The air in the bunker was thick with the dust of betrayal. Dohyun, the Revenant, acted as if the previous night's discovery—Yoona's communication with Hyuk-jin—had never happened. His face was a mask of cold, tactical focus as he woke his team.
"Five minutes. Final preparations," Dohyun commanded, his voice firm but low. "Jae-wan, you get the heavy pack. Seo-yeon, you monitor the comms from the surface. Soo-min, you stay here. You are the safety lock."
The Counter-Betrayal
Soo-min looked up from her cot, her expression a mix of exhaustion and the difficult, post-intimacy acknowledgment of his command. "Stay? But if you're raiding the club, you need a medic for trauma. That's my purpose."
Dohyun looked directly at her, using the sincerity he still possessed, but twisting it for the lie. "You're the most critical asset, Soo-min. I need you to guard the fortress. If this raid goes wrong, you are the only one capable of keeping my family and the others alive. More importantly, the generator has a manual override switch hidden behind the main power panel. If the power fails, you must access that switch and keep the life support running. It's a complicated sequence. No one else can do it."
It was a perfectly constructed lie. It elevated her importance, appealed to her medical professionalism, and most importantly, it sent her attention—and potential action—to a specific place away from the generator's actual fuel supply, where Yoona would make her move.
He placed the Silent Pistol into his father's hands. "Dad, the moment the lights flicker, you get behind that door. Don't worry about the noise. Protect them."
His father nodded, fear battling resolve as he gripped the heavy weapon.
Dohyun turned to his sister, Yoona, whose eyes darted away immediately. "Yoona, you stay with Mom. Don't leave the main chamber. The air system is safest here."
He made sure to sound urgent, final, and convincing. He needed her to believe he was fully committed to the raid.
Ingress and Ambush
Dohyun secured the heavy chains around Jae-wan's enormous wrists and led him out, Seo-yeon—her shattered hand heavily bandaged—scrambling to keep up, her gaze scanning the surrounding treeline.
As they reached the old van, Dohyun spoke to Seo-yeon, his voice low and devoid of previous warmth. "We are not going to the Aurora Club. We're going two kilometers down the road, to the abandoned forestry lookout point. We wait for twenty minutes. You are going to use your eyesight to track movement on this hillside. If I see any sign of deception, you die instantly."
Seo-yeon paled. The change in his demeanor was absolute. She knew he had read her information and was now testing her loyalty under fire. "I told you everything I know, Dohyun. I want protection."
"Then watch the forest," Dohyun snapped, shoving her into the front seat.
He drove the van two kilometers down the mountain road, pulled deep into a ravine, and killed the engine. They waited in total silence.
Dohyun's internal clock was ticking down. The generator overheating was set for 45 minutes from his feigned departure.
The Attack on the Tomb
At the 35-minute mark, Dohyun's \text{PER } 17 registered the tell-tale hum of vehicles—not just one, but three, moving silently and efficiently up the rarely used service road.
"Target acquisition," Dohyun hissed. "Hyuk-jin's extraction team. They're here to 'save' Yoona and finish me off in the dark."
Seo-yeon, witnessing the reality of the ambush she'd helped enable, swallowed hard. Her breath hitched. "They... they won't expect anyone to be here."
"Exactly," Dohyun said, pulling the Silent Pistol and the Assault Rifle from the pack. He quickly handed the rifle to a stunned Jae-wan, unlocking one of the Tank's hands. "Jae-wan. You're my shield. If they see you, they'll focus on your size. If anyone gets past you, I'll put a bullet through their skull. Understood?"
Jae-wan, still groggy from the sedatives and the pain of the chains, looked at the rifle, then at the murder in Dohyun's eyes. The brute strength of his \text{STR } 13 was instantly aligned with the only man capable of controlling him. "Understood. The Tank leads."
The three black SUVs, driven by Hyuk-jin's professional thugs, pulled up to the bunker entrance. The men emerged, moving with trained efficiency, carrying heavy breaching gear and suppressed weapons. They were not looking for a siege; they were looking for a dark, easy execution inside a deactivated bunker.
They reached the main steel hatch, where one man began to examine the "jammed" mechanism.
That was Dohyun's cue.
Dohyun and Jae-wan burst from the treeline. The element of surprise was absolute.
Dohyun opened fire with the Assault Rifle, aiming not for the head, but for the legs and shoulders, maximizing non-lethal incapacitation to gain information. The loud, brutal crack of the military rifle shattered the mountain silence.
Jae-wan roared, the sound primal and terrifying, and charged forward, an unstoppable, chained weapon. He used the butt of the rifle to smash a charging thug against the wall, reducing the man to a broken, crumpled heap.
Dohyun fired three precise, agonizing shots. Three thugs collapsed, clutching their knees and shoulders.
The extraction team was annihilated in under fifteen seconds. The ambush was a total success.
Dohyun sprinted to the remaining two thugs, pressing the silent pistol to the temple of the nearest man.
"Who else is coming?" Dohyun demanded, his voice dangerously low. "Where is Hyuk-jin?"
The thug, paralyzed by fear and pain, screamed a single word: "The Yacht! He's waiting for the all-clear at the harbor!"
Dohyun secured the intelligence. His sister's betrayal had gifted him the perfect counter-ambush, and a direct lead to Hyuk-jin's final, pre-planned escape route. The raid on the Aurora Club was cancelled. The final confrontation would be far more personal, and far more contained.