The silence that followed wasn't just heavy. It was suffocating.
The kind of silence where a person's whole world collapses inward, and all that's left is the echo of a nightmare they can't wake up from.
The room still felt suffocating, even with the doctor gone. The walls seemed to press inward, shrinking around them, like the hospital itself had become too small to contain the weight of what had just been laid bare.
Sergey stood rooted in place, his hands twitching uselessly at his sides, his mind clawing for something to say — anything that could sound right in this moment. But all that came was a tight lump lodged in his throat, refusing to budge.
Eun-jae sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, his posture unnaturally rigid, back ramrod straight as if holding himself together by sheer will alone. His fingers clutched the clipboard resting on his lap — the one with the cold, sterile consent forms that would change everything. The paper was thin, fragile. The ink from the pen was still fresh, the lines of his signature bold and sharp. No hesitation. No second thoughts.
Sergey's voice finally cracked through the silence, low and unsure.
"Are you… sure about this?"
Eun-jae didn't look up at first. His eyes stayed glued to the paper for a moment longer, as if reading the words one final time, though the decision had already been carved into stone long before.
Finally, he exhaled — not tired, not broken — just resolved. Cold, firm, untouchable.
"Yes," he said, his voice flat, stripped of any emotion. "Do I look like I'm joking to you?"
His gaze flicked up, locking onto Sergey's with such intensity it made the older man flinch slightly. There was no room for sympathy in those eyes, no room for soft words. Only quiet rage and the sharp glint of someone who refused to be reduced to a victim.
Eun-jae let the clipboard slide from his lap onto the bedside table with a soft click.
"Besides," he added dryly, his voice sharpening into something colder, "we've got a mission, don't we?"
He shifted, adjusting the hospital gown draped over his bruised frame, the faintest wince betraying the lingering soreness in his body. Still, he kept his expression unreadable, masking the pain beneath layers of pride and survival instinct.
"I'm not interested in carrying the spawn of a monster. Let alone giving it a place inside me."
The words hung in the air, heavy and final, like the slam of a gavel.
Sergey looked away for a moment, jaw tensing, his thoughts spiraling somewhere between heartbreak and helplessness. He wanted to argue — to tell Eun-jae he didn't have to make the decision right now, that it was okay to wait, that it wasn't his fault. But he could see it, plain as day, in the way Eun-jae held himself. The decision had already been made long before the doctor had even said a word. It wasn't just about the mission. It wasn't just about the trauma.
It was about taking back control. No matter the cost.
A soft knock at the door broke the tension.
A nurse stepped inside, her expression professionally neutral, though even she couldn't fully hide the shadow of pity flickering in her eyes. She wheeled in a chair, the smooth rubber wheels gliding silently over the linoleum floor.
Eun-jae didn't need prompting. He slid off the bed without a word, gripping the edge of the mattress for a brief second as a wave of nausea and dizziness threatened to buckle his knees. But he straightened, jaw clenched, and moved toward the chair like nothing had happened.
Sergey took a step forward, instinctively reaching out — but Eun-jae raised a hand to stop him, not even glancing back.
"I'm fine," he muttered, voice sharp enough to slice through air.
Once seated in the wheelchair, he adjusted the lap blanket the nurse placed over him, more out of muscle memory than comfort.
He turned his head, finally locking eyes with Sergey one last time before the nurse began pushing the chair toward the door.
"Well then," Eun-jae said quietly, the faintest ghost of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth — not out of humor, but out of cold irony. "See you later."
And with that, the nurse wheeled him out of the room, the soft hum of the wheels and the distant beeping of heart monitors the only sounds left behind. The door clicked shut softly, but the silence that followed felt deafening.
Sergey stood frozen, staring at the spot where Eun-jae had sat only moments ago, his chest tightening, unsure if the weight he felt was grief, guilt, or rage.
Maybe all three.
The surgery had gone off without a hitch — clean, quiet, and fast. Eun-jae had signed the discharge papers himself, ignoring every warning the doctor threw his way about rest, recovery, and follow-ups. He didn't care. The moment that thing was out of him, it was like a fog lifted. Like something that had been gnawing at his insides — not just physically, but mentally — had finally been scraped out.
He felt lighter. Not healed, not okay, but sharp. Clear. Angry. Dangerous.
Just how he liked it.
He was back in motion within the next 48 hours, already going over mission files with Sergey, cross-checking encrypted files, satellite images, even blurred, redacted surveillance photos. All of it pointing to one thing — Seraphim wasn't gone. It had just been buried. Moved. Hidden behind smoke and lies and dead bodies.
That morning, the car rolled to a stop in front of an old industrial building, grey and lifeless, with windows that were either shattered or covered with thick metal sheets. The place looked like it hadn't seen activity in years, like the ground itself had given up on trying to grow anything around it.
Sergey stared out the windshield, skeptical. "This is the place, isn't it?" he asked, voice low, uncertain.
Eun-jae didn't answer. He just stepped out of the car and shut the door without a word, his black coat fluttering behind him as he strode toward the entrance with purpose in every step. Sergey let out a sigh, muttered something under his breath, and followed.
