The rain had a way of cleansing Daehwa's filth, even if it couldn't wash away the rot beneath its glass towers. From the rooftop of a thirty-story bank downtown, Gin Chan watched the city shimmer like it was pretending to be pure.
His coat flared in the wind.
In his hand: a worn black notebook — names etched in fading ink, a small bloodstain marking the corner. The next target wasn't just another pawn. He was the Filter — a man whose face never appeared beside the headlines he manufactured.
Lee Myung-Woo, media executive. The man who shaped what the public saw. Who redirected scandals, scrubbed truths, and sterilized any mention of the Nexcore Initiative with polished narratives.
The same man who had turned Gin Chan into a fugitive in whispers — twisting the aftermath of Minjae's death into conspiracy.
> "The Red Trace is real," Lee had declared on live TV days ago, voice firm, fingers pointed at thin air. "But he is no savior. He is a threat to our peace."
Peace. A word so easily abused.
Gin closed the notebook.
> "You're next."
---
He didn't strike blindly.
Lee's life was built like a fortress. His home was a walled compound of stone and steel. His daily commute was armored and escorted. Security drones circled his skyscraper like hungry birds.
Gin didn't rush.
He stalked.
For ten days, he mapped guard shifts. Monitored comms. Studied the back routes. He watched from bus stops, shadowed in delivery uniforms, and sat on building ledges like a gargoyle.
Lee's fear made him paranoid.
And paranoia bred mistakes.
On the eleventh night, a power cut simulation forced Lee to move. Emergency extraction protocols sent him down a freight elevator. A backup route, supposedly "unbreachable."
He never saw Gin waiting inside the ventilation duct above.
---
The warehouse was a graveyard of echoes.
Sweat and blood mixed on the cold floor beneath the flickering light bulb. The man known as Shin Gwan, the Syndicate's media manipulator, was bound to a rusted chair — bruised, bloodied, and trembling. His eyes were half-lidded, the fight long gone from them.
Gin Chan stood before him, no longer hidden by disguise.
The shadows coiled around his presence like armor.
> "You've twisted the truth for years," Gin said, voice low. "Buried headlines. Redirected suspicion. You didn't just serve them — you protected them."
Shin spat weakly.
> "I don't know what you think you're doing, but none of this matters. They'll just replace me."
Gin didn't blink.
> "Let them try."
He moved to the table beside them — covered in tools not used for construction.
Pain followed. Not from sadism, but calculation. Methodical. Purposeful.
> "How does it feel being on the wrong end of a narrative?"Gin with his hands bloody
Lee spat.
> "You think torture gets you answers? You think you're some righteous ghost?"
> "No," Gin replied. "I'm the mistake you couldn't edit out."
Lee trembled. "You're just a man with a grudge—"
CRACK!
Gin's fist struck his ribs — sharp, clean.
Lee screamed as the sound echoed. One rib down.
Gin said. "The circle. Give me their names."
> "I... I can't—
> CRACK. Another rib. Lee's cry broke into coughing.
> "I only want the truth," Gin said. "And maybe… justice."
The word justice didn't comfort Lee.
Because it wasn't justice he feared.
It was irrelevance. Death was quick. But to vanish without shaping the story?
That was worse.
He gasped through blood, voice shaky.
> "I can't give you what you want. But… the second voice… the one after Kang... he's called Ravyn. He's the right hand."
Gin stepped closer.
> "Spell it."
> "R-A-V-Y-N. That's all I know. Please—"
Gin stared at him. Then slowly placed something on the floor:
A red thread.
> "You lied once on camera and ruined lives," he whispered. "Time to tell the story right."
Lee tried to scream.
But the camera Gin left recording didn't catch the scream just his bloody torturing
And then, finally, when Shin's breath began to falter and his resolve had crumbled into dust, Gin leaned close.
> "Tell me about the inner circle."
Shin shook his head, tears now smudged into the dried blood. "They… are all you can think they are."
Gin's eyes narrowed.
"Then count them".
Silence.
Then a whisper.
> "Six."
Gin straightened. The silence between them thickened.
A small smile played on Gin's lips.
"No," he said quietly. "You're wrong."
Shin's head slowly tilted up, eyes bloodshot and confused.
Gin stepped closer, his tone composed, almost casual.
> "It's four now."
Shin blinked. "W-What?"
Gin began tying a length of red thread — delicate, symbolic — around the man's bruised wrist.
