Geumgang stared at the wall.
At what was left of Hwagwang.
His core flared—blue turned blinding white.
For the first time, he raised his cannon arm.
Aimed it straight at Minjae.

He’s going to kill us all, Minjae thought.
Damn it. I don’t have enough energy to stop that.

The cannon lit up. Charging.
A low, rising hum shook the corridor walls.

Minjae bolted. He darted behind Mujang—still crippled, legs shredded.
My only chance at surviving... is using him as cover.

The cannon fired. A ball of plasma, white-hot and massive, launched across the hall.
Brighter than anything Minjae had ever seen.
It lit up the ruined world like a second sun.

And Mujang moved.
He didn’t care about Minjae.
He never did.
But he cared about survival.

He brought up his blade—and with everything he had left, slashed.
The plasma burst split—not cleanly.
But enough.

The explosion ripped through the corridor.
Both Mujang and Minjae were thrown backward—caught in the shockwave.
Launched.

Mujang wasn’t gone. He crawled out of the smoke, one arm missing.
Half his mask was shattered, revealing black synthetic muscle stretched over a pale, scarred jaw.

Minjae had braced for the worst.
But at the last moment, he used what little power he had left to shield himself.

The blast sent him sliding back, legs barely holding.
He dropped to a knee, panting—vision blurred, aura flickering, nearly spent.

Across from him, Geumgang stood untouched.
Unmoved.
The fortress hadn’t even flinched.

His cannon lowered.
"Surrender," the machine voice said.
"Or face execution."

Minjae looked up.
Blood on his lips. Breathing hard.

And smiled.
A tired, cocky grin.
He lifted one finger—and pointed upward.

Geumgang didn’t react.
Didn’t understand.

Until the ceiling cracked.

A low groan echoed through the structure.
Then it gave.

The entire ceiling collapsed. Steel. Concrete. Rebar.
The full weight of Geumgang and his armor smashed into the broken floor—and it was too much.

The ground shattered. The level beneath buckled.
Then the one below that.
And the one below that.

Each floor collapsed under the weight—dragging Geumgang with it.
Dragging the whole corridor.
Down into the dark.
Down into the earth.
Like hell itself was pulling Protocol V into the deep.

Minjae didn’t wait.
In a blur of motion, he reached the emergency stairwell—the only structure still holding. He grabbed the railing, launched upward.
One floor.
Two.
And then he was gone.

Leaving behind the broken wreckage—
the nightmare that was Protocol V,
now buried in ruin.

The corridor narrowed. As Minjae limped toward the exit, the corridor narrowed.

No alarms. No footsteps.
Just the soft whine of dying power.

The red emergency lights had faded to a slow pulse—like a heartbeat trying to keep going even when it shouldn’t.

He kept moving.
One step. Then another.

One arm hung limp at his side.
His shirt was torn, soaked in blood.
Aura flickered weakly. Not glowing—just holding on.
Each breath scraped his throat like broken glass.

Keep moving...

The upper hatch was close.
The surface.
The world above.

But something stopped him.

Not a weapon.
Not a soldier.

A voice.

"Keep going! I almost have it—!"

The voice echoed from the shaft ahead.

Two silhouettes.
One fumbling with a duffel bag, shoving in whatever they could.
The other—taller, wiping sweat from his face, pacing like he still had control of the situation.

The hatch control lit green.
The access door hissed open.

They turned.

Director Seo.
And beside him—his assistant.
Eyes wide. Breathing fast.

"No..." she whispered.
"He’s still alive."

Seo froze.
His face didn’t show fear.
Just disbelief.
Like his brain couldn’t accept what he was seeing.

"That’s... impossible."

Minjae stood at the mouth of the corridor.
Hair soaked. Eyes empty.
One hand still shaking from what he’d just survived.

But his presence—
Unmoving.
Steady.
Not powered—just done running.

He stepped forward.

Seo didn’t.

"Subject 208..." Seo began, his voice dry.

Minjae didn’t blink.
"Don’t call me that."

Seo paused—then straightened.
The politician beneath the lab coat came back to life.

"You don’t understand what we were trying to do. This wasn’t meant to be cruel—"

"Cruel?" Minjae’s voice cracked.
"You erased them."

His voice wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be.

"You numbered us. Drowned us. Burned us.
You took our names and turned them into files."

He took another step forward.

The assistant whimpered.

Seo raised a hand—more defensive than protective.

"We had no choice! Do you even know what’s out there?
What we were preparing for?"

Minjae didn’t answer.

Seo’s voice hardened.

"You should be grateful.
The power you have now—
You’d be nothing without us."

Minjae stopped—inches from the threshold.
The air buzzed.
Not with aura.
But with something heavier.
Emotion. Rage. Grief.
Trying to become power.

"We were children," he said.
His voice cracked again.
"And you gave us tanks instead of homes."

Seo’s hand dropped.
He had no words now.
Only regret.

Minjae stared past him—at the door behind them.
The exit.
Freedom.
Sunlight.

He could taste it in the dust.

But he didn’t step forward.

Instead—he raised his hand.

The hatch behind the Director slammed shut.
Metal groaned.
The walls bent inward.
The frame cracked.

And then—the corridor behind them collapsed.
Steel. Rubble. Concrete.
Sealing them inside.

Seo shouted, voice breaking—
"What are you doing?! You’ll trap us both!"

Minjae stepped forward once more, slow and steady.
"No," he said quietly.
"I’m leaving."

Seo’s panic turned to desperation.

"You don’t understand—this is bigger than you! We were trying to save humanity!"

Minjae looked at him.
Eyes dull. Voice steady.

"You weren’t saving anyone."

He raised his hand toward the collapsed corridor.
"You were building a cage."

Then he pointed to the floor between them.
"And you filled it with children."

Seo stepped back.

"You think you’re righteous?" he snapped.
"You’re a weapon because of us!"

Minjae didn’t flinch.

"You turned me into something I never asked to be."

Behind them, the walls groaned.
The air was settling—quiet, cold, final.

He took one last look at the man who had run the nightmare. And frowned.
Not out of hatred.
But judgment.

"Now you’re the lab rat in the cage."

The Director screamed something behind the rubble—but Minjae was already gone.

He climbed.
Step after step.
One hand. One leg.

No aura. No tricks.
No power left to carry him.

Just pain.
And breath.
And memory.

Then—
Light.

Real light.
Not emergency red.
Not containment blue.

Sky.

Except... it wasn’t.

It was purple. A deep, unnatural hue that stained the sky like bruises left too long to heal.

Lightning split the clouds in crooked, jagged lines—purple on black, like cracks in glass that refused to stop spreading.

The air stank. Burnt metal. Ash. Ozone.

Every breath felt like breathing in a broken engine.

And the world—
the world was gone.

Skyscrapers had caved in on themselves, twisted like paper under a crushing hand.
Streetlights lay bent across craters.
Cars were overturned, buried halfway in dust and rubble.
Storefronts shattered.
Roads cracked open, like veins across the surface of something long dead.

No sirens.
No screams.
Not even wind.

Just silence.
Just the dead.

Minjae stepped outside.
Barefoot.
Bloodied.
Breathing.

"Is this... Korea?"

He looked up.
Lightning forked across the sky—purple and slow, like it had all the time in the world.

He didn’t flinch.

"No."
"This is what’s left of it."

He closed his eyes.
Let the wind hit his skin.
Let the silence wrap around his heart.

Then opened them again.
And for the first time in years... He remembered who he was.

"I’m not Subject 208."
"I’m Han Minjae."
"And I’ll decide who I become."

End of Prologue. }