The neon glow of Seoul's undercity had never seemed more alive — or more dangerous.
Lin crouched behind a collapsed overhead walkway, scanner humming against his chest. The faint electronic pulse that had sparked in the Echo Node hours ago was now multiplying. Small, almost imperceptible, but each flicker matched the rhythm of a heartbeat — the Archive's heartbeat, reborn in fragments.
Keller pressed a hand to his shoulder, signaling him to move. "Nodes are popping up all over the southern grid. This isn't just one reconstruction attempt… it's a network."
Lin nodded, already running calculations in his head. "If they succeed, the Archive comes back faster than we can track. We need to locate and neutralize each node before it stabilizes."
Hana's eyes were closed, lips moving in faint murmurs. Her hands hovered above a cracked terminal. "I… I can feel them," she whispered. "Each node… each fragment… it's calling out. They're not just machines. They're alive."
