Muhan's Perspective
Three days earlier, in the starlit chamber before his departure.
Her presence eclipsed everything.
Even the stars outside the Avalon estate's glass ceiling dimmed in comparison. Seo-yoon Lockhart — my sister, long lost — now stood before me not as family… but as something else entirely.
A sovereign.
A force.
A will that bent even logic to kneel.
"Still want to come with me?" she asked, not unkindly. Her voice, calm and melodic, laced itself with ancient strength — as though the cosmos had chosen her to speak for it.
I nodded. "You're stronger than me, aren't you?"
She tilted her head slightly. "Far beyond. But that's not why I offered."
"Then why?"
Her eyes — radiant emeralds that seemed to glow from within — met mine.
"Because the storm ahead isn't meant for heroes… It's meant for those who can rewrite the definition of power."
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Flashback - Before the Departure – Muhan and Mi-cha's Final Moment
The soft blue light of early dawn filtered through the estate corridor. Mi-cha stood near the stone archway, her raven-black hair stirred gently by the breeze. Her eyes — glowing purple-pink — refused to look away from me.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
"…You're really going?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
I nodded, stepping closer. "Seo-yoon offered to train me. And I accepted."
She looked down. "You're not doing this because I'm weak, right?"
I stepped forward and placed my forehead gently against hers.
"No, Mi-cha. You're the strongest person I know."
"Then why—?"
"Because I saw it. In her eyes. She's not just strong… she's beyond me. Far beyond. And I need to know what lies past the walls I've been punching through."
She clenched her fists, holding back the tears. "So… you'll leave me behind?"
"No." I smiled. "I'm going to level the path ahead. So next time we walk, we walk together — shoulder to shoulder."
She leaned into me, just briefly. Then let go. "Don't die."
"I won't."
The place Seo-yoon brought me to wasn't a realm.
It was a fracture between narratives — a place not bound by dimensions, time, or structure. The moment I stepped into it, I felt reality peeling off me like wet cloth.
I dropped to my knees. My breath caught. My senses fractured.
"Welcome," she said softly. "This is where I was reborn. This is where you'll die."
I looked up. "What?"
"And be reborn again. Not as a warrior. Not as a Lockhart. But as something else."
Seo-yoon turned her back to me and stepped into the void.
Her silhouette shimmered — and the stars bent around her like a tidal vortex.
"From here on, you are not my brother. You are a variable."
She extended her hand. From it, emerged a staff made of narrative threads — stories unwritten, laws of existence undone.
> "Your training begins with this law:
You will no longer be allowed to grow. You must now become the thing that others grow in response to."
She turned — and her aura snapped the void in two.
I watched her stand in the distance, waiting for me to rise again.
In her presence, I felt it — the truth of true power.
Not the ability to destroy a realm… but the gravity that reshaped the structure of all realms.
If I survived this training, I would return not as a prodigy…
But as something that reality itself would need to define.
> For Mi-cha.
For my name.
For the fate of all that lay ahead…
I clenched my fists.
> I would become Beyond.