The Hangook City Bank headquarters was as quiet as a ghost town with its lights out. However, the flow of data I was sensing through the Intelligence Fragment was churning ominously, like the calm before a storm. The very fact that the security system was silent was the biggest alarm of all.

  The main entrance was pointless. I circled around to the side of the building and, using the Power Fragment to create footholds in the joints of the marble facade, climbed up to the fifth floor. I wrenched open a heavy ventilation grate with sheer force and slipped into the dark passage.

  The corridor was silent, but the security signals in my head were blaring. The lasers flickered on and off, the pressure sensors showed signs of being disabled, and the CCTVs were playing the same footage on a loop.

  A strange pattern. It was as if someone had intentionally put it on a loop.

  GNOM spoke.

  "Chul, he's on the fifth basement level. The very core. He's already taken most of the internal controls. The whole building is his web."

  "How far in is he?"

  "Probably all the way to the central vault. With this level of skill, this is someone who knows the inside layout intimately."

  As I descended the emergency staircase, the CCTV lenses on the wall turned to follow my movements. Knowing of my intrusion but not sounding an alarm meant he was deliberately luring me deeper.

  The chance of it being a trap was high.

  But I couldn't turn back. There was already too much at stake.

  The data I had gathered over the past few days quickly fell into place in my mind. Starting with the incident records related to the Hangook City Bank headquarters, I cross-referenced internal corruption exposé articles, lists of financial accident victims, and even the names of disciplined employees, eliminating candidates one by one.

  I narrowed it down to those with a motive—individuals who had a reason to hold a personal grudge against the bank. Several names flashed by, but in the end, only one remained.

  Park Seong-min. A man who had disappeared after a whistleblower incident in the financial sector several years ago. At the time, the media had praised him as a righteous whistleblower, but afterward, he was completely blacklisted from the industry. No company would hire him, and he eventually vanished from society.

  And the large-scale spatial distortion now being detected inside the vault perfectly matched a motive that wasn't about money, but about shaking the system itself.

  I reached the end of the B5 corridor. A titanium alloy door blocked my path. It looked flawless. It had to be at least twenty centimeters thick.

  He could probably pass through this door, but I didn't have that ability.

  Instead, I had the Intelligence Fragment. Without touching the scanner, I slid my consciousness into the security system. Layers of access control, intrusion detection, and recording systems were intertwined. But I could see sections that had already been disabled.

  I followed the gaps to bypass the remaining authentications. There was one open session left in the admin console, likely left intentionally by Park Seong-min. I seized that session and connected it to the door lock system.

  After a few seconds, a metallic sound echoed.

  'Click.'

  The door slid open inward. The heavy smell of metal hit my nose. I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

  The first impression was overwhelming.

  Mountains of cash and piles of gold bars surrounded me. But what was happening in the center was even more shocking.

  Park Seong-min was standing there. With his hands raised, he was manipulating something, and a black sphere was forming at his fingertips. The light around it was slightly warped, and loose banknotes rustled as they were pulled toward it.

  There was no conventional bomb. Instead, it was an intangible one created by his spatial ability—a sphere of spatial collapse floating in the air. It was a threat capable of swallowing the vault and its entire vicinity.

  GNOM sent an immediate warning.

  "Spatial stability is rapidly collapsing. It won't hold for long."

  The danger level was steadily rising. It meant there wasn't much time left.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Park Seong-min slowly turned his head to look at me. His face was a mixture of long-festering anger and a strange sense of satisfaction.

  "I thought someone would come, but you're here sooner than expected. The final audience."

  His voice was calm, but a deep hatred was laced within it.

  "Stop this, Park Seong-min."

  As I said his name, his eyes narrowed. The tension instantly peaked.

  "How did you know my name?"

  "I started by narrowing down the people who held a grudge against Hangook City Bank. Among them, you were the most likely."

  He gave a short laugh. It was a laugh that was both desolate and mocking.

  "Smart, I see. But soon, everything will disappear."

  I decided not to waste time. With that sphere ready to detonate at any moment, a lengthy conversation was dangerous.

  "Why are you doing this? If you wanted money, there were other ways."

  He shook his head and replied.

  "Money? These pieces of paper mean nothing to me. I'm here to show just how fragile and meaningless this system you all worship is."

  His past records flashed through my mind via the Intelligence Fragment. The pyramid scheme that had ruined his parents, the endless rejections after graduating from a top university, and finally, the whistleblowing at his last job followed by his complete blacklisting.

  The misdirected rage had been festering inside him for a long time.

  "So you're going to destroy all of this?"

  "That's right." His voice was filled with conviction. "When this sphere erases everything, you'll all finally realize what's truly important. Not money, but life, relationships, true value."

  The black sphere pulsed rhythmically. With each pulse, the floor and walls vibrated faintly. The entire vault began to resonate.

  There really wasn't much time left.

  He gestured, and suddenly, he teleported behind me. I spun around quickly, but he was already back in his original position.

  "Well? Think you can stop that while fighting me at the same time?"

  This wasn't a simple physical fight. I had to analyze his teleportation frequency, appearance angles, and travel distances while simultaneously finding a way to neutralize the sphere.

  A pattern began to emerge. But the real key was something else.

  There were three faint connection points extending from the sphere to the walls, ceiling, and floor. They were almost invisible to the naked eye, but the Intelligence Fragment's analysis revealed that these points were anchoring the sphere.