"Hey—where the hell are you going?" Sergey called out as Eun-jae reached the heavy iron door.
Eun-jae glanced over his shoulder. "Shut up and follow."
The door creaked as it opened, groaning on rusted hinges, and they disappeared inside.
The air in the building was thick with dust and disuse. The floor was cracked concrete, stained with oil and god-knows-what. The faint buzz of electricity hummed through the walls, a reminder that while the place looked dead, it was far from it.
They descended the narrow stairwell to the basement — pitch black and ice cold, the kind of cold that sank into your bones. Sergey wrapped his arms around himself.
"This again? You just dragged me down here to stare at an empty goddamn room?" he muttered, glancing around the space that looked no different from a forgotten bunker — plain walls, empty floor, nothing notable except the eerie silence.
Eun-jae didn't respond.
He stood in front of a seemingly ordinary metal wall panel, one that had no visible seams or buttons. To someone else, it would've looked like part of the wall. But to him — it was familiar. Intimately so.
"Everything's exactly the same…" Eun-jae mumbled, fingers trailing the cold metal. "From the look of things, I'm sure that bastard changed the passcode."
Still, he typed in Caesar's old access code. His fingers hovered only a second before punching it in. He hit the final digit. A pause. A soft mechanical beep.
And then — click. The wall split open with a hiss.
"Idiot," Eun-jae muttered under his breath, eyes gleaming with something cold and calculating.
Sergey's jaw dropped as the secret door slid open to reveal the arsenal behind it. Rows of weapons lined the walls, polished and untouched. Everything from handguns and grenades to experimental tech and heavy-duty sniper rifles. Stacked crates labeled in Cyrillic and barcode IDs. Tech lights blinked lazily from under dust covers. There were even racks of suits and armor — prototypes, likely. Unmarked. Highly illegal. SIB-grade illegal.
Sergey stepped forward, his voice a breathy whisper. "What the… holy shit…"
Eun-jae didn't hesitate. He reached for a matte-black sniper rifle, tossed it toward Sergey, who caught it with both hands in shock.
"Here. Take it," Eun-jae ordered, already moving through the room. "Pick up everything we might need. Anything light, silent, high-powered. Get extra mags, flashbangs, trackers, all of it."
He was moving fast now, scanning the room with the efficiency of someone who had been here before, who knew exactly what he was looking for — but then he paused.
His gaze snagged on something in the corner.
A soft red light. Blinking.
He tilted his head slightly, and there it was — a CCTV camera, hidden in the ceiling corner. Not one of the ones he remembered.
It was new. Live.
His eyes widened for a moment, not out of fear, but calculation. He gave a breathy chuckle and rolled his neck, lips curling into a smirk as he raised his middle finger directly at it.
"Watching, huh?" he said under his breath.
Then — BANG.
The gunshot echoed through the basement like thunder. The lens shattered in an instant, the camera sparking, dropping limp on its wire.
Sergey winced at the sound. "You're gonna bring this whole damn place down on us," he muttered, still loading the sniper.
"Good," Eun-jae said, his voice cold and distant. "Let them know we're coming."
He grabbed another weapon off the wall, slinging it over his shoulder as the lights of the room flickered in and out — like even the building itself could feel what was coming.
The war wasn't over.
It was just starting.
The sun had long since dipped beneath the jagged line of the horizon, drowning the sky in deep shades of violet and bruised indigo. The cold night air clung to the surface of the river, turning every breath into a thin cloud of fog that drifted into the silence. The world felt unnaturally still, except for the faint ripple of dark water lapping against the old, rusted bridge where they stood — two shadows in a world full of secrets.
Eun-jae crouched near the edge, spreading out the crumpled blueprint under the faint glow of his flashlight. The wind toyed with the edges of the worn paper, making it flutter like the heartbeat of the mission itself. His eyes stayed locked onto the sketched layout of the mansion — a fortress built not for comfort, but to keep people like them out.
"There are two ways we can get to the mansion," Eun-jae muttered, his voice low and steady, almost mechanical, as though he'd rehearsed this moment a thousand times in his head. His gloved finger traced a path along the thin ink lines. "One — we go in through the drain, the one connected to the river. If we're lucky, we'll slip in before anyone notices."
He paused, letting the words settle in, the tension stringing tighter between them. Then he lifted his head slightly, eyes narrowing.
"Or two... we come from above. Scale the cliffs, cross the security grid, dodge about thirty live cameras and tripwires, and hope the snipers are asleep at their posts."
Sergey huffed out a dry, humorless laugh, wiping his hands across the thighs of his black cargo pants, already chilled by the night air.
"Yeah, and I assume the drain is the easier option," he mumbled, though the thought of squeezing through an underwater death trap wasn't exactly filling him with confidence.
Eun-jae's gaze darkened slightly as he tapped the section marked drainage inlet. His voice lowered, serious now.
