Seoul - Nowon District - Abandoned Factory - 6:34 AM
Morning light filtered through broken windows in shafts that caught dust motes drifting through stale air, each particle visible in the pale illumination that painted the factory floor in stripes of gold and shadow.
Yoo sat against a wall with peeling paint, watching Zhao Feng's unconscious form twenty meters away where the old man lay on a relatively clean section of concrete, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm that suggested deep sedative-induced sleep rather than natural rest.
The mark on Zhao's palm was still visible even from this distance, seven circles arranged around a central void, and the seventh circle—the one labeled Surface World—continued to glow brighter with each passing hour, pulsing in time with something Yoo couldn't quite identify but felt in his bones like another heartbeat layered beneath his own.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
