The darkness of the mountain tunnel was not a silent void; it was a pressurized chamber of screaming metal and neural agony. Inside the fourth carriage, the air was thick with the scent of ozone and the rhythmic, violet pulse of the "Cold Box."
Seol-wol was pinned to the vibrating floor, his body locked in a tetanic cramp. It felt as though his very soul was being threaded through a needle. The "Harvest" was a vacuum, pulling at his memories, his motor functions, and the "Sync" he shared with his brother. Beside him, Junseo's eyes were rolled back, his fingers clawing uselessly at the steel plating as a wet, ragged sound escaped his throat. Every second felt like an eternity of dissolution, as if the boundaries between his mind and the machine were melting away.
The stranger—the High-Tier Remnant with the violet visor—stepped over Seol-wol, his heavy tactical boots thumping against the metal floor like the tolling of a funeral bell. He reached for the hexagonal container on the pedestal, his hand gloved in reinforced carbon fiber. "Such a rare frequency," the man mused, his voice distorted by his mask.
"The Excellency will be pleased to see how much data two gutter-rats can generate before they burn out. Your lives are finally worth something as fuel."
He reached for the glass, but he never touched it.
CRASH.
The reinforced maintenance hatch in the ceiling didn't just open; it was obliterated. A shadow plummeted through the nitrogen fog, landing with a weight that made the entire locomotive shudder. The impact sent a shockwave through the floor, cracking the glass canisters of amber fluid lining the walls and sending a spray of preservative liquid across the deck.
The stranger spun around, his hand flying to the hilt of a pulse-blade, but he was moving in slow motion compared to the newcomer.
A black-gloved hand caught the stranger by the throat mid-turn with a sound like a vice clamping shut. With a terrifying display of raw, clinical power, Miran slammed the man into the reinforced hull of the carriage.
There was a sickening crack of composite armor meeting steel. Miran didn't hesitate.
He was a whirlwind of dark, focused violence. He drove a knee into the stranger's midsection and followed with a palm strike to the helmet that shattered the violet visor into a thousand glittering shards. The High-Tier Remnant slumped to the floor, blood pooling beneath his broken mask, his consciousness extinguished with a merciless efficiency that made Seol-wol's blood run cold.
The crushing pressure on Seol-wol's mind vanished instantly. The red warning lights in his vision faded to a dull grey. He fell forward, gasping for air that tasted like scorched metal and bitter cold.
Miran didn't spare a glance for the man he had just broken. He walked toward the "Cold Box" with the calm, predatory grace of a king entering his own vault. He reached out and placed a hand on the hexagonal glass. The red "Harvest" light immediately turned a deep, respectful gold. The crystalline brain inside seemed to settle, its frantic pulsing slowing to a rhythmic, peaceful throb—like a heart recognizing its own blood.
"Miran..." Seol-wol choked out, his voice a raw rasp that hurt his throat. He crawled toward Junseo, dragging his brother's limp body away from the pedestal. He felt the Sync flickering, a weak and wounded thing.
"What... what are you doing? You weren't on the manifest. You weren't in the hangar.
Where were you hiding?"
Miran didn't answer immediately. He reached down and triggered the manual override on the locomotive's command console, his fingers dancing across the keys with an intimate familiarity.
The emergency brakes engaged with a scream that sounded like the earth being torn apart. White-hot sparks sprayed past the windows, illuminating the swirling snow outside as the massive, armored train fought against its own momentum. The locomotive groaned and shuddered, finally coming to a dead stop at a lonely, snow-swept maintenance platform in the middle of the Siberian wasteland.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the ticking of cooling metal and the distant, mournful howl of the wind across the tundra.
Everyone piled out of the carriages onto the rusted metal platform—Peter, Orina, Kyla, and a dazed, shivering Junseo. They stood in a semi-circle, their weapons lowered but their bodies tense, watching the man who had appeared out of the shadows to hijack their mission. The flickering lights of the maintenance stop cast long, distorted shadows across the snow.
Miran stood at the edge of the platform, the "Cold Box" tucked under his arm. The violet glow of the container reflected in his cold, dark eyes, making him look like something more than human.
