The cold void wrapped around Gin again like a suffocating blanket. His soul, torn from the pain of betrayal, returned to the black expanse of the Death's Realm. This time, he didn't scream. He didn't rage. He just… stood.
His chest still ached with phantom pain, not from the bullet wound that had killed him, but from the bitter weight of the woman who'd pulled the trigger. She had looked him in the eyes — eyes filled with tears and greed — and chose silence over truth. He had trusted her. And she ended him.
The ground cracked beneath his feet.
"You're changing," the voice of Death slithered from the void.
Gin didn't flinch. "So are your games."
Death chuckled. "You learn faster when it hurts more."
"I want back in," Gin said, his voice steady. "Now."
"No reflection? No moment of clarity?"
"I've had enough clarity for a lifetime. Drop me back."
The laughter faded. Then the fall began — that awful weightless drop through light and darkness, until air rushed in and life slammed back into his lungs.
---
This time, it was a rooftop.
Rain pelted his face as he woke, coughing hard, the metallic taste of blood on his tongue. His new body groaned with soreness, bruised and stitched crudely. He was shirtless, wrapped in gauze, and surrounded by the cold bite of urban wind. The skyline stretched endlessly. Seoul.
His wrists were scraped raw from tight bindings — he'd been tied recently. A memory flickered behind his eyes: a flash drive… a woman's voice… betrayal… and fire.
Gin crawled to the edge of the roof and looked down. A lit sign below glowed dimly through the downpour — Donari Hotel. That name. He'd heard it in another life. The Donari Hotel was a known front under the Syndicate's vast criminal network.
A weight in his back pocket. He reached for it.
The flash drive.
Slick and warm from body heat, it pulsed like it had a soul of its own. Somehow, even after death and rebirth, it had stayed tethered to him. It was the same drive he'd stolen — the one that started everything in his last life.
This time, he would not make the same mistake.
---
Gin found shelter in the subway underbelly.
The homeless population avoided him — maybe it was the scars, or the aura of violence hanging from his shoulders. He didn't care. He needed one thing: someone who could break into the contents of the flash drive without drawing attention.
He remembered a name.
Wook. A freelance hacker with paranoia levels that made him almost invisible. Rumor was he didn't even use phones. Only found through a chain of encrypted boards on the deep web. Gin knew where to start.
It took three days to find Wook. In a claustrophobic apartment above a karaoke bar, surrounded by stacked pizza boxes and blinking monitors, Wook greeted him with a stun gun pointed at his chest.
"Who sent you?"
"No one," Gin said, tossing the flash drive on the table. "Break it open."
Wook eyed it. Then him. "You know this is Syndicate tech?"
"I guessed."
"You're either insane or suicidal."
Gin said nothing.
Wook sighed. "Alright. But if I so much as sneeze the wrong way and alarms go off, you're on your own."
"Fair."
---
Wook worked for hours.
Gin watched the code dance on the screens. Strings of encryption, layers of firewall— military-grade. Whatever was on the drive, the Syndicate had buried it deep.
Then something changed.
The monitor buzzed. A red warning blinked.
Wook paled. "Shit… they know. Someone's watching. This thing just pinged an alert to a relay server. They're coming."
Gin grabbed the drive. "Copy what you can. I'll distract them."
"There's no time!"
"Then copy it all. Twice."
Wook stared at him. "You won't make it out."
"I don't plan to."
He copied the drive. Gin grabbed one copy and ran. Before leaving, he handed Wook the original.
"Hide it. Somewhere no one can touch it.I'll send someone to get it from you
Gin vanished into the maze of alleys behind the karaoke bar
They found him within the hour.
Three Syndicate cars boxed him in on a bridge over the Han River. Gin bolted down the alley, his heartbeat like thunder. One man lunged at him with a knife—Gin slammed the attacker's head into the wall and kept running.
But he couldn't outrun the second van. A dart hit his back.
Everything went black.
---
The warehouse was cold.
Concrete walls. Iron chairs. And blood-stained floors.
Gin woke up strapped to a chair. His face already swollen from blows he didn't remember receiving.
Across from him stood a man in a black suit—skin ghostly pale, hair slicked back.
"The traitor returns," the man said.
Gin smiled through the blood. "Nice to be missed."
"You stole something that wasn't yours."
"And you killed me for it," Gin spat.
The man didn't flinch. "You don't even understand what you had."
Behind the suited man, another voice broke in.
"Boss won't like this going long."
The second-in-command.
Gin blinked slowly. He had to get something. Anything.
"What's on the drive?" he whispered.
The second-in-command laughed. "He doesn't know?"
The suited man turned sharply. "Shut up."
But it was too late.
"The file's connected to the operation in Seoul. You know—the one about the girl. Yoon something."
Gin's world slowed.
Yoon Seo.
She was part of this.
"Minjae!!"
The suited man's fist connected with the second-in-command's jaw, silencing him. Then he turned back to Gin with steel in his eyes.
"Where's the original?"
Gin coughed. "Safe."
"You won't leave this room alive."
"I figured."
As they raised the blade, Gin smiled.
"minjae" he whispered.
Minjae froze.
"Your Syndicate. Your plan. You should've buried me better."
And then it came. The final strike.
Pain, darkness, silence, rage.....
And then… silence.
---
Gin fell through the void again, but this time there was fire. Not outside — inside him. Rage, grief, and clarity merged into something new.
It wasn't just about survival anymore.
It was about answers.
It was about Yoon Seo.
The flash drive had more than just codes. It had a thread that pulled through every death. Every version of him. And at the center of the web was the Syndicate.
And now he had a name: Minjae.
The first crack in the wall.
And soon… it would all come c
rashing down.
---
Death waited.
"You're close now," Death said. "So close the thread trembles."
Gin looked up, breathless. "That file… it's about Yoon Seo. Isn't it?"
Death's silence was the only answer he needed.