The basement was colder than usual.
The concrete walls seemed to sweat in the damp air, and Han Dae Su sat motionless on the worn-out mattress, his back against the wall. The bare light bulb above him flickered for the third time that night, sending uneven shadows rippling across the cracked ceiling. In the silence, the distant hum of traffic felt like it came from another world. Not his.
This place wasn't a home.
It was a grave.
He'd been out of prison for three days now.
Three days since the cold metal gates slid open and the guards, with their lazy smirks, told him to "get lost and don't come back." No one waited outside. No friends. No family. The world moved on without him. He stepped onto the street like a man whose life had been ripped away, leaving behind nothing but empty skin.
This house, what was left of it, stood alone on the edge of a narrow alley. The rooms were stripped bare, most of the furniture sold off to cover debts after his parents' deaths. The basement was all he had left — thick walls, a broken TV set, a mattress that stank of mildew, and the kind of cold that made you forget the feeling of warmth.
His phone rested in his palm. A cheap, beat-up thing his aunt had mailed from the US along with a single message:
"I'm sorry, Dae Su. I can't come home. They're still watching me. Stay safe."
That was it.
He hadn't replied.
The screen still displayed the last Facebook post from Park Jin Seok — the ringleader of the group who ruined his life. The post showed them gathered around a barbecue grill, laughing, drinks in hand, beautiful girls clinging to them like parasites. Ten of them. The same ten faces from high school. The same ten names burned into his memory like acid.
Park Jin Seok.
Yoo Min Ho.
Choi Woo Jae.
Baek Hyun Sik.
Lee Jin Soo.
Kang Do Yoon.
Seo Ki Ho.
Jung Seung Ho.
Hwang Jun Pyo.
Oh Seung Min.
All of them smiling. All of them breathing.
His thumb scrolled through the photos. Jin Seok leaning against a sports car. Do Yoon showing off his new watch. Woo Jae in a hotel suite. Not a single consequence between them.
Dae Su's teeth clenched.
His mind drifted back to that day, three years ago — the incident that changed everything. A normal afternoon. Rain falling against the classroom windows. Laughter. The weight of being the quiet, overlooked kid in the back. Then a scream.
He'd turned his head to see one of them clutching a bleeding hand, a knife on the floor, and his own hand sliced open. Someone had grabbed him from behind, a voice shouting, "It's him! He tried to stab me!"
The teacher's face twisted in disgust.
And nobody spoke for him.
Nobody.
Not even when they cut his finger with the blade while the teacher's back was turned, planting the bloodied knife in his backpack. Not when they dragged him to the office. Not when the police came. Not when his parents arrived, desperate and terrified.
And when his mother and father started asking too many questions, demanding security footage and testimonies, the bullies' families — wealthy, connected — made sure they were silenced. A car crash. Flames consuming everything.
His aunt had come to see him once in prison. Thin, frail, hands trembling as she passed him a bag of oranges and whispered the words that shattered him.
"They're gone… Dae Su. Your parents are gone. It wasn't an accident."
After that, he spoke to no one.
Three years in a cage where even the rats knew better than to trust the guards.
Now, back in this basement, watching those same monsters live like kings, the storm inside him built with every heartbeat.
His breathing slowed. The air in the room felt thick, like drowning in syrup. His hand trembled around the phone, the image of Jin Seok's smug face blurring. His teeth gritted.
And then — something stirred.
A pulse.
A heavy, ancient presence. A pressure in the room that hadn't been there a second before.
He thought it was a hallucination. The kind you get when you haven't slept in days. But no — the shadows shifted, the temperature dropped, and the whisper wasn't his.
"Ten traitors… ten deaths… vengeance transcends death."
A voice from nowhere. From everywhere. It sounded like a thousand knives scraping stone. Cold, furious.
Drenval.
The name surfaced in his head like a buried memory that wasn't his own. An image of a blood-drenched warrior, betrayed by those he called brothers, his dying words a curse upon their bloodlines.
The air grew heavier.
His muscles tensed without meaning to. His skin prickled, heart pounding.
He looked down at his hand.
It was shaking.
He clenched it into a fist and drove it against the wall — a weak punch, meant to vent frustration. But the moment his knuckles connected, the concrete cracked.
A thin, jagged line shot across the surface.
He pulled his hand back in shock.
The pain didn't come. There wasn't even a bruise.
And deep inside his chest, the pulse beat again.
Something ancient was waking.
And it had chosen him.