Kai moved faster than the frame rate could render.
One second he was on the bridge railing; the next, he was in front of Yoo-jin. His daggers were blurs of neon violet light.
"Die," Kai whispered.
CLANG.
Min-ji intercepted. Her spiked bat caught the daggers, sparking a shower of digital pixels.
"Get back!" Min-ji grunted, her avatar straining. "His strength stats are maxed out!"
"It's the Premium Package," Kai sneered. He kicked Min-ji in the chest.
She flew backward, skidding across the light-bridge. Her health bar dropped by 30% in a single hit.
"Min-ji!" Eden rushed forward.
Kai spun, a whirlwind of blades. He slashed Eden's arm, carving deep gouges into the metal chassis.
"Too slow," Kai laughed. "You're running on outdated hardware, robot."
Yoo-jin watched, his eyes narrowing.
He didn't see a fight. He saw a performance.
Kai's movements were fluid, rhythmic, and perfectly timed. It was the result of years of idol training, translated into combat code.
Yoo-jin activated The Producer's Eye.
[Analyzing Motion Data...]
[Pattern Recognized: 'Eternity' Debut Choreography - Bridge Section]
Yoo-jin smiled grimly. Mason was lazy. He had recycled Kai's dance animations for his combat style.
"Sol! Luna!" Yoo-jin shouted. "Tempo 140! Give me a snare beat!"
"What?" Sol blinked.
"Just do it! Beatbox!"
Sol didn't argue. She cupped her mic. Pish-tish-Pish-tish.
Yoo-jin stepped forward, right into the kill zone.
"Kai!" Yoo-jin barked. "Your spacing is off! Center position!"
Kai faltered. For a split second, the idol training overrode the assassin programming. He instinctively checked his footing.
"Left foot pivot! Turn on four!" Yoo-jin commanded, clapping his hands. "Five, six, seven, eight!"
Kai spun. Not to attack, but because the rhythm demanded it.
He realized his mistake a second too late. "You—"
"Min-ji! Downbeat!"
Min-ji was already in the air. She swung her bat in perfect sync with the rhythm.
CRACK.
She hit Kai squarely in the ribs. The "perfect" idol avatar crumpled.
"You're off beat," Min-ji snarled.
Kai rolled away, gasping. His health bar flickered yellow.
"You think this is a game?" Kai wiped digital blood from his lip. His eyes glowed with genuine hatred. "I'm going to delete you."
He raised his daggers. The air around him shimmered. He was charging an Ultimate Skill.
[Skill: Phantom Dance]
[Effect: 500% Agility Boost]
"He's going to speed-blitz us," David warned in the earpiece. "Yoo-jin, you can't dodge that."
"I don't need to dodge," Yoo-jin said.
He looked at the crowd behind them. The thousands of "Streaming Bots" that had just woken up. They were confused, scared, swirling with colorful glimmers of their returned humanity.
"Citizens of Sanctuary!" Yoo-jin's voice amplified, hacking the local audio channel.
The crowd looked at him.
"That man," Yoo-jin pointed at Kai. "Is the reason you're trapped here. He's the bouncer at the door of your prison."
The crowd murmured. Anger, hot and real, began to bubble up.
"Do you want to leave?" Yoo-jin asked.
"YES!" A few voices shouted.
"Do you want your names back?"
"YES!" The roar grew louder.
"Then move," Yoo-jin commanded. "Crowd Crush."
Kai triggered his skill. He launched himself at Yoo-jin like a missile.
But he didn't hit Yoo-jin.
He hit a wall of meat.
Thousands of avatars surged forward. They didn't attack Kai; they just occupied the space. They were a swarm of gray jumpsuits, desperate and heavy.
"Get off me!" Kai slashed, deleting three avatars.
But ten more took their place. Then a hundred. Then a thousand.
"It's a lag switch," David laughed hysterically. "There are too many collision physics calculations! He can't move!"
Kai was buried under the weight of the fandom he despised. He thrashed, screaming, but the sheer mass of humanity pinned him to the bridge.
"Let's go," Yoo-jin turned his back on the struggling assassin. "He's canceled."
The Vault door was a slab of obsidian, fifty feet high.
There was no keyhole. No handle. Just a biometric scanner glowing red.
"It requires Mason's retina scan," Sae-ri said, touching the cold surface. "Or an Admin Key."
