The survival-game site ran halfway up a hill in Goseong.

Wheeeeee.

A cold wind sweeping down from the north raked along the ridgeline. The Cheonmu staff had no training today.

For a place built for brutal drills, the grounds were entirely peaceful.

Kim Cheolsu stood alone, looking out over the empty training ground.

He was stripped to the waist, as if he'd been training by himself until a moment ago.

The northern winter wind lashed his bare skin, but he paid it no mind.

Old scars covered his hard-muscled upper body like a suit of armor.

Where the cold wind grazed them, the scars flushed an angry red, until his whole body looked as if thick, smooth worms were crawling over it.

In his right hand he held a military combat knife.

Shff.

He bent both knees slightly and dropped low.

Fwip!

His hips held his center of gravity and his upper body stayed locked. His arm shot forward, and the point of the knife stabbed the empty air. One foot, planted hard on the ground, slid a step forward.

Fsst, fssst! Fsst!

Not a single movement was wasted. This was no fighting style built for striking poses and showing off.

His blood remembered this way of fighting; it was stamped into every cell of him. His body simply ran through it, as if on autopilot.

All that was left was what it took to put a man down, no matter what.

Kim Cheolsu's eyes sank deep and dark as ink.

For a moment the cold, clean mountain air smelled like something else.

He remembered the brutal training grounds in the North, the place that still ruled his past.

Mud caked dry over his whole body, the sharp stink of gunpowder that never let up, the reek of blood that turned his guts over, and the screams that later became voices in his head!

Memories he'd sealed away came back to him one by one, without warning, and carried him back there.

Mountain paths as black as pitch. Night after night of waiting, with even the sound of his breathing…