The War of Gods (A Welcome to the Underworld Novel, Book 3) (63 page)

Having been very close to the highly respected Advisor, Seo Ju Won, her father arranged for his young
daughter to be trained by the three most powerful Advisors of the 2
nd
layer. Though she had one of the severest upbringings a child could ever imagine having—especially for a young girl trying to prove herself in a male-dominated world—she couldn’t have been more thankful for her father’s insistence that she trained with the best.

She “sold”
her soul to the Devil shortly after she reached the age of ten and everything was history from then on.

An Soo Jin’s name became synonymous with reverence even before she made her of
ficial debut in the Underworld. Whispers of a second-born heir being trained by all three Advisors ran rampant in the Underworld and when she finally made her much awaited appearance in this powerful society, her name became legendary. The skilled, cunning, and powerful Queen indisputably became the pride of the Scorpions, the pride of the elder Advisors, and the pride of the Underworld, who welcomed her with open arms. The growth of her power and reverence had only elevated since and Soo Jin couldn’t have felt more pride with her station in life. She was a Queen amongst Kings, a God amongst Royals.

Closing her eyes to enjoy the fresh air that curled around them, Soo Jin instinctively pressed her small body against
the chest of her boyfriend of two years, Lee Ji Hoon. He was also watching the scene before them with an entertained expression.

Soo Jin
wore a pubescent, white, sleeveless dress that swam over her perfect body and ended just below her thighs. Behind her, Ji Hoon wore a crisp white shirt with a black tie and black pants. The rest of her Scorpions wore black ensembles that allowed them to blend in with the shadows of the night.

In this dark pict
ure, she was the epitome of an angel; it was the malevolent spark in her cruel eyes that made her look like the Devil.

An amused smirk lined her lips while her
brown eyes stared down at the thirty kneeling men whose faces had been beaten to a pulp. Blood stained their facial features, streaked onto their skin, blinded their eyes, tattooed their tattered clothes, and encircled their wrists and necks, which were previously bound together with ropes and chains. There were even some who had their ears personally cut off by her and were now bleeding incessantly because of that.

They were trembling.

They were all trembling with desperation and fear.

It was a glorious and entertaining scene for
Soo Jin.

She rejoiced in the sight of their broken bodies, the smell of their streaming blood
, and the taste of their unbridled fear. The splendor of the scene was only elevated with the additional enjoyment she received from punishing the one group of people she hated the most—the Serpents.

“
Knives,” she then said, her serene voice disrupting the silence.

From all around the neighboring balconies, a slew of twinkling silver knives flew into the air like arrows, momentarily streaking and covering the rays of the moon before
they fell to the ground and landed in front of the Serpents.

Shudders stole the Serpents’ breaths.

They quivered and gaped at the knives that winked at them in the cold and unforgiving night. Silence and horror overtook them. They gazed at one another, glimpsed at the knives, and then stared up at her. Their eyes dawned with cursed knowledge with what they were going to have to do with the weapons.

“I’m sure all of you have heard about me and the things I enjoy watching,” Soo Ji
n began in a whimsical and carefree tone. It sounded like the most tranquil music in a storm-filled night.

As
the wind came and blew the curls of her long beautiful hair to one side, she felt Ji Hoon wrap his arms tighter around her, pulling her closer. She could feel his smile against her neck as well as the drumming of his heart. It was racing in anticipation for the show to come. It matched the drumming of her own excited heart.

“
Five minutes,” she announced concisely.

Several of her Scorpions shifted their positions on t
he balconies while she spoke. Some leaned their arms on the white railings while others joined their fellow Scorpions, hung their legs over the railings and sat comfortably, awaiting what was to come. While this occurred, Soo Jin’s own dark eyes gleamed in exhilaration. She was going to enjoy torturing the very men who were serving the bastard who killed her father.

“Y
ou will have five minutes to pick up those knives, fight one another, and attempt to ride out the remaining five minutes with your lives intact,” she went on, noting that the air in the vicinity matched that of a coliseum for fighting gladiators.

Terror emanated from the “performers”
while excitement radiated from the audience. Bloodlust waltzed in the air.

Soo Jin continued to set the law of the gam
e like the Queen she was.

“After which, I’ll let you go and you’ll live to see another day. You can gloat to your fellow Serpents about surviving after being captured by the Q
ueen of the Underworld herself.” She took a moment to laugh. “I typically join in on the fights and rip a few limbs, but as you can see
. . .
” She spread out her hands to showcase her white dress. “I’m wearing a very pretty dress tonight. I’m about to have dinner with my boyfriend, so I’m not interested in getting it stained.”

S
he lowered her hands while Ji Hoon laughed at the last bit.

“
Having said that, I think you should all count your blessings that I’m not jumping in there with you. There’s actually a very good chance that several of you will walk out of here alive.”

“
So, all we have to do is fight each other in the span of the next five minutes and you’ll let us out of here
. . .
alive?” one of the captives asked from below. His gruff voice was strained with hope and speculation. He was hopeful, but the “easiness” of the task at hand unnerved him. He clearly knew nothing in the Underworld would ever be this easy.

A few chuckles bounced off the balconies wher
e Soo Jin’s Scorpions stood. Soo Jin’s lips lifted in hilarity at the naive inquiry.

“Give us a good show, survive the next
five minutes, and I promise I’ll let you walk out of here,” Soo Jin confirmed, earning a few exhalations of relief from the Serpents kneeling on the lawn.

