A throbbing headache struck as GNOM sent me a signal.

  The mastermind behind the mysterious digital chaos that had tormented me for the past two days. GNOM was sensing the presence of that second liquid fragment. This was a threat on an entirely different dimension from what I'd felt from the tiger tattoo man.

  Not a primal destructive instinct, but a cold, meticulously calculated malice. It held the entire city hostage.

  As if it had no intention of letting go.

  The direction GNOM indicated was vague. Like a malfunctioning compass in my head, the needle spun frantically before finally pointing toward a faint direction: 'southeast.'

  "Damn it, do you know how big Hangook City is?"

  The curse slipped out without me realizing it. But there was no time to hesitate. The 72-hour countdown.

  Two full days had already passed, and society was in complete chaos. TV news constantly showed the paralyzed financial system and endless lines of citizens waiting at ATMs.

  Some screamed in despair, others stood dazed, and some grabbed each other by the collar and fought. The thin veneer of civilization was peeling away, revealing the primal anxiety and selfishness hidden beneath.

  This wasn't simple hacking. It was a clear act of terrorism aimed at severing society's arteries.

  I hailed a taxi and headed southeast without a destination.

  "Driver, just head south, please."

  The driver gave me a strange look for being a passenger without a destination, but I didn't care.

  Throughout the journey toward Gangnam, GNOM's signals grew clearer and stronger. The brain-piercing pain transformed into specific coordinates. Like a lighthouse beacon gradually becoming clearer through fog.

  After crossing the Han River, the signal became definite. Southeast. No, more precisely...

  "Driver, please drop me off in front of Teheran-ro."

  Teheran-ro, lined with imposing skyscrapers. The night in this place, called the heart of Hangook City, was different from usual.

  The once-vibrant neon signs had gone dark, and the building windows were as hollow as black pupils. This was the aftermath of the digital chaos.

  Among them stood one building that emanated an especially cold and ominous aura. It was the headquarters of a major domestic IT company.

  The modern building of glass and steel was shrouded in pitch-black silence with all lights extinguished for some reason.

  As I approached the building, GNOM's warnings became as sharp as screams.

  'No doubt about it. It's in there.'

  The main entrance was firmly locked, but doors were no longer obstacles for me. I carefully controlled my enhanced strength.

  Instead of mindlessly smashing like before, I grasped the weakest hinge part of the door with my hand and carefully twisted it. With the sound of crumpling metal, the heavy reinforced glass door crumpled like paper and opened a path.

  The moment I stepped inside, chills ran down my spine.

  It was quiet.

  Red warning lights flashed throughout the building as if emergency alarms had gone off, but an artificial silence dominated the entire lobby, as if it could swallow even those sounds.

  An empty space without a single person. But I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching me.

  Looking up, I saw dozens of lenses embedded throughout the ceiling and walls. Security cameras.

  I could feel all the lenses with their blinking red lights turning toward me in unison. It was an unpleasant sensation, like the pupils of a giant creature discovering a foreign object and staring at it all at once.

  GNOM whispered.

  'Up. To the very top.'

  It wasn't words. It was pure feeling. A primal communion etched directly into my consciousness, transcending language. I felt that communication with GNOM had evolved to another level.

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  The elevator naturally wasn't working. I opened the emergency stairwell door and took a step. Cold metallic friction echoed in the darkness.

  The moment I reached the second floor, a heavy noise blocked the passage.

  A thick reinforced metal firewall had descended from the ceiling to block the path. When I tapped the surface, it was so hard that my fingertips tingled.

  At least four inches thick. In the past, I would have despaired, but not anymore.

  'If I use brute force like when I fought the tiger tattoo man, I'll just waste energy.'

  I clenched my fist. Instead of letting the power in my body flow to my arm's end, I visualized concentrating it into a single point.

  Like puncturing a water balloon with a needle, the sensation of exploding all power in one instant.

  "Huh...!"

  With a short breath, I threw my punch.

  BANG!

  With an eardrum-shattering roar, the part my fist touched caved in, and spider-web cracks spread across the entire firewall. It wasn't simple destruction. It was a shockwave itself.

  A wave of force that shook beyond the wall. When I struck the same spot once more, the heavy metal wall bent like taffy and collapsed.

  But that wasn't the end.

  Third floor, fourth floor, fifth floor.

  As I climbed higher, the obstacles blocking my way became more cunning and threatening. Electric shock devices protruding from the floor emitted tens of thousands of volts, and anesthetic gas sprayed from all directions with a pungent smell that tried to cloud my consciousness.

  I broke through everything with the power liquid and my heightened senses, but the energy drain was considerable. My shoulders grew heavy, and my breathing gradually became labored.

  And when I reached the tenth floor, 'they' finally appeared.

  Whirrr... whirrrrr...

  What appeared at both ends of the corridor were robots in human form. Sleek bodies made of silver alloy. Builds a head taller than humans.

  They approached silently, gliding. Where eyes should have been, eerie red sensors glowed.

  "Security robots?"

  GNOM warned me. Dangerous. These were on a different level from the obstacles so far. But it was raw wariness that couldn't be translated into specific language.

  One robot charged at me.

  Its speed was at a level difficult to track with human dynamic vision. But I could see it.

  The trajectory of the steel fist the robot swung. The sound of wind cutting through air. I ducked to avoid the attack while simultaneously throwing a counterpunch at the robot's abdomen.

  CRACK!

