A Lawyer Or A Butcher?

The sun blazed down at noon, casting sharp shadows in the narrow alleyways.

More than fifteen armed men, with butcher knives, steel knuckles, and a very few with guns in hand, were searching for a group on the run. A fine game of hide and seek, or so they thought.

"Ten minutes..." Ivor looked at Micheal and said, "Are not for us to survive, but to take the lives of those motherfuckers."

"Are you crazy, Ivor? You realize the situation we are in right now? More than 15 butchers, eight to ten gunmen, and not to mention all the skilled fighters we are dealing with," Micheal gritted his teeth and whispered.

"And what do we have? We're only three, and only two of us have guns and not to mention only one loaded mag in each, we don't have a spare," Micheal added.

"Oh, trust me!" Jinsoo muttered as he made Micheal back off with his hand. "This is more than enough, he's not your average lawyer!"

"I'd rather avoid taking on a fight, I've already sustained an injury not long ago," Ivor scoffed and checked the bullets in his mag, then pushed it back inside and, with a click, loaded the gun.

"This market, it's divided into blocks. From what I can see, houses are almost connected and they don't leave a gap. The terrace is a perfect terrain for us," Ivor said as he walked towards the staircase that led to the second-floor housings.

"We can move in the corridor of the second floor but cannot go further because each of these flats has a staircase from inside that leads to the terrace. And the last thing I want is to barge into a random house," Jinsoo said.

(Korean)"Chatatda, inomdeul!" Just as the three of them were discussing which house to choose from, they heard a shout from the entrance of the alley, and a man with a gun pointed at them.

*Bam* *Bam* *Bam*

His muzzle flashed three times in a row as all of us ducked. Jinsoo moved fast and broke the door of the nearest house.

"C'mon, move," Jinsoo shouted as we ran inside.

"Ahh!" We heard some teenagers sitting in the room shout at our entrance. They were all wearing school uniforms and seemed to be playing card games.

"Where's the terrace? Stairs?" Jinsoo asked in Korean, his voice unintentionally loud. One of the girls pointed at the back room, and we nodded and hurried. Behind the door, all three of us took the stairs and entered the terrace, locking the door from the outside.

Micheal ran to the edge and looked down. "Man, this is not good news! These guys are entering from all over the place."

Ivor took a deep breath. Despite the exhaustion and the pain in his abdomen, he had a crooked smile on his face. Something was off about him at this moment. It wasn't how Ivor usually looked. A man who always wore a polite smile, a man that carried a childish side to him, approachable.

None of those could be a part of this view. He had not consumed his painkillers for a while now. He had been running for quite a while; the pain must be piercing him, but he was not wincing. He wasn't showing any signs of discomfort.

But that was not the point of concern for both Jinsoo and Micheal at the moment. Jinsoo moved swiftly, taking cover behind a chimney as a wave of butchers entered the terraces from all over the place. He took precise shots at two butchers, killing them in an instant.

The gunmen opened fire, the sound of their pistols reverberating through the whole area. Ivor ducked behind a vent, narrowly avoiding the bullets.

Micheal, unarmed, tried to stay as low as possible. In the midst of all the chaotic gunshots and forward advances, Micheal got behind a butcher and kicked his leg, bending him down. He then grabbed his neck and twisted it, giving the butcher a quick death.

Micheal picked up the knife and moved to the next butcher.

Meanwhile, Jinsoo took down more than six gunmen while staying in cover. Now all they had were a number of men with guns on Ivor's side and butchers. Micheal also picked up a gun from one of the dead and finished off the ones wincing in pain, trying to hold their ground.

However, the way Ivor was handling the situation… it was rather nasty.

"What the actual fuck?" Micheal muttered as both he and Jinsoo turned toward the spectacle, locking their eyes on Ivor. In one hand, he gripped a butcher knife slick with fresh blood, and in the other, he clutched a severed head by the hair, its lifeless eyes wide open.

On Ivor's side, it wasn't a fight; it was a slaughterhouse. The gunmen lay sprawled with gaping, charred craters where their faces once were, their skulls shattered into splinters. Heads lay severed and tossed like discarded rags, hands and legs strewn repulsively across the ground. Steam rose from the bodies in the cool air.

Ivor hurled the severed head he held toward them. The sound of its impact was a sickening thud, with blood spraying outward and splattering the faces of the men retreating with every step Ivor took forward.

"Cowards," one of the butchers growled in Korean. "It's one man! ONE MAN! Get him!"

Ivor chuckled, shaking his head.

Just as five of them moved at the same time, Ivor somehow moved so fast that his body blurred, covering ten steps in the blink of an eye. Before the first butcher could react, Ivor's blade arced down, severing his hand cleanly at the wrist. The man's scream reverberated across the terrain, only to be silenced when Ivor rammed the knife into his throat, twisting it savagely before yanking it free.

Ivor flung the severed hand at the remaining men, the bloody projectile smacking one square in the face. They stumbled back as blood blinded them momentarily.

He was merciless. He didn't just slice their throats. When the knife met resistance in the neck bones, he didn't stop; instead, he moved it in a sawing motion, back and forth. The wet scrape of steel against bone cut through the butchers' panicked screams. Blood spurted in bursts, painting Ivor's face, clothes, walls, and ground with uneven patterns.

He didn't just kill them, he carved them apart.

"How the fuck?" Micheal muttered.

"That's not superhuman," Jinsoo replied calmly. As a covert operative, he had already looked up Ivor and had witnessed moments far worse. "It's just advanced movement. Soviet steps, maybe. The precision, however, is almost impossible to master."

"No-NO-No-NO! I'm talking about what he's doing! He's… he's butchering them. Like animals. He's enjoying this!" Micheal shouted.

As the last butcher fell with his head half-dangling from his neck, Ivor stepped back and surveyed his work.

His breathing was calm and steady. It was as if this was a routine. He slipped the blood-drenched butcher knife between his teeth, biting down on the handle as he adjusted his collar.

He glanced at his watch, wiping the blood from his cheeks with a handkerchief that quickly turned dark red.

"We still have two minutes," he said.

And without another glance at the carnage he caused, he walked past Micheal and Jinsoo, leaving behind an ugly stench of death.