The "Leech" settlement wasn't a village; it was a graveyard that had refused to stay quiet.
Choi led them deeper into the subterranean transit tunnels, past rusted subway cars that had been converted into makeshift apartments. Here, the "Static Fog" was replaced by the smell of ozone and damp laundry. Thousands of glowing blue wires, thinner than human hair, spiderwebbed across the ceiling, siphoning tiny drips of data from the System's main veins.
"Keep your heads down," Choi whispered. "The 'Cleaners' don't usually come this deep, but the vibrations from the surface have been getting worse."
As they walked, Han-ul saw the "Normal" survivors. They weren't the shiny, healthy citizens he had seen through the golden dome. These people were pale, their eyes sunken, their clothes patched with duct tape and scraps of digital mesh. But they were real. They weren't smiling that vacant, programmed smile of the "Blessed."
"Look at them," Ji-yoon whispered, her hand tightening on her bow. "The System treats them like they're just... background noise."
"Background noise is the best place to hide a bomb," Han-ul replied, his eyes scanning the "Data Veins" for a specific frequency.
They reached a wide junction—the old Euljiro 3-ga Station. In the center, a massive, jury-rigged machine hummed. It looked like a heart made of scrap metal and salvaged server racks.
"This is the Core," Choi said, a hint of pride in his tired voice. "We use it to scramble our biological signatures. It's why the System hasn't 'scanned' this tunnel yet. But we're running out of 'Raw Data' to feed it. The Spire is tightening the security on the veins."
A group of people emerged from the shadows of the subway cars. At their head was a woman with graying hair and a sharp, calculating gaze. She wore a high-visibility vest over a business suit, a strange relic of the world that was.
"Choi," she said, her voice like gravel. "Who are the strays?"
"Found them in the veins, Director," Choi said quickly. "They aren't Blessed. And the kid... he's got things, Director. Things that shouldn't exist."
The woman, whom Choi called Director Lim, walked up to Han-ul. She didn't look at his face; she looked at the [Scavenger's Cloak].
"Level 1," she muttered, squinting at the empty space above his head. "And yet, you're standing here instead of being a pile of pixels in a Scout's digestive tract. How?"
Han-ul pulled back his hood. "Because I know the Patch Notes. And I know that in twelve hours, your 'Core' is going to fail."
The room went silent. The hum of the machine seemed to falter.
"What did you say?" Lim stepped closer, her eyes narrowing.
"Check the frequency of the blue cables," Han-ul said, pointing to the ceiling. "The System is shifting from 'Integration' to 'Optimization.' It's changing the encryption of the data stream. Your 'Leech' taps won't be able to read the new code. The Core will overheat trying to process the 'Noise,' and the dome's scanners will pinpoint this location in seconds."
Director Lim turned to a technician at a nearby terminal. "Is he right?"
The technician's fingers flew over a keyboard. After a moment, he went pale. "The... the packet loss is jumping. 10%... 15%... He's right. The feed is turning into garbage."
Panic began to ripple through the tunnel.
"We have to leave!" a woman cried out. "The Paladins will be here!"
"There's nowhere to go!" Choi shouted back.
Director Lim turned back to Han-ul. "You didn't come here just to tell us we're dying. You want something."
"I want the Red Ward," Han-ul said, his voice cold and steady. "And I want the Testers inside it. You want to survive? I can give you the 'Encryption Key' for the new Patch. But you're going to help me start a riot."
"A riot?" Lim laughed bitterly. "Against the Heroes? They have fire and light. We have rusted pipes and stolen batteries."
"They have the System's support," Han-ul corrected, tapping his temple. "But the System is a program. And programs have 'Logic Bombs.' If we hit the City Hall's power grid with a high-intensity 'Data Overflow' at the same moment I break the physical locks, the System will be forced to choose between rebooting the sector or losing the data of the Red Ward."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"The System is greedy, Director. It never chooses to lose data. It will reboot. And for exactly sixty seconds, the 'Heroes' in that building will be nothing more than frozen statues."
Lim stared at him for a long time. She saw the [Null-Blade] at his hip. She saw the way Ji-yoon—a Tester—was following a Level 1 dropout.
"Sixty seconds," Lim said. "That's a very small window to save a world."
"I've spent the last week living in the gaps between seconds," Han-ul said. "It's more than enough time."
He turned to the [Broken Compass of the Architect]. The needle had stopped spinning. It was locked onto the Red Ward, vibrating with a dull, red light.
"Choi, get the batteries ready," Han-ul commanded. "We're going to give the 'First Hero' a headache he can't code away."