The countdown on the laptop screen glowed an unforgiving blood-red: 71:54:12.
Jin-Woo leaned against the wooden bleachers, his breathing shallow and ragged. The makeshift tourniquet Seo-Ah had tied was already soaked through. His mortal body was shutting down, drifting into the cold grey haze of hemorrhagic shock.
"Jin-Woo, you need a hospital," Tae-Soo panicked, his fingers hovering over his phone. "I don't care about the raid or the gods. If I don't call an ambulance, you're dead!"
"A mortal doctor... cannot stitch a wound made by a deity," Jin-Woo grunted, his vision blurring. "The golden energy is still eating the bone. It will just spread."
"Then what do we do?!" Seo-Ah asked, her voice tight, her hand hovering near his shoulder, afraid to touch him.
Suddenly, a heavy, sinking chill swept through the gym. It wasn't the sharp, crushing gravity of the God of Victory. It was a slow, numbing dampness. A sudden, unexplainable urge to weep hit Tae-Soo, and Seo-Ah felt the phantom ache of every bruise she'd ever received.
CLATTER.
Someone tripped over the metal doorframe.
A young woman stumbled into the dim light. She wore an oversized, faded beige cardigan that swallowed her hands, mismatched socks, and a messy bun that looked like it hadn't seen a brush in days. In one hand, she clutched a plastic convenience store bag.
"Jin-Woo-nim..." she whispered, her large eyes welling with tears. She hurried forward, nearly tripping over her own feet again. "I felt it. The absolute misery. It drew me here like a moth."
"Na-Ri," Jin-Woo sighed, too weak to even sound annoyed. "I told you... stop following me."
"Who is she?!" Tae-Soo yelled, backing away as a wave of sudden depression washed over him.
"Yoo Na-Ri," Jin-Woo muttered, wincing as a fresh spike of pain hit his marrow. "The Goddess of Misery. She doesn't heal, Tae-Soo. She can't mend a single cell. She only... consumes the suffering."
"That's mean, Jin-Woo-nim," Na-Ri pouted, dropping her convenience store bag. She knelt beside him, her hands trembling. "But you're right. I'm weak. I got fired from my part-time job today. I dropped the cash register. Again."
"Na-Ri, leave. The Victory Faction is coming for this place."
"I know," she said softly, her voice turning hollow and ancient. "Everyone knows. But nobody is coming to help you. They're all afraid of Kang Do-Yoon. Except for me. Because... well, I have nothing left to lose."
She placed her small, cold hands directly over Jin-Woo's mangled, glowing arm.
"I am not a healer," Na-Ri whispered, her dark eyes reflecting his agony. "I do not create life. I only consume suffering. If I take your pain, the body will have no choice but to warp back together to fill the void."
Na-Ri opened her mouth and inhaled.
A thick, pitch-black smoke began to seep out of Jin-Woo's ruined arm. It was the physical manifestation of his trauma, the lingering golden destruction of the hound, and the despair of a failing vessel.
"ARGH!"
A guttural roar ripped from Jin-Woo's throat. He violently thrashed against the bleachers. This wasn't a gentle healing; it was a brutal, forced reconstruction. Under Na-Ri's hands, the shattered radius and ulna bones snapped back together with the sickening sound of wet wood breaking. Torn muscle fibers whipped around like live wires, stitching themselves shut by sheer force of the 'misery' being sucked out.
[System Alert: Interference from the Domain of Misery.][Mortal Vessel Integrity stabilized at 85%.][Warning: Permanent physical scarring acquired.]
Jin-Woo gasped, his head falling back as the process finished. For a long, agonizing minute, he couldn't move. His fingers twitched, slow and stiff, as if learning how to be part of a hand again. Every nerve ending felt scorched.
He slowly lifted his left arm. The bone was whole, but running up his forearm were thick, jagged, black scars that looked like lightning strikes burned into his skin.
"It's ugly," Na-Ri whispered, wiping a drop of black bile from her chin. "It always leaves a mark when I do it."
Jin-Woo flexed his fingers. They obeyed, though each movement felt like a dull needle pricking his skin. He reached out and awkwardly patted Na-Ri's messy bun.
"It functions. You did well, Na-Ri."
Na-Ri froze, her face turning a bright, panicked red. She buried her face in her oversized sleeves, squealing quietly.
"Okay... so the clumsy stalker is a god," Tae-Soo said, shaking himself out of his stupor. "And your arm looks like a demon's claw. Now, can we talk about the seventy hours left before we get slaughtered? I need to start encrypting the server backdoors and packaging Seo-Ah's data or we're finished."
Jin-Woo stood up, his balance shaky but returning. He looked at Tae-Soo's laptop, the red numbers ticking down like a heavy, industrial heartbeat.
"We need Faith to upgrade this Sanctuary before the breach," Jin-Woo said. "Tae-Soo, you said nobody searches for 'War' anymore. You're right. In this era, people don't want a war—they want a 'Verdict'."
Tae-Soo adjusted his glasses, his fingers already hovering over the keys as he mentally calculated the bandwidth they'd need for a mass leak. "A verdict? You mean... justice?"
"No. Justice is too slow," Jin-Woo pointed at Seo-Ah. "Yoon Seo-Ah, those recordings you have. The evidence of extortion. The videos of the bullying. Tae-Soo, I want you to build a 'Court of War' interface. Frame this as a Declaration of Vengeance. Make the world choose a side."
Tae-Soo looked at the laptop, then at Jin-Woo. A slow, wicked grin replaced his panic. "If I package this data correctly... make it impossible to take down... we won't just go viral. We'll start a digital crusade. We'll have a thousand angry, desperate believers begging for blood by dawn."
"Do it," Jin-Woo ordered, his golden eyes narrowing as the weight of the ticking clock pressed against his chest. "Seventy hours. We aren't just building a temple, Tae-Soo. We're building a guillotine."