The first thing I smelled was ozone and antiseptic.
The ozone was the fading scent of the Ancient Woman's power. The antiseptic was the smell of the Seoul National University Hospital.
I opened my eyes, but the world didn't come into focus immediately. My vision was overlaid with flickering silver static. The Relic in my chest wasn't thrumming anymore; it was silent, heavy, and cold.
[ SYSTEM REBOOTING... 99% ] [ SYNC RATE: 25.0% (STABILIZED) ] [ STATUS: EVOLVED BONE STRUCTURE ]
"He's awake! Dr. Choi, patient in 402 is conscious!"
I heard the frantic tapping of shoes on linoleum. A nurse in blue scrubs leaned over me, her face a mask of professional concern, but her eyes were wide with a flicker of something else. Fear? Confusion?
I tried to sit up, and the first thing I noticed was the weight. My body didn't feel like a teenager's anymore. It felt like I was wearing a suit of lead. Every movement required a conscious effort of will.
"Don't move, Min-ho," a deep voice commanded.
A middle-aged doctor stepped into my field of vision. He was holding a series of light-boxes—X-rays. He looked like he hadn't slept in twenty-four hours.
"Where... am I?" I croaked. My voice sounded metallic, like two stones grinding together.
"You're in the ICU," Dr. Choi said. He hesitated, then turned the X-rays toward me. "Min-ho, we found you unconscious at the base of Buksan Mountain. There was... an electrical surge. A localized earthquake. But that's not what's bothering us."
He pointed at the film. Even without Void-Sight, I could see it. My ribs weren't white shadows on the film. They were solid, glowing lines of silver-white. My femur looked like a structural beam for a skyscraper.
"We tried to draw blood," the doctor whispered, his voice trembling. "The needles snapped. Four of them. We had to use a diamond-tipped surgical drill just to get a sample. Min-ho, what happened to you on that mountain?"
I stared at the X-ray. 25% Sync didn't just make me stronger; it had turned my skeleton into Star-Fall Steel.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, my Cold Blood skill finally kicking in. My heart rate, which had been spiking, flatlined into a perfect, steady rhythm. "I was hiking. There was a flash of light. That's all."
"The police are on their way," Dr. Choi said, ignoring my lie. "And a representative from the Ministry of Defense. They think you were exposed to some kind of experimental weapon or radiation."
I checked the time on the wall clock. 08:15 AM. April 14th.
48 Hours Left.
I didn't have time to be a lab rat. If the Ministry of Defense locked me in a bunker, I wouldn't be at City Hall when the Stone Giant arrived. I wouldn't be there to protect my mother.
"I need to go," I said, swinging my legs off the bed.
The movement was too fast. The hospital bed, made of high-grade steel, groaned and buckled under my new weight. The wheels snapped off with a loud crack.
"Min-ho, stay down!" the nurse shrieked.
I ignored her. I stood up, feeling the floorboards beneath the linoleum compress under my feet. My school uniform was gone, replaced by a thin paper gown. I looked at the mirror on the wall.
The silver lines weren't just on my chest anymore. They crept up my neck, fading just behind my ears. My eyes, once a dull brown, now had a ring of liquid silver around the iris.
Suddenly, the room blurred.
[ VOID-SIGHT ACTIVATED ]
The hospital walls didn't look solid anymore. I could see the "Shadow Leaks"—thin, black veins of energy pulsing in the corners of the ceiling. They were like cracks in a dam. Outside the window, I saw a ghostly shape, like a giant transparent jellyfish, drifting between the skyscrapers.
The first scouts of the apocalypse.
"It's starting," I whispered.
The door to the room slammed open. Two men in dark suits—National Intelligence Service—stepped in.
"Kang Min-ho? You're coming with us," the taller one said, reaching for his belt. He wasn't reaching for a badge; he was reaching for a taser.
In my old life, I would have been terrified. In this life, I just saw a target.
I moved. To the doctor and the nurse, I simply vanished. To the agents, I was a silver blur.
I didn't punch them. I didn't want to kill humans yet. I simply grabbed the taller agent's wrist and squeezed. The sound of his tactical watch shattering was like a gunshot in the small room. I stepped past him, my shoulder catching the second agent. He flew across the hallway, crashing into a meal cart with enough force to dent the metal.
"Stop him!"
I ran. Every step cracked the floor tiles. I wasn't running like a track star; I was moving like a freight train. I burst through the fire exit and took the stairs—four flights at a time. My metallic bones absorbed the shock of every landing.
I hit the ground floor and burst through the main lobby. People screamed as a teenager in a hospital gown sprinted past them at forty miles per hour.
I didn't stop until I was three blocks away, tucked into a dark alleyway behind a row of dumpsters. My lungs weren't even heaving.
I looked at my hands. They were stained with the silver dust of the shrine.
"Forty-eight hours," I said, checking a stolen phone I'd snatched from the agent's pocket.
I needed clothes. I needed food—massive amounts of it to fuel the 25% Sync. And most importantly, I needed to check the "Safe Zone."
If the Shadow Leaks were already appearing, my mother wasn't safe anymore.