"YAA!!!!!!!"
The bellows cracked across the drafty conference room like a whip.
Inside the dusty top floor of a forgotten building in Guro District, four men flinched as an old voice rattled the windows. The place belonged to Covenant: Brass Ring, a mid-tier crew clinging to scraps of relevance in the Rift scene.
"How the hell are you idiots just watching them go rift-hopping like it's a damn sightseeing tour?! Not one of you thought to interfere? Delay them? Warn them?"
The old man snarled, slamming a folder onto the table hard enough to bounce it open. His name was Oh Sangdeuk, co-founder of Brass Ring—and the only reason it hadn't folded years ago.
"Sir, with respect."
Ryu Hwan began, eyes low.
"You told us to keep an eye on them. Not to act."
"YAA, you bastard—don't talk back like you're some rookie from the big leagues!"
The old man's voice shredded the air again. The others—Lee Sanghyun, Park Hojin, and Seo Kyungmin—kept their heads down, letting the storm pass.
"They're forming a Covenant."
The words dropped like a lead weight.
Oh Sangdeuk paced around the table, cane thudding hard with each step. "A duo running Tier 3 and 4 rifts on their own. No sponsors. No oversight. Just cleaning house while we sit here fighting over D-class contracts. And now people are talking."
Silence.
"They're making us look weak. You know what that means, right? Funding dries up. Recruiters ghost. Backers pull out. No contracts, no crystals, no pay. We turn into nothing."
He pointed again, this time at Taeha's picture on the projector screen. "You know who that is?"
"Yes, sir," Minjae muttered.
"Yoon Taeha. Youngest heir of Samhwa Dynamics. Their clean energy and biotech wings just merged with the biggest Rift-tech arms supplier last year."
"And the other one?"
"Han Jaemin."
Hojin said quietly.
"Survivor of the Multi-tiered Rift malfunction incident."
Oh Sangdeuk scoffed, bitter.
"You think that's a coincidence? You think those two just 'accidentally' ended up forming a duo and running circuits under the Association's nose? This isn't a startup. It's a statement. And if they grow even one more inch…"
He sat down with a heavy sigh, rubbing his temple.
"…they'll bury us. One Rift at a time."
A heavy silence hung in the air.
"File the report,"
He said flatly.
"Keep eyes on every rift in that region. If they so much as look at a Tier 5, I want their shadows on my desk before nightfall."
"And, sir?" Sanghyun asked.
"Do we engage?"
"Not yet."
The old man muttered.
"Let's see how big they think they can grow… before we crush them."
"And while you're at it…"
Oh Sangdeuk's voice took a quieter, slower turn, his cracked lips curling into a devilish smile,
"Try recruiting this Han Jaemin."
The room went still again.
"Let's see how loyal he is."
****
Underwater Coreborn Association Facility – Level 9 Depth
Somewhere off the southern coast, deep beneath the ocean, hidden behind reinforced pressure locks and triple-phase security veils, lay one of the Coreborn Association's most classified outposts.
The kind built for secrets, no surface was allowed to know.
Gyeongmin walked silently through the long steel corridors, his coat brushing softly against his sides. Behind him, a small unit of Association elites followed, their boots muted against the polished floor. Not one of them spoke.
The silence wasn't from respect. It was instinct.
Because this place was empty.
Completely.
No humming machines. No lab technicians. No chatter from research halls. No flickering terminals, no drones, no blinking panels. Every light was on, but everything felt... wrong.
"This is where Project Tidebreaker was housed."
One of the men behind Gyeongmin muttered under his breath.
"There were five departments here last month. Now there's not even a chair left."
"Don't speak unless I ask you to."
Gyeongmin said calmly.
They continued down the hallway. Windows revealed chamber after chamber—scrubbed clean, spotless, devoid of even a paperclip. It wasn't just evacuated. It was erased.
"This wasn't a relocation," one of the men whispered. "
They cleared this like it never existed."
Gyeongmin didn't reply.
His eyes were fixed straight ahead. Whatever was once studied here… it had either outgrown its cage or been buried so deep even the sea forgot.
The deeper they went, the quieter it got.
First came the hum of overhead lights. Then silence.