"Explanation," Seol-wol demanded, staggering toward him. He had to use a rusted railing for support, his legs still feeling like water from the neural drain. "You weren't on the transport. You weren't in the simulations. We nearly died in there. Why did you take the box, and how did you get here?"
Miran turned slowly, his expression one of supreme, egoistic boredom. He looked at Seol-wol as if the thief were a particularly dull student who had failed to see the obvious.
"I didn't need to be on your manifest to be on this mission, Seol-wol," Miran said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that cut through the wind. "I've been here since the jump.
Shadows don't need seats on a transport.
While you were busy playing hero, I was ensuring the path was clear."
He held up the hexagonal box, the crystalline brain inside shimmering with an ethereal, haunting light.
"You asked why I took the box? Because I am reclaiming my inheritance," Miran stated, his voice ringing with a pride that brooked no argument. "The neural mind inside this container... it belongs to my grandfather. He was the architect of the original sector, the genius who designed the very world you're trying to break into. This 'Master Blueprint' isn't just data. It's a sentient key. A map to the Primal Core hidden deep beneath the ice—a source of power the elites have been trying to scavenge for decades."
Seol-wol felt the world tilt. The scale of the lie was staggering. "Your grandfather? Then this whole mission... Borislav... he's been lying to us from the start."
"Borislav is a dog," Miran spat, the word dripping with a lethal contempt. "He is a mid-level tool who works for the 'Excellency' and the other elites, thinking he's a master of the game because he has a shiny title and a whip. He's a puppet who enjoys the feeling of the strings. But he doesn't know who is actually pulling them."
Miran stepped closer, his shadow engulfing Seol-wol. The air around him seemed to grow colder, more charged. "I allowed this mission to happen. I allowed Borislav to hire you, to 'discover' your compatibility, and to send you onto this train. I needed a team that was desperate enough to act as the lightning rod while I moved in the dark. You were the bait, Seol-wol. You and your brother were the only ones whose neural signatures could wake the Blueprint without triggering the self-destruct. You performed your role perfectly."
Junseo, finally finding his voice, hissed from where he sat on the crates. "You used us?
You let that machine suck the life out of us just so you could walk in and grab your family's trophy?"
Miran looked at Junseo with a chilling indifference, as if he were looking at a broken piece of equipment. "You're still breathing, aren't you? That's more than most people get when they cross my path.
Consider your survival your payment."
"What happens now?" Kyla whispered, her eyes fixed on the glowing box. She looked terrified, realizing they were caught between two monsters. "If we go back to the facility without the box, Borislav will execute us for failure. We're dead either way."
"You aren't going back without the box,"
Miran said, a dark, calculating smirk playing on his lips. "And Borislav doesn't need to know a single thing that happened in this tunnel. You will return. You will tell him the mission was a success. The team will continue to work exactly as you have been.
Borislav will continue to play 'commander' for the next heist—the big one."
Seol-wol narrowed his eyes, his heart hammering in his chest. "The next heist? You're still going to use us to get into that sector?"
"I'm not just using you," Miran whispered, leaning in until his lips were inches from Seol-wol's ear, his breath hot against the freezing air. "I'm giving you a purpose.
Borislav thinks he's leading you to a payout.
I am leading you to the Ghost Heist."
Seol-wol's breath hitched. The Ghost Heist.
The name felt like a weight, a destiny he hadn't asked for.
"It's called the Ghost Heist because by the time the Excellency realizes his vault is empty, we will be gone, and the people who stood in our way will be nothing but memories," Miran continued, his hand reaching out to grip Seol-wol's chin with a possessive, egoistic pressure that forced him to look into Miran's dark eyes. "You and your brother will be my ghosts. You will follow Borislav's orders to the letter. You will play the part of the loyal, desperate thieves.
But when the moment comes, you will answer only to me. You are my keys now, and I don't lose my keys."
Miran pulled back, looking at the entire crew with the eyes of a man who had already won the war. "This is no longer about credits or survival. This is about the inheritance of the old world. And I am the only one who holds the map."