The bunker was silent, a tomb of concrete and suppressed anxiety. Dohyun had set a four-hour rest period for everyone, knowing the raid on the Aurora Club had to be executed before dawn. He lay on his cot, the tension in his \text{STR } 13 muscles refusing to yield, the cold, clinical memory of his night with Soo-min offering no lasting peace.
His mind was running through the tactical plan: Seo-yeon for the liquor tunnel ingress, Jae-wan for breaching internal resistance, and Soo-min as the vital trauma support. He was prepared for Hyuk-jin's guns, but not for betrayal from within his own core group.
He was focusing on his Tactical Map when his \text{PER } 17 registered a sound that didn't belong: a faint, almost inaudible whisper coming from the far corner of the chamber, near the medical supply partition.
He rose with the preternatural silence afforded by his \text{AGI } 13, moving across the floor without disturbing a single dust motes. He pressed himself against the concrete wall, straining his enhanced hearing.
It wasn't one of the assets. It was his sister. Yoona.
She was talking into a makeshift, unsecured radio communicator—a small device Dohyun's father had salvaged from an old military transceiver, intending to monitor emergency broadcasts.
"...Yes, I told him the generator has a five-hour limit before overheating," Yoona whispered, her voice tight with fear and guilt. "He thinks the food storage is secure... he thinks the outer blast door is locked, but I left the mechanism jammed with the cloth like you showed me."
Dohyun felt a cold, physical terror seize his heart, worse than any zombie attack. He? Who was he?
"He's planning on leaving to... to get Min-ji tonight," Yoona continued, her voice breaking. "He says he needs her for bait. It has to be tonight, before he leaves."
A sudden, sharp, metallic click came from the other side of the transmission, and a deep, familiar voice spoke—a voice Dohyun recognized from his death, a voice that symbolized everything he hated.
"Good girl, Yoona. You're doing the right thing. He's dangerous now. The moment he's gone to his little club, you and your parents are safe. Just make sure that generator overheats exactly when I tell you to. It will buy us the time we need to get you out."
It was Hyuk-jin.
The Architect of Ruin
Dohyun stood frozen, the blood roaring in his ears. His sister, the one person he had sacrificed his soul, his sanity, and his future for, was working directly with the man who had ordered her murder in the previous timeline.
The betrayal was more profound, more agonizing, than Min-ji's. Min-ji was an opportunist; Yoona was the Architect of Ruin within his own fortress.
Why? The question slammed into him with the force of a battering ram. Why would she trust him over me? Why would he keep her alive in the past, only to use her to get to me now?
Dohyun remembered the past timeline with agonizing clarity. Hyuk-jin had killed Yoona not out of cruelty, but as a message. A message that was only sent after Dohyun refused to cooperate.
A terrifying hypothesis formed: Yoona had been manipulated or recruited by Hyuk-jin before the apocalypse, possibly using the threat of his past debts, or perhaps, for some reason known only to her, she genuinely feared the monster her brother had become more than the gang leader.
His entire defensive strategy was compromised. The food, the power, the locked doors—everything he had risked his life for was a lie, a ticking clock set by his own sister.
The Double Game
Yoona ended the call, quietly slipping the radio back into the utility partition. She walked back to her cot, her back to Dohyun, trembling slightly.
Dohyun didn't move. He didn't confront her. He didn't make a sound. His \text{PER } 17 told him she was terrified, but resolute.
He walked back to his cot, his mind racing. If he confronted her, she would panic, and Hyuk-jin would know his mole was burned. His planned raid would turn into an ambush.
He had to play the double game.
He pulled the Silent Pistol and disassembled it, feigning maintenance. His face was a mask of cold concentration.
The Plan Shifted:
Feigned Departure: He would proceed with the raid, taking Jae-wan and Seo-yeon, making sure Yoona believed he was going to the Aurora Club.
Asset Protection: He would leave Soo-min behind, but not to guard; he would entrust her with a fake deadline for the generator's manual override, ensuring she stayed away from the control panel.
Ambush the Ambush: He wouldn't go to the Aurora Club immediately. He would use the brief window of opportunity created by the generator failure to trap Hyuk-jin's extraction team at the bunker.
The ultimate betrayal was not Min-ji's; it was his sister's. And now, the Revenant had a new, terrifying layer of vengeance to execute, one that involved outsmarting his most trusted asset.
He looked at the peaceful, sleeping faces of his family—his mother and father oblivious, his sister a ticking time bomb.
I will kill the man who turned you against me, Dohyun vowed silently. But first, I will use your betrayal to ensure my survival.
He activated his internal clock. It was time to wake the assets. The final, compromised raid was about to begin.