"We don't have time to find a key," Min-ji looked behind them. The Kai-pile wouldn't hold forever.
"David," Yoo-jin tapped his headset. "Is the stream still live?"
"Yes! 20 million viewers. They're going nuts. Donations are flying in."
"Good. Connect the donation API to the door's input slot."
"What? That's a security port, not a payment terminal!"
"Everything in this world is for sale, David. Even the locks."
Yoo-jin placed his hand on the door.
[System Message: Insufficient Clearance.]
[Bribe?]
Yoo-jin smirked. "Open the floodgates."
David routed the crypto-wallet. All the donations, all the loot from the Gatekeeper, all the stolen gold.
Millions of credits slammed into the door's logic gate.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
The red light flickered. The system was confused. It wasn't designed to reject money.
[Processing Payment...]
[Processing...]
[Access Granted: VIP Guest.]
The obsidian slab groaned. It split down the middle.
Golden light spilled out, blinding them.
"Unbelievable," Sae-ri breathed. "You literally paid to win."
"I learned from the best," Yoo-jin walked inside.
The interior of the Vault wasn't a room. It was a vortex.
They stood on a narrow platform suspended in a void. Around them, swirling like a hurricane, were streams of glowing numbers.
Trillions of transactions.
+500 Won (Skin Purchase)
+10,000 Won (Concert Ticket)
+50 Won (Ad View)
It was the lifeblood of Zenith. The River of Money.
"Look at it," David's voice trembled. "That's the GDP of a small country flowing past us every second."
"And here's our tab," Yoo-jin pointed to the sky.
A massive, red holographic counter hung above the vortex.
[DEBT: 500,000,000,000 WON]
[Status: DELINQUENT]
[Interest Accruing...]
It was a crushing sight. The number felt heavy, like a physical weight pressing down on their chests.
"How do we even make a dent in that?" Luna whispered.
Yoo-jin walked to the edge of the platform. He looked down at the swirling river of cash.
He raised his hand. His fingers twitched, manipulating the invisible interface of his Producer System.
"We don't pay it," Yoo-jin said. "We intercept it."
"David. Reroute the stream. Connect the 'Inflow' pipe directly to the 'Debt' counter."
"Yoo-jin, if I do that, the system will detect a massive accounting error. Mason will come personally."
"Let him come," Yoo-jin's eyes were cold. "Do it."
David typed furiously.
A massive beam of gold light diverted from the river. It arched through the air and slammed into the red debt counter.
BOOOOOM.
The impact shook the entire platform.
The numbers on the counter began to spin. Blur.
499,000,000,000
495,000,000,000
480,000,000,000
It was dropping by billions every second.
"Yes!" Min-ji cheered, jumping up and down. "Burn! Burn it all!"
Sae-ri watched the numbers fall. For the first time in months, the shadow over her future seemed to lighten.
Suddenly, the vortex turned red.
[WARNING: ILLEGAL TRANSACTION.]
[WARNING: SECURITY LEVEL ALPHA.]
The platform shook violently. The golden river turned into magma.
"They're cutting the connection!" David yelled. "I'm locked out!"
The counter stopped.
[DEBT: 350,000,000,000 WON]
"We paid off 150 billion," Yoo-jin wiped sweat from his forehead. "Not bad for five minutes of work."
"We have to go," Eden warned. "Admin signatures approaching. Multiple. High level."
"No," Yoo-jin sat down on the floor of the platform.
The team looked at him.
"Hyung?" Sol asked. "We grab the cash and run, right?"
"Run where?" Yoo-jin looked at the vast, hostile digital world around them. "Back to the truck? Back to being hunted?"
He pulled a digital cigarette from his inventory—a useless cosmetic item—and lit it.
"We just stole 150 billion won. That makes us the biggest shareholders in this room."
He gestured to the Vault.
"We aren't leaving. We're squatting."
He looked at Sae-ri.
"This is our base now. We control the money flow. If Mason wants us out, he has to destroy his own bank to do it."
Sae-ri smiled. It was a sharp, dangerous smile.
She sat down next to him. She pulled out her weapon.
"I always wanted a penthouse," she said.
Min-ji cracked her knuckles. Eden stood guard at the door. Sol and Luna took positions on the flanks.
Outside, the roar of Admin Enforcers grew louder. The sky turned crimson.
Yoo-jin exhaled a cloud of digital smoke.
"Let them knock."