The End of Gods (A Welcome to the Underworld Novel, Book 4) (57 page)

Adrenaline pumped within her as she tightened her grip on the kendo stick. She breathed irately, furious to walk into this arena to find Ji Hoon beating Tae Hyun. It did not take her long to figure out the deal Tae Hyun tried to make—the deal for him to not fight back if Ji Hoon pardoned Yoori and allowed Hae Jin and Kang Min to go free. This admirable action aside, Yoori couldn’t stomach how stupid Tae Hyun’s decision was. There was little chance that Ji Hoon would keep his words, and she knew that Tae Hyun was aware of this. The fact that Tae Hyun would rather get beaten (with no guarantee of Ji Hoon keeping his word) than risk getting Yoori involved was infuriating to her. She did not conceal her fury when she finally rested her eyes on him.

Yoori’s blood boiled when she was faced with a furious Tae Hyun.

He wore a look of disbelief and rage in his eyes. He was physically hurt, yes, but at that moment, nothing hurt and angered him more than seeing Yoori in the very arena he did everything in his power to keep her away from.

“What the
f
uck are you doing here?!” he raged, standing up and towering over Yoori. “Did it look like I wanted you to
f
ucking come here?!”

“Shut the
f
uck up!” Yoori fiercely shouted back, looking up at him without fear or apology. She furiously tossed the kendo stick to the floor.

In moments like these, where his temper got the best of him and the true power of his aura came out, Tae Hyun may intimidate ninety-percent of the other human beings in the world, but he evoked no such fear from Yoori. She had spent her life as a Queen amongst monsters. At this very second, it was Tae Hyun who should fear her wrath. 

“Get it through your
f
ucking thick head!” she roared at the top of her lungs. “You don’t tell me what to do and you don’t control what I do! Does it look like I give a
f
uck about whether or not you wanted me to come here?”

“You think this is a joke?” he growled. The muscles straining beneath his hard body became visible, even beneath his clothes. Though his words and tone of voice were angry, Yoori could still see the worry in his eyes. He wanted her safe somewhere else; he didn’t want her here, and he sure as hell wasn’t grateful that she came to “save” him. “I did everything in my power to keep you away from this place, and you still have the audacity to show up, be stupid, and play hero, even when I don’t need you? The last thing I need is your help!”

“Yes,” Yoori remarked sarcastically, “you seemed to be doing so well a second ago.”

“I
let
him hit me,” he snarled back swiftly. A dangerous muscle leapt in his tight, strong jaw. “If I wanted to fight back, then the bastard would have no chance against me.”

Yoori knew that this was true. If Tae Hyun wanted to fight back, there was little chance that Ji Hoon would be able to withstand his wrath.

“So you were planning on just letting him have his way with you, hope that the bastard will keep his word, and let your sister and Kang Min go without having me come into the mix?”

She didn’t attempt to hide the critical tone in her voice—the tone that indicated what a stupid idea that was.

“The slight chance given to this situation was worth it to me,” he defended, not regretting his choice.

“The slight chance wouldn’t have worked out and you know it,” she countered at once.

His nose flared while his jaw clenched again, the muscle beneath it tightening very severely. “I had it handled.”

Yoori shook her head reproachfully. This conversation with Tae Hyun was becoming more redundant than beneficial. It was time to end their squabble. They had more important things to deal with, more important battles to fight. They could not be opposing forces in this arena. They had to be a united front. If they wanted to make it out of this amphitheater alive, they had to show this world what a powerful King and Queen they were.

“It doesn’t matter what you had handled anymore, does it?” she dismissed curtly, promptly ending their argument. “Because I’m here now, and I’m not leaving you.”

Leaving Tae Hyun to mutter a curse behind her at her hardheadedness, she finally turned around to face the arena that had been awaiting her entrance.

