Chapter 56: The Aftermath of Rage
"Get down! Hold our position! SWAT is on their way—we need to hold out a little longer!" shouted the police chief leading the event’s security detail.
His frantic order was met only with hesitant, bewildered glances from his squad.
"What?!" the chief barked.
"Sir... I think the gunfire stopped."
"Huh? What the hell are you talking about?"
The chief paused, his own expression twisting in confusion. The deafening roar of automatic weapons that had been suppressing the venue moments ago had suddenly vanished.
He glanced at his officers, who were all exchanging uneasy looks.
Ten seconds passed.
Thirty seconds.
A full minute.
Not a single gunshot echoed through the night.
"C-Chief... should we check it out?"
Gulping hard, the chief stood up, sweeping his pistol forward with trembling, white-knuckled hands. Step by agonizing step, his squad moved toward the perimeter.
Hing...
An eerie silence hung over the compound, broken only by the cold night wind whistling through the trees.
Maintaining a tight defensive formation, the security team crept into the shadows outside the main hall.
"Sir... look at these guys..." one officer whispered, pointing his flashlight beam toward the ground.
Spread across the grass lay twenty men clad in full military-grade combat gear—all completely unconscious.
The chief stared at the heavy assault rifles scattered across the dirt. There was no doubt these were the attackers who had trapped them inside. What he couldn’t comprehend was how an entire unit equipped for modern warfare had been neutralized so silently.
"How are they?"
"They’re... they’re all still breathing, sir."
"Detain every last one of them and disarm them immediately! Strip them of everything—rifles, sidearms, grenades, daggers, flak jackets. If it looks remotely dangerous, take it off them. Leave them in nothing but their clothes. And get an ID check on these bastards right now!"
"Yes, Chief!"
The chief gritted his teeth, staring at the surreal scene. He forced himself not to dwell on the mystery of what had happened out here. The sheer number of casualties was far too great for him to waste time thinking about it.
Suddenly, "Chief! Over here!"
"What’s going on?!"
"A little ways from here, near the ridge, there are about ten more men in similar tactical gear. All unconscious."
The chief let out a weary sigh. "Dammit, I thought you found another wave of attackers. What are you waiting for? Get moving and detain them before they wake up!"
"Um... Chief?"
"What now?! Spit it out! We have a mountain of work to do because of this mess!"
"Those ten near the ridge... they’re heavily injured compared to the twenty down here, sir. I think we need medics and climbing gear. I thought the sniper must be at the top of the ridge too, lying unconscious. We need to check it."
The chief’s brow furrowed deeply. ’What the hell actually happened out here?! Was this an attempted assassination? A family massacre? Or was there another target besides the Baek Family? More importantly, how the hell did they all get taken down so fast when just a few minutes ago they had us standing at death’s door?!’
He rubbed his temples, his face a mix of exhaustion and confusion.
"Never mind. We’ll interrogate them once they wake up. For now, let’s clean up with what we have. SWAT will be here soon to handle the final sweep."
Inside the venue, the atmosphere was suffocatingly heavy. The sharp scent of copper and gunpowder hung thick in the air, mingling with the dust of shattered crystal chandeliers.
Mareum stood amidst the wreckage of the main hall, his expression carved from stone. Beside him, a medical team and several high-ranking family members swarmed around the wounded Patriarch Baek.
Rows of overturned banquet tables served as makeshift triage stations. Baek family bodyguards moved frantically, applying pressure to severe gunshot wounds and wrapping tourniquets around shattered limbs.
"Great Guardian, what’s the status?!" Ji-Gal asked, his face deathly pale as he panicked over his father’s condition.
Mareum didn’t answer immediately. Even though the gunfire outside had ceased several minutes ago, he remained vigilant, unwilling to lower his guard prematurely.
Suddenly, Baek Ji-Hong rushed over alongside his three personal subordinates, shouting through the noise.
"How is Grandfather?! Don’t worry—the danger outside has passed!" Ji-Hong shouted.
Mareum frowned, skeptical of the bold claim. Yet, observing the sudden silence from the perimeter, he felt inclined to step down from maximum battle readiness.
"We move the Patriarch to the Main House first," Mareum ordered authoritatively. "Prep the medical team and transport equipment. This was clearly an assassination attempt on the Patriarch—taking him to a public hospital right now is too high of a risk."
