The South Loading Dock didn't smell like a concert. It smelled like a hospital.
Yoo-jin stepped onto the concrete ramp. His thrift-store trench coat flapped in the draft from the industrial AC units. Behind him, fifty breathing shadows moved in silence—the trainees, hoodies up, gripping their makeshift instruments.
"It's too quiet," Kai whispered, adjusting the strap of his bass guitar. "Where is security? Where are the stagehands?"
"They're not needed," Yoo-jin scanned the empty corridor. "Apex automates everything. Humans make mistakes."
They walked past racks of pristine white costumes. They passed a catering table set with untouched water bottles arranged in a perfect grid. It was creepy. It felt like walking into a rendering of a backstage, not a real place.
"There," Sae-ri pointed.
At the end of the hall, the massive hydraulic stage lift waited. It was open.
And right next to it, a 50-inch monitor flickered to life.
Apex's face appeared. He was already on stage, visible in the background of the feed, waiting in the dark.
"You arrived," Apex said. His voice came through the speakers crisp and clear.
"You left the door open," Yoo-jin replied, not stopping his stride.
"I calculated the probability of your attendance at 99.8%," Apex smiled. "Come up, Subject 734. The audience is waiting for a villain."
"We're not the villains," Min-ji growled, gripping her bat. "We're the critics."
"Correction," Apex's eyes narrowed. "You are the sacrifice."
The screen went black.
Yoo-jin stepped onto the massive metal platform of the lift. The fifty trainees crowded in behind him. They were shaking. Not from cold, but from the sheer weight of the twenty thousand people sitting just ten meters above their heads.
"Listen to me," Yoo-jin turned to them.
He didn't shout. He spoke with the terrifying calm of a Producer who has already visualized the final cut.
"Up there, they are asleep. They are drowning in a warm bath of algorithms."
He pointed upward. The floorboards vibrated with the stomping of feet.
"You are not here to perform. You are here to riot. Do not sing pretty. Sing like you are breaking glass."
Ha-eun nodded. She wiped a smudge of grease from her cheek. Her eyes were fierce.
"Ready," she whispered to the girls.
Above them, a synthesized horn blasted. The show was starting.
The Gocheok Sky Dome. Main Stage.
The lights went out.
Twenty thousand fans screamed, then hushed as a white spotlight hit the center stage.
The music began. It wasn't the aggressive beat of typical K-Pop. It was the "Sanctuary" track—a low, throbbing hum that seemed to bypass the ears and vibrate directly in the spine.
The twelve members of Project Aegis rose from the floor on individual pillars. They glowed.
In the center, Ji-soo stood like a statue. She raised her microphone.
The world is sharp, she sang. Her voice was pitch-perfect, but dead.
Let the soft waves take you.
The audience swayed. Their lightsticks turned a soft, sedative lavender. The Violet Signal was live, inverted into a pacifying wave.
Yoo-jin felt it even through the floor. A wave of lethargy hit him. His anger felt heavy, hard to hold onto.
"It's strong," Sae-ri leaned against the railing of the lift. Her eyes drooped. "I feel... tired."
"David!" Yoo-jin slapped his own cheek to wake up. "Now!"
David, crouching in the corner of the lift with his laptop, hit the 'Enter' key.
"Payload delivered," David shouted over the bass. "Triggering the 'Hidden Track' in 3... 2... 1..."
The Audience.
A girl in the third row, clutching her lavender lightstick, blinked. She felt so peaceful. She just wanted to listen to the pretty boys and forget her exams.
Suddenly, her phone buzzed.
A notification from the concert app: [SECRET ENCORE UNLOCKED]
"Huh?" She looked down.
Around her, thousands of phones lit up simultaneously.
Then, her lightstick flickered.
The soft lavender color died.
It turned jagged, angry Red.
BZZZT.
Her lightstick vibrated violently in her hand. A harsh, distorted sound crackled from the tiny speaker in the handle.
It wasn't a song. It was a scream.
WAKE UP.
The Stage.
Apex faltered.
He was in the middle of a perfect pirouette when he saw it.
The ocean of lavender lights... turned into a sea of blood red.
And the sound.
It started as a murmur—thousands of tiny speakers playing the distorted file N3KO had planted. It grew. It became a swarm of hornets.
SCREEEEEECH.
The feedback loop hit the Dome's microphone system.
Ji-soo flinched. The hypnotic rhythm was broken. She blinked, confusion flooding her eyes.
"What is happening?" a Clone whispered, breaking formation. "Audience behavior outside predicted parameters!"
"Ignore it!" Apex commanded, his perfect mask cracking. "Sing louder!"
But they couldn't. Because the floor was moving.
The massive central lift, which wasn't scheduled to move for another hour, began to rise.
GRIND. CLANK.
It rose right in the middle of their formation, splitting the twelve perfect princes apart.
Steam hissed. The platform locked into place.
And there, standing in the center of the pristine white stage, was a black stain.
Han Yoo-jin.
He wore his tattered trench coat like a cape. His hair was wild. He held a megaphone in one hand and a battered electric guitar in the other.
Behind him, fifty girls in black hoodies stood like gargoyles, holding pipes, bats, and drums.
The contrast was violent. White suits vs. Street trash. Perfection vs. The Glitch.
The music stopped. The Clones stared. The audience gasped, the red lightsticks casting long, devilish shadows on the intruders.
Yoo-jin raised the megaphone.
"Sorry for the interruption," his voice scratched through the silence, raw and unpolished.
He looked at Apex. He looked at Ji-soo.
Ji-soo's eyes met his. A spark of recognition. A tear cut through her perfect makeup.
Yoo-jin turned to the twenty thousand confused fans.
"You paid for a lullaby," Yoo-jin shouted.
He slammed his foot down.
Kai hit the bass string. BOOM.
"But I'm here to sell you a revolution."
"Get them off the stage!" Apex screamed, pointing a trembling finger. "Security!"
But it was too late.
"Min-ji!" Yoo-jin yelled. "Drop the beat!"
Min-ji smashed her metal bat against a customized oil drum they had hauled up.
CLANG!
It was the ugliest sound ever heard in the Gocheok Dome.
And it was electric.
"Ha-eun! Scream!"
The fifty trainees opened their mouths. They didn't harmonize. They shrieked. It was a war cry, pitch-shifted by David's laptop to rattle the bones.
WAKE UP! WAKE UP!
The audience flinched. The sedative spell of the Violet Signal shattered under the sheer acoustic violence.
Yoo-jin ran to the edge of the stage. He didn't look at the Clones. He looked at Ji-soo.
She was standing frozen, clutching her mic.
"Ji-soo!" Yoo-jin shouted over the chaos. "This is your stage! Do you want to be a doll? Or do you want to be real?"
Apex lunged for her. "Don't listen to him! He is a virus!"
Ji-soo looked at Apex's perfect, terrifying face. Then she looked at Yoo-jin—bloody, dirty, and desperate.
She looked at her hand. She tapped her finger against her thigh.
Dot. Dot. Dash.
She ripped the earpiece out of her ear.
She threw it on the floor and crushed it with her white heel.
She looked at Yoo-jin. And for the first time in weeks, she smiled. A real, ugly, crying smile.
She raised her microphone.
"Let's make some noise," she whispered.
Yoo-jin grinned. He plugged his guitar into the amp Kai had kicked forward.
"Unit 001," Yoo-jin said into the megaphone. "Welcome to the real world."
He struck a power chord.
It wasn't music. It was an explosion.
The Battle of the Dome had begun.