“It’s nice to see you again too, baby,” Ji Hoon greeted casually. He cracked his neck as though he was only warming up by beating the hell out of Tae Hyun (and that he wasn’t affected by Yoori’s beating). Very much satisfied with her long-awaited appearance, he stood up, dusted his shirt, and ventured back to his throne. “Took you long enough to come here. I was wondering how much longer it would take for Tae Hyun to show his true colors and fight me like the selfish bastard he is. I knew he couldn’t last long playing the heroic King.”

He took a seat on the throne with a big smile on his face. He enjoyed the extracurricular activity that came with taking advantage of Tae Hyun’s desperation to save his sister, but he heavily enjoyed that the Queen was standing there amongst them more.

Yoori made a point to ignore him. Speaking to him would serve to do nothing but boil her blood. In her eyes, he was a disgusting parasite. She would give him what was coming to him soon enough, but for now, she had bigger fishes to fry.

Her stern eyes skimmed over the eyes of the 17,500 people in attendance. Even under the cloak of an ominous omen about this place, Yoori could still feel her eyes light up in awe at the majestic amphitheater before her. She could see how this arena was inspired by the Colosseum. The sheer size of this society’s gathering was a thing of divine decadence. When one stands on this very onyx podium, you are left feeling one of two things: a God in a world so powerful or a simple human in a world so powerful. Regrettably for Yoori, although she and Tae Hyun still possessed the qualities that made them “better than the rest”, at that very moment, they were merely seen as humans. And by being human in this arena—the lowest life form to this elite world—their lifespan would be slim to none.

It was an intimidating realization to have as she regarded the arena with feigned valor.

As a God without anyone to anchor her human emotions down, she had nothing to lose. Conversely, as a human blessed with loved ones, it terrified her that she had everything to lose. Bottling up this fear, she went to great lengths to regain her composure. She could not show weakness, not now, and especially not in this godforsaken place—

Her survey of the arena stopped cold when she spotted Young Jae sitting in a row above the entrance in which she walked in. He was staring solemnly at her, his eyes unblinking. Her stomach twisted in knots at the sight of him. Yoori hadn’t seen him when she walked in because she was too engrossed with saving Tae Hyun from Ji Hoon. It occurred to her that he was probably the first one to see her walk in. From the excited and sadistic expression on his face, it was clear that he wanted to be the reason why she didn’t walk out of this amphitheater tonight—or ever.

Refusing to allow him to ruin her focus, she put her thoughts about her brother aside. Her survey continued all throughout the arena. She had too many other things to address, and the highest priority on this list was the society surrounding her.

“You wanted me,” she declared loudly and clearly, her brown eyes dark with confidence. “Now I’m here.”

She regarded Tae Hyun, who was standing beside her. His face did not hide that he hated everything about this moment. To her pleasant surprise, she also found that she was not the only one who was putting her A-game on tonight.

She appraised Tae Hyun in awe.

There were no more remnants of blood around his lips, as he had dried them off himself. Despite being beaten ruthlessly, Tae Hyun showed no weakness as he stood tall and proud. Had it not been for the dirt on his clothes and the minor wounds on his face, one could not surmise that he had recently been attacked. He couldn’t have looked more like the King that commanded reverence from such a powerful world, and for this, she was proud of him. Yoori had always considered herself an expert at hiding her weakness, but Tae Hyun was no doubt the master at that. There was no one better to have her back.

“We’re
both
here for them—just as you wanted.” Her eyes narrowed onto Hae Jin and Kang Min. She had avoided looking in their direction as soon as she came in. Once she saw how beaten they were, she remembered why she did so. She felt her heart tear apart. It took everything within her to control the quivering of her lips because she loved them so much and never wanted anyone to hurt them. Swallowing past the despair, she removed them from her line of sight. She turned back around and stared specifically at Ju Won. Her eyes throbbed with severity. “Just let them go and we can go from there.”

“You make a lot of demands for a bitch who no longer has any power,” said one of the young Royals from the upper echelons. His chin was held high. He couldn’t stomach that someone as “lowly” as her was addressing them in the bold manner that she was.

