintenance—hammering a broken machine back into working order.
"Stay still. If it sets wrong, I'll have to break it again."
Jang shoved the protruding ulna back in without a word and lifted the torn muscle with tweezers.
Even in the seconds it took to seat the bone, the flesh was already knitting closed,
threatening to fuse wrong. His hands moved faster.
Snip. Snip.
The sound of the needle piercing skin rang out eerily.
Lee Kang's hide was as tough as rawhide—ut under Jang's hands it was punctured like cloth.
Each time the suture thread bit into flesh, Lee Kang's pupils trembled and threatened to roll back.
The air in his lungs was forced out in a thin, wheezing hiss.
An hour passed that felt like ten minutes.
Jang peeled off his blood-soaked gloves and stuffed them in the bin.
Lee Kang lay slack, panting—like a corpse just pulled from the water.
"…Done."
Jang put the pipe back in his mouth and struck a match.
The acrid smoke rose and covered the smell of fresh blood.
"Ptoo."
Lee Kang spat the leather strap onto the floor. Deep tooth marks scored into the surface.
With trembling hands he gripped the table edge and hauled himself upright.
The sutured wounds, swollen and red just moments ago, were knitting closed at a visible speed.
Faint steam rose from the heat radiating off the healing flesh.
"…The others."
Lee Kang's voice cracked raw. He didn't even glance at the steam rising off his own flesh.
"Dead?"
"All of them."
Jang exhaled a long stream of smoke and twisted the corner of his mouth.
"Three torn apart by you. One dead of a heart attack just from looking at the state of you."
He exhaled smoke.
"Independence movement? Don't make me laugh. You're a self-arm extortion racket.
Holding your own body hostage to threaten the world."
"…As long as they're alive."
Lee Kang stumbled off the table. Bare feet hit cold concrete. His legs nearly gave out.
Jang tapped him in the chest with the bowl of his pipe.
"Don't kid yourself. You aren't healing."
Jang pointed the pipe at the floor.
"Even machine parts wear out when you swap them like this.
The screws strip. How much worse for a human body? You lost an ulna today.
Next it's a rib. Then your spine. At this rate you have three days.
Fight like a rabid dog for three more days and you'll never function as a human being again.
Your bones will rot to dust."
Instead of answering, Lee Kang pulled his blood-oaked shirt over his head.
He reached for the door handle. Jang's mocking sigh hit him in the back.
"The patriot, ladies and gentlemen.
You think that country you saved will even remember your bone dust?"
Lee Kang's hand paused.
The tendons on the back of his hand rose as
he tightened his grip on the knob—hen slowly released. He didn't look back.
"…I'll pay what I owe you. Later."
The door opened. Lee Kang walked out into the rain.
Left alone, Jang clicked his tongue and tossed the blunted needle into a jar of alcohol.
"Idiot. You'll be lucky if you have the time."
Opium smoke filled the clinic again. Swirling through empty air.
#Scene 3. [A Traitor's Breakfast Table]
The light from the crystal chandelier overhead was a needle piercing the optic nerve.
Lee Kang squeezed his eyes shut and forced them open again.
The afterimage lingered on his retinas—flickering like the bloodstains from last night.
On the pristine white tablecloth, the smell of freshly toasted bread and butter was overwhelming.
The moment that rich aroma touched his nose,
his stomach clenched and pushed bile up to his throat.
The metallic taste of blood clinging to his esophagus tangled with the smell of butter.
Clatter.
The fork hit the plate. The sound scraped straight down his eardrums.
The tips of Lee Kang's fingers vibrated faintly around the fork.
The bones, shattered and forcibly reset through the night, screamed with every small movement.
Across from him, at the head of the long table.
The wealthiest man in Joseon. The wealthiest man in Joseon.
A man decorated with a title bestowed by the Empire itself.
He turned the page of the morning paper behind his reading glasses.
Rustle, rustle.
Rustle. Rustle.
The sound of paper cutting through the air was sharper than a knife.
[Gyeongseong Military Police Wiped Out—The Tiger's Doing?]
The bold headline burned itself into Lee Kang's vision.
The old man clicked his tongue—tsk—and set his coffee cup back on its saucer.
tsk—and set his coffee cup down on the saucer.
"A mad beast is roaming Gyeongseong."
His voice was dry. He didn't even glance at Lee Kang as he spread jam on his toast.
"You be careful too. Don't go crawling around late at night."
The corners of Lee Kang's mouth twisted up grotesquely.
Eyes unfocused. Jaw slack. The face known all across the streets of Gyeongseong.
"Hehe… Yes, Father. I'll… be careful."
He aimed his fork at a sausage. The tines slipped off the casing and struck the plate hard.
Clatter!
The fork tumbled onto the tablecloth.
Brown sauce splattered across the white fabric—eaving stains that looked like drops of dried blood.
"Oops… slipped."
Lee Kang fumbled to pick it back up.
Deep furrows cut into the old man's forehead.
He dabbed his mouth with a napkin, wearing the expression of a man about to spit out
what he's chewing.
"Useless."
The old man's gaze didn't go to Lee Kang's hand. It went to the stained tablecloth.
"To think something like that came from my bloodline. Tsk."
The muttered words drove into Lee Kang's ears. But he kept smiling, mouth hanging open.
