Yoo floated in the warm emptiness of Extras World, feeling his shattered shoulder knit together at 8.5x normal speed. The punctured lung sealed. Broken ribs fused.
Thirty minutes. Just thirty minutes to stabilize enough to move.
His eyes closed, consciousness drifting between pain and the dimension's soothing embrace.
Then I'll find another way in. Find Dad. Finish this.
The healing accelerated. Twenty minutes. Twenty-five.
Almost—
THE INTERRUPTION
The deep world shifted.
Not in Extras World. Deeper. Behind it. Beneath it.
Reality itself... hesitated.
Like a film reel catching on a projector. One frame. Two. Three.
Then—
Stop.
Yoo didn't notice.
His consciousness continued its thought: —time. Then I exit and—
But the universe had paused.
In the factory outside Extras World, Instructor Han froze mid-gesture, her hand reaching toward Jin. The scarred man's dead eyes stared at nothing, body locked in temporal suspension.
Thirty Gold-rank hunters became statues. Some mid-step. Others mid-breath.
The sodium vapor lights held their glow without flicker.
Dust particles hung in the air like stars.
The world had stopped.
A presence descended.
Not entered. Not arrived. Simply was—as if it had always been there, hidden behind the thin membrane separating real from impossible.
It had no form.
No body.
Just awareness that pressed against existence like it was an order.
When it observed the frozen factory, reality bent around its attention.
The presence examined the scene with infinite patience:
Han's tactical positioning. The Gold-ranks' coordinated formation. The trap's elegant precision.
Then—curiosity—it looked deeper.
Through concrete. Through steel. Through the fabric of space itself.
Found the pocket dimension.
Found Yoo.
Found the child floating in healing darkness, consciousness damaged and recovering, unaware that time itself had stopped for him.
The presence studied.
This soul. This fragment. This echo from a timeline that should be inaccessible.
Interesting.
It reached—not with hands, but with intent—and touched the thread of causality leading backward.
REVERSAL
Reality unwound.
Frame by frame, moment by moment, the world spun counterclockwise.
Yoo's healing reversed. Injuries returned. His consciousness pulled backward through pain.
The Gap closed. He tumbled out of Extras World.
Gold-ranks released him. Moved backward. Returned to positions.
Han spoke words in reverse, syllables meaningless.
The factory lights dimmed in sequence. Click. Click. Click.
Darkness returned.
Yoo stood outside again, thirty minutes earlier, preparing to scout the perimeter—
—and the presence adjusted.
A single thread in causality's weave.
One tiny change, imperceptible, that would reshape everything.
Then it withdrew.
Folded back into the spaces between moments.
Gone.
Reality resumed.
Nobody noticed the pause.
Not Yoo, whose consciousness never registered the interruption.
Not Akasha Archive, whose data stream showed perfect continuity.
Not the thirty Gold-ranks who continued their vigil, unaware they'd been frozen specimens in time's museum.
The universe had stopped, reversed, and restarted.
And left no evidence of its manipulation.
Except—
One thread had changed.
One tiny alteration in the pattern.
Arrival – 23:47 (13 Minutes Early)
Yoo approached the abandoned factory from downwind.
Iron rank 19 wasn't much, but it was enough for basic Energy Sense — thirty-meter range, moderate precision.
Wait.
He paused mid-step.
A strange feeling. Like déjà vu's stronger, sharper cousin.
Have I... been here before?
No. Impossible. First time at this factory.
But the sensation persisted. Faint. Unsettling.
Like walking through a door and forgetting why you entered the room.
Focus. Dad first. Strange feelings later.
He shook it off. Circled the perimeter.
The factory loomed against the night sky — five stories of rusted steel and shattered windows. Perfect ambush location.
Thirteen minutes early. Time to scout.
His Energy Sense swept the building.
And detected—
Thirty-two signatures.
Not thirty.
Thirty-two.
That's... different. I thought...
No. He'd never counted before. First scan. Obviously thirty-two.
But why did thirty feel right? Why did his mind expect—
Stop. You're paranoid. Unnecessary stress. Fear for Dad.
He counted again methodically.
Thirty-two Gold-ranks. Minimum rank 32, maximum 41.
Plus one massive signature. Diamond-tier. Hidden deeper in the structure.
Diamond 43? No... 47.
Stronger than he'd expected.
They really want me dead. Or captured. Or... whatever they're planning.
Yoo completed his circuit.
Checked time: 23:54.
Six minutes until deadline.
