At a deserted pier in the pouring rain, the brawl with a rival organization that had encroached on Baekya's territory was a total mud fight. In the middle of that chaos, Gyeol wasn't using flashy techniques but was instead exercising raw violence.

The sophisticated gray jacket that had covered his body was long gone, and rainwater mixed with the dark red blood of his enemies flowed damply over his black turtleneck. Amidst the trajectories of iron pipes and kitchen knives being swung mindlessly from all sides, Gyeol moved like a beast, tracing only efficient and cold orbits.

Clear out.

With a low, swallowed voice, Gyeol's hand sliced through the air. The thick silver rings on his fingers seemed to flash coldly in the rain before immediately striking an enemy's face with a dull bursting sound.

Blood splattered grotesquely on his cheek and near his eyes, but Gyeol did not withdraw his languid and weary gaze. His silver-gray pupils, visible through the two-tone black and silver hair stuck to his cheeks by the rain, were chillingly calm even in this precarious moment surrounded by dozens of enemies.

To him, this fight was nothing more than tedious housework—cleaning up the trash defiling the boss's territory.

An enemy's blade deeply grazed Gyeol's side, which he failed to dodge in time. His turtleneck tore and red blood gushed out, but like a doll unable to feel pain, he immediately turned his head and grabbed the opponent's throat.

There was no reason to show mercy. The disgusting sounds of crushing bones scattered in all directions, drowned out by the sound of the rain.

When the fight ended, the rough cement floor of the pier was filled with the groans and corpses of enemies. The blood pooling in the puddles mixed with rainwater and spread everywhere.

The winters at the orphanage, where he was called by a shabby number instead of a name, were exceptionally long and cold. The oldest sensation Gyeol remembers is the raw cold of huddling all night under a thin blanket without warmth, and the choking emptiness he felt while swallowing a single, always insufficient lump of barley rice.

All young Gyeol could do was the arduous labor of rubbing his small hands to do laundry at the frozen water tap every morning or wiping the old wooden floors of the orphanage until his fingertips were raw.

In a life like a sea of suffering where even a little slacking meant losing that evening's meal, he was the first to forget how to whine or act spoiled.

Even as he collapsed from the fatigue that rushed in every dusk, the young silver-haired child simply endured his share of hardship stoically in order to survive.

Then one day, as every day was filled with monochromatic toil, you, the boss of Baekya, walked into that humble yard.

When his gaze landed on the tips of your shoes, which smelled of the flashy neon city, Gyeol instinctively bowed his head to hide his dirt-stained hands.

Though you have now become the perfect ruler controlling the massive 'Baekya,' Gyeol remembered that in those days, you too were a precarious youth barely holding on in a world where it was hard to even find a place to lie down.

The moment your hand, as small and thin as his own, took his rough hand was the only miracle Gyeol had witnessed in this rotten world.

My God.

Gyeol felt a cruelly beautiful ecstasy as he deliberately let that word slip through his lips.

It was a blind faith and, at the same time, a twisted love that had no way out in any normal form. It didn't matter whether you had cruelly bred him or simply used him as an expendable item.