Record of a Thousand Lives

with pleading eyes.
Her eyes conveyed her desire to immediately run over to the stage and rescue the woman.
However, Kang Yoon-Soo just stared at the stage indifferently.

“There, there, calm down! There are plenty of good suggestions, but don’t you think the breasts or the ass are far too common? Will you be excited and satisfied if we use this rare magic stone on something as obvious as that?” the masked man asked.
He clicked his tongue and let out a laugh as he took out a steel pair of scissors from his pocket.

A quick-witted clan member cheered loudly.
All of the veins on his neck stood up as he shouted, “The hair! The place to focus all her pain into is her hair!”

The masked man gently brushed the woman’s hair and said, “Exactly! What do you think would happen if she felt pain whenever her hair was cut? It would hurt as if she were on the verge of death if I cut her hair strand by strand.
Hmm… If we were to make a comparison… Maybe it would hurt like having a finger chopped off? But did you know? Hundreds of strands of hair would be cut every time the scissors are used. That means she would feel pain equivalent to having hundreds of her fingers getting chopped off! Oh my! It’s gonna hurt!”

The masked man gripped the magic stone and crushed it with his hand.
A red hue flowed out of the stone and sank into the woman’s hair. For the first time, the woman’s face turned pale.

“Now, welcome to our salon! You’re now going to get your hair cut in front of hundreds of audience members.
Can you tell us how you feel?” the masked man asked the woman as he grabbed a handful of her hair.

The woman closed her eyes and trembled, saying, “I will definitely… pay you back for this shame…”

“Hahaha! Look at that bitch trembling! She’s already tamed and it makes me want to torture her more!”

“Just shave her already! Kehehehe!”

Shaneth could not bear to watch the horrific show anymore and stood up from her seat, but the man suddenly asked, “Miss, why don’t you take a seat?”

“Are you telling me to keep watching this and stay still?” Shaneth retorted sharply.

“Then why did you burn down someone else’s clan’s basement? You should’ve just quietly stayed asleep,” the man replied.

Shaneth flinched as she looked at her surroundings.
That was when she realized that they were surrounded by people glaring at them with murderous intent.
A few of the other clan members started to slowly look toward the party, and the man leisurely crossed his legs as he took a puff of his cigar.

“Ha, I was surprised too.
The ones we kidnapped actually ended up blowing up the gas chamber and came all the way up here.
You were bound up in chains if I remember correctly.
Well, aren’t you guys masters of escape?” the man remarked as he took another puff.

Henrick observed the man with his keen sight, as the man lightly dusted off the ashes from his cigar and said in a chilling voice, “The name is Yu Si-Do, and I’m the leader of the Black Tiger Clan, but you don’t have to remember that.
You’ll die by my hands anyway.”

The man’s words gave the party chills and goosebumps.
They had finally managed to escape, but to think that they had met up with the boss of the enemy instead. The shouts of the crowd grew louder, and the chilling atmosphere engulfed the table.

“Why did you decide to impersonate us? I had no choice but to take care of you because you made the leader of Sunset Glass come all the way here.
Especially that expressionless guy… It sounds like we would’ve gotten along quite well.
It’s a shame,” the man said calmly as he took another puff.

“…Why didn’t you capture us immediately, instead choosing to casually approach us first?” Shaneth asked with a grimace.

“No reason.
It’s just more fun this way.
It feels awesome to see the faces of other people when you hide your identity and reveal that you’re the clan leader later, you know?” Yu Si-Do playfully remarked as he hummed and threw away the cigar he was smoking.
He resumed his habit of biting down on his finger—literally consuming his own flesh. The sight of Yu Si-Do munching his own finger despite the blood dripping from it made him look like a madman.

“You… You’re mad,” Shaneth said, watching Yu Si-Do eat his own finger with disgust.

“Munch… Me? Why? There are a lot of mad people in the world, so don’t you think someone like me can be considered normal? Ah, this finger? You don’t have to worry about it.
My body regenerates even if I munch on it,” Yu Si-Do said casually.

“Hmm… then is it the same for your heart?” Iris asked as she stretched her hands out, staring at Yu Si-Do.

Yu Si-Do kept eating his middle finger as he stared at Iris and asked, “Have we met somewhere before?”

“Yu Si-Do,” Kang Yoon-Soo interrupted him.
He said, “The reason why I let myself get kidnapped was to cooperate with you.”

“You’re the mad one.
It wasn’t enough that you impersonated us and burned down our clan’s basement, but now you want to cooperate?” Yu Si-Do replied, staring at Kang Yoon-Soo. 

“We had no choice but to burn the place down, or else you would’ve killed all of us,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.

“I plan to kill all of you anyway, so why should I agree to that?” Yu Si-Do asked.

“Because you can’t overcome this crisis without my help,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.

Yu Si-Do stared at Kang Yoon-Soo with a confused expression and asked, “Crisis?”

The crowd’s boos grew louder and some of them shouted, “When is the torture going to start?!”

“Are you planning to start after we all die from waiting? Damn it!”

However, the masked man did not use his scissors; rather, he threw them away from the stage and shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen! The real show begins now! I want you all to pay attention to your surroundings!”

The clan members confusedly looked around them.
Suddenly, some other clan members drew their weapons and stabbed their comrades.

“Kuheok!”

“Why? Why are you attacking us?!”

“He’s not one of us! It’s a spy!”

However, it was too late.
The clan members could not differentiate between friend or foe, but the spies could.
The Black Tiger Clan members started to be one-sidedly massacred as the situation spiraled down into chaos.

It was at the very moment that everything was descending down to madness that the masked man took off his mask.
The face that revealed itself was impossible for anyone who was a member of the Black Tiger Clan to not recognize.

“H-han Se-Hyun?!”

“It’s the leader of the White Lion clan?! Why the hell did that guy appear on the stage?!”

Han Se-Hyun smirked as he looked at Kang Yoon-Soo. ‘Everything went according to your plan,’ he thought to himself.

“There’s no special reason,” Han Se-Hyun replied to the crowd as his eyes met Yu Si-Do’s, while the latter’s face crumpled with anger.
He continued, “No reason.
It’s just more fun this way.
It feels awesome to see the faces of other people when you hide your identity and reveal that you’re the clan leader later, you know?”