He could leave. Abandon this. Maybe get help.
But the thought felt wrong. Viscerally wrong.
Like abandoning a path he'd already walked.
I have to go in. I don't know maybe my intuition became stronger, or is it a new ability. Doesn't seem like it.
He approached the main entrance.
No stealth. If they expected him, hiding was pointless.
Here we go.
He walked through the door—
The factory lights erupted in sequence.
Click. Click. Click.
Sodium vapor floods, decades-old electrical systems groaning. Surgical brightness burned away every shadow.
Yoo stood exposed in the center of the factory floor.
Surrounded.
But—
Why does this feel familiar?
The Gold-rank hunters emerged from concealment with practiced coordination.
Thirty-two signatures resolving into thirty-two bodies.
Yoo's Energy Sense painted the picture:
Twelve on ground floor. Ten on catwalks. Ten in deeper sections—
Wait. Ten? I counted eight before.
No. He'd counted thirty-two total. Math checked out.
But the layout felt different. Wrong. Like furniture rearranged in a childhood home.
I'm losing it. Fear. Stress. Get it together.
He shook his head slightly as he tried to focus
The faction leader stepped forward.
A masked woman in her thirties maybe. Diamond-rank aura that made breathing harder.
She stopped five meters away.
"You came," she said.
And Yoo felt it again.
That déjà vu. That sense of—
I've heard this before. Her voice. These exact words.
Impossible.
"Where's my father?" he demanded.
Playing his role. The desperate child. The easy target.
She tilted her head. "Negotiation first."
Wait.
"You have abilities we want. Join us willingly, or we extract them painfully."
I know what she's going to say next. I KNOW.
"Extract how?" Yoo asked, even as his mind supplied the answer—
"There are ways. Messy ways."
"There are ways," the faction leader said. "Messy ways."
Yoo's heart stuttered.
What.
What is happening.
He'd known. He'd known what she would say.
Not guessed. Not intuited.
Known.
Like reading a script. Like watching a movie he'd seen before.
His hand trembled.
Am I going insane? Is this—
"Jin here," the faction leader gestured, "survived ability extraction fifteen years ago."
Yes. Jin. Scarred man with dead eyes. Lost his original power.
She was still speaking: "Lost his original power but gained our loyalty—"
Every word matched what his mind expected.
Every gesture. Every pause.
This has happened before.
But it hasn't. It's impossible.
Unless—
"Analysis?" Yoo subvocalized to Akasha Archive.
A pause. Longer than normal.
Then: "...no anomalies detected. Timeline appears linear. No evidence of temporal manipulation."
But I KNOW what she's about to say next.
She'll tell me to show proof he's alive.
I'll notice the video is fake.
She'll admit it.
This has HAPPENED.
The faction leader continued her rehearsed speech.
Yoo barely heard it.
His mind raced.
If this is a loop—if time reset—why don't I remember fully?
Why just... feelings? Déjà vu?
Unless something wanted me NOT to remember. Wanted me to ALMOST know but not quite.
Why?
"Show me proof he's alive," Yoo said.
The faction leader nodded. Expected this.
Jin-woo tapped his wrist device.
The holographic screen appeared—
Jae-sung bound in a chair. Wrong lighting angle. Inconsistent shadow. Fake footage.
Yoo had known it would be fake.
But this time, he said nothing.
Watched for five seconds. Ten.
And felt the moment approaching.
The moment where he'd laugh. Call out the deception.
Where everything would shift into—
What? Negotiation? Deal? One month of cooperation?
Is that what happened before?
Or what's SUPPOSED to happen?
He made a choice.
Different choice.
Changed the script.
"The footage is real," Yoo said quietly.
The faction leader's posture shifted. Confusion.
She didn't expect that.
Because I was supposed to catch the fake.
I was supposed to be clever.
But what if I'm NOT clever this time?
"You believe it?" Han's voice carried genuine surprise.
"Yes." Yoo met her gaze. "Where is he? What do you want?"
A pause.
Longer than before.
The faction leader studied him with new assessment.
Something changed. The script is breaking.
"We want," she said, carefully, "to make you an offer."
Different words now. Different tone.
The déjà vu shattered.
There. That's the divergence point.
Seems like it's over
Yoo felt reality settle around him.
Solid again. Real, no longer felt like he was in a simulation.
Whatever had happened—whatever impossible thing had paused and reversed the world—
He'd broken its pattern.
"What offer?" he asked.
And this time, truly did not know what would come next.