The street was no longer Seoul. It was a battlefield, a fissure between two realities. Neon signs flickered wildly overhead, their lights bending and stretching as though dragged by unseen hands. The air reeked of ozone and smoke. Civilians scattered in blind panic, some abandoning cars in the middle of intersections, others pressed flat against storefronts, too terrified to move.
And in the middle of it all, Lin stood trembling, Min-joon's arms steadying him as the tether writhed like fire beneath his skin. Across the broken asphalt, the figure in the immaculate suit emerged fully from the scar. Unlike the grotesque shadows that had come before, this one was composed, almost regal. He walked with the calm of someone who belonged here, though every inch of him radiated wrongness.
