The Court didn't roar tonight.
It whispered.
Jin Ha-yul stood beneath the dome of light. No wind. No color. Just an eerie, unbroken quiet. Even the Flow hesitated.
That was the first sign something was wrong.
Most courts opened with an emotional surge. But this was a vacuum.
Then it bled in. Not color—absence. A pale void, like a memory faded by time.
Ha-yul reached into the Flow. It didn't respond.
"It's not responding," he said aloud.
LUX replied, "Emotion signal below threshold."
That wasn't possible. All deaths left something behind. But this... this had been erased.
And then—something appeared. A ring. Hollow. Manufactured.
He had seen it before.
It pulsed once. Then vanished.
Footsteps. Si-on.
"Still finding ghosts?" she asked. Her presence brought muted golds into the Flow.
"What do you see?" he asked.
"Nothing," she said. "But you do."
They examined the edges of the chamber. Still nothing. No residue. No emotion.
Just the ring.
"Victim's name is Lee Ji-eun. Devigen Pharmaceuticals," Si-on said.
"Same company as Park Min-ji," Ha-yul noted.
No signs of struggle. No cause of death. But Ha-yul was certain—it wasn't natural.
"The Flow is too clean," he said. "It's been scrubbed."
He asked LUX for tampering.
"No abnormalities detected," it replied. But something in its tone felt off. Hesitant.
Back at the Center, Ha-yul reviewed the frames.
Frame 312. A flicker. A shadow inside the ring. A name: Project Afterlife – Subtype: Hollow Echo.
Three deaths. All tied to Devigen. All with a ring.
"They're not replacing the Flow," he whispered. "They're overwriting it."
Si-on studied the image. "The ring… it's not a mark."
"Then what?"
"A lock."
A lock meant intent.
Later, Ha-yul returned alone.
The Flow stirred.
Not color. Not shape.
Sound.
A heartbeat.
The Flow wasn't corrupted.
It was responding.
At home, Ha-yul stared at the projection. The ring. The lock. The echo.
Static wasn't noise. It was a voice.
He compared cases. All showed progression. The signal evolved. Sharpened.
The Flow was remembering.
Learning.
And maybe... judging.
→ [To be continued in Episode 7]
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