[Present – Outer Realmscape of Ruin]
We stood before a monument that did not exist.
Or rather—it shouldn't.
A horizonless space beyond even dimensional architecture. Where skies didn't curve and time didn't crawl. Where stars were not born, and yet everything glowed with a dim, eternal flicker—like dying embers of a god's breath.
Seo-yoon walked ahead of me. Silent. Her long blonde hair trailed behind like flowing night, her presence distorting gravity as if reality couldn't quite accept her form.
> "This place…" I murmured, struggling to maintain form. "It's not stable."
She paused and looked back, her eyes gleaming like ancient runes buried beneath crystal.
> "That's because it predates the concept of stability. Before 'beginning'... before even 'Aether' had a name—this place was the breath between All and Nothing."
I looked around again.
The ground wasn't earth. It was a lattice of crystallized flame, each segment flickering with languages I couldn't read.
Then I saw it.
At the center—hovering just above the structure—was a suspended ember.
One. Singular. Glowing. Red.
But even from here… it made my soul tremble.
> "That's the First Ember?" I asked, my throat dry.
Seo-yoon nodded slowly.
> "Not a relic. Not a weapon. It is the concept of combustion. The origin of Red Aether. Before Blue formed order… Red was chaos—life's first scream. Creation's cry of agony and defiance."
She turned fully toward me, and for the first time, I saw hesitation in her expression.
> "I once tried to tame it."
She walked forward—stopping just short of the flickering core. Her hand reached out, trembling ever so slightly.
> "And it nearly erased me from the record of all existence."
---
[Flashback – Unknown Age, Beyond Time]
I remember it. Every moment of it still clings to me like sacred ash.
Back then… I wasn't "Seo-yoon the Flamekeeper."
I was merely the forgotten daughter of a crumbling lineage. Cast aside, buried in war, obsessed with surpassing fate.
I found this place by accident… or maybe it found me.
I remember standing before the First Ember—young, hungry, proud.
> "If this power exists… then I must be its master," I said aloud.
I reached out.
The moment I did—
My body was obliterated.
Not burned. Not shredded. But negated. My cells, name, and origin dissolved into the breath between worlds. For the first time, I understood what it meant to face true rejection by reality.
But I didn't run.
I clung to the core of my own identity—refused to forget who I was.
I screamed not from pain… but from fury.
And the Ember heard me.
It didn't yield.
But it blinked.
That was enough.
A moment of acknowledgment. In that heartbeat, I rewrote myself—with Red Aether. Not by taming it… but by letting it rewrite me.
---
[Back to Present]
Seo-yoon turned to me again, the windless realm flickering with echoes of her past fury.
> "That's why I brought you here," she said. "To see the cost. Red Aether doesn't give you strength… it takes your weakness."
She walked up to me and placed a hand over my chest—over the inner dimension I'd begun to form.
> "You've started a world within yourself, Muhan. One day it will be vast enough to house galaxies. But if you want that world to burn eternal... you must become its Flamekeeper."
> "And to do that... you must witness what I saw."
The moment her hand pulsed—
I fell inward.
Into her memory.
Into her trial.
And the Ember waited for me again.
Excellent. The story now enters an emotionally rich and powerfully transformative sequence—where Mi-cha, haunted by Muhan's absence, begins to feel the weight of his journey, while Muhan, trapped within Seo-yoon's trial, forges his first Red Aether weapon, birthing a sword unlike anything the multiverse has ever seen.
Here's the next chapter—a dual narrative of longing and power, where the bond between Muhan and Mi-cha deepens across distance, and a new legend is born.
---
[Mi-cha - Avalon Pavilion]
The world was quieter without him.
I sat at the edge of the balcony, legs tucked beneath me, the silk robe wrapped loosely around my shoulders. My hair—dark as the night sky—moved gently with the wind, but nothing could distract from the hollowness left in Muhan's absence.
He said he'd be gone for a while.
Said he had to train.
Said his sister Seo-yoon offered something he couldn't ignore.
I didn't argue. I could see it in his eyes—the fire. The ache to rise beyond what even gods could comprehend.
But…
> "You didn't say how long…" I whispered.
My fingers curled tightly around the ring he gave me. A simple band of blue crystal, now faintly glowing with traces of his Aether. I held it to my chest and closed my eyes.
And for just a heartbeat—I felt him.
A distant warmth.
A rumble.
Like lightning trying to remember how to be fire.
> "Muhan… where are you right now?"
The answer came not in words, but in a pulse.
The sky trembled.
I stood quickly, the wind suddenly alive around me. My eyes—pink, now flaring violet with awakened Grace—locked onto the horizon.
> "That's not normal Aether…"
It was something older. Hungrier.
It was Red.
---
[Muhan – The Inner Trial of the First Ember]
I stood in a collapsing concept.
This wasn't space. Nor was it time. I stood where the idea of "place" didn't exist. The First Ember flickered before me—not flame, not energy, but purpose. It wasn't testing me. It was witnessing me.
Every step I took toward it, parts of me unraveled.
My memories. My anchors. My name.
I saw visions of my past—broken. Shattered fragments of who I was. The boy who dreamed. The warrior who bled. The man who fell in love with a girl who could hold galaxies in her smile.
> "I can't lose myself," I whispered, falling to one knee.
The Ember flared.
Then… her voice echoed in my mind.
> "Store your strength within you. Create the world that will carry your flame."
—Seo-yoon
I reached inward.
Deep into the dimension I was building within myself. A realm of pure Aether… still forming, still uncertain… but mine.
I called to it.
And for the first time—it answered.
The dimension ignited, fueled by my will, and from its core, a vortex of Blue Aether began to swirl violently. But I didn't stop there.
> "Combust," I commanded.
The Aether began to turn red.
The sound it made… wasn't sound. It was a scream of rebirth. A silent storm of collapsing boundaries.
And then—
The Sword came.
Not forged. Not summoned.
It was drawn from my soul, as if it had always existed—waiting for me to awaken it.
The blade was long, sleek, glowing crimson with molten veins pulsing beneath its obsidian edge. Arcanian glyphs flowed across the surface, alive, rewriting the laws around it.
Its name came unbidden—written in the silence between heartbeats.
> "Vermillion Will."
The sword was not a weapon.
It was a declaration.
With it—I wasn't just stronger.
I was inevitable.
---
[Mi-cha – Avalon Pavilion]
I gasped as the sky above Wysteria cracked—not physically, but spiritually.
Something… or someone… had been born anew.
I collapsed to my knees, trembling. Not from fear.
From recognition.
> "That's you… isn't it, Muhan?"
And though he was nowhere near me—beyond universes, beyond time—I smiled softly.
Because that flame…
It still belonged to me.