Like a series of dominos finally toppling over, every interaction, every moment, every insignificant detail that had once seemed meaningless now slotted into place with terrifying clarity.
Eun-jae sucked in a sharp breath, his fingers twitching as he stared at the ceiling.
Of course.
Of course.
When they had first met, he had introduced himself as Caesar. The name had rolled off his tongue so smoothly, so effortlessly, as if it was second nature—like it belonged to him. And why wouldn't Eun-jae believe it? In their world, names were often nothing more than masks, carefully chosen to fit the role someone played in the underworld. He had assumed it was just that—a convenient alias, a name suited for a man tangled in the underground arms business.
And yet.
He had known.
The truth had always been there, lurking just beneath the surface, taunting him with its cruel simplicity.
Bes Ilay.
That damned nickname.
A name whispered in the shadows, spat out with reverence and fear alike. Bes, meaning demon—a title he had earned through blood, through ruthless efficiency, through a reputation so infamous that even the most hardened criminals uttered it with caution.
Eun-jae had heard the stories. The rumors. The ones that painted Bes Ilay as something far beyond human. A specter. A nightmare draped in silk and blood. The kind of man who could walk into a room full of enemies and leave with not a single drop of blood on his pristine cuffs, not because he hadn't spilled any—but because he had done it so effortlessly, so clinically, that no one had even seen it coming.
It suited him.
It suited him too well.
But the real kicker—the thing that made Eun-jae's blood boil, that sent rage clawing up his throat—was how he had overlooked it.
That bastard had an actual name all along.
Caesar wasn't his real name. It was just a nickname.
A fucking nickname.
Tsesarion Yevpraksiya Radzivonovich Karpov-Troitsky.
That was his real name. That was who he truly was.
The weight of it hit Eun-jae like a truck, like someone had just taken a crowbar to the back of his skull and pried his mind open, forcing him to stare at the truth he had been too blind—or too distracted—to see.
No wonder he had been so damn nonchalant when he had first introduced himself.
No wonder he had looked so amused whenever Eun-jae had spat his name in anger, as if it were some grand joke that he was the only one in on.
Because it had been.
Because he had known from the very beginning that Eun-jae hadn't figured it out. That he had been walking around thinking 'Caesar' was his real identity, when in reality, that was just a sliver of the truth. A carefully chosen name. A title, nothing more.
And the worst part?
He had let him believe it.
That smug son of a bitch had watched him—watched him—go along with that name, never once correcting him, never once giving him even a hint of the bigger picture. He had let Eun-jae walk blindly through the dark, stumbling over half-truths and assumptions, all while knowing that the real answer was dangling just out of reach.
A slow, boiling rage burned through Eun-jae's veins, setting fire to every thought in his head.
His fingers dug into the sheets. His chest heaved with each breath, the sheer weight of realization pressing down on him like a vice.
He had been played.
Again.
By him.
By that devil in human skin.
"Son of a bitch," Eun-jae snarled, the words escaping through clenched teeth.
He sat up, muscles tense, fury coiling tight in his stomach. Without thinking, without hesitation, he grabbed the nearest pillow and hurled it across the room with all the force his body could muster.
It smacked against the far wall with a dull thud, a pathetic substitute for the violence he truly wanted to unleash.
But it wasn't enough.
Not even close.
He needed to break something.
He needed to smash his fist into something solid, to shatter glass, to let the sheer force of his frustration manifest into something physical.
Because if he didn't—if he didn't find a way to release this storm raging inside him—he was going to lose his goddamn mind.
His breaths came fast and heavy, his body trembling with adrenaline, with anger, with the sickening feeling of having been made a fool of.
Caesar.
Bes Ilay.
Tsesarion Yevpraksiya Karpov-Troitsky.
A man of a thousand faces.
And Eun-jae had fallen for the trick yet again.
He groaned, running a hand through his hair before gripping it at the roots, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to wrestle his thoughts into submission.
It was too much.
Too much to process.
Too much to fucking take.
And through it all, one thought burned the brightest.
He was going to make that bastard pay.
No matter what it took.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa—relax. You might give yourself a heart attack, you know."
Sergey's voice was laced with amusement, his smirk a permanent fixture as he leaned lazily against the bar, the picture of a man who had seen too much and cared too little. He looked entirely unbothered, as if they weren't discussing a man who could wipe entire families off the face of the earth with a single phone call. As if the very topic of conversation wasn't enough to make Eun-jae's blood boil.
But Eun-jae couldn't relax. Not when his entire body was rigid with barely restrained fury. Not when his heart was hammering so hard against his ribs that it physically hurt. His breath came out sharp, his hands clenched into fists so tight his nails dug into his palms, the sting barely registering through the whirlwind of emotions raging inside him.
"How the fuck do you expect me to relax?" he spat, voice shaking, raw with something dangerously close to hysteria. "That monster is walking around in broad daylight like he hasn't done the most evil, despicable, irredeemable shit known to mankind! Like he's just some ordinary citizen instead of a goddamn walking nightmare!"
