Jin felt like his heart was being squeezed by a cold, invisible hand. The air in the room didn't just smell like ozone anymore; it smelled like the end of everything. He looked at the Root Admin—that shadow with a crown—and then at the thousands of souls trapped in glass jars around them. It wasn't a laboratory. It was a harvest .
"Sixty seconds, Jin," Rin's voice cracked in his ear, sounding small and terrified. "After that, the System formats your brain. You'll just be another flickering light in a jar."
Jin didn't answer. He couldn't. His lungs felt heavy, and the "Delete" command was already humming in the back of his mind like a headache that wouldn't go away. He turned to Mi-na. Her silver veins were pulsing so hard they looked like they might burst through her skin. She looked at him with those electric blue eyes—the same eyes that used to look at him with hope in their cramped basement back home .
"Jin," she whispered. Her voice wasn't a machine's ring; it was just a girl who was scared. "I can feel them. All these people... they're screaming inside the code."
"Don't listen to them, Mi-na," Jin said, his voice raspy. He gripped his daggers until his knuckles went white . "Just look at me. Only me."
Subject Zero stepped forward, his golden armor reflecting the dying light of the room. He didn't look like a brother. He looked like a statue. "It is over, Jin. You are fighting the ocean with a cup. Give her to the Admin, and maybe they will let you live as a memory."
"A memory?" Jin laughed, a dry, bitter sound. "I'd rather be a mistake."
With a roar that tore his throat, Jin lunged. He didn't use a fancy skill name. He just threw himself at Zero with everything he had. The impact sent a jolt of pain up Jin's arm, but he didn't let go. He hacked and slashed, his movements messy and desperate . He wasn't a "Level 45 Hunter" right now; he was just a brother trying to stop a monster from touching his sister.
"Mi-na! The file!" Jin screamed as Zero's golden blade cut a line of fire across his chest.
Mi-na didn't hesitate. She didn't wait for a prompt. She grabbed the golden throne, her silver veins turning a fierce, burning white.
"I'm not a key!" she shouted, the glass jars around her beginning to crack. "I'm the one who opens the door!"
[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL OVERWRITE IN PROGRESS][RESTORE POINT FOUND: K. JIN-HO]
The Admin finally moved. His shadow stretched across the floor, cold as ice. "Enough of this glitchy drama. Format the sector."
Just as the world began to turn white—the "Delete" color—a hand made of pure, golden data reached out from the throne and grabbed the Admin's throat. A voice that Jin hadn't heard in ten years echoed through the room: "Leave my children alone."