The alley I arrived in through spatial movement was far more dilapidated than I had expected.

  It was an old residential district roughly three kilometers north of downtown—the epicenter I had tracked the night before. The streetlights were half-broken, letting only a faint orange glow seep through, and fallen leaves mixed with trash tumbled across the cracked asphalt in the wind.

  Graffiti and peeled advertising flyers were plastered across the walls, and rusted bicycles and abandoned flowerpots lay scattered throughout.

  The air hung heavy and still.

  With every breath, it felt like something was slowly pressing down on my chest. My lungs struggled to take in air properly, and my heart beat slower and heavier than usual.

  'Strange. Far worse than the plaza.'

  It was several times more crushing than what I had endured at the City Hall plaza. My vision blurred, and a low hum kept ringing inside my ears. It felt as though an enormous invisible hand was slowly squeezing my heart.

  My legs lost their strength, and my mouth went completely dry.

  At the end of the alley, set slightly apart from the other buildings, stood a single worn structure. A two-story detached building. The outer wall, once white, had paint peeling away in patches to reveal bare concrete beneath, and most of the second-floor windows were shattered. The glass door at the first-floor entrance hung half-open, gaping into the darkness within.

  A faded sign hung above the entrance. Half the letters had worn away, but it was still just legible.

  Ire Gallery.

  An art gallery. No—a shuttered art gallery. Through the broken glass, the empty interior opened its mouth to the dark.

  I slowly scanned my surroundings. People lay collapsed throughout the alley. Some leaned against walls, crying quietly. Others had dropped to their knees and sat motionless, staring into the void. Some were curled into themselves, trembling faintly.

  It was nothing like the rage I had seen at the plaza. Here... it was sorrow. Endlessly deep, bottomless, inescapable sorrow. Suffocating sorrow.

  I carefully activated Intelligence Fragment. I traced back nearby CCTV footage, hacked into the building registry. Communication records, bank transaction histories, social media accounts—I worked through them one by one.

  Information accumulated rapidly in my mind.

  Ire Gallery owner: Lee Joon-hyeok. Age 32. Former rising painter. Winner of the New Artist Award in 2020. In the five years since, his sales record stood at exactly zero. Gallery shuttered three months ago. Divorce filed two months ago. Electricity and water cut one month ago. Missing person report filed two weeks ago.

  His final social media post surfaced in my mind. Uploaded three weeks ago.

  "No one looks at my paintings. No one understands my heart. Am I... invisible? Or did I simply never exist to begin with."

  I bit my lip. This person, too—like the others before him—was someone who had fallen into despair. Unrecognized, overlooked, left alone in the end. And somewhere along the way, infected by a Fragment source.

  I walked slowly toward the entrance. With each step, the pressure intensified. Through the gap in the door, something seeped out—not cold, but heavy and damp, like a wet blanket wrapping around my face.

  I reached out and pushed the door. With a sharp cry from its worn hinges, the door swung slowly inward.

  Inside was complete darkness.

  I carefully activated Power Fragment. A faint light formed in my palm—a dim white glow tinged with red. A technique I had recently developed: converting energy into light.

  The faint light spread gradually through the interior. Paintings covered the walls. Not dozens. Hundreds.

  The entire first-floor lobby wall, all the way to the ceiling, was blanketed with paintings. Every piece shared the same theme.

  Loneliness.

  A person sitting alone, gazing out a window. A single plate set on an empty table. A room where a broken clock had stopped. Petals falling from a wilting flower in a vase. The back of a figure disappearing into darkness.

  The same emotion flowed from every painting like a tide. Sorrow, solitude, despair—and longing. A desperate longing to be seen by someone.

  Step by careful step, I moved deeper inside. My footsteps echoed through the hollow space. Dust drifted in the air, glittering as it danced in the light. Broken easels lay toppled in the corners, dried paint tubes scattered across the floor, shattered palettes abandoned where they had fallen.

  The paintings seemed to move. No—it wasn't an illusion. The eyes of the figures inside were following my every step. When I turned my head, the eyes in the paintings turned with me.

  "Just my imagination... probably..."

  I muttered, but my voice trembled. I wasn't sure.

  At the far end of the lobby, two staircases came into view. One ascending to the second floor, one descending underground. Both disappeared into darkness, stretching far beyond where the light could reach.

