The atmosphere in the dojo's reading room felt colder than usual. Hana carefully flipped through the pages of an old book, while Tae sat at the corner of the table, eyes fixed on the tablet screen filled with digitized scans of ancient documents. Jung Kok stood silently behind them, his mind racing.
"Here it is," Hana murmured, her finger pointing at a symbol on the yellowed page. The same symbol found in Hwang's weapon storage room.
"This symbol was once used by an old secret group, but they disbanded nearly two decades ago. Their name... 'The Last Shadow'," Tae explained, his tone laced with uncertainty.
Jung Kok took a deep breath. "If they were disbanded, why is this symbol appearing again now?"
No one answered. The question seemed to echo through the wooden walls of the old dojo.
In a dark alley on the outskirts of the city, Min stood under a flickering streetlamp. His hand held a phone, sending messages to two different people — one to Jung Kok, and the other to Rina. The content differed, but both messages were equally convincing.
"Destroy from within, not from outside," he muttered as he tapped 'Send'.
His expression was calm, but his mind spun with a thousand deceptions. The Top-Secret Classified File hadn't been fully unlocked yet, but last night he had managed to open a small portion — just enough for him to realize that everything he knew about Hwang's history and their dark world was only a small fragment of a much greater truth.
Rina sat cross-legged on a leather sofa in her private office. Jung Joon stood facing the window, silent.
"You've been making decisions too hastily lately," Rina said without looking at him.
"I'm tired of waiting. If we don't act, he'll strike first," Jung Joon replied.
"If we misstep, we might not get the chance to strike at all," Rina lifted her gaze. "That's why I met someone. Someone who last saw that symbol before it disappeared."
Jung Joon turned to her. "Who?"
Rina gave a faint smile. "An old soul. He'll help us… if we know what we're looking for."
In his old home, Hwang opened a hidden drawer behind a bookshelf. From inside, he pulled out an old photograph — a group of men in black uniforms, standing proudly. In the middle of them, the same symbol hung on the wall.
"I thought you were dead..." he muttered.
Then he contacted someone via satellite phone. "We need your old investigator again. It's time."
Night fell, and Min finally managed to break through another layer of protection in the Top-Secret Classified File. Inside — a list of names. Names believed to have betrayed Hwang long ago.
But his eyes stopped at one name he never expected: Jin Tae-hwan.
"Impossible..." he whispered. "He's Hwang's right-hand man. If he knows who I really am..."
Min closed the file and turned toward the window. In the distance, an owl's call echoed. Everything was getting more complicated. And danger was drawing closer.
At the dojo, Jung Kok was lost in thought when his phone vibrated. A short message appeared:
"What you seek… is seeking you too."
He gripped the phone tightly.
Behind him, Hana and Tae stood in silence, each carrying an unspoken worry. Jung Kok turned around. Their eyes met.
"We can't stop now," he said. "Whatever's coming, we face it together."
The shadows that once seemed distant… were now drawing near.