---
> "It begins not with an explosion… but with a silence that won't obey."
---
[Three Days After the Maestra Battle – Jin-Soo's Hideout, Daecheon Mountains]
Wounds scabbed but not healed.
Muscles ached from surviving an enemy not bound by physics.
Jin-Soo sat against a cold cave wall, breathing in slow, silent rhythm.
His system floated translucent in front of him—still unread messages blinked softly.
But it wasn't the system he was focused on.
It was the fragment of code Maestra dropped when she vanished.
A thin silver wire, barely visible, still humming with residual architect frequency.
---
> [System: Artifact Acquired – "Thread of Harmony (Fractured)"]
[Warning: Holding this item flags your location if exposed for more than 2 seconds.]
[Function: Unknown – Can only be deciphered using Monarch-Class memory keys.]
---
Jin-Soo didn't know what it truly was yet.
But he could feel it pulsing.
Like a heartbeat.
Like a message waiting to be heard.
---
[Meanwhile – Red Spiral HQ, Seoul]
Kang Mi-Ra stood at the central data tower, staring at the constellation of connected monitors.
Hundreds of anonymous reports.
Survivors.
Dead system traces.
Black-market collapses.
> "We're reaching critical exposure," her aide said. "There are whispers of 'The Monarch' in the northern provinces now."
> "Good," Mi-Ra said quietly.
"Let them whisper.
Let them wonder if silence is finally watching."
Suddenly—an alert.
[Thread Detected]
The system flagged a fragment Jin-Soo had touched… and then buried again.
> He's alive.
But more than that—
He's moving again.
---
[Jin-Soo's Next Move – Fragment Hunt Begins]
The system guided him now not by maps or mission logs.
But by resonance.
> [You are now eligible to track Monarch Fragments.]
[Remaining Active Monarch Echoes: 2]
[Unknown Class Remnants: 5]
[Final Monarch Core: Lost]
Jin-Soo's eyes narrowed.
> "I'm not the only one who woke up…"
He packed light.
No comms.
No allies.
Only one message left behind, scratched into the stone wall of the cave:
> "I'm not saving the world.
I'm saving the ones no one else can."
---
[Elsewhere – Deep Sea Mana Prison: Zone Null]
A heavily guarded island, officially erased from all maps.
Prisoners here were too dangerous to kill—class collapses, failed evolutions, corrupted systems, and broken summoners.
And somewhere, in a metal cell suspended above black water, someone opened their eyes.
A man with no name.
Only a mark on his chest—an ancient Monarch sigil, burnt into flesh.
He sat up, slow and silent.
One whisper escaped his lips:
> "The Dissonance walks again."
Guards above laughed, unaware of what had stirred.
---
[New Villain Emerges – Architect High Council: Hidden Server-Plane, 'The Atrium']
Seven floating geometric frames circled one another, exchanging soundless pulses.
Until one spoke—an echo of arrogance wrapped in digital melody.
> "We underestimated the Silence."
Another answered:
> "Then we raise the conductor."
And slowly, from the center chamber, a new being took form—
An Architect not built for combat…
But for rewriting history itself.
Name: Φ-One (Phi-One) – The Archivist
Class: [Architect – Temporal Recalibration Unit]
Function: Erase all memory of Monarch Classes from reality itself.
---
[Back with Jin-Soo – A Road to Gwangju]
In disguise, wearing a delivery jacket and helmet, Jin-Soo rode a secondhand scooter down cracked countryside roads.
But every kilometer brought something strange:
The birds were gone.
Mana in the air twisted unnaturally.
And survivors along the road whispered his name without knowing why.
A little boy he passed on a village street looked up and shouted:
> "Mom! I saw the man from the dreams again!"
Jin-Soo paused.
> "Again…?"
The system pulsed:
> [Architect Sub-Agent Activity Detected]
[Temporal Interference Detected in Area]
[Monarch Class Signature: Echoed in Local Minds.]
> [You are being remembered… before you arrived.]
---
[Final Scene – Fragment Signal Detected]
At sunset, Jin-Soo arrived at an abandoned temple deep in the hills outside Gwangju.
Inside was only dust.
Cobwebs.
And at the far end—
A statue of a woman holding a broken staff. Her eyes were hollow.
But his system whispered:
> [Monarch Fragment Detected – Class Type: Voicebound / Emotion Memory Class]
[Name Unknown. Status: Sleeping.]
[Awakening Possible: Will you activate the fragment?]
Jin-Soo stood before the statue.
Behind him, the world was changing.
Ahead of him, something old waited to be born again.
He reached out—
Placed his hand on the cold stone forehead—
And whispered:
> "Wake up.
We still have work to do."
---