> "One of them died a few weeks ago," he said, voice calm as if recalling the weather.
"And another…" he leaned forward, lips brushing the air near Shin's ear,
"…is about to experience salvation ascension."
He pulled away with a slight smirk.
Shin's mouth quivered, fear soaking through every pore.
> "What the hell does that mean?"
Gin didn't answer.
The silence was more terrifying than any explanation.
Then — swiftly, cleanly — Gin ended it.
---
The next morning, Daehwa woke to chaos.
A journalist's corpse had been found hanging by his own headlines, pinned against his company's signboard. His mouth was stuffed with shredded reports. A red thread looped his fingers like cursed rosary beads.
Beside him, a message spray-painted in scarlet:
> ALL STRINGS LEAD TO THE VEILED ONE.
Social media exploded. TV anchors shook. The public now knew something darker was unfolding.
The City Reacts
Panic exploded across media outlets.
This time, not even the Syndicate could silence the noise.
Headlines blared:
"Another Power Figure Dead — Red Trace or Retribution?"
"Public Faces, Hidden Wars: Who Are the Targets?"
"Is Red Trace a Person — or a Movement?"
"Shadow War in Daehwa? Two Elites Gone in One Month"
Netizens turned to speculation forums.
Talk shows hosted "urban warfare analysts."
Whispers of rebellion, conspiracy, and revolution ignited across Daehwa's undercurrent.
The elite watched from behind their bulletproof windows, pretending calm — but the fear had sunk deep.
Among them, those who knew the nickname Veiled One recognized the truth behind the message.
It wasn't a coincidence.
It was a challenge.
And Red Trace had just lit the fuse.
No one said Kang Seo-Yul aloud, but the people involved?
They knew.
They had heard that name behind curtains.
And now, someone was pulling at the curtains.
---
The deeper Gin Chan sank into the Syndicate's underworld, the more defined the network became. Beneath the sleek facades of Daehwa's skyline, beneath the noise of media spin and public distraction, something primal pulsed — and now, he had a name:
> RAVYN
The right hand of Kang Seo-yul.
No official record. No digital fingerprint. Just whispers, encrypted files, and a codename as sharp as a blade.
But Gin didn't need more.
He fed what little he had to Ruko, the hacker still working in shadows — the only one he trusted. Hours turned to days until the flicker of a decrypted image filled the monitor. A cold-eyed man, hair cropped, jaw rigid with purpose. Former military. Vanished from databases years ago. Real name Wang kul
> "We found him," Ruko said quietly.
---
Back in his hideout, Gin updated the Thread Wall — red strings tracing his path of vengeance. Photos, names, pins. The line that once looped Minjae, then Shin Gwan, now stretched taut to a new face:
RAVYN.
No smile in the photo. Just danger.
Gin stared at it, his breath slow and steady.
The time for evasion was over.
---
RAVYN's estate sat on the edge of Daehwa's Silver District — the kind of neighborhood where even the wind was filtered for the elite. No one questioned the armed guards. No one looked too long at the towers that didn't appear on maps.
But Gin looked. And he saw.
Surveillance patterns.
Guard rotations.
Unmarked armored vans arriving at 3AM sharp.
He rented the top floor of a nearby derelict apartment, setting up infrared scopes and motion cams. Every movement RAVYN made became a puzzle piece. Every conversation picked up by audio-enhancing drones gave Gin more than insight — it gave him advantage.
He noticed something.
RAVYN was slipping. Growing overconfident. Isolated. Dangerous, but exposed.
---
By the sixth night, Gin didn't need more intel. He had routine. He had rhythm. He had weakness.
Inside his hideout, he pinned RAVYN's photo into the web.
One string connected it to Kang Seo-yul.
Another linked to Shin Gwan.
And now… another was being prepared.
A message that wouldn't be spoken — only shown.
---
The rain came down like needles.
The Silver District's neon glow reflected on the wet asphalt as the clock neared 3:00 AM — the hour Gin Chan had traced as the softest moment in RAVYN's daily cycle.
Gin moved like a shadow among shadows, dressed in muted tactical black. No police badge. No mercy. He was no longer acting as a cop — not tonight.
Across the rooftop opposite RAVYN's estate, he checked the motion sensors one last time. No irregular movement. His breath fogged slightly in the cold as he adjusted the silencer on his pistol, his other hand tightening around a wire-thin garrote laced with microcurrents.
> "No alarms. No trips. No panic," he whispered to himself.