  With a tremendous impact sound, the robot's upper and lower body separated and tumbled to the floor. It was surprisingly anticlimactic. Were these just flashy on the outside with no substance?

  "Is that all?"

  That was the moment I let my guard down.

  Mechanical sounds came from the remaining robots' bodies, and their smooth silver armor surfaces instantly changed to dark red, covered with honeycomb-like hexagonal patterns.

  The sight of them writhing and changing like living organism skin was creepy.

  'Dangerous!'

  GNOM's scream echoed in my head.

  I instinctively threw a punch at another robot. But this time was different.

  With a dull sound, my fist bounced off. Like hitting hard rubber, all the impact was absorbed.

  'Adaptive armor? It learned my attack pattern?'

  While I was confused, the robots began their coordinated attack.

  This time they were faster. Without time to dodge, a flying fist struck my side hard.

  The pain of ribs cracking. I couldn't breathe. My body flew like paper and crashed into the wall at the end of the corridor.

  "Ugh...!"

  Before I could regain my senses, one robot climbed on top of me and began choking my neck.

  Whirrr...

  The bone-chilling sound of metal crushing bone. I couldn't breathe. My vision blurred, and the strength drained from my body. The breaking point just before my neck bone would snap.

  'Is this the end?'

  'Will it end so futilely here, without even meeting the perpetrator of this incident?'

  'No!'

  I cried out internally.

  'I can't go down like this!'

  In that moment of crisis, GNOM whispered once more. A different sensation from the previous warnings, cold and clear. It wasn't language, but a single 'concept.'

  Don't 'release' power outward.

  'Concentrate' it inward.

  Don't 'spread' it wide, 'pierce' through a single point.

  A flash crossed my mind.

  The essence of the power liquid. It wasn't simple brute force. It was the power to control energy.

  I had unconsciously only been exploding that power, not properly handling it.

  I grabbed the arm of the robot choking me.

  And concentrated all my power into my grip.

  The sensation of every ounce of energy in my body surging backward through my bloodstream, gathering into a small point in my palm. Like just before a massive dam's floodgate opens, the precarious swelling sensation felt in my hand.

  The feeling of compressed air. The illusion that time was slowing down.

  'Is this... the true power of the power liquid?'

  "Now... get lost."

  I released the concentrated power.

  POP!

  There was no explosion. A sharp bursting sound, like high-pressure air rupturing.

  The robot's steel arm caught in my hand twisted, crumpled, and finally burst apart. It wasn't simply broken. The shock energy had collapsed the alloy from within.

  The robot that lost its arm staggered backward.

  I didn't miss that opportunity.

  'Now I understand.' I no longer aimed for the robots' hard armor.

  New information entering my awakened vision. Shoulders, elbows, knees. The minute connection points between joints. Those were the weak spots.

  I kicked off the floor and sprang forward.

  With power concentrated in my fingertips, I stabbed at the robots' joint areas with glancing blows.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Small bursting sounds erupted in succession, and the giant robots' limbs separated powerlessly and fell to the floor.

  An attack resembling precision surgery. A new combat technique that concentrated power into a single point and targeted only exact vital spots.

  It was instantaneous.

  The steel giants that had driven me to the brink of death just minutes ago now lay scattered across the cold corridor as motionless scrap metal.

  I caught my breath and looked down at my hands.

  They weren't trembling.

  Rather, an unprecedented sense of stability enveloped me. This was true power control. Not mindlessly hitting hard, but using just the right amount, in the right place, most efficiently.

  GNOM was satisfied.

  'Well done.'

  ##########

  I quickened my pace toward the final floor. The solid server room-like space located on the top floor felt strangely unfamiliar.

  And then I finally saw it.

  The man beyond the glass wall.

  A man surrounded by dozens of monitors, pounding on a keyboard with manic eyes. A gaunt frame and hollow eyes.

  Hair greasy as if unwashed for days. He was completely absorbed in his own world.

  He noticed my arrival but showed no panic. Instead, he looked at me with a bitter smile.

  "You finally came."

  His voice came through the intercom. A hoarse voice. Like someone who had smoked too many cigarettes.

  A massive reinforced glass wall separated him from me. It was the thickest glass wall I had ever seen. At least eight inches thick.

  But he seemed confident that I couldn't get past this wall.

  "This glass will never break. It's military-grade special reinforced glass. Even a tank wouldn't scratch it."

  His voice was full of confidence.

  I looked down at my fist.

  The new power that had just turned steel robots into scrap metal vibrated faintly at my fingertips. That glass wall could be turned to dust if I wanted.

  But I lowered my fist.

  Because I saw something in the depths of the man's manic eyes beyond the glass wall.

  Despair and sadness. And... a very faint thread of hope.

  Something I couldn't feel from the tiger tattoo man. Not simple malice or violence, but something more complex and human.

  This time it wasn't about power.

  I placed my hand on the glass wall and looked straight at him.

  "I'd like to hear your story first."

  The man's eyes wavered for a moment. It seemed to be an unexpected reaction.

  "Story?"

  "Why you caused all this. What you really want."

  I spoke calmly.

  "I didn't come here to catch you. I came to find a way to stop all this."

  The man beyond the glass wall stared at me intently for a while. Then he took his hands off the keyboard.

  "You want to hear my story?"

  His voice trembled slightly.

  "Yes."

  I answered with a confident voice.

  "I want to know what you really want to say."

  For the first time, the smile disappeared from the man's lips. And he muttered in a very small voice.

  "Will you... really listen?"