The world was screaming. The high-frequency sound was like a drill pressing into Han-Jun's brain. His vision was a mess of static and blood-red filters. On the floor, the "Executioner" Min-Ho was twitching, his elegant Systema style reduced to a heap of broken pride.
Above him, the masked figure—the ghost of his brother's voice—stood perfectly still.
"Ten seconds, Han-Jun," the voice whispered through the digital mask. "The C4 is linked to your heart rate. If you stay to untie them, your pulse will spike, and the gym becomes a tomb. If you follow me, they die, but you live to find the man who pulled the trigger three years ago."
Han-Jun's heart was hammering at 180 BPM. The "Red Zone" wasn't just a warning anymore; it was a physical wall of fire in his chest.
9 seconds.
He looked at the students. The freshman girl was staring at him, tears streaming down her bruised face. She wasn't asking to be saved; she was already mourning her own death.
8 seconds.
Han-Jun's logic, the cold training of the Aegis Protocol, told him to run. A soldier survives to complete the mission. The mission was the Iron Realm. The students were "acceptable collateral."
7 seconds.
"I'm not a soldier," Han-Jun growled, his voice breaking through the high-frequency noise. "And I'm definitely not a hero."
He didn't run toward the door. He didn't run toward the masked man.
He ran toward the giant wrestler he had just knocked out.
6 seconds.
He grabbed the giant's massive brass knuckles from the floor. With a roar of agony, Han-Jun threw his entire body weight into a sliding tackle across the polished wood, reaching the first basketball hoop.
5 seconds.
He didn't untie the ropes. He didn't have time. He used the sharp edge of the brass knuckles to saw through the nylon mesh and the plastic zip-ties in one brutal, jagged motion.
4 seconds.
He repeated the movement for the second hoop. His heart rate hit 200 BPM.
CRITICAL WARNING: CARDIAC RUPTURE IMMINENT.
POWER LEVEL: 1850 (BURST MODE).
3 seconds.
"You're a fool, Han-Jun," the masked figure said, turning toward the exit. "You chose the weak."
2 seconds.
Han-Jun reached the last group of students. His muscles were tearing from the sheer speed of his movements. He slashed the last rope. "RUN!" he screamed, the sound tearing his vocal cords.
1 second.
Han-Jun didn't follow the students. He turned back toward the center of the gym, where the main C4 charge was blinking red. He grabbed the heavy leather chair Min-Ho had been sitting in and threw it with inhuman strength at the reinforced glass of the high windows.
0 seconds.
BOOM.
The explosion didn't happen at the beams. The masked man had lied. The C4 was a distraction—the real charge was under the center court.
The floor erupted. A wave of heat and splintered wood sent Han-Jun flying through the air. He crashed through the shattered window he had just broken, falling three stories into the darkness outside.
The Rain and the Shadow
Han-Jun hit the roof of a parked van before rolling onto the wet asphalt. The rain started to fall, cold and sharp, washing the blood from his face.
His heart was silent. For a terrifying moment, he thought it had finally stopped. Then—thump—a slow, heavy beat. Then another. He was alive. Barely.
"You really are a piece of work," a voice said.
Han-Jun looked up. It wasn't the masked man. It was Lee So-Mi. She was holding a tablet, her face illuminated by the blue light of the screen. Behind her, three black SUVs with tinted windows were idling.
"The Aegis doctors are going to have a field day with your bio-data," she said, kneeling beside him. "You hit a Power Level of 1850. That's higher than the Alpha prototype."
"The students..." Han-Jun wheezed.
"They got out. Mostly scratches and smoke inhalation. You saved them, Han-Jun. But you lost the ghost."
Han-Jun grabbed her jacket, his grip weak but desperate. "The masked man... he had Han-Seol's voice. It wasn't a recording. It was him."
So-Mi sighed, looking at her tablet. "According to our sensors, there was no one else in that gym besides you, the students, and Min-Ho's crew. The 'masked man' didn't show up on any thermal scan."
Han-Jun froze. "That's impossible. He spoke to me. He touched my shoulder."
"Hallucinations are a side effect of the Red Zone, Han-Jun. When the heart starves the brain of oxygen, you see what you want to see."
Han-Jun let go of her jacket. He looked at the burning gymnasium. Was it a hallucination? Or was the masked man using tech that even Aegis couldn't track?
The New Ranking
Two days later.
Han-Jun was back at school. His chest was heavily bandaged, and he walked with a slight limp, but his presence was different now. The hallways didn't just go silent when he passed—they turned cold.
He walked toward his desk. Someone had left a newspaper there. The headline read: TERRORIST ATTACK AT DAESHIN HIGH? GAS LEAK CAUSES EXPLOSION.
The government was already covering it up.
He sat down and opened his phone. The ranking app So-Mi had shown him had been updated.
The Iron Realm: Updated Rankings
Park Jin-Woo (The King) - Power Level: ???
VACANT (Formerly Ryu Min-Ho - Status: Hospitalized/Retired)
The Ghost (Kang Han-Jun) - Power Level: 1200 (Suppressed)
Below the rankings, there was a new section: The Wanted List.
His name was at the top. But it wasn't the Iron Realm that wanted him. It was a group he had never heard of: The Seven Apices.
"They're coming for you," a voice said.
Han-Jun didn't look up. He knew the scent of her perfume by now. "Who are the Seven?"
So-Mi sat on the desk in front of him. "The true rulers of the school system. If the Iron Realm is the army, the Seven Apices are the special forces. Each one represents a different district. And you just humiliated their favorite executioner."
She leaned in, whispering. "One of them is already here. In this building. He's been watching you since you walked through the gates this morning."
Han-Jun finally looked up. His eyes scanned the classroom. Everything looked normal. Students chatting, someone sleeping, a teacher writing on the board.
Then, he saw it.
In the very back corner, a small, pale boy with thick glasses was staring at him. The boy wasn't even five feet tall. He looked like a victim—the kind of kid Han-Jun would usually protect.
The boy lifted a pencil and snapped it in half with one hand. Not by bending it, but by crushing it into dust between his thumb and forefinger.
The boy mouthed three words: "Not... fast... enough."
Han-Jun felt a chill that had nothing to do with his heart condition. The boy in the corner didn't have a Power Level on the app. The screen just showed a flickering error message whenever Han-Jun tried to scan him.
Suddenly, Han-Jun's phone buzzed. A new message from the "dead" brother's number.
"The boy isn't the Apex. The boy is the bait. Look at the ceiling."
Han-Jun looked up. Above his head, the heavy industrial ceiling fan was spinning at maximum speed. He noticed, just a second too late, that the bolts holding the three-hundred-pound motor were glowing red-hot.
Someone hadn't just loosened them. Someone had used thermite.