My bad, J. You're completely right. I let my AI tendency for dramatic, purple prose take over, and I made him sound
Kang's desk was groaning.
It was made of cheap wood and thin metal, built for a normal Korean teenager. It wasn't built for a monster.
At six-foot-five and exactly 138 kilograms of pure, dense muscle, Kang didn't sit in the chair. He just tolerated it. He wore a massive, heavy grey hoodie that swallowed his wide shoulders, hiding his insane build. Loose cargo pants pooled over his worn-out sneakers.
With the baggy clothes, people just thought he was a bulky, lazy giant who slept through every class.
They didn't know the heavy fabric was hiding a body carved out of stone.
Kang rested his chin on his hand, staring out the classroom window with dead, exhausted eyes. A group of girls two rows over were whispering, sneaking glances at him. When his hood was down, Kang was striking. He had a razor-sharp jawline, hollow eyes, and perfectly messy dark hair.
He ignored them. He was just so damn tired.
Weakness! a voice roared inside his skull, rattling his teeth. You sit like a beggar! Stand up! Break these walls!
Kang let out a slow, quiet sigh.
The ghost of Li Shuwen was throwing a tantrum again.
Kang's soul wasn't normal. His center was a literal graveyard, filled with the ghosts of history's most vicious martial arts legends. Right now, the loudest one was Li Shuwen, a real master from the 1800s known as the "God of Spear."
Li Shuwen's kill count was terrifying. His rule in life was brutally simple: I do not know what it is like to strike a man twice.
I'm in math class, old man, Kang thought back, his face completely blank. Shut up. You're giving me a headache.
"Hey. Giant."
A heavy hand slammed onto Kang's desk.
Kang didn't look up. He didn't blink. He just paused the music playing in his earbuds.
Standing over him was Park Tae-jin. Tae-jin was the captain of the school's judo team, a rich kid, and a bully. He hated that Kang was taller than him, and he hated that Kang never seemed to care about anything.
Tae-jin grabbed the thick fabric of Kang's hoodie. He planted his feet, ready to yank the lazy giant out of his chair and throw him to the floor.
Tae-jin pulled.
Kang didn't move a single inch.
It was like trying to pull a bank vault bolted to the floor. Tae-jin's face turned red. He gritted his teeth, tightened his grip, and pulled with all his strength. His biceps bulged.
Kang just looked at Tae-jin's chest with those hollow, dead eyes.
People assumed Kang was strong because he told them he jogged. They had no idea what he actually did. Before the sun even came up, Kang dragged a 100-kilogram iron boulder to the Han River, chained it to his waist, and free-dived into the freezing water. He held his breath for ten minutes at a time, swimming against the violent tide just to warm up.
Compared to the crushing pressure of the river, Tae-jin's grip felt like a joke.
Kang just wanted to sleep until the bell rang.
He casually shifted his right shoulder.
He didn't throw a punch. He didn't even take his hands out of his pockets. He simply flexed his massive back muscles, shifting his 138-kilogram weight backward just a tiny bit.
The raw force of that small movement traveled straight up Tae-jin's tense arms.
BANG.
Tae-jin was violently launched backward. The judo captain flew through the air, crashing over two rows of desks and scattering textbooks before sliding across the floor.
The entire room went dead silent. The whispering girls froze.
Kang slowly picked up his desk, which had moved half an inch, set it back in place, and put his earbud back in.
"Tripped," Kang mumbled. His voice was completely flat.
Tae-jin lay on the floor, staring at his own shaking hands in absolute terror. He couldn't process what had just happened.
Coward! Li Shuwen screamed in Kang's head. Tear his throat out!
Save it for tonight, Kang replied silently. I have to pay rent.
Midnight.
Down a steep flight of concrete stairs in Gangnam, hidden behind a rusted vault door, was a different world.
This was the Graveyard. Seoul's most illegal underground fighting arena. It was a billion-won bloodsport run by the city's corrupt corporate syndicates.
The air in the abandoned subway station was thick. It smelled like cheap beer, expensive cigars, and fresh blood.
Under blinding white stadium lights sat a massive steel cage.
Hundreds of people crowded against the fence. Rich stockbrokers, politicians, and arrogant corporate heirs waving massive stacks of cash. They were screaming for violence.
Inside the cage, a mutant was pacing.