"Let's see how the right hand bleeds."
---
He didn't kick the door in.
He slid in through a rooftop ventilation shaft he had identified three days earlier — long since compromised with a thermal cutter. Landing in a maintenance corridor, Gin moved with mechanical precision. Every motion rehearsed.
The halls inside were minimalistic. Clean lines. Modern Korean architecture with subtle foreign luxury. Every step forward felt like entering a lion's den, but the lion was asleep.
Until—
> Snap!
One of the guards turned a corner, eyes widening — too late.
Gin's elbow cracked into the man's jaw, followed by a chokehold that lasted mere seconds. The body slumped, silent.
---
He reached the second floor — RAVYN's private lounge.
Gin pushed through the sliding glass door and found him.
RAVYN.
Dressed in a black undershirt and loose gray pants, standing by the floor-to-ceiling window. Whiskey in hand. Calm.
He didn't even flinch.
> "Red Trace," RAVYN said, voice flat. "I was wondering when you'd come."
Gin said nothing.
> "You know," RAVYN continued, setting the drink down, "you're not the first who tried. The others begged."
Gin took a step forward.
> "I'm not here to beg."
Suddenly, RAVYN lunged. No hesitation.
His punch came fast — too fast for a man his size. Gin barely ducked, the force cracking the glass behind him. RAVYN followed up with a knee, but Gin pivoted and retaliated with a hook to the ribs — bone crunched.
> "Military, huh?" Gin grunted. "Thought so."
They crashed into furniture. A chair shattered.
RAVYN grabbed a paperweight and swung — Gin blocked with his forearm, pain shooting up, but he didn't stop.
He slammed RAVYN into the wall, tried to choke him out — but RAVYN elbowed him back, and the two men traded blows like wolves, neither holding back.
The glass table finally gave way as they tumbled over it. Gin rolled away, blood at the corner of his lip.
> "You don't know what you're up against!" RAVYN growled.
"Then tell me," Gin hissed, "before you stop breathing."
But RAVYN just laughed.
> "You're too late."
Gin struck again, and this time, RAVYN staggered. His leg gave out.
> Crack — a clean strike to the temple.
RAVYN dropped, gasping, crawling backward.
Gin walked forward slowly, calm as ever. He pulled out a small blade
RAVYN attacked again
A blur of military precision — elbow aimed for Gin's temple. Gin ducked, countering with a low sweep that nearly took the man off his feet. RAVYN recovered fast, slamming Gin into a glass cabinet.
Glass shattered. Blood spilled.
Gin struck again, fists landing with dull cracks — one to the ribs, another across the cheekbone.
> Crack — bone gave.
But RAVYN was built to take pain. He roared, tackling Gin into a low marble table. It splintered beneath them.
Gin pulled a small blade mid-roll, cutting RAVYN's shoulder. The older man bled, staggering backward toward the window.
> "You can kill me," he growled, blood running down his jaw, "but you'll never reach him."
Gin stepped forward slowly.
"No. I'll cut my way there."
---
As RAVYN collapsed, Gin carved into the marble floor near the body — deliberate and clear.
All threads lead to the veiled one.
Even predators bleed.
He took a photo and vanished into the rain before security could catch up.
---
By morning, Daehwa was in crisis.
This marked the fourth high-profile death in less than two months. Each one had been brutal, surgical, and unsolvable.
News anchors spoke with furrowed brows and tightened jaws:
"Another murder — this time...the influential figure behind multiple charities and political campaigns…"
"In just two months, we've seen more elite corpses than in the last ten years combined — yet there's no lead, no footage, no fingerprints…"
"The killer leaves behind no clear identity, only a signature message each time… Is Red Trace a person, or something far bigger?"
Social media burned with conspiracy theories. Some called it a one-man revolution. Others feared a silent organization dismantling the city's hidden structure.
But behind closed doors — the remaining five of the inner circle knew.
This wasn't random.
This was targeted.
And the storm was getting closer.
----
In a boardroom in Daehwa's financial district, the inner council gathered again.
Only three this time. Two men. One woman.
All loyal to Kang Seo-yul.
The air was heavy.
"It's him," one whispered.
"But we killed him," another hissed.
"Then it's either someone picked up the mask or it's another organization trying to pull us down."
"Red Trace is not a person anymore. It's a curse."
No one laughed.
In the far corner, unnoticed, a laptop's camera light blinked red.
Gin Chan was watching.
Thread by thread.
---