Jin-woo’s eyes were bloodshot from a sleepless night, but his gaze was as cold and sharp as a freshly ground blade.

  8:50 AM. The automatic doors of the Main Contractor’s office slid open. Secretary Kim walked in with his usual arrogant leisure, holding a steaming cup of coffee. He sat at his desk, took a sip, and woke his monitor.

  But the screen didn't show his usual desktop.

  [Welcome to Hell, Traitor.]

  Kim’s hand trembled slightly as he stared at the blood-red text on the black background. At that moment, a chilling voice whispered from right behind him.

  "How does the coffee taste? Enjoy it. It might be the last moment of peace in your life."

  Kim gasped and spun around in his chair. Jin-woo was leaning against the partition, looking down at him with eyes devoid of warmth. Seo-hee had already looped all the office CCTV feeds; to the security team, the office looked perfectly normal.

  Jin-woo slowly reached out and roughly grabbed Kim’s tie, yanking him forward.

  "S-Section Chief Kang! What is this rudeness? I'll call security!"

  "Go ahead. Call them. The moment you do, the genetic algorithm experiment logs you sent to 'S', along with the transaction history of the slush funds deposited into your Swiss account, will be broadcast to every monitor in this building. Oh, and you look worried about the coffee. Did you think I poisoned it? Don't worry. To kill a bug like you, I don't need poison. One finger is enough."

  Jin-woo spun his laptop around to show the decrypted message logs from the previous night. Kim’s face turned the color of ash.

  "H-How... He said he deleted everything perfectly..."

  "He? You mean 'S'? He abandoned you. Last night, the command to euthanize Choi Yuri came from your account ID. If the plan failed, you were designed to be the fall guy. You stupid bastard."

  Under Jin-woo’s suffocating pressure, Kim collapsed to the floor. The air pressure in the office seemed to drop, heavy with Jin-woo’s murderous intent. Jin-woo stepped on Kim’s hand, grinding his heel into the fingers.

  "Speak. Where is Hwang Jin-ho? And what are you doing with Yuri? I’ll give you three seconds. One... Two..."

  "W-Wait! I'll talk! I'll tell you everything! Hwang Jin-ho... he's not human anymore! 'S' is trying to turn Jin-ho's brain into the server itself! Yuri is just a... a 'Backup Terminal' for that server!"

  Through the headset, Seo-hee clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. Her brother was being used as a machine part, and Yuri was merely a storage vessel. Her soul felt like it was shattering.

  Veins popped on the back of Jin-woo’s hand.

  "The location. Where is it?"

  Just as Kim, terrified out of his mind, opened his mouth to answer, a grotesque mechanical voice screeched from the ceiling speakers.

  [Kzzzt— The hunting dog is compromised. Initiating disposal protocol.]

  Hiss—!

  Instantly, the fire sprinklers erupted, drenching the office in a torrential downpour. Simultaneously, smoke grenades hidden in the vents detonated. Boom! Electronics sparked and exploded as water hit the circuits.

  "Chief! It's dangerous! Get out!" Seo-hee screamed.

  Jin-woo instinctively reached for Kim, but the thick white smoke blinded him. By the time he waved the smoke away, Kim’s spot was empty. On the wet floor, a single sodden note remained, written in red ink.

  [You are next, Phantom.]

  The cold water from the sprinklers soaked Jin-woo to the bone. The acrid smell of burnt wiring and chemical smoke filled his lungs. He crumpled the wet note in his fist. Kim hadn't just run; he had been extracted through a pre-planned escape route.

  "Chief! Can you hear me? Respond! The system is completely down!"

  Seo-hee’s urgent voice crackled through the static. Jin-woo swept his wet hair back and hid in the blind spot of the break room.

  "Seo-hee, stay focused. We lost the pawn, but we hooked the king. When I grabbed his collar earlier, I slipped a nano-tracker inside his cuff. Activate the satellite link. Now."

  Jin-woo wasn't a hunter who missed. He was a hunter who let the leash go to find the den.

  "I got him! Coordinates... It's pointing to a closed nursing home in the mountains behind Mumyeong Village! But Chief, this is strange. The radar is picking up underground levels that don't exist on the blueprints. They’re occupying state land illegally."

  Jin-woo’s eyes burned. The nursing home. That was the last place Yuri had gone for a precision check-up before she became vegetative. All the threads of tragedy converged on that one ominous building.

  Jin-woo stormed out of the smoke-filled office and raced to the underground parking lot. He jumped into his car, threw his laptop onto the passenger seat, and synced it with Seo-hee’s screen.

  "Tell Min-su to pack the heavy gear. This isn't just hacking. If they are using Yuri as a terminal, severing the connection wrongly could fry her brain. We need to physically seize their main server."

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "Chief... if what Kim said is true... if my brother has really become a piece of data... what do I do?"

  Hearing Seo-hee’s trembling voice, Jin-woo slammed the accelerator. The engine roared.

  "Seo-hee. Data can be deleted, but a soul cannot. If Jin-ho has become the server, he must be resisting them. We just need to light the fire of that resistance. The fact that they threatened to kill Yuri proves one thing: without her, their plan fails."

  Cutting through the pouring rain, Jin-woo’s car drifted onto the rough mountain road near Mumyeong Village. In the pitch-black darkness, the abandoned nursing home loomed like the gaping maw of a giant beast.

  Jin-woo killed the headlights. From the trunk, he pulled out a heavy duffel bag. Inside, there was no keyboard—only an EMP device to force open security doors and a combat knife for self-defense.

  "Seo-hee, Comm Security Level 1. Rotate the IP every 30 seconds so they can't trace back to you. I'm going in."