They called him "The Minotaur."
He wasn't human anymore. The Syndicates had pumped him full of illegal bone-density drugs. The Minotaur stood six-foot-ten and weighed nearly four hundred pounds. He looked like a silverback gorilla walking on two legs. His muscles were so bloated his skin looked ready to tear.
At his feet lay a heavyweight kickboxing champion. The champion was knocked out cold, his jaw completely shattered.
The Minotaur roared at the crowd, beating his massive chest. He walked over to the cage door, casually ripped it off its steel hinges, and threw it onto the concrete floor just to show off.
The crowd went insane. He was unstoppable.
Then, the heavy iron gate on the other side of the arena opened.
The announcer grabbed the microphone.
"And his challenger! The unranked anomaly... Kang!"
The rich crowd quieted down, stretching to see the new meat. They expected another giant.
Instead, a teenager walked out of the shadows.
Kang wore his oversized grey hoodie, pulled up to hide his face from the harsh lights. His hands were shoved deep into his baggy cargo pants.
Even at six-foot-five, the loose clothes swallowed his build. Against the 400-pound mutant in the cage, Kang looked completely out of his league.
The crowd erupted into cruel laughter and loud boos.
"What the hell is this?!" a CEO screamed, throwing his drink at the fence. "A joke?! I bet fifty million won on a real fight!"
"Look at his clothes! He's fat!"
"Minotaur! Break him in half!"
The giant mutant laughed. A deep, ugly sound. He cracked his massive knuckles, looking down at Kang like a lion looking at a lost rabbit.
Kang stepped into the center of the cage.
He didn't stretch. He didn't bounce on his toes. He didn't even raise his fists. He just stood there, completely still, hands in his pockets.
The referee dropped his hand.
"Fight!"
The Minotaur roared. The steel floor buckled under his weight as he charged. He wound up a monstrous right hook. It was a punch heavy enough to flip a car, aiming to take Kang's head completely off.
Kang didn't look at the giant.
Instead, he turned his head slightly to the left.
His striking, dead eyes looked right through the steel fencing. He completely ignored the screaming billionaires. He ignored the monster rushing at him.
He looked directly at you.
"Do you know the secret of Bajiquan?" Kang asked casually.
His lips barely moved, but his voice echoed perfectly clear in your mind, drowning out the loud arena.
"These lab-rat mutants think swinging harder makes them stronger," Kang told you, his hollow eyes locked onto yours as the giant's fist closed in. "They're wrong."
The Minotaur's fist was an inch from his face.
Kang finally pulled his right hand out of his pocket.
"You don't just step," Kang said, sounding like a bored teenager.
He stomped his front sneaker onto the mat.
BOOM.
The concrete foundation beneath the steel mat simply gave up. A three-foot crater caved in under Kang's worn-out shoe. The entire underground arena shook like an earthquake. Dust exploded upward.
"You use the ground," Kang whispered.
He didn't dodge. He stepped straight into the giant's guard. His 138-kilogram body blurred, moving way too fast for a guy his size.
"And you explode."
Kang shoved the heel of his palm directly into the dead center of the Minotaur's massive chest.
I do not know what it is like to strike a man twice! the ghost of Li Shuwen roared in absolute ecstasy inside his soul.
CRACK.
It sounded like a car crash.
The air literally popped. The sheer force blew the sweat right off the Minotaur's body.
The giant's thick ribs shattered instantly.
The 400-pound mutant didn't just fall down. He launched. His feet left the floor, and he flew backward through the air like a discarded toy.
SMASH!
The giant slammed into the heavy steel fencing. The thick metal bent outward, wrapping around his broken body.
He hung there for a second, then peeled off the fence and dropped face-first onto the concrete.
He didn't twitch. He was out cold.
The fight had lasted less than a second.
The roaring, bloodthirsty crowd went terrifyingly silent. The VIPs froze. A woman in the front row dropped her glass, shattering it on the floor.
The invincible giant was completely broken.
And the devastatingly handsome high schooler standing in the middle of a smoking crater hadn't even taken his left hand out of his pocket.
Kang slowly stood up straight. He casually rolled his shoulder, adjusting his baggy hoodie. He let out a quiet sigh, already feeling tired again.
He turned his head one last time, looking through the bent steel fence, locking his hollow eyes with yours.
"Class dismissed."