"There's probably a rotor at the drain's entrance to keep the river water from flooding the inner system. If the power's down or the security is lazy, we might slip past it. But if the rotor's active... it'll shred anything that touches it."
Sergey's stomach gave a slow, uncomfortable twist. He swallowed hard, glancing out across the pitch-black water stretching endlessly in front of them. The moonlight glanced off the surface like broken glass, sharp and cold.
Eun-jae kept talking, unbothered, like he was reading the ingredients off a cereal box.
"Even if we get through that, the real gamble is whether the pipeline beyond it is wide enough for our diving gear. If it's too tight, we'll get stuck. And if we get stuck..."
He let the silence finish the sentence. Sergey didn't need the words. His imagination already filled in the blank — lungs burning, water pressing in from all sides, darkness swallowing everything before your heart gives out.
Sergey forced a shaky chuckle, trying to mask the anxiety scratching at his throat.
"There's gotta be another way, right?" he asked, voice light but his eyes searching Eun-jae's face for even a sliver of hope.
But Eun-jae didn't even flinch. His reply came sharp and final, like a gunshot.
"Nope."
With that, he snapped his oxygen mask into place, adjusted the straps on his wetsuit, and without so much as another word, stepped onto the concrete ledge. The moonlight made his silhouette look almost weightless for a split second, right before he leaned forward and disappeared into the black water below with barely a sound. A soft splash echoed through the night, then nothing but ripples.
Sergey stood there, frozen for a moment, the weight of the decision pressing down on his chest. His eyes trailed back to the water, black as ink and twice as cold. The silence grew heavier. The plan was insane, borderline suicidal, but at this point, insanity was their only chance.
He exhaled sharply, muttering under his breath.
"Haaaaa... f*ck me."
Then, locking his gear into place, Sergey stepped forward, took one last look at the night sky, and plunged into the freezing embrace of the river — the water swallowing him whole.
And just like that, the mission had begun. There was no turning back now.
The world above was gone, swallowed by concrete and darkness. The heavy silence inside the tunnel was broken only by the soft, irregular drip of water echoing off the curved stone walls. Their soaked boots sloshed through ankle-deep sludge as they finally emerged from the narrow underwater shaft and into the wider canal, gasping for air like two half-drowned rats.
Eun-jae staggered forward, pressing his gloved palm against the damp, algae-slick wall to catch his breath. His muscles ached from the brutal swim, his lungs still burning from the narrow squeeze past the rotor blades. For a split second back there, he was sure the both of them were going to be minced into ribbons — but somehow, against every odd, they'd made it through.
A sharp exhale slipped past his lips, almost a quiet laugh of disbelief.
"Phew... we actually made it. I thought we were dead back there," he muttered to himself, his voice low and ragged as he reached up to peel back the zipper of his soaked wetsuit. The tight, rubbery fabric clung stubbornly to his skin as he struggled to shed it, steam curling off his bare arms as the cold night air bit at his damp skin.
Once free of the suit, Eun-jae raked his fingers through his wet hair, gathering it back and twisting it into a lazy knot at the nape of his neck. The dim glow from his headlamp glinted off the beads of water still clinging to his jawline, his sharp features set in quiet determination.
Sergey, crouched a few feet away, pulled his own mask off and wiped his face with his sleeve, letting out a low whistle. His breathing was still uneven, chest rising and falling beneath his soaked tactical vest.
"You ready?" Sergey asked, glancing over at him, his voice breaking the heavy silence that hung over them.
Eun-jae nodded slightly, lips curling into a faint smirk as he rolled his shoulder, still feeling the strain from the icy river.
"Hm," he hummed in response, flexing his fingers, the adrenaline starting to settle into a cold, focused calm.
Sergey shifted, adjusting the strap on his shoulder and brushing a gloved hand over the damp, dirt-streaked blueprint still tucked into his belt. His tone was steady, but the tension behind his words betrayed the weight of what was about to come next.
"This canal's got old maintenance access points," Sergey said, gesturing further down the dim corridor with a sharp tilt of his chin. "From here, it branches out — one to the kitchen, another to the garage, bathrooms, and the garden. The main mansion's built over this whole grid. It's practically a maze, but there's a manhole exit just around the corner."
He paused, side-eyeing Eun-jae up and down, scanning his lean frame.
"Should be small enough. I'm sure you'll fit through. Won't be easy, but it's the cleanest shot we've got."
With that, he dug into his pack and pulled out a tiny device — no bigger than a coin, sleek and matte black, the blinking light faint and steady. He tossed it to Eun-jae, who snatched it out of the air mid-spin.
"As soon as you're up there, I'll see what you see."
There was no need for flowery promises or hero speeches. In their line of work, this was just the routine: calculated risk, silent teamwork, and a whole lot of luck. Eun-jae held the device between his fingers for a second, feeling its cold weight, then clipped it neatly to the inside of his tactical vest, right beneath the collar.
He met Sergey's eyes, giving a sharp nod — unspoken understanding passing between them in that split second.
"Alright," Eun-jae muttered, voice calm but firm. "Let's do this."