Elder Si-Jin and Ji-Gal carefully supported Patriarch Baek, ushering him toward the heavily armored rear exit where a bulletproof convoy and trauma doctors stood ready.
"Young Master Ji-Hong, you need to get in the convoy as well, along with the other heirs," Mareum instructed as Ji-Hong stepped closer.
Ji-Hong hesitated, glancing nervously at Butler Lee.
"Understood, Great Guardian," Butler Lee stepped in smoothly. "I will personally escort the Young Master to the rear transport."
As they turned toward the exit, Ji-Hong leaned in and whispered anxiously, "What about Boss Don?!"
"Do not worry, Young Master," Butler Lee murmured back under his breath. "I’ve already instructed A-Ji and Ji-Ga to stay behind and wait for the shopkeeper. Now, please move. This is far too serious a matter to linger."
At that moment, a family guard stationed at the outer perimeter rushed up to Mareum, gasping for air.
"Great Guardian! The attackers... they’ve been neutralized!"
Mareum let out a long, heavy breath of relief. "They got them? Excellent. So the security detail managed to coordinate and subdue them after all. Tell the officers the Baek Family will not forget their service."
The reporting guard, however, looked utterly bewildered.
"Erm... Great Guardian... it wasn’t our security team or the police who took them down."
Mareum’s brows furrowed intensely. "Then who? Who knocked them out? And how?! Was there another security unit I wasn’t informed of?!"
"We... we don’t know, sir," the guard stammered. "When the police swept the perimeter, all twenty mercenaries were simply lying across the lawn, unconscious. A short distance away near the ridge, ten more were found with catastrophic injuries. Even the sniper who shot the Patriarch was discovered at his nest—unconscious with shattered internal organs."
Mareum’s eyes widened in sheer shock.
’No one knows who did it or how... but a heavily armed elite strike team was wiped out in minutes? Out of nowhere?! What on earth happened out there?!’
"So, how many attackers have been detained? Did the police get their IDs?!" Mareum asked, massaging the bridge of his nose in deep frustration. "With that kind of heavy weaponry, they’re obviously a mercenary unit."
He set aside the who and how for a moment. What mattered right now was taking control of the chaos.
"A total of thirty-two men, sir," the bodyguard reported. "Twelve are in critical condition, while twenty were simply knocked unconscious. Based on their gear, our side believes they belong to the Babylon Mercenaries."
Mareum’s expression turned grave. That name was all too familiar in the top-class underworld. They were a notorious high-tier syndicate—only a handful of shadow brokers had the connections and wealth to hire them for contract hits.
The mystery only deepened. If this was truly the elite Babylon unit, who on earth could have swept through them so cleanly without leaving a trace?
Leaning closer to his subordinate, Mareum lowered his voice to a sharp whisper. "Handle the scene discreetly. I want to know exactly what happened out there—and who neutralized them."
"Yes, Great Guardian!" the bodyguard answered in a low, firm tone.
"And what about our casualties?"
The bodyguard swallowed hard before speaking. "Thirty-one civilians, three government officials, nineteen police officers, and twenty-one Baek Family guards... dead. The total number of injured stands at forty-seven—ranging from minor shrapnel wounds to critical trauma."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over them. Mareum closed his eyes, pressing his fingers tightly against his brow as he took a long, measured breath. The loss was devastating, but without that sudden interruption outside, it would have been an absolute massacre.
"If the suppressing fire outside hadn’t abruptly stopped..." the bodyguard murmured, glancing toward the shattered main entrance. "The mercenaries would have breached the hall within minutes. We were completely pinned down."
"Indeed," Mareum opened his eyes, a glint of sharp intensity returning to his gaze. "Whoever neutralized that mercenary force didn’t just win a fight—they saved what was left of our lineage. So, make sure what I ordered before is carried out, and report the logs directly to me. Also, spare no expense in aiding the victims here."
Meanwhile, on the top floor of a luxury hotel in the heart of S City, four men in black tactical gear stood over a glowing bank of monitors.
"We lost comms with the strike team over twenty minutes ago and are still unable to contact them as of now," one operative reported.
"Then the assault failed," the unit leader replied coldly. "Contact headquarters. We proceed with Plan B. And tell the four in the blacked-out SUVs to cancel the escape route—we need to regroup."
"Executing Plan B with only eight of us is going to be difficult, sir."
"A contract is a contract," the leader murmured, a lethal grin spreading across his face. "You complete the job... or you die trying."