All were
eyeing the knives as if they were their tickets to freedom.

“Right
now, you’re no longer Serpents. You’re merely men on the brink of death,” Ji Hoon reminded them, though the tone in his voice indicated that he had no faith these Serpents would adhere to the oath they took to protect one another in the face of their approaching death. “If we see you going easy on each other, I’ll jump down there myself and personally finish you off.”

“Ji Hoon, there’s no need,” Soo Jin appeased, squeezing his h
and as if she was the most kindhearted one of the night. “Our performers know what type of audience we are. I’m sure they’ll give us a good show.”

With this, Soo Jin
inclined her head at a female Scorpion who stood on the adjacent balcony to the right of hers. The female, by the name of Anna, bowed at Soo Jin and extracted a black gun from behind her back. She raised it into the air like rising curtains before an exquisite opera show.

“
Five
. . .
” Anna began to count down as the bodies of the captive Serpents stiffened in preparation.

“You’r
e very cruel,” Ji Hoon purred into Soo Jin’s left ear.

T
wo shadows appeared from behind them after Anna’s voice infiltrated the air.

Soo Jin smiled
, both at his assessment and the knowledge that her two favorite Scorpions had appeared by her side.

“‘
Heartless’ is the commonly used term,” Soo Jin corrected with the same amusement.

“
Four
. . .
”

“Do
they know that you’ll be participating?” Ji Hoon asked while Anna continued with her countdown.

Laughter issued from her lips. “
They will soon.”

“
Three
. . .
”

She extended her hands out
and within seconds, Jae Won and Kang Min were by her side as they took out the tools Soo Jin would be using to participate in the show ahead.

“
Two
. . .
”

As the world
beneath them became overrun with the desperation for survival, Jae Won and Kang Min dutifully placed the renowned gold guns in the palms of her hands. At the feel of the gold surface kissing her skin, Soo Jin breathed in delight. She enfolded her grip on the guns, feeling as though her pets had been reunited with her. A gush of power flooded through her. She was ready to start her fun.

“
One
. . .
”

In each of her hands, Soo Jin
held the judge, jury, and executioner for the lives of the humans below her.

She smirked, loving her godlike status in life.

It was the way it should be.

“
Go,” Anna announced, firing a bullet into the moonlit skies.

Cheers reverberated from the audi
ence above, and the show began.

Desperate to walk out of the Scorpions
’ estate alive, each of the Serpents scrambled for knives. They wasted no time in cutting off the flesh of the one they used to call “brother”; there was no more brotherhood left. All that remained was savagery and the need to save one’s own skin.

“You should know,
” Soo Jin started, her voice dying out under the guttural screams, the echoes of ripping skin, and the spurting of blood from the world beneath her, “that in the course of the next five minutes
. . .
I’ll be firing at all of you as well.”

None of the men heard her.

Her amusement persevered. Their lack of acknowledgement did not faze her.

Soo Jin knew they’d hear her soon enough.

All eyes of the Scorpions were on her when she cocked her two guns and aimed at the Serpents beneath her.

Before their
five minutes were up, each and every one of the Serpents would hear her.

■
■
■

“Isaac Asimov once said, ‘Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.’ When you kill someone, Kang Min, you have to make the transition as troublesome and as unbearable as possible
. . .
”

While speaking, Soo Jin kic
ked the newly amputated fingers aside with her red stiletto heels. She took the bloodied knife from Kang Min, who was still trembling as he stared down at the moaning gang member. The lowly street gang member, who was kneeling before them, had no association with the top gangs in the Underworld. However, as he was a convenient “tool” for Soo Jin to teach Kang Min the ways of the world, he had become an unlucky guinea pig.

“Humans respond well to death
, but not to torture,” she continued to lecture, tossing the now useless knife into the distance. “It doesn’t take much to break a human being and it doesn’t take much to own their souls.”

After having Kang Min snatch the
boy, who had been in the process of beating a girl for not having enough money to pay off her debt, Soo Jin ordered Kang Min, who was still hesitant when it came to hurting people who had done no wrong to him, to torture the boy by cutting off his fingers. To further harden his emotions, she also ordered Kang Min to stab the boy sixteen times. Despite his pleas to Kang Min to just kill him, Soo Jin ordered Kang Min to keep him alive.

The boy wa
s barely able to kneel straight. The assortment of stab wounds on his body had blood pouring out of him in every which way. His white t-shirt was stained crimson red and his jeans were soaked with blood.

Soo Jin laughed faintly
, not even the least bit affected by the sight of the young boy quivering in his stance. He continued to kneel before them, his eyes, though dimmed with pain, gleamed slightly as if hopeful that somehow, some way, it was possible that his captors would have enough heart to end his misery.

“I
t’s just a matter of one being ruthless enough to go through all the necessary stages to make them beg for death.” Soo Jin squatted down beside the boy, the fabric of her long black slacks bending at her knees. Her red, cuff-sleeved blazer glowed under the dissipating rays of the late afternoon sun. Soo Jin’s beautiful and angelic face drew close to the boy’s paling one. “Because when they do that, that’s when you know you own their soul.”

She reached out her hand and tilted her hea
d. The shiny curls of her long hair wavered to one side while she inspected his face. He didn’t look older than sixteen. He was young, but that did little to inspire any sympathy from Soo Jin. She regarded him with condescending pity.