  'Kang Chul, be careful.'

  GNOM's voice rang inside my mind. Unlike its usual unhurried tone, this one trembled—taut with something close to dread.

  'This entire building... it's the Emotion Fragment's domain. Like a vast barrier. Not a physical space—a mental one.'

  "What does that mean?"

  'The moment we stepped inside... we entered his territory. A world where his rules apply. Where the laws of emotion take precedence over the laws of physics.'

  I swallowed. My throat was too dry; it barely went down.

  'GNOM—can you be affected too?'

  A brief silence. I could feel GNOM hesitating.

  '...I don't know. This is new to me. Physical attacks—I can analyze and block. But emotion... I feel it too. I'm... afraid.'

  GNOM's honest admission frightened me more than anything else could have.

  I chose the upstairs staircase. Up was better than underground.

  The wooden steps groaned underfoot, the railing was thick with dust, and with each step higher, the pressure intensified.

  Then—sound from above. Not footsteps. Shh, shh, shh. The sound of a brush moving across canvas. Steady, slow, focused. Someone was painting.

  I reached the second floor. Rooms lined both sides of the corridor. Every door hung half-open, and darkness flowed outward from within.

  I stopped at the first door. I breathed in slowly and pushed it open. A small exhibition room. Four paintings hung on the walls.

  But these paintings were... different. Entirely unlike the ones downstairs. These paintings breathed.

  ##########

  I stood before the first painting and raised my light toward it.

  〈The Lonely Child〉

  The title was engraved on a small metal plate beneath the frame. The lettering was faded and streaked with rust.

  Inside the painting, a young child sat alone in a hospital corridor. Knees drawn up, head bowed low. Fluorescent light cast cold illumination across the hall, and at the far end, the door to the intensive care unit was visible—a red light burning above it.

  My heart dropped.

  'No... this is...'

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  Thirteen years old. The day Father was in the accident. I had been sitting alone in that hospital corridor. Mother was inside the ICU with the doctors, and I... could do nothing. I simply sat, knees to my chest, waiting, trembling.

  The painting began to move. More precisely—I was being pulled into it. The floor shifted beneath me, the walls dissolved, and the gallery melted away like water.

  Cold fluorescent light stabbed at my eyes.

  I was standing in that hospital corridor again.

  "Dad..."

  A young voice left my mouth. My voice at thirteen. Thin, trembling, full of fear.

  The corridor was empty. The smell of antiseptic stung my nose, and fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Somewhere in the distance came the steady beeping of medical equipment.

  The red 'Surgery in Progress' light above the ICU door went out.

  The door opened slowly. Mother emerged. Her eyes were swollen shut, her face pale as paper, her lips drained of color. A doctor who hadn't yet removed his mask stood behind her, head bowed.

  "Kang Chul..."

  Mother's voice trembled. So thin it seemed on the verge of breaking.

  "Your father... your father..."

  She couldn't finish. She only staggered toward me and pulled me tight against her. Her shoulders shook violently, and her hot tears soaked through my shirt in an instant.

  "No... no... this can't be right..."

  I screamed, but no one heard. The corridor stretched. It became a tunnel without end. Fluorescent lights began going out one by one, and darkness closed in from both sides.

  I was alone. Completely alone. Father wasn't coming back. Mother was drowning in tears. I could do nothing at all.

  "Stop!"

  I squeezed my eyes shut and cried out with everything I had.

  A tearing sound. The world ripped apart like paper, and I was on my knees on the gallery floor.

  I was gasping—on the edge of hyperventilation. Cold sweat poured down my body and my clothes clung to my back. My palms were pressed against the floor, the skin beneath my fingernails gone white.

  'Kang Chul! Snap out of it!'

  GNOM's voice barely reached me. Distant, indistinct.

  'That was a hallucination! Not real! It pulled out a memory from the past!'

  "I know... I know..."

  But the pain inside my chest was real. The grief of that day, years ago, had returned unchanged—undiluted, whole.

  I slowly raised my head. The second painting stood before me.

  〈Guilt〉

  Inside the painting, a man sat at a computer in a dark room. A red countdown displayed on the screen, the man's hands trembling violently over the keyboard, the screen's red glow washing across his ashen face.