  Jin-woo kicked open the rusted iron gate. On his contact lens display, a holographic map illuminated the hidden path to the 4th underground level. The destination where the fates of 'Hwang Yuri' and 'Hwang Jin-ho' were intertwined—the heart of 'S'.

  The hallway of the nursing home was submerged in a silence deeper than death. Rainwater leaking through broken windows mixed with dust, turning the floor into sludge. Jin-woo moved without a flashlight, relying solely on his night-vision interface. The walls were lined with rotting patient charts, and the air smelled of disinfectant mixed with the metallic tang of old blood.

  "Chief, do you hear me? You're at the stairwell at the end of the 1st floor. The elevator is dead, but the emergency cargo lift shaft still has power. That's how they moved Kim."

  Seo-hee’s voice was brave, but Jin-woo couldn't answer. A terrible hypothesis was forming in his mind, heavier than the darkness awaiting him below.

  Underground Level 4.

  Jin-woo rappelled down the shaft and landed on cold concrete. The scenery here was alien. Gone was the rotting hospital; in its place stood a high-tech data center with thousands of server racks humming like a hive of angry hornets. The noise of cooling fans was deafening, and fiber optic cables covered the floor like the nervous system of a monster.

  Jin-woo approached the central control partition. Dozens of monitors were arranged in a circle, surrounding a massive, unidentifiable cultivation tank. As Jin-woo placed his hand on the master console, the dormant main monitor flashed to life, displaying a single, old photograph.

  It was a family photo.

  A young Seo-hee, smiling brightly.

  A teenage boy, looking dependable—Hwang Jin-ho.

  That was expected.

  But when Jin-woo’s eyes shifted to the girl standing on the far left, his heart stopped beating.

  "......!"

  The pendant around the girl's neck. Those clear, innocent eyes. The surname was different now, but there was no mistaking it. It was the childhood face of his wife, Choi Yuri.

  Jin-woo’s hand trembled violently as he gripped the console. A thousand puzzle pieces crashed together in his mind.

  Why is Yuri... why is she in a family photo with Seo-hee's brother? Not Choi Yuri... but Hwang Yuri? Then Seo-hee... does she not know? Has she been calling her own biological sister just 'Unni' without knowing the blood tie?

  A suffocating silence wrapped around him. Jin-woo bit his lip to suppress a groan. Through the headset, Seo-hee, oblivious to this cruel reality, kept asking.

  — "Chief? Why are you silent? Is something there? Did you find Kim?"

  The brighter her voice sounded, the heavier Jin-woo’s heart sank. 'S' had separated the sisters, making one a hostage and the other a hunting dog. Nausea rose in his throat at the sheer malice of it.

  "You found it, Kang Jin-woo. Or should I call you Phantom?"

  Suddenly, the ceiling speakers crackled. It was Executive Director Kim’s voice, but the tone was mechanical—it was the will of 'S'.

  "I see you've realized who the girl in the picture is. The woman you love... do you see whose blood flows in her veins? How does it feel to face such a tragic coincidence? I wonder what face your partner, Hwang Seo-hee, would make if she knew this truth."

  Jin-woo’s eyes burned with a dark, crimson rage. He placed his hands on the keyboard. Now was not the time to break.

  "Shut up. Don't let Yuri's name pass your filthy lips. This disgusting play you've written... I'm bringing the curtain down today."

  Jin-woo’s fingers began to hammer the keyboard, fast enough to draw blood.

  "Seo-hee! From now on, encrypt every packet I send and store it only on your local drive! Do not let it leak to the main network! This is for your eyes only!"

  "Chief? What's going on?"

  Jin-woo forced open the server sector synchronized with Yuri’s brainwaves. The screen flooded with grotesque binary codes, and a noise that sounded like a scream flowed from the speakers.

  [Bzzt— Seo... Hee-ya... can you hear me...]

  Jin-woo’s hands froze. It was synthesized, but the emotion was unmistakably human. Seo-hee gasped over the comms.

  "That... that voice... Brother? Is that you, oppa? Chief, that's my brother's voice!"

  Despite Seo-hee’s scream, Jin-woo analyzed the code with cold precision. It wasn't a living voice. It was a 'Dying Message' planted by Hwang Jin-ho’s residual consciousness within the data stream.

  [Seo-hee... if you are hearing this, I am no longer human. I'm sorry... I tried to keep you out of this hell... And the one next to me... Choi Yuri... save my sister, Yuri. Her brainwaves are the last safety lock of this system. The identity of 'S'... he is not far away. He is...!]

  WHEEEENG!

  Suddenly, the firewall convulsed, shredding the message. 'S' had noticed. Red warning lights bathed the server room in blood-colored light.

  "Chief! They are force-formatting the core data! My brother's voice is disappearing! Please! Save him!"

  Seo-hee’s desperate sobbing tore through the earpiece. Jin-woo gritted his teeth and jacked his laptop directly into the main port. High-voltage electricity sparked against his fingertips, smelling of burnt flesh, but he didn't let go.

  "Jin-ho! If you can hear me, open the path! Your sister Seo-hee, and your other sister Yuri... I will save them both! Phantom commands you—System Unlock!"

  With Jin-woo’s roar, his ultimate hacking tool, 'Black Hole', devoured the server's defenses.

  Zap!

  The lights died. In the darkness, a single string of green text appeared on Jin-woo’s monitor.

  [S: Project 'EDEN' - Location: Main Contractor HQ, Basement Level 7, Special Security Vault]

  Jin-woo wiped the sweat and soot from his face. He crumpled the family photo and shoved it deep into his pocket.

  The heart of the enemy, the starting point of all this tragedy, had finally revealed itself. But Jin-woo stood alone in the dark, burdened with the heavy truth that Yuri was Seo-hee’s sister—a truth he couldn't yet speak.