The air in the Calibration Chamber felt thick, like breathing through wet wool soaked in ozone. It was a massive, circular cathedral of glass and steel, dominated by two "Neural Cradles"—suspended chairs surrounded by a forest of glowing fiber-optic cables that looked like the translucent tentacles of a deep-sea monster.
[58:12:05]
Seol-wol sat in his cradle, the cold, reinforced titanium restraints biting into his wrists and ankles. Every time he moved, the sensors hummed, sending a tiny warning shock through his skin. Across from him, Junseo was already strapped in, his smaller frame swallowed by the massive machinery.
His eyes were wide, the pupils blown so large they swallowed the iris, reflecting the harsh, clinical blue light of the status monitors.
"Wol-wol hyung..." Junseo's voice was a fragile thread, barely audible over the hum of the cooling fans. "I don't think I can do this.
The noise... it's already so loud. It sounds like bees inside my skull."
"Focus on my voice, Junseo," Seol-wol said, forcing a confidence he didn't feel. His heart was hammering against his ribs, but he projected a calm, steady rhythm through the Sync. "Just my voice. Everything else is static. We stay together, we stay alive.
Remember? One soul, two bodies."
A heavy, metallic thud echoed through the chamber as the observation catwalk above hissed open. Borislav stepped out, flanked by a team of technicians in sterile white hazard suits. He looked down at them not as human beings, but as two engines he was about to redline. There was a manic fever in his eyes—the look of a man who knew he was either going to be a god or a corpse by morning.
"Begin the calibration," Borislav commanded, his voice cold and devoid of pity. "Push the Sync-Ratio to 95 percent. I want the neural bridge wide enough to swallow the vault's entire encryption key in a single burst."
"Commander," the lead technician stammered, his fingers hovering over the kill-switch. "The subjects haven't recovered.
Their synaptic pathways are still inflamed from the train mission. 95 percent will cause permanent scarring. They might not... their minds might simply dissolve."
Borislav didn't even look at the man. He gripped the railing, his knuckles white.
"Then we'll have a very expensive pair of corpses to sweep up. Do it. Now. The Excellency is waiting."
The machines groaned to life. A high-pitched whine filled the room, rising in frequency until it vibrated in Seol-wol's teeth. Suddenly, the world inverted.
30%... 50%... 70%...
The Sync hit Seol-wol like a physical blow to the chest. It wasn't just thoughts anymore; it was a total invasion of the senses. He could taste the copper tang of fear in Junseo's mouth. He could feel the frantic, fluttering heartbeat in Junseo's chest as if it were his own. The boundary between "I" and "We" began to dissolve into a sea of white noise and shared agony.
[85% Sync Achievement]
"Stop it! You're burning him!" Seol-wol screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the roar of the neural turbines.
Through the link, he felt Junseo's mind beginning to fray. It felt like watching a beautiful, ancient tapestry being ripped apart by invisible, digital claws. Junseo's memories—their mother's face in the candle-light, the smell of rain on the gutter-stones, the taste of stolen bread—were being dragged into the void, replaced by the cold, geometric logic of the "Master Blueprint."
"I see it!" Junseo shrieked, his body arching so violently against the restraints that his joints popped. "The white room! The monster is looking at me! Hyung, help me! It's pulling me in! It's eating me!"
"Push to 95!" Borislav's voice boomed from the heavens, sounding like a distorted god.
"Sir, Junseo's vitals are flatlining! His brain activity is peaking into the red zone!" the tech yelled, his voice panicked.
"I SAID DO IT!"
The needle hit 95%.
The physical world vanished. Seol-wol was no longer in the chamber. He was standing in that infinite, blinding white void again. But this time, he wasn't alone. In the center of the void was a towering, shifting mass of raw data—a "Ghost" that had the shifting face of an old man but the eyes of a starving, cosmic wolf.
It reached for Junseo, who was shivering on the floor of the vision, his identity leaking away like water.
NO! Seol-wol roared. He didn't have a weapon in this digital hell. He didn't have a pulse-blade or a gun. But he had his anchor.
He reached into the "memory" of his pocket and felt the cold, jagged weight of the metallic bolt.
In this world of pure, perfect code, the rusted bolt was a jagged glitch. It was a piece of unhackable, dirty reality. Seol-wol lunged forward, throwing his entire existence into the movement, and jammed the imaginary bolt into the white floor of the vision.
CRACK.
The white void shattered like a sheet of ice.
The feedback loop reversed with the force of a tidal wave, rushing back through the cables.
In the real world, the monitors in the Calibration Chamber exploded in a shower of glass and sparks. The fiber-optic cables whipped around like dying snakes, spraying coolant fluid everywhere. Borislav was thrown back against the railing as a surge of raw neural energy blew out the entire wing's power grid.
Silence fell, heavy and suffocating. The only light came from the emergency red strobes, casting a bloody hue over the wreckage.
Seol-wol slumped in his chair, blood dripping from his nose, his ears, and the corners of his eyes. He felt like his brain had been washed in acid. He looked across at Junseo.
His brother was limp, his head lolling to the side, his chest not moving.
"Junseo..." Seol-wol gasped, his fingers clawing uselessly at the titanium restraints.
"Junseo! Breathe! Damn you, breathe!"
A hand landed on Seol-wol's shoulder. It wasn't a technician or a guard. It was Miran.
He had appeared out of the smoke and shadows, untouched by the explosion. He didn't look at the chaos or the injured Borislav. He looked at Seol-wol with a terrifying, hungry intensity that made Seol-wol's skin crawl.
"You did it," Miran whispered, his voice vibrating with a dark, egoistic pride. "You broke the 95 percent threshold and survived. You used that piece of scrap metal to dent the Mind of the World. You're not just a key anymore, Seol-wol."
Miran leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of Seol-wol's ear as the red lights strobed, making him look like a demon.
"You're the Master Key. The only one who can walk into the vault without being erased.
And now, Borislav knows it too. Look at him."
From the catwalk above, Borislav stood up, his face scorched and twisted in a mask of murderous, desperate greed. He didn't care about the damage. He only cared about the power he had just felt. "Secure them! Lock down the infirmary! Don't let them leave this room! They are the property of the Excellency! They are the Crown Jewels!"
Seol-wol looked at his unconscious brother, then at the rusted bolt that had fallen from his tunic onto the floor, glowing faintly from the residual energy. The 72-hour clock was dead. There was no more waiting.
"Get... away from us," Seol-wol rasped at Miran, his eyes burning with a new, dangerous light.
"Oh, I'm not the one you should be worried about," Miran smirked, stepping back into the shadows. "The hunt has begun, little thief. Let's see if you can run as fast as you can steal."
The doors to the chamber burst open as the "Black-Site" guards rushed in, rifles raised.
Seol-wol gripped the arms of his chair, his mind screaming. He had to get Junseo out.
He had to kill everyone in this room if he had to.