His upper body swayed above the table like a puppet with loose strings.
Under the table, it was different.
Lee Kang's left hand clamped onto his own thigh.
Five fingers dug into the muscle with enough force to tear through the fabric.
Nails gouging into flesh.
The urge to flip the table and tear out the old man's throat—Converted into grip strength.
Stabbing inward. Into his own flesh.
'You made this.'
His nails broke skin. Hot liquid seeped out from his thigh and soaked into the fabric.
'That mad beast. You carved it from my bones.'
Unaware that his son was carving into his own flesh beneath the table,
the old man fixed him with a cold stare.
"The useless ones should at least live long.
Don't go dying in the gutter and disgracing the family name."
Lee Kang's smiling face went rigid for a fraction of a second.
He forced the corners of his mouth back up, dragging the muscles into place.
What gathered at the edges of his eyes wasn't laughter.
It was the body's physiological answer to pain.
"Yes… I'll keep that in mind. I'll live a long, long time."
Lee Kang grabbed a piece of bread with his right hand—pale from cut-off
circulation—and stuffed it into his mouth. Dry. It chewed like sand.
The old man rose from his seat as if he'd seen enough.
"Clear this. I've lost my appetite."
The moment the old man's back disappeared from the dining room,
servants rushed in to clear the table.
Lee Kang sat frozen, like a taxidermied specimen.
Cheeks stuffed with bread. Jaw stopped mid-chew.
Under the table, the left hand released his thigh.
The black suit trousers hid the damage—
but bits of red flesh and blood were packed beneath his fingernails.
Lee Kang thrust his trembling hand deep into his pocket.
The idiot's grin was wiped clean in an instant. What remained in its place was cold. Murderous.
'...Not yet.'
He spat the bread out into a napkin. The mashed lump was wet and
faintly red—like something that belonged inside a body.
#Scene 4. [The Sound of the Bell]
The deepest shadow of the estate. Where the main house's light didn't reach.
The hinges of the detached annex, starved of oil for years,
screamed like grinding metal as the door swung open.
The moment Lee Kang crossed the threshold, his knees gave out.
His hand slipped from the doorknob. He hit the floor.
"Haah… hh…"
The sound of his lungs collapsing echoed through the dust-laden room.
The moment the tension snapped— All of it came flooding back.
The pain he'd endured without anesthetic reversed through his nerves at once.
The thigh he'd gouged with his own nails at the breakfast table burned like a hot iron brand.
His shoulder and ribs, forcibly reset, grated against each other like saw blades with every breath.
Lee Kang curled on the mold-reeking floorboards. His bespoke suit rolled in the accumulated filth.
He breathed in the grime, groaning through clenched teeth.
Noise erupted in his ears. Crack—the sound of bones snapping.
The tearing screams of the military police.
The dry rustle of the old man turning a newspaper page at the breakfast table.
Rustle. Crack. Argh. Rustle.
Sounds of the Past and present tangled together and pounded against his eardrums.
Then—a floorboard creaked in a corner of the dark. A shadow shifted.
"…You're here?"
Lee Kang murmured it into the floor, cheek pressed against the boards. No answer came.
Instead, light footsteps approached and stopped at his head.
The hem of a worn skirt dragged across the floor. She crouched down.
Her eyes, adjusted to the dark, looked down at him. Bloodless lips. Trembling eyelids.
A thigh soaked through with blood and pus.
Wherever her gaze landed, her brow drew faintly together.
Her hand descended toward Lee Kang's ear.
Between her thumb and forefinger hung a single tarnished brass bell.
Holding her breath, she tilted her wrist—barely, carefully, as if handling something made of glass.
Ding.
A tiny, crystalline ripple cut through the air.
The moment that clear resonance slipped into his ear and washed through his brain— The noise of shattering bones inside his head cut off. His ragged breathing quieted. The heat burning through his veins cooled. The taut wires of his nerves went slack. A silence deeper and heavier than opium smoke.
"Hh…"
A long-trapped breath burst from Lee Kang's lips.
He crawled across the floor to her feet and dropped his heavy head into her small lap.
More comfortable than any hospital bed in Gyeongseong.
Rough, dry fingers slowly swept the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead.
At her touch, Lee Kang opened his eyes. His dilated pupils contracted.
The pain-twisted eyes settled into cold stillness.
The eyes of a predator watching its prey—his true light—had returned.—his
Face buried in her lap, Lee Kang whispered low.
"…Just hold on a little longer."
His hand crushed the dust beneath it into a fist.
"Just one more. I just have to kill one more. Once I deal with that old man…"
Lee Kang lifted his head and looked up at her.
In the darkness, his eyes shimmered with a bloodshot fever of desire.
"I can take you out of here. Out of this hell."
Yeon-hwa didn't open her mouth. She only looked at him, her eyes curved in sorrow.
Lee Kang didn't see. He didn't see how tightly her other hand was clenching her skirt.
Didn't see how violently her fingertips trembled—the price of producing that one clear note.
Her face, drained of all color, was as pale as a wax doll.
Ding.
The strength left Yeon-hwa's grip. The bell swayed limply, giving out a dull, hollow sound.
Not a signal of salvation.
A funeral bell [조종(弔鍾)] announcing the end that was already on its way.
Quiet and certain, already counting down to the end.