His mind couldn't wrap around it. He couldn't accept it.
How was it fair? How was it possible?
After everything, after all the blood that man had spilled, all the horrors he had orchestrated—he was free. Untouchable. Breathing the same air as the rest of them, as if he hadn't left destruction in his wake. As if he hadn't torn people apart and watched them bleed out, unblinking, uncaring.
And the worst part?
No one seemed to care.
People walked past him, oblivious, unbothered, blind to the devil in their midst. They didn't know the kind of nightmare he truly was. They didn't know that if he so much as willed it, their entire world could be turned upside down in the span of a heartbeat.
Sergey let out a dry chuckle, shaking his head as if he had heard this all before. As if Eun-jae's outrage was nothing more than a tired script playing on repeat.
"You think it's that easy to put someone like Tsesarion behind bars?" he said, a knowing gleam in his eyes. "Like there's a little prison cell somewhere waiting just for him?"
The sheer absurdity of it made Eun-jae's stomach churn.
No. Of course not.
There were monsters in this world, but not all of them rotted in cages. Some of them sat in high-rise buildings, wearing tailored suits and shaking hands with presidents. Some of them ran governments from the shadows, pulling the strings while the rest of the world remained blissfully ignorant.
Tsesarion was one of them.
A man who had long since slithered his way past the constraints of laws, of justice, of morality. He didn't just avoid consequences—he was the one who decided who suffered them.
Eun-jae exhaled sharply, the pressure in his skull intensifying.
"Who the hell is this guy?!" he demanded, voice raw, almost desperate.
Because the more he tried to understand, the less sense it made.
Sergey arched a brow, his smirk deepening, as if he had been waiting for that exact question.
"Glad you asked." He took a slow sip of his drink, drawing out the suspense like he was telling some kind of bedtime story. "Well, you know SIB, don't you?"
Eun-jae frowned, his brain scrambling to connect the dots.
"State Intelligence Bureau," he muttered, the acronym feeling heavier on his tongue now.
"Bingo." Sergey pointed at him lazily. "SIB is a lot like the NIS—except imagine the NIS with all their morals stripped away. No rules. No conscience. No international oversight. Just a well-oiled machine designed to get its hands dirty for the 'greater good.'" He made air quotes with his fingers, voice dripping with sarcasm. "They do the jobs no government agency wants to admit exist. Kidnappings. Assassinations. Torture. All the things that can't be traced back to a government… but always serve its interests."
A slow, sickening realization crawled up Eun-jae's spine, making his skin prickle.
"Now it all makes sense," he muttered under his breath, memories slamming into him like a freight train. He gritted his teeth as the pieces of the puzzle finally snapped into place.
Because he had asked.
When they had been together—when things had been… different—he had asked him.
"What does Bes do?"
And that son of a bitch had simply smiled and said,
"He is a civil servant."
Eun-jae let out a bitter laugh. A dry, humorless thing that felt more like a death rattle than actual amusement.
Technically, it wasn't even a lie.
He was a civil servant.
A twisted, horrifying abomination of one, but a civil servant nonetheless.
And that realization made Eun-jae sick.
It made his stomach churn with disgust, with anger, with an unbearable sense of injustice.
Because what kind of country—what kind of corrupt, broken system—entrusted state affairs to someone like him?
A man with no morals.
A man who played both sides of the chessboard, orchestrating destruction with one hand while extending salvation with the other.
What kind of a joke was this?
Eun-jae ran a hand down his face, exhaling shakily. His thoughts were spiraling too fast, unraveling in too many directions at once.
But one question kept ringing in his mind.
"Wait. Hold on." His voice dropped an octave, his brows furrowing deeper. He turned sharply to Sergey, his mind catching onto something—something far worse. "So if this Bes, or whatever the hell people call him, was involved in the creation of Seraphim—and he's a civil servant—" his breath hitched, his mind moving too fast to keep up with itself.
"Then what's his motive?"
He could feel it.
That sickening dissonance.
The contradiction that made no sense.
Trying to fix the world while secretly trying to destroy it?
What the hell kind of logic was that?
Sergey scoffed, shaking his head as if he, too, was exhausted by the sheer insanity of it all. "Hah… that guy really has a big problem. He can be a criminal at the same time an agent."
Eun-jae's jaw tightened. His teeth ground together so hard it sent a dull ache up his skull.
"No." He shook his head, his voice eerily quiet now. "He doesn't have a problem."
A problem implied that something could be fixed.
That something had gone wrong along the way.
But Tsesarion ?
No.
He was never broken. Never damaged.
He was born like this.
A monster in human skin. A devil with a charming smile.
"Today, he'd save your life," Eun-jae muttered, voice hoarse, his throat tight with suppressed rage. "And tomorrow, he'd completely destroy you."
That was the truth of him.
That was the essence of him.
There was no logic. No consistency. No pattern to his madness.
He wasn't playing a game.
He was the game.
And no matter what you did, no matter how hard you tried to predict him, to understand him, you'd never win.
