The device didn’t ring.
It didn’t buzz, blink, or glow.

It simply changed.

At 00:00:00, the cracked black-market tablet Jiyon left on his desk reset itself. The screen turned white. Then grey. Then something… deeper.

The UI wasn’t gold like the Auction System’s. It wasn’t anything. Just a shifting thread of pixel static, like code trying to remember how to render.

And then—

“Welcome, Yoon Jiyon.”
“Location: Outside of Time”
“Status: Accepted”

[Participants: 17]
[Listing: 1 of 1]

Current Item: “One Unkillable Name”
Starting Bid: “Your True Death”
Current High Bid: Hidden
Remaining Time: 07:41

He didn’t remember consenting.
But then, he didn’t remember a lot of things lately.

The screen dimmed.

Then the feeling began.

It wasn’t teleportation.

It was a drift.

Jiyon blinked — and he was somewhere else.

No room. No walls. Just a vast, quiet nothing shot through with long, vertical threads of glitching light, each one humming slightly off-pitch, like dissonant notes from forgotten memory.

Others were here.

Some flickered in and out.
Some wore auction masks.
Some were silhouettes.
One of them stood completely still — no features, no aura, no trace.

But he could feel that one’s attention.

Watching him.

The listing hovered in front of all of them.

“One Unkillable Name”

Definition: A concept that cannot be erased, deleted, or forgotten. A memory too stable to remove.

Bid Requirement: “True Death” — of self, of identity, or of certainty.

One masked bidder stepped forward.

They didn’t speak.
But the thread recognised them.

[Bid Accepted.]
[Your Identity Slot Will Be Sealed For Review.]
[Return Will Be... Uncertain.]

The bidder vanished.

No sound. No light. Just gone.

Jiyon didn’t move.

He didn’t need the item. He didn’t need proof that he couldn’t be erased.

He was the proof.

But he felt it again.

That presence behind him. Not a threat. Not a glare.

Just a... mirror.

He turned.

And saw nothing.

But a new thread lit up.

A message. Not public. Not part of the interface.

Just four words:

“We remember you, too.”

The leak started small.

An image.

Blurred, zoomed-in, posted on a fringe bid-tracker forum.

A young man was standing calmly on the edge of a demolished ritual site in Gyeonggi-do. Flames still smouldered in the background. No expression. No damage.

Just clean posture, unburned shoes, and a single relic ring glowing faintly on his left hand.

“Tier II bidder seen neutralizing rogue summon.”
“Divine-class relic in use. System confirmed presence.”
“Unofficial source: he walked out untouched.”

Jiyon stared at the photo from a rooftop café two districts away, nursing a warm can of vending machine coffee.

No doubt.

No chance of error.

Eun Kang-ho.

In the old timeline, Kang-ho had been one of the earliest rising Tier IIIs. Bright. Controlled. Exact. Obsessed with structure. But too empathetic—until the system punished him for it. He died outside Incheon, trapped between a divine-class demand loop and a collapsing field.

Jiyon had seen the footage. Had watched the logic kill him before the flames did.

But now?

Now Kang-ho was alive. And better equipped than ever.

Another ghost.

Another piece out of place.

His phone buzzed.

[Notification: Tier II Bidders Active Nearby]
[System Note: B-Class Integrity Presence Detected]

Name: Eun Kang-ho
Tier: II
Authority: Moderator Adjutant (Temporary)
Status: Compliant

Moderator adjutant.

That was new.

In the previous timeline, the System never shared roles. It never deputised. But now it was giving Kang-ho Moderator clearance?

Why?

He scrolled further down the thread. Buried between speculation and hype, one sentence caught his eye.

“He’s been asking for someone.”

“A bidder who shouldn’t be here.”
“Someone who doesn’t match the ledger.”

Jiyon closed the tab.

He didn’t need to read more.

Kang-ho wasn’t just back.

He was looking for him.

And he had the System’s blessing.