“Get your ass down here and call her a ‘
b
itch’ again,” Tae Hyun confronted gravely. His expression was deadly and intolerant while he stood protectively beside Yoori. He was still pissed at her, but he wasn’t going to allow some lowly bastard to talk to her like that.

The young Royal immediately cowered away, growing quiet as he avoided eye contact with Tae Hyun. It was obvious that even as a “fallen God”, Tae Hyun continued to evoke fear from those who crossed him.

“Even without your title, you are still every bit of the King we know and revere,” Ju Won voiced from above. There was a mixture of veneration and frustration in his voice. He shook his head, disappointed that Tae Hyun squandered all of his potential. He shifted his attention to Yoori. He held the same disappointment for her in his eyes. “You both still embody the characteristics of Royals that we all hold dear. It is unfortunate that you no longer share the beliefs of our world and its bylaws.”

No amount of poise and diplomatic speeches could conceal the ire that poured from his very being. If Ju Won was not bound by the bylaws of the society, there was no doubt he would have shot them right then and there.

Taking a deep breath to center himself, Ju Won snapped his fingers.

A commotion soon followed from the entryway before impending footsteps reverberated throughout the arena.

An onslaught of distress assailed Yoori and Tae Hyun when three huge men wearing dark business suits suddenly pushed Chae Young and Jae Won into the arena.

No
, Yoori thought, watching them with tortured eyes.

Chae Young and Jae Won were gagged with black cloths while their wrists were bound together. The three men kicked the back of their legs, forcefully making them kneel on the tiles. Three feet away, Kang Min and Hae Jin gaped at this scene in horror. The pain magnified in their eyes at the sight of Jae Won and Chae Young in the same arena as them—taken hostage as well.

Yoori could feel the misery envelope Tae Hyun. The awful realization that two more of their loved ones were trapped in this same arena hit him like a ton of bricks. She could feel her own stomach coil about in despair. After much arguing with Jae Won, Yoori was able to convince him that it was safer for Chae Young to be sent home rather than for her to be anywhere near this arena. It was a ploy Yoori used to hopefully stall for their safety. She had hoped that she would be able to save Tae Hyun, Hae Jin, and Kang Min before any harm could come to her other friends. However, as she drank in the sight of them in this state, she felt all hope evaporate before her eyes. Now they didn’t just have Kang Min and Hae Jin to worry about. They also had the lives of Chae Young and Jae Won (as well as their own lives) to be concerned about.

Yoori shook her head internally. The maladies on her body became more noticeable after realizing that this night was going to be a thousand times more difficult—both physically and psychologically—than she could ever truly anticipate. Everyone she cared about in this world was here and they were all in danger. The worst part was that she no longer had any power to protect them. She was simply a shadow of her former self: a fallen God. Desperation gnawed at her very soul.
She had never felt more helpless—more human—than at this very instant.

“The truth is,” Ju Won went on, earning back Yoori and Tae Hyun’s attention, “myself and the rest of the Underworld have been revolted with the way that things have been ran. As mentors, we took both of you under our wings. We gave both of you the best advisement anyone could dream of having; we offered you our undying support, and this is what you do in return?”

Mounting anger pulsed in his voice. “You created anarchy. As the most powerful Royals in our Underworld pyramid, you’ve created absolute anarchy with everything you exhibited at the business district.” His face morphed into an icy mask. “You’ve spat in our faces and renounced the very throne we bestowed to you on a silver platter. You’ve spat on the teachings of our world and sought to be the one thing we’ve drilled into your heads that you should never be” —his glare landed specifically on Yoori, indicating subtly that she was his biggest disappointment of all—“
weak and distracted
.” His eyes swiveled back to Tae Hyun. “This is the legacy you’ve written for yourselves. This is the forbidden road that you’ve chosen when you showcased your entire weakness to the ones you were supposed to set an example for.”