The weight of the vision still clung to Joon-won like a lingering shadow. Even after the golden light faded and reality settled back into pce, his mind remained trapped in the images; the towering structures of a lost civilization, the nameless queen standing amidst ruin, the darkness that swallowed everything.

  He exhaled slowly, grounding himself in the present. The chamber around them remained unchanged, yet everything felt different. He had glimpsed something forbidden, something that had been deliberately buried beneath time.

  “This pce…” Min-jae finally spoke, his voice quiet yet firm. His sword remained unsheathed, his stance tense as if expecting an unseen enemy. “It wasn’t just ruins. It was a civilization.”

  Joon-won nodded, his gaze shifting to the golden crystal embedded at the chamber’s centre. It pulsed faintly, as if responding to their presence. “And something destroyed it.”

  Haneul traced the carved symbols along the walls, her expression unreadable. “Not just destroyed,” she murmured. “Erased.”

  Joon-won turned to her. “What do you mean?”

  She hesitated for a moment, then let her fingers rest against the ancient stone. “This isn’t just a remnant of the past. It’s as if this entire pce was meant to be forgotten. Something didn’t just wipe out this civilization; it ensured that no one would ever remember it existed.”

  A cold shiver crawled up Joon-won’s spine.

  Erasure.

  The corruption was spreading across the pnets, consuming everything in its path; but here, it had already won once before.

  Before he could respond, the golden crystal pulsed again.

  Faint whispers filled the air.

  They weren’t words, not exactly; more like distant echoes of voices long lost. The symbols on the walls flickered as if they were shifting, rearranging themselves into a pattern that was just out of reach.

  Then, suddenly, a name surfaced in Joon-won’s mind.

  It wasn’t written. It wasn’t spoken aloud.

  It simply… existed.

  Gwanryeon.

  The moment he grasped it, his breath caught in his throat.

  The name felt heavy, ancient, as if uttering it would awaken something long buried. It was the name of this pce—the lost civilization, the one that had been wiped from history.

  And yet, even as it surfaced, Joon-won felt resistance, as if something was trying to pull it away before he could truly understand it.

  “Haneul,” he said, voice hoarse, “do you hear it?”

  She turned to him, her sharp gaze locking onto his. “The name?”

  He nodded. “Gwanryeon.”

  The instant he spoke it aloud, the whispers cut off.

  The chamber dimmed, the golden glow flickering as if uncertain—

  And then, the air around them shifted.

  A low hum rumbled through the stone, deep and unsettling.

  Joon-won tensed, instincts screaming. Min-jae stepped forward, his sword raised in silent warning. Haneul remained still, her fingers tightening against the crystal.

  Then, the ground beneath them cracked open.

  Dark tendrils of corruption seeped from the fissures, writhing unnaturally as they spread across the chamber floor. The temperature dropped sharply, an unnatural cold cwing at Joon-won’s skin.

  This presence—

  It was the same one he had sensed near Hwanggeum Simjang on Geumji.

  The corruption was watching them.

  It knew they had uncovered something they weren’t meant to.

  A voice slithered through the chamber; distorted, fractured, yet disturbingly familiar.

  "You should not have spoken that name."

  Joon-won barely had time to react before the tendrils of corruption moved.

  But they weren’t coming for him.

  They were coming for Haneul.

  The darkness shed toward her, twisting and writhing as if drawn to her very existence.

  Joon-won lunged forward, but before he could reach her—

  Haneul raised her hand.

  The corruption halted.

  For a brief, impossible moment, the tendrils wavered, as if… hesitating.

  Joon-won’s pulse thundered in his ears.

  She’s connected to this.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d suspected it, but now, there was no denying it. Haneul’s power wasn’t just resistance to corruption. It was something else; something older.

  Something that the corruption recognized.

  Min-jae’s grip on his sword tightened. “Haneul… what the hell was that?”

  She didn’t answer right away.

  Instead, she pressed her fingers against the golden crystal, her expression unreadable.

  “They’re testing us,” she murmured.

  Joon-won frowned. “Who?”

  Her gaze lifted to the shifting darkness.

  “The ones who came before.”

  And then, she stepped forward.

  The golden light fred, pushing back the tendrils of corruption. They didn’t vanish, but they recoiled, retreating to the edges of the chamber.

  The test, for now, was over.

  But Joon-won knew; this was only the beginning.

  A deep silence settled between them as the corruption faded into the shadows.

  Then, the walls changed.

  The ancient carvings shifted once more, but this time, they didn’t form symbols.

  They formed images.

  Joon-won’s breath hitched as he recognized the figure at the centre.

  A woman, standing with her arms outstretched, bathed in golden light.

  It was her.

  The woman from his vision.

  The nameless queen who had stood amidst the destruction, reaching for something; or someone.

  Haneul’s voice was distant. “She was the st.”

  Min-jae gnced at her. “The st what?”

  “The st ruler of Gwanryeon,” she answered quietly.

  Joon-won swallowed hard. “The queen.”

  The corruption hadn’t just consumed this civilization.

  It had taken her as well.

  And yet, something of her remained.

  A message, a warning; left behind for someone to find.

  Min-jae exhaled sharply, sheathing his sword. “So, what now?”

  Joon-won’s gaze drifted back to the golden crystal, his mind racing.

  This civilization had fallen, but its knowledge wasn’t entirely lost. There was still something to uncover; something that could help them fight back.

  Haneul ran her fingers over the carved image of the queen, lost in thought.

  “…There’s more,” she whispered.

  Joon-won turned to her. “What do you mean?”

  She hesitated, then met his gaze.

  “She’s still out there.”

  His heartbeat faltered. “What?”

  Haneul’s expression was unreadable, but her voice was steady.

  “She’s not gone. Not completely.”

  Joon-won stared at her, struggling to process the words.

  The queen of Gwanryeon; erased from history, lost to time; was still out there.

  And if they could find her—

  They might finally understand what truly happened.

  More importantly—

  They might discover how to stop it from happening again.

  Joon-won clenched his fists.

  For the first time, they had a direction.

  A lost civilization. A queen who had vanished into history’s void. A corruption that had already won once; but not completely.

  Not yet.

  He lifted his gaze to the ceiling of the chamber, where cracks in the stone revealed the vast sky beyond.

  Two pnets hung in the heavens; one barren, one golden.

  And far beyond them, at the edge of his vision, a faint golden glow pulsed from the surface of Geumji.

  Joon-won exhaled, the name heavy on his tongue.

  "Gwanryeon."

  And this time—

  The corruption did not retreat.

  It listened.

  .. .. .