Muhan's POV
I expected pain.
Instead, I got silence.
When the sigil beneath my feet activated, reality didn't ripple—it ruptured. I fell—not through space, but through every death I'd ever escaped.
And those I hadn't.
In one world, I was cut down before my awakening.
In another, I drowned beneath collapsing realms.
In another, Mi-cha's hand reached out—only for her to vanish before she could pull me back.
Each scene flickered like firelight on water, dancing across my soul as I plummeted through this collapsing eternity.
> "You must witness," Seo-yoon's voice echoed from somewhere beyond the storm, "the price of all the lives you didn't live."
The abyss welcomed me.
Not with teeth—
…but with memory.
---
Narration — Abstract Space
This place had no name, no geography.
A paradox, collapsed into a singularity of purpose.
The Eternity Collapse.
A realm not made of matter, but moments unfulfilled.
And Muhan, unanchored by identity, became their center.
Here, every death, every failure, and every unrealized choice attacked—not to kill him… but to overwrite him.
---
Muhan's POV
I knelt.
I bled.
I broke.
A thousand versions of me screamed into my skull. I saw myself beg, fight, cry, surrender. I watched myself fall to See-hoo in one timeline. To Hyeonsil in another. To myself in the darkest version of all.
I saw Mi-cha die because I hesitated.
I saw Seo-yoon burn because I never arrived.
I saw Han vanish into the void… smiling, as if this had always been the outcome.
I howled into the void—
But no sound came.
Not because I was voiceless.
But because there was no one left to hear me scream.
---
Seo-yoon's POV (Distant Watching)
I stood above the rift, expression unreadable.
Even for me… this was harsh.
> "He must not just survive death.
He must become its master.
Or he will never face what lies beyond."
The Trial of Collapse was not made for mortals.
But Muhan had chosen the path of the nameless constant.
And constants must persist… even when time itself forgets them.
---
Muhan's POV
I remembered warmth.
Faint.
Distant.
A night sky.
A raven-haired girl laughing at my awkward confession.
A promise whispered beneath the stars:
"I'll protect you. Even from myself."
Mi-cha.
The thought pulsed.
And from it—
Resonance.
The shattered timelines slowed.
The echoes grew silent.
And I stood.
My ether didn't flare. It didn't ignite.
It sank into the core of this death-space, and reemerged in Aether Awakening, my hair stood on end as two strands of hair fell forward, warping each collapsing thread into a spiral around me.
> "I am not here to dodge my fates," I whispered.
"I am here to confront them."
My body burned. Not from pain.
But from reclamation.
---
Narration
With each death confronted, Muhan didn't lose himself.
He consumed it.
Assimilated it.
And from those endings… he began to rewrite.
The realm cracked.
Eternity itself recoiled—
Because in that moment…
He chose to exist anyway.
---
Seo-yoon's Voice (approaching gently)
"You did well, Muhan."
She descended from above, stepping across collapsing stars like stepping stones.
I turned toward her, body smoking, breath ragged. But I stood straight.
She didn't smile.
She bowed her head slightly.
> "You've done what most could never do.
You have become something not even fate accounted for."
Her hand extended.
> "Come. Your final trial awaits."