"Well," Sergey chuckled, folding his arms, "why do you think they call him Bes?"
Demon.
The nickname wasn't just something people whispered out of fear.
It was a warning.
And Eun-jae had ignored it.
Eun-jae's head was spinning.
Not from alcohol—hell, he hadn't even touched his drink yet. No, this was something worse. Something sickening. A creeping, suffocating nausea that twisted deep in his gut, coiling like a viper ready to strike.
He had thought he knew—thought he understood what kind of monster he was dealing with. But every time he peeled back another layer, the truth only got more horrifying.
And now, Sergey was peeling back yet another one.
"Well, you see," Sergey began, his voice lazy yet dripping with an odd kind of amusement, "under SIB, there are two elite factions—Phantom Unit and Eclipse Squad." He leaned back slightly, watching Eun-jae's expression with interest, like a cat playing with a trapped mouse. "Phantom Unit consists of only the most exclusive agents, the real killers, the ones the world doesn't even know exist. But they're divided into six teams, each made up of about 150 to 300 operatives. You'd think that'd be enough, right?"
Eun-jae said nothing, only listening, his jaw clenching tighter with each word.
Sergey smirked, eyes glinting with something almost darkly entertained. "And then," he continued, "there's one unit. A unit with only one agent."
Something cold slithered down Eun-jae's spine, a chill that settled into his bones.
"One?" he repeated, his voice coming out quieter than he intended.
Sergey nodded, taking a casual sip of his drink before setting it down with a soft clink. "One." He tilted his head. "And that one is Bes."
Eun-jae felt his entire body go rigid.
His breath hitched. His pulse, already hammering wildly, pounded harder, roaring in his ears like a war drum. His fingers curled into fists so tight his nails bit into his palms.
A single agent—handling the workload of 50, maybe even 100 men.
What the hell does that even mean?
It wasn't just skill. No ordinary man could pull something like that off. No matter how well-trained, how disciplined—this wasn't human.
It was inhuman.
It was unnatural.
How many people had he killed?
How much blood had he spilled to be considered a one-man army?
Eun-jae exhaled sharply through his nose, trying to steady himself, but the weight of the revelation pressed down on his chest like a ton of bricks.
His mind reeled, flashing back to every interaction he had ever had with Bes—every moment, every conversation, every small gesture that now carried a much darker meaning.
All those times he had smirked like nothing in the world could touch him.
All those times he had spoken in riddles, teasing but never truly answering.
All those times his hands had been steady, his voice calm, even in the face of chaos.
Eun-jae had thought it was arrogance.
But now, he realized it wasn't arrogance.
It was certainty.
The certainty of a man who knew—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that he could end anyone, anyone, in the blink of an eye.
"Hah…" Eun-jae let out a dry, humorless chuckle, running a shaky hand through his hair. His throat felt tight, as if something heavy was lodged there. "One person handling the job of an entire battalion… I suppose he really does deserve the name Bes." His lips curled bitterly. "Ilay Karpov-Troistky."
The name tasted like poison on his tongue.
Sergey let out a low whistle, nodding approvingly. "Damn right. And trust me," he leaned in slightly, his voice dropping into something more conspiratorial, "you wouldn't want to be on the same team as him. I sure as hell wouldn't."
Eun-jae exhaled through his nose. "Not surprising," he muttered.
"No, but really—" Sergey laughed, shaking his head as if the mere thought of it was ridiculous. "He's like a Mad Legion. No restraint. No limit. No conscience. He kills like crazy—doesn't matter who. Piss him off, and you're gone. Just like that." Sergey snapped his fingers, the sound echoing louder in Eun-jae's ears than it should have. "And it's not just enemies. Hell, he even kills allies. Just imagine that for a second."
Eun-jae did imagine it.
"I even heard he killed one of his own family members."
Eun-jae stiffened, his eyes narrowing slightly. "What?"
"Ah, yes! His grand-uncle, I think," Sergey said, snapping his fingers as if recalling a half-forgotten rumor. "Apparently, the old man made the mistake of touching someone he shouldn't have."
Eun-jae's brows furrowed. "Who?"
Sergey smirked. "The Grand Duchess." He let the words linger in the air before adding, "His mother."
Eun-jae's stomach twisted violently.
Eun-jae's breath came quicker.
That wasn't just skill. That wasn't just training.
That was something else entirely.
Something terrifying.
Something inhuman.
Sergey clicked his tongue, shaking his head in mock sympathy. "You should be thanking the heavens you're still alive," he said, voice edged with amusement. "'Cause if you weren't lucky—if he had really wanted you dead—well…" He smirked. "Let's just say you'd be six feet under right now, rotting like the rest of them."
Eun-jae swallowed. His throat felt dry.
Lucky.
That's what Sergey called it.
Luck.
But Eun-jae knew better.
Because the truth was, Bes didn't operate on luck.
He operated on choices.
And for some godforsaken reason, Ilay Karpov-Troistky had chosen to let him live.
But the question was—
Why?