  'Don't tell me...'

  The Apocalypse. The incident that had nearly paralyzed the entire city. Kim Min-jun.

  I had stopped him. Hacked the system using Intelligence Fragment and shut it all down. He had been saved. But... what if I had failed? What if he had truly...

  Reality warped. The gallery twisted and distorted, and I was standing on the rooftop of that building. Cold night wind bit sharply at my face, and the city's lights glittered far below.

  Kim Min-jun stood at the railing. His toes hung beyond the edge.

  "I'm sorry..."

  His voice came carried on the wind. Empty, desperate, already resigned.

  "You saved me. But I already broke too many things. I hurt people. Now... I have to take responsibility. Even like this."

  "No! You can still live!"

  I reached out desperately, but couldn't close the distance. It only kept growing. My arm shortened, my body shrank, and Kim Min-jun receded further and further away.

  He leaned slowly backward.

  "No!"

  I screamed until my throat tore. But he was already falling through the air.

  Then something strange happened. The falling figure changed—from Kim Min-jun to me.

  I was the one falling from the rooftop. Wind shredded my clothes, a rushing sound filled my ears, and the ground rose toward me at terrifying speed. The building wall shot upward past me, windows streaking by like lines. The asphalt filled my entire vision.

  'What if I had failed? What if I couldn't save him? What if he had really died? That would be my fault. My failure.'

  I hit the ground. There was no pain.

  But I couldn't breathe. My lungs were completely crushed, and the sensation of my ribs breaking one by one was vivid and precise. Something hot surged up my throat. Blood.

  "This... never... happened..."

  I forced the words out. Something burning rose from my throat and spilled past my lips.

  The world ripped apart again, and I was fully face-down on the gallery floor.

  I couldn't get up. My arms held no strength. My legs wouldn't move. My entire body was heavy as lead.

  The third painting was only a blur at the edge of my vision. I didn't have the strength to turn my head. But the painting detached itself from the wall, floated through the air, and came to rest in front of me.

  〈Abandoned Dreams〉

  On the desk of a cramped room, dozens of sheets of paper were piled high. All A4 size, each one stamped with a large red X. Words like Rejected, Not Selected, Please Try Again were printed across them.

  'Oh...'

  My room. Before any of this began. The dozens of companies I had applied to after leaving the military. Every single one had turned me down.

  This time I had no strength left to resist. The painting swallowed me whole like an enormous wave.

  My room. Familiar wallpaper, familiar furniture, familiar smell. The curtains were drawn over the window, and only the desk lamp was on. The computer screen glowed a cool blue in the darkness.

  An email window was open.

  "Thank you for your application. Regrettably, we regret to inform you that..."

  Click.

  "While we highly value your qualifications, at this time..."

  Another click.

  "We have selected a candidate who better fits our current needs..."

  Click. Click. Click.

  The screen filled with red X's. The inbox overflowed with rejection emails. Even the trash bin was full.

  I looked at the mirror on the wall. My face looked back. Worn out. Deep shadows carved beneath my eyes, cracked lips, tangled hair. No hope left in my expression.

  'You're completely useless.'

  The reflection spoke. My voice—but cold and cruel.

  'No one wants you. You're not enough. Your skills, your record—all of it.'

  "Shut up!"

  I slammed my fist into the mirror. It shattered into pieces. Glass fragments scattered across the floor. But in every single shard, my face was reflected. A face exhausted. A face in despair. A face that had given up. A face that looked already dead.

  I returned to the gallery. Face-down on the floor. A bitter taste on my tongue, my throat burning, tears falling without end.

  'Kang Chul... don't look anymore...'

  GNOM's voice was too faint. Barely audible.

  'The fourth painting... is the deepest... the most... painful...'

  But it was already too late. The fourth painting expanded until it covered the entire wall. Overwhelmingly larger than the others—large enough to fill the room itself.

  〈Mother〉

  Inside the painting was a worn dining table. A meal for two was set out. Soup, rice, side dishes—all arranged with care. But one chair was empty. Mother sat alone in the other, watching the empty chair, waiting.

  The tears wouldn't stop. I had no strength to wipe them away. I let them fall.