  They were the anchor points that allowed him to maintain his consciousness and continue his spatial manipulation—the Spatial Nodes.

  I accelerated toward the first connection point.

  Park Seong-min instantly teleported to the same spot. A brief collision occurred. The sting of static electricity touched my tongue, and the smell of ozone filled the air.

  I quickly sliced through the connection point with the edge of my hand.

  I felt an invisible thread snap, and the faint vibration ceased.

  His face hardened. For the first time, a look of bewilderment was clear.

  "How... How did you know what I was doing?"

  Instead of answering, I moved toward the second connection point.

  It was in the shadow line beneath a pile of gold bars on the floor.

  I kicked up a stack of cash to obscure his view, quickly moved to the side, and grabbed the point with my fingertips, twisting it hard.

  As the second connection point broke, the sphere's surface began to tremble erratically. The movement of the banknotes being pulled toward it also slowed.

  I sensed that the collapse was imminent.

  "It's over, Park Seong-min."

  I lunged toward the final connection point. But he played his last card. Mustering all his remaining strength, he force-teleported my spatial coordinates to the opposite side of the vault.

  The world spun.

  Space warped, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. It was hard to tell up from down.

  But in that instant, the final connection point was left completely exposed.

  It was my chance.

  Before I could even regain my balance, I threw myself toward that empty spot. I grabbed the connection point with both hands and, with all my strength, twisted it until it snapped.

  A short, sharp crack echoed.

  The sphere vanished with a soft 'pop'. The air trembled once, and then silence fell.

  Park Seong-min collapsed, powerless.

  His face was pale, his forehead beaded with sweat. It seemed to be a side effect of his spatial manipulation.

  But it wasn't over yet.

  The residual vibrations from the sphere's disappearance began to trigger a chain reaction of cracks throughout the vault's structure. The ceiling trusses groaned and started to give way. Bolts shot out, and the seams on the side walls slowly widened.

  "Chul, get out! The structure can't hold!"

  GNOM's warning roared in my head.

  Thump! Thump! Thump!

  Massive gold bars fell one after another, crashing onto the floor. Each was the size of a person. Stacks of cash were also thrown into the air by the force of the blast and scattered in all directions.

  I shoved a falling gold bar away with my shoulder and looked for the quickest escape route. I ran through a narrow blind spot between a pillar and the wall, heading for the entrance.

  The sounds of collapse continued behind me.

  Just as I got out, the titanium door slammed shut with a final, deafening boom. All sound from inside the vault was sealed off.

  I was finally able to catch my breath in the corridor.

  ##########

  At that moment, an alarm sounded from ground level. It was a signal that Park Seong-min had already teleported toward the city and was on the run.

  I rushed up the stairs to the surface.

  Alarms were blaring across the entire city. An emergency alert was issued from the central control center, and news flashes poured in. Road closure notifications and disaster alerts were sent simultaneously to citizens' phones.

  But ironically, the public still knew him only as the 'diamond thief'. They had no idea what the real danger had been.

  The stage had shifted from the narrow vault to the sprawling city. And the situation had become even more dangerous.

  Park Seong-min was heading for the Hangang Bridge. It was rush hour, and the bridge was packed with cars, with people standing on the pedestrian railings watching the river. A few were already filming the sky with their phones.

  News station drones were circling overhead, broadcasting live.

  The moment he teleported to the center of the bridge, I was already there waiting for him.

  "I've already figured out your pattern. The actions of someone consumed by rage are easy to predict."

  He seemed surprised and paused for a moment, then immediately rose into the air.

  "Do you know that this city's logistics will be completely paralyzed if I just destroy this one bridge? No one can stop me!"

  Below, screams and shouts mingled. I used hand signals and a loud voice to try to minimize the chaos on the bridge.

  "Get back! Clear the central lanes! Children and the elderly first!"

  Police cars approached with sirens wailing and began to block the lanes. I could hear orders for traffic control being relayed over their radios.

  The live drone footage was being broadcast nationwide.

  Park Seong-min tried to twist the entire main pylon of the Hangang Bridge. But it was too much. Manipulating such a massive structure at a high altitude was beyond human limits.

  As the frequency of his spatial distortion pushed into the pylon's joints, thin, web-like cracks spread rapidly across the concrete surface. The air around it shimmered.

  But his face was growing paler and paler.

  "No... not yet... it's not over!"

  But the human body has its limits.

  He was in a state of complete overload. His ability to float gave out, and he lost his balance and began to fall.

  "Aaaaaah!"

  A long, desperate scream tore through the air above the Hangang River.

  A massive pillar of water erupted.

  Park Seong-min plunged into the cold river with tremendous impact.

  "Water... it's water! I... I can't swim!"

  He thrashed in the water, screaming in despair. All ideology and rage had vanished, leaving only the primal fear of a man facing death.

  I paused for a moment.

  He was clearly a terrorist of the worst kind, a man who had endangered the entire society. But I couldn't just let him die.

  'An enemy, but I have to save him.'

  That was the fundamental difference between us. Choosing life, not destruction.

  I hesitated no longer. I climbed onto the railing. The situation on the water's surface appeared with stark clarity: the direction of the current, the strength of the wind, the speed at which he was drifting.

  The exact point my hand needed to reach materialized vividly in my mind.

  Using the power of the Intelligence Fragment, I quickly calculated the flow of the water, the direction of the wind, and the optimal angle of approach.

  I took a deep breath and immediately jumped.