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The sound of panting was audible. His pant of tiredness and his loud cough. Zico looked down to Sang Min who was on the verge of death, “How does that feel, Sang Min?” Of course, he did what they didn’t expect to see, grin. “You can kill me but you can’t kill Master Woo. Believe me, you’ll regret saving her,” Sang Min remarked and let out a throaty cough and out came the red substance.

“What if I don’t?” Zico challenged, stepping his foot on Sang Min’s body with a lot of force causing Sang Min to let out a big amount of blood. He gave Zico a toothy grin, although, his teeth were completely covered in red.

“I wonder what’ll happen to you…too,” With that, he laughed hysterically as if he had been told a very hilarious joke.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Zico glanced at Kyung, “Hand me the silver dagger.” Obeying to his order, Kyung threw the said dagger and instantly Zico caught it without much effort.

He eyed Sang Min and neared the dagger to him, “Where’s your master?” Sang Min leered, “I wonder where. How about you find him yourself?” Zico scowled at him, “You damned servant.” “Well, thank you,” Sang Min replied along with a cough afterwards.

“I ask you again, WHERE. IS. HE?” He gave Sang Min a dangerous look.

All he did was cackle and bit by bit, his laughter became louder which annoyed Zico very much.

“YOU’LL NEVER FIND MASTER, JIHO! NEVER!” Sang Min shouted while cackling an evil laughter. Being a short-tempered he was, Zico couldn’t take it anymore.

“SHUT UP, DAMNIT!” In a split second, the silver dagger Zico held had been stabbed to Sang Min’s heart. A dark and dangerously quiet moment gobbled them up.

Sang Min’s wide eyes could be clearly seen with his evil grin that didn’t leave his face for even a second. Blood poured out of the spot where the dagger had stood tall on. Infinite stared at the no longer moving body with a shocked expression. However, as for Block B and Taewoon, they didn’t even change their expression. Just the same as the ones they had when they were assigned to be the assassins of the tribe: Merciless, cold, emotionless.

Sang Min’s body slowly turned into ashes that vanished into the thin air, not leaving anything behind except for the silver dagger that became the evidence of his death. Zico picked the dagger up, putting it aside.

He scanned the surrounding. Apparently, there was no sign of the real enemy. Just dead bodies lying on the ground covered in pools of bloods. His eyes shifted to his friends. They exchanged looks and stopped once he spoke up.

“Search for him.”

In no time, they split up to go search for the said man. Infinite looked around and glanced at Zico afterwards, “What should we do then?” “Just stay here incase he might show up later. And Taewoon hyung, come with me.” Zico responded and ran off into the building. Taewoon followed after. Infinite looked at each other.

“Who’s ‘him’?” Sungjong questioned, obviously not knowing what they were talking about. “I don’t know either. Where’s Sunggyu hyung?” Sungyeol looked around. “Me and Hoya will search for him. You guys just stay here,” Woohyun ordered and motioned Hoya to join him but not before Dongwoo stopping them.

“I’m coming too.”

“Dongwoo, you gotta stay here,” Woohyun simply stated. “I want to join you guys!” Dongwoo stubbornly said. “You need to stay here. You’re going to lead them,” Woohyun calmly retaliated. Finally, Dongwoo gave up with a heavy sigh, “Fine, fine.” “Then, we’re off!” Hoya proclaimed and rushed to the direction Sunggyu had gone to before.

Right after the two were out of their sight, a figure approached them.

“And who are you, uninvited young men?”

Their heads flicked around, startled upon hearing a dark and deep voice. The looks they had on earlier soon blended into a baffled one. And there he was, their real opponent.

“Who the hell are you?!” Dongwoo interrogated as he examined him from head to toe.

He replied with only a confident smirk.

“There you are.”

All heads turned to the direction of the voice to find smirking Zico. “Guess what? Your loyal so-called servant died. You’re not sad, are you?” He taunted daringly. “Why would I? He’s useful but he couldn’t get rid of you kids. How pathetic,” He darkly smirked. Block B eyed him *He has no mercy.*

“Shall we get the battle started?” He started as Zico scoffed, “Sure.”

Block B moved forward but Zico stopped them, “No, stay here.” Block B gawked at him. “What?! No way! You need our help!” Jaehyo exclaimed. “No. It’s between me and him.” Zico insisted.

“But—” Suddenly, Jaehyo felt a hand resting on his shoulder. He looked over to find Kyung shaking his head as a signal to stop. He couldn’t do anything but sigh, “Fine, but if he’s beating you to a pulp, I won’t hesitate to kick his .” Zico nodded and turned around, eye-to-eye with his father. Before he could take a step forward, a hand stopped him by the shoulder. He looked behind his shoulder and softened. It was Taewoon.

“At least let me join you.” He persuaded.

Zico let out a slight smile and reached out his hand to hold his brother’s hand. He removed Taewoon’s grip from his shoulder and shook his head, “Hyung, I’m fighting him alone but I promise you if I could no longer stand on my own feet, you can do whatever you want.”