  That day. The day I wore the yellow tracksuit and imitated Bruce Lee. Mother had cried. She thought I had lost my mind—that I had changed. Since then... we hadn't had a real conversation. I kept lying. Hiding the abilities. Hiding the fragments. Hiding the fights. Hiding everything.

  The painting swallowed me.

  Our living room. Familiar wallpaper, familiar furniture, familiar smell. Mother was sitting alone at the table. The meal had long gone cold.

  The steam that had risen from the soup was gone. The rice was hardening in the bowl.

  "Kang Chul..."

  Mother's voice trembled. Thin, weak, and full of sorrow.

  "Where did you go? Aren't you coming home again today? Did I do something wrong?"

  The TV was on in the corner of the living room. The news was playing.

  "Incident of superhuman force in the city center... an unidentified male destroying a building..."

  "Seven civilians injured... police are investigating..."

  "Suspected to be a dangerous individual with unknown abilities... authorities are requesting witness reports..."

  Mother's hands trembled. The spoon she was holding clattered to the floor. The sound rang through the quiet living room.

  "Surely... surely not my Kang Chul... no... no..."

  She pressed her hand over her mouth. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and ran slowly down her cheeks. Her shoulders began to shake in small, quiet tremors.

  The food on the table kept going cold. The empty chair stayed empty. Mother cried alone. No one was there to comfort her.

  Mother was there. But I wasn't.

  "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, Mom... Mom..."

  I screamed, but no voice came out. I cried on my knees on the floor. But Mother couldn't hear.

  Mother was there. But I wasn't.

  Mother kept being alone. And I... wasn't there.

  The world darkened, slowly, so very slowly.

  ##########

  "How sad."

  A low, soft voice came from the darkness.

  I had returned to the gallery. But I could no longer stand. Lying fully collapsed on the floor, I could only stare blurrily at the ceiling. Even breathing took effort.

  Footsteps. Slow, measured. Moving down the corridor and into the room. The owner of the sound that had climbed the stairs, the sound that had moved a brush—had arrived.

  "Another... lonely soul has come."

  A man came slowly into view. He appeared to be in his early thirties. Lean frame, average height. Long, disheveled hair fell to his shoulders, and a thick beard had grown unchecked. He wore a worn painter's work jacket covered in splashes of color, and held a single brush in his hand.

  At the tip of the brush was cyan paint.

  "Lee Joon-hyeok..."

  I barely managed to call his name. My voice was little more than breath.

  The man smiled slowly. A sad smile. Not joy—compassion.

  "You know my name. But no one knows my paintings. No one understands my heart."

  He knelt down and sat before me. His movements were slow, careful. He looked into my eyes. His pupils were hollow. No light in them. Eyes that were alive, yet dead.

  "You're strong."

  He said quietly.

  "You possess tremendous power. You save people, stop villains, fight like a hero."

  "..."

  "But..."

  He raised the brush and pointed it lightly toward my chest.

  "Here is empty. Nothing there. Only strength, only ability, only duty. But you yourself... are not there."

  "You're wrong..."

  "Wrong?"

  He slowly shook his head.

  "I can't lie. Because I carry the Emotion Fragment. I can feel all of your emotions, all of your pain, all of your loneliness, all of your fear. Even if you try to hide it—I feel everything."

  He drew slowly through the air with his brush. A trail of cyan light followed, and the light began forming a shape. My figure.

  But something was wrong. A large hole gaped open in the chest. A hollow void. Wind passed through it, and the scenery behind was visible through the opening.

  "You wanted to become strong. You never wanted to be hurt again. And so you gained strength. You obtained fragments."

  "..."

  "But after gaining that strength—what did you do?"

  His voice grew softer. This was not accusation. It was only... deep sorrow.

  "You fought alone, struggled alone, were wounded alone. You couldn't speak to Mother, to a friend, to anyone at all. You hid your abilities, hid your identity, hid your true self. And so... you grew lonelier and lonelier."

  My throat tightened. My breath caught.

  "You are... like me... lonely."

  Lee Joon-hyeok rose to his feet.

  "I'm not attacking you. I'm simply... showing you. The truth you've been turning away from. What you didn't want to admit."

  He swept the brush in a wide arc toward the wall. A vast canvas appeared in the air—the size of the entire wall.

