CHAPTER 176: CHAPTER 176: THE CHAINED DOOR

The three of them stood before the heavy steel door, its surface streaked with rust and grime. Thick iron chains wound across it like veins, pulled taut and locked together with bolts so old they seemed to fuse with the metal. A single symbol was painted across its center—the spiral mark they’d seen before, only this time it looked rougher, almost clawed into the surface as if by a desperate hand rather than a brush.

The silence was suffocating. The tunnel behind them lay quiet, as though the air itself had stilled to hear what decision Lin would make.

Keller shifted uneasily, his weight pressed against the wall to ease the bleeding wound at his side. "We’re not opening that," he said flatly, his voice cracking slightly. "Whatever’s inside... Jin wanted it chained up for a reason."

Min-joon swallowed hard, his eyes darting between the door and Lin. "What if it’s bait? He leaves us here, hesitating, wasting time until his men close in. That’s exactly the kind of trick he’d play."

Lin didn’t respond immediately. He stood with one hand brushing against the cold chains, his mind tracing every possibility. Jin thrived on fear. He left traps not just to kill, but to control. And yet—why leave a chained door in the middle of these forgotten tunnels? Why not simply unleash whatever was inside?

"Fear is leverage," Lin murmured finally. "He wants us to imagine what’s in here. The moment we let that imagination own us, he wins."

Keller gave him a look sharp enough to cut through the dark. "And if it’s something worse than imagination?"

Lin met his gaze evenly. "Then we end it. Together."

The words rang heavy in the tunnel. Min-joon looked pale, but he nodded. Keller muttered a curse under his breath, but his hand rested against the grip of his weapon.

With a decisive motion, Lin stepped forward, pulling at the first chain. The metal groaned, old and brittle, but still resistant. He braced his boot against the doorframe and pulled harder. The lock snapped, the sound echoing down the tunnel like a gunshot. Min-joon flinched.

One by one, Lin and Keller tore the chains loose. Each snap felt like they were peeling away another layer of sanity. By the time the last chain clattered to the floor, the silence had grown unbearable.

Lin pressed his palm to the cold steel, then pushed. The door creaked open slowly, the darkness beyond thicker than the tunnel behind them. The smell hit them first—rot, copper, and something acrid that stung the nose like acid.

The chamber beyond was small, cramped, walls wet with condensation. Chains dangled from hooks in the ceiling, swaying slightly though there was no wind.

And in the center...

It crouched.

At first, Min-joon thought it was an animal—its back arched, limbs twisted, skin pale and stretched too tight. But then it shifted, and the faint light from Lin’s flashlight caught its face.

Human. Or something that once was.

The features were distorted, one eye swollen shut with scar tissue, the other glaring wide and bloodshot. Its mouth had been cut, corners stretched unnaturally, teeth bared in a permanent grimace. Its arms were long, joints warped, the skin crosshatched with scars and surgical marks. The remnants of a jacket hung from its shoulders, tattered but still bearing a patch—faded letters in English, nearly unreadable, but enough for Lin to catch.

Hunter Division.

Keller swore under his breath. "Christ... he was one of us."

The creature twitched, head jerking at the sound. The chains around its ankles rattled as it dragged itself forward with unnerving speed, stopping just at the end of its tether. Its single good eye fixed on Lin, unblinking.

Then it spoke.

Not a growl. Not an inhuman screech.

Words. Broken, rasping, but words nonetheless.

"Run... he... waits..."

Min-joon staggered back, his breath catching. "It can talk?"

Lin’s chest tightened. This wasn’t a beast. This was a man Jin had broken, reshaped into something else. A warning. Or a mockery.

But before Lin could respond, the creature screamed—an ear-splitting sound that tore through the chamber. With inhuman strength, it lunged, the chains straining so violently that the hooks in the ceiling screeched. For a terrifying second, Lin thought they’d snap.

"Move!" Keller barked, gun already raised. He fired, the blast deafening in the confined space. The shot struck the creature’s shoulder, tearing flesh, but it didn’t fall. Instead, it writhed, screaming louder, pulling so hard that the ceiling began to crack.

Lin realized instantly what was happening. Jin hadn’t left this thing to guard the passage. He had left it to break free. To force them into a fight in a space too small to maneuver.

"Kill it before it gets loose!" Lin ordered, his own weapon drawn. He fired into its chest, the recoil biting against his arms. Min-joon, shaking, joined in, his bullets ricocheting off the walls but some finding their mark.

The chains snapped.

The creature leapt.

It hit Lin first, slamming him into the wall with enough force to rattle his bones. Its hands clawed at his throat, nails jagged like knives. Lin shoved his forearm up, blocking the bite of its jaw as drool and blood dripped onto him. The thing’s breath was rancid, filled with rot.

Keller staggered forward, driving his knife into its side. The creature shrieked, twisting with such force that it flung Keller into the wall, his wound tearing open again. Blood spread across his shirt.

"Lin!" Min-joon shouted, his voice breaking. He raised his gun, but his hands shook violently.

"Shoot!" Lin roared, straining against the creature’s strength.

Min-joon fired. The bullet tore through the creature’s temple. It froze for half a second—then thrashed harder, as if the pain only fueled it. Lin gritted his teeth, twisting free just enough to grab the knife Keller had dropped. With a surge of strength, he drove it into the creature’s neck.

This time, the scream cut short. The body convulsed, then collapsed in a heap, twitching before finally going still.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Lin pushed himself up slowly, chest heaving, his throat raw where the creature’s nails had grazed. Keller leaned against the wall, pale and sweating, pressing his hand hard against his side to stop the bleeding. Min-joon lowered his gun with trembling hands, his eyes wide with shock.

For a long moment, none of them spoke. The creature’s corpse lay twisted on the floor, the faded Hunter Division patch staring up at them like a ghost.

Finally, Lin broke the silence. "He’s experimenting. Hunters, soldiers, anyone who’s stood against him... he breaks them. Remakes them." His jaw tightened. "This wasn’t a guard. It was a message."

Keller spat blood, his voice hoarse. "Message received."

Lin looked back toward the chamber. Behind where the creature had crouched, part of the wall had collapsed, revealing a narrow passage leading deeper into the earth. It wasn’t on any of the tunnel maps they’d studied.

A new path.

Or a deeper trap.

Min-joon’s voice was barely a whisper. "Do we... go in?"

Lin’s hand tightened around the bloodied knife. His throat burned, his muscles ached, but his mind was sharper than ever.

"Yes," he said. His voice was steady, unshaken. "That’s why it was chained here. To make us turn back. To make us hesitate." He stared into the black maw of the passage. "But that door was meant for me. Which means the path beyond it is too."

The others exchanged grim looks, but they didn’t argue. Slowly, carefully, they gathered themselves and stepped past the corpse.

As the three disappeared into the narrow darkness, Lin cast one last look at the distorted remains of the man who’d once been a hunter. His chest tightened with a mix of rage and cold clarity.

Jin wasn’t just hunting them. He was building something.

And Lin had just walked into the heart of it.