“Jiho…” Taewoon whispered with an exasperated sigh. “Please…” Zico pleaded and right away, he shut his eyes close, “I get it.”

“I’m off.” With that, he dashed towards his opponent.

Zico grunted as he felt another agonizing pain on his stomach. “Give up. You won’t be able to win, Jiho. Just let me kill the girl.” His father said.

“No. Never…” He wiped off the blood attached in the corner of his lips.

“Follow my lead. I sacrificed my love too when I was actually deeply in love with her!” He yelled, receiving a heavy punch from Zico.

“That’s because you’re a coward!”

Wrong move.

In a split second, Zico was pinned on the ground forcefully. He grunted in pain. Struggling to break free, he met eyes with a pair of dark, empty and black eyes. He froze upon seeing them.

The man’s lips suddenly curved upwards, forming a smirk, “For a son of mine, you’re really stupid, aren’t you, Jiho?” “I was never your son, bastard.” Zico spat at him valiantly. He cackled creepily, “Ashamed, aren’t you?” With that, he attacked him with thousands of painful incursion. He mercilessly continued until Zico grew weaker.

Tears unknowingly flowed down from the corner of his eyes as the hurtful blow didn’t even leave him. “!” He yelled as the man sent him his final strike with a big amount of force. Zico lay on the ground without moving except for his mouth that constantly moved due to his coughing.

It was as if he was on the verge of loss of consciousness.

Block B anxiously watched them fight. Every now and then, Jaehyo would curl his hand into a fist, clenching it until his knuckles turned ghostly white. And so did Taewoon. How he wished he could join the fight and lend his brother a helping hand. However for his brother’s wish, he just tried his best to restrain himself from doing anything reckless. If it wasn’t for his brother’s sake, he’d have done something from the beginning.

Predicting that Zico could no longer move, Jaehyo stepped into the battle but halted in his track once hearing Zico’s voice of warning, “Don’t. I can manage.”

“Hyung, control yourself. Do it for Zico hyung’s sake,” P.O advised even though deep inside, he was the same as Jaehyo too.

Zico brought himself back on his own feet. Sure, he looked the same except for his bruised face and body and his strangely weak legs. The man smirked and went over to his son, “Not giving up? Just how much do you love this girl?”

“I love her so much that I’m willing to sacrifice myself in order to see her smile in happiness.”

“Heh. Such a foolish boy.” He insulted and grabbed him by the neck, slowly lifting him up with only one hand.

Without enough strength, Zico couldn’t really do anything but struggle and invariably choked by the suffocating grip around his neck. “Well then, I’m here to see you prove your declaration just now.”

“DIE.” He glared at Zico with red eyes. “No!” Taewoon ran to them without having second thoughts. Because of his lack of power, his attempt to save his brother was pretty much useless. He was thrown aside by his father with a loud bang.

Block B and Infinite was the 2^nd ones to strike for him but each one of them was flung aside just like Taewoon.

He tyrannically stared at his son whose neck was in his grasp. Zico choked out an oddly large amount of blood. “This is really your last moment, sadly.” He spoke up as Zico furrowed his eyebrows, obviously couldn’t stand much longer.

His limp hand tried travelling down to his side, reaching for the shiny object as his father continued his speech, “It’s such a waste. If I knew you’d turn out to be like this, I wouldn’t have raised you.” “Too bad. I’m already here,” Zico managed to reply with a feeble and hoarse voice.

“You useless son. You should’ve followed my path. Kill your human lover just like I did. It’d have been much easier.” His voice suddenly turned dark.

“It’s not because you had no choice. It’s because you didn’t even try.” Zico corrected him. Immediately, his confident smirk was wiped off from his face, turning even darker.

“That’s nonsense. It’s pathetic, Jiho.”

“No. Han Seo Yoon, your lover, you killed her without even trying to save her,” He declared courageously.  

“You—” He didn’t even get to finish his sentence. The moment seemed to stop. He felt a sickening sensation on his chest. He slowly looked down and found a silver dagger connecting with his chest. Blood flowed down in a slow motion. His heartbeat started to slow down.

“Ah…so this is how it feels like to die…I’ve never felt it in such a long time…” He softly muttered to himself.

Zico’s hand let go of the dagger as it stood still on his father’s chest. The grip around his neck loosened as he fell down on the ground, coughing. He rubbed his neck and glanced at his father who seemed frozen.

“So this is how it feels like when I killed her. This is the reason why she cried. I didn’t know it could be this painful for her to bear.” He mumbled as a genuine tear escaped his eye.

For the first time, Zico witnessed his father crying. To have such emotions. It felt surreal. He fell on his knees and eventually slumped on the ground.

“I’m sorry, Seo Yoon.”

That was the last sentence that came out of his mouth as his body turned into ashes and vanished into the air.

Zico let his back fall and deeply sighed in relief.

“It’s over.”

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