The roar of the crowd was a living entity, a tidal wave of sound that washed over the plaza. Ahn Da-eun stood at the center of the stage, a lone figure bathed in a stark white spotlight, and absorbed it all. She didn't wave. She didn't offer a practiced, charming greeting. She simply took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a single beat, and then nodded to her band.
There was no countdown, no fanfare. A thunderous drumbeat erupted, followed by a snarling, distorted guitar riff that cut through the night air like a jagged piece of steel. The crowd roared again, a sound of instant recognition. It was "Concrete Jungle," the powerful rock anthem that had launched her career, a song about screaming back at a cold, oppressive city that was trying to silence you. It wasn't just a hit single; it was her mission statement.
Her voice exploded from the speakers, raw, powerful, and utterly defiant.
"They build the walls up to the sky, a cage of glass and stone!" she sang, her voice a visceral, guttural cry that was part anger, part catharsis. "They tell you, 'keep your head down, girl, and learn to walk alone!'"
It wasn't just a performance; it was a declaration of war. Every note was a bullet, every lyric a refusal to be cowed. The crowd, a mass of thousands, became a single organism, singing along, their voices joining hers in a massive chorus of rebellion. The energy was electric, a feedback loop of defiance between the artist and her army. They weren't just singing a song; they were chanting a spell against fear.
The view shifted, pulling away from the triumphant, incandescent energy of the concert. It drifted upward, across the plaza, to the top floor of a sleek, dark residential tower overlooking the stage. Inside a minimalist, sterilely clean apartment, a figure stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the spectacle through a pair of high-powered, image-stabilizing binoculars.
It was Ryu.
He was not angry. He was not agitated. A small, appreciative smile played on his lips. He was enjoying the show. Da-eun's defiance didn't infuriate him; it delighted him. It made the game more interesting, the eventual outcome more satisfying. A terrified victim was a simple pleasure. A defiant one was a delicacy.
A laptop was open on a marble table behind him. On its screen were the technical schematics for the plaza's lighting grid and the concert's sound system, which he was passively monitoring. He was a silent god, watching the mortals play on the stage he had inadvertently set for them. He took a slow sip from a glass of expensive red wine, the deep crimson liquid swirling as he savored the moment. Physical harm was so crude, so unimaginative. His attack was planned for the precise moment of her peak triumph.
Back in the chaos of the security van, Min-ji was at her wits' end. Her screens showed a dozen different angles of the crowd, but it was an ocean of anonymity. "I've got nothing!" she said into her headset, her voice tight with frustration. "No sign of him, no digital interference, no suspicious activity. He's either not here, or he's better than I thought."
Suddenly, the voice of one of her plainclothes spotters, a man positioned near the plaza's main fountain, crackled in her ear. "Spotter Charlie. I have a visual. It's 'ShadowBroker,' the sasaeng info merchant you paid. He's here. Section C, about fifty meters from the stage."
Yoo-jin, listening in from the wings of the stage, felt his blood run cold. "What is he doing? Is he making a move?"
"Negative," the spotter replied. "He's just watching the show like everyone else… wait. Hold on. He just took out his phone. He's taking a picture of the stage."
A light went on in Min-ji's head. "His phone!" she exclaimed. "If he's sending the picture, if he's reporting to his client, he has to connect to a network! It's a needle in a haystack, but I can try to intercept the data packet!"
Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she launched a program designed to isolate and track specific data uploads from a designated geographical area. It was a nearly impossible task, like trying to catch a single raindrop in a thunderstorm, but it was their only lead.
On stage, Da-eun was transitioning into her final song. She was drenched in sweat, her hair clinging to her face, a triumphant, exhausted smile on her lips. The concert had been a massive success, a powerful act of defiance that had unified her and her fans. It felt like a complete and total victory.
In his high-rise apartment, Ryu set down his wine glass. The crescendo was approaching. It was time for the final act. He walked over to his laptop and, with a calm, deliberate motion, pressed a single key.
His attack was not on Ahn Da-eun. It was on her moment. It was on her audience. It was on everything.
Down in the plaza, the two massive jumbotron screens on either side of the stage, which had been showing a dynamic, close-up feed of Da-eun's passionate performance, suddenly flickered. They went black for a single, jarring second. The crowd murmured in confusion.
Then, they flashed back to life with blinding intensity. But they were no longer showing the concert.
On the left screen, playing on a brutal, silent loop, was the raw, grainy footage from Park Eun-sol's hidden camera. Thousands of people watched in stunned horror as Executive Director Moon Ji-tae of Stellar Entertainment appeared on screen with the tragic, now-deceased girl. There was no audio, but the explicitly sexual and exploitative nature of the video was sickeningly clear.
Simultaneously, on the right screen, another silent video began to play. It was the internal security footage from the Gangnam police station's interrogation room. A sobbing, broken Kwon Ji-hyuk, his face buried in his hands, appeared on a loop, the image of absolute guilt and despair.
Ryu hadn't laid a hand on the queen. Instead, with a single keystroke, he had publicly executed the corrupt and broken pawns of the two kings, Yoo-jin and Chairman Choi. He had taken all the dirty little secrets that were festering in the dark and broadcast them on fifty-foot screens. He had hijacked Ahn Da-eun's glorious moment of triumph and twisted it into a public tribunal, exposing the rot at the heart of both Aura and Stellar to the entire world, all at once.
The roar of the crowd turned from adoration to confused murmurs, then to gasps of shock and horror as they processed the vile images before them. Phones were raised, not to record the concert, but to capture the twin scandals now playing out in gigantic, horrifying detail.
Ahn Da-eun stood frozen on stage, her final triumphant note dying in her throat. The victory, the freedom, the connection she had felt just moments before turned to ash in her mouth. She was trapped in the spotlight, a helpless witness as the secrets of the men around her were laid bare for all to see.