  〈The Empty Hero〉

  The painting completed itself rapidly. The brush moved on its own, drawing form, laying color, tracing lines, adding shadow.

  Inside the painting stood a man. Strong build, hard fists, proud posture. Light fell upon him from above, a cape trailing in the wind. The image of a hero.

  But the face was empty.

  No eyes. No nose. No mouth. Only an unmarked canvas—a space with nothing drawn upon it at all.

  "This... is you."

  Lee Joon-hyeok smiled, sorrowfully.

  "A powerful hero. But an empty hero. A hero who saves everyone but cannot save himself. A hero who gives hope to all but despairs himself."

  I couldn't rise. Power Fragment, Intelligence Fragment, Space Fragment—none of them responded. Every fragment had gone silent.

  'GNOM... where are you...'

  No answer. Even GNOM had gone completely still.

  'GNOM!'

  '...I'm sorry, Kang Chul.'

  A voice so faint it was nearly gone.

  'I'm... being pulled in too. This sorrow... is too deep... there's no bottom... I'm... scared too...'

  "Rest."

  Lee Joon-hyeok slowly lowered the brush.

  "Stay here forever... with the lonely souls. You don't have to fight anymore. You don't have to hurt anymore. You won't... be lonely anymore."

  The world went completely dark. Consciousness grew dimmer. The tips of my fingers went cold, my heartbeat slowed, my breathing turned shallow.

  ##########

  How much time had passed?

  I was drifting in darkness. No sound, no light, no sensation. Weightless, like open space. Up and down had ceased to exist, and time itself seemed to have stopped.

  'Kang Chul...'

  GNOM's voice came from somewhere impossibly far away—faint as if reaching from another world.

  'I'm sorry... I'm also... powerless... this is new to me...'

  "It's okay..."

  I tried to answer, but no voice came. Only my lips moved. No sound came out.

  'This swamp of emotion... is too deep. There's no end. I'm... sinking too... for the first time... this powerlessness... this... fear...'

  Silence.

  'If... this is where we end...'

  "We don't end here."

  I forced the words out from somewhere deep inside.

  'But... you can't get up... the fragments... aren't responding...'

  "We don't end here."

  I gritted my teeth. I pushed strength into my fingers. I reached for the floor. Cold wood met my fingertips.

  'I won't give up.'

  The beginning came back to me. The day I was buried alive. When earth covered my face, when I felt I would suffocate—I wanted to live. When the meteorite fell, when blue-glowing liquid entered my body—I wanted to become strong.

  When I broke through the ceiling doing jump rope at the gym, I knew something was changing in me. When I fought Tiger Tattoo and helped redeem him, I swore I was no monster. When I hacked Kim Min-jun to a halt and brought him back from the edge, I believed I could become something like a hero. When I fought Park Seong-min and received the Space Fragment, I was one step closer to being whole.

  'Get up...'

  I pressed my palms into the floor and pushed. My arms shook. My muscles cried out in protest.

  'Get up...'

  My arms trembled—but my body lifted. Slowly, barely, fraction by fraction.

  'That's it... that's it, Kang Chul...'

  GNOM's voice grew slightly clearer.

  'We're... not dead yet... this isn't... over yet...'

  And then. Footsteps.

  From far away, very far away. Someone ascending the stairs. But unlike Lee Joon-hyeok's footsteps—not faster, not slower—their own steady rhythm. Lighter. More careful.

  'Who is it...'

  The footsteps drew closer. Down the corridor, past other rooms, stopping in front of mine.

  The door opened slowly.

  Light poured in. Perhaps because I had been in darkness so long—it blinded me. I squinted, struggling to see.

  A silhouette. Someone standing at the door. A woman. Medium height, slender frame.

  "...I found you."

  A woman's voice. Calm, cautious, but resolute. I felt as though I had heard it somewhere before, but couldn't place it.

  "Hold on just a little longer."

  She stepped carefully inside. The light behind her wrapped around her like a halo.

  "I'll... help you. I came to save you."

  Consciousness blurred further. My vision narrowed.

  The last thing I saw was the silhouette of a woman standing in the light. Then her kneeling, reaching out her hand. The warmth of her touch as it rested against my forehead.

  And then... complete darkness.

  But this darkness was different. It wasn't cold.

  It was warm.