Then just footsteps.
The fluorescent glow faded behind them. Lights dimmed to yellow… then orange… then—
Candles.
Fixed into the walls, burning low, swaying with every draft. No wind should've existed this far down.
Gyeongmin didn't slow.
The men behind him shifted uneasily, breath hitching.
"Director-nim… is it still worth trying? I don't think it will ope—"
"Keep silent."
Gyeongmin snapped without turning.
That was enough.
The man shut up.
The air grew thicker. Walls began to sweat—literally. Damp stone. Black moss creeping through steel seams. It felt like the base had stopped being mechanical.
It felt alive.
And not in a good way.
They walked deeper still. Every corridor is darker than the last. The only sound was the soft flick of candle flames… and the water dripping from the pipes above.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
No one dared speak again.
They were almost there.
This place wore the Coreborn Association's emblem like a mask.
But it wasn't theirs. Never was.
The logo had been welded into the entrance long ago—just enough to fool satellites and inspectors. But deep down, where no light reached, this facility was something else entirely.
It had simply... existed.
Forgotten. Or hidden.
The corridors gave way to natural stone. Metallic walls turned into damp rock, veins of water running down like sweat. They emerged into a cramped chamber with, low ceiling and, soaked floor.
And at the far end—
A bunker door, twenty feet wide, bolted directly into the cave wall. Old. Imposing. Seamless, save for the thin, circuit-like engravings laced across its surface. Faint, into a triangle.
In front of it: a pedestal.
A single circular platform, half-covered in dust, surrounded by darkness. No wires. No labels. Just there.
Gyeongmin stepped forward without hesitation. The others held back.
He exhaled quietly and placed both feet onto the pedestal.
For a moment, nothing.
Then—click.
Lines across the door flared to life, glowing deep red. A thin beam of light extended out from the door, scanning him head to toe.
"Initiating identi-scan…" said a synthetic female voice, clear and emotionless.
"Genome signature: incompatible."
The glow pulsed once.
"User authentication: unsuccessful."
"Entry authorisation: rejected."
Silence.
Gyeongmin didn't move. Just stood there.
Staring at the door like it might change its mind.
It didn't.
One of the men behind him shifted nervously.
"Sir, it's been sealed for months. There's no log, no entry trail, nothing. Are we sure this isn't just some dead-end?"
Gyeongmin didn't answer.
He just stared at the door.
Then finally… he sighed. Quietly. The sound was barely audible under the dripping condensation.
He stepped back from the pedestal and muttered under his breath:
"My gut is never wrong… You better be the key here… Jaemin."
The café was quiet, tucked in the corner of a low-traffic district, walls lined with Rift maps, spreadsheets, and empty mugs. Jaemin sat across from Taeha, fingers tapping the table rhythmically, a small digital map of Seoul's rift zones hovering above his wrist.
Taeha was hunched over a tablet, munching on a croissant, humming as he organised data logs.
"Hyung-nim, if we time the Rift clears right, we can hit all three by noon. And then maybe—"
Jaemin looked up again.
Eyes on the window.
Across the glass, the world moved normally. Cars rolled by. A couple crossed the street. Birds scattered near a trash bin. Nothing out of place.
But something felt off.
Not dangerous. Not hostile. Just… there.
He narrowed his eyes.
His perception had grown sharper lately—sharper than what was considered normal, even among Coreborns. Every living thing gave off a flicker now. A blur of motion. A pulse of presence. It was like the air itself whispered when someone stepped into it.
Taeha noticed.
"Something wrong?"
Jaemin didn't answer at first.
Then, quietly.
"Someone's out there."
Taeha blinked.
"Following us?"
Jaemin shook his head.
"Can't tell. But I feel it."
He said nothing else. Just kept watching the street. Still. Focused.
Taeha swallowed, trying to stay calm. He didn't need to ask how Jaemin knew. His senses had become different—sharper, more aware. He could read the air before it shifted.
The café door opened with a soft chime.
Jaemin didn't turn.
He just said.
"Stay focused. We finish planning. We move as scheduled."
Taeha nodded slowly.
The presence outside didn't fade.
But neither did Jaemin's focus.