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Flashback — "Seo-yoon".
Third-Person Limited (Seo-yoon's POV)
Location: ∞th Layer of the Unwritten Expanse
Time: Undefined
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I stood at the edge of the Expanse, the last veil between the written and the unwritten.
Around me, color had already surrendered. Sound hadn't existed since the last multiversal cycle collapsed into silence. Time itself had long since been dismissed.
Nothing existed here. And that was the point.
> "Why are you here, Seo-yoon Lockhart?" the voice asked—not aloud, but through conceptual vibration.
It was the Guardian of Layer ∞—a formless intelligence that bound together stories, laws, and hierarchies. Even the Supreme Pantheons bowed before it.
I didn't bow.
> "I'm here to learn what cannot be taught," I said, stepping forward.
The air—no, the idea of air—fractured around me.
> "Then you must die," the voice replied, "Not in body. But as a being. As a concept."
I closed my eyes.
> "Then let it begin."
And with that, I erased Seo-yoon Lockhart.
My name.
My legend.
My ties to sects.
To power.
To logic.
I became Formless.
I became Unanchored.
I dissolved into a sea of forgotten echoes where even the void did not exist.
And there… I listened.
Not with ears. But with the remnants of what once was a soul.
I heard the origin murmur.
A song without pitch.
A rhythm without beat.
A silence that commanded all truths to kneel.
> "Ah…" I whispered, my formlessness weeping.
"So this is what gods forgot to become."
It was not power.
It was the absence of need for power.
I didn't climb. I didn't ascend.
I left.
---
When I returned to existence, the Guardian no longer spoke.
It bowed.
I had no aura.
No energy signature.
Not even a sense of presence.
But the moment I stepped into any realm… it rewrote its own hierarchy to accommodate me.
Worlds bent. Laws reworded themselves.
Even Supreme Gods felt an unease they couldn't define.
Present Day — Seo-yoon at the Silent Pavilion
I sat cross-legged beneath the Tranquil Lotus Tree in the hidden pavilion I constructed between timelines—where even Beast Muhan could not sense me.
My eyes opened, glowing faintly green.
> "He's ready," I whispered.
A spark of warmth reached my lips.
> "Muhan… You've grown beyond the world's chains."
But where he was still bound to meaning and impact, I had long abandoned even that.
> "Now, I'll show you what it means to exist as Uncoded."
.........
First-Person (Muhan's POV)
Location: The Silent Pavilion, suspended between timeflows
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The silence here didn't feel empty. It felt... awake.
I knelt before her—my older sister, Seo-yoon Lockhart. The name alone echoed through the forbidden halls of ancient sect records, erased from existence by forces too afraid to leave her story untold. Now she stood before me again, not just as blood... but as something far beyond my understanding.
> "I will train you," she said quietly, her voice like wind brushing the soul.
"But first, you must unlearn the limitations they've built around you."
Her eyes—green as the Eternal Grove, deeper than memory—held no emotion, yet every word she spoke rang with infinite certainty.
> "Do you think Aether is bound to what you've seen?"
"Blue Aether. Formed, stable, majestic... but contained."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. Her presence pulled at the threads of my being, like gravity in its purest form.
She stepped forward—barefoot—and pressed her palm against my chest.
> "You've trained your body. Your mind. Even your soul... But not your space."
I blinked. "My space?"
> "Within every transcendent being lies the potential to forge a realm," she said.
"A dimension not outside you... but within."
Her hand glowed faintly, not with energy, but with raw structural authority. With a push, she directed it into my chest.
Suddenly—
Everything turned black.
Not unconsciousness. Not illusion. I felt... inside.
A vast, hollow void bloomed behind my heart—one that hadn't been there a moment before.
> "This," Seo-yoon's voice whispered from everywhere and nowhere, "is your Aether Vault."
I fell to my knees, clutching my chest as that newly-formed inner realm hummed, the air inside me thick with potential.
> "Each day," she said, "you will draw in Aether from your environment and store it here. And with each battle, each awakening—this dimension will stretch."
> "Not just in size... but in law."
She paused, letting the idea settle in my head like the first stone of a grand temple.
> "When it matures, it will cease to be a vault—and become a domain."
I stared at my own hands, feeling a flicker of spatial pressure swirling beneath my ribs. A living dimension... within me?
> "But blue Aether won't be enough," she continued, voice sharpening.
She stepped back and raised one finger—just one—and space folded.
Suddenly, a tiny spark ignited at the tip of her finger, and my body screamed at the sight of it.
Crimson. Pulsing. Singing with unspeakable tension.
> "This," she said, "is Red Aether."
My throat went dry.
> "It is not found. It is forged. You must combust Blue Aether until it transcends containment—until it turns volatile, unstable, alive."
> "Red Aether does not obey." Her gaze locked onto mine. "You command it... or you burn."
The spark flared, and for a moment, I felt everything I was—mind, body, core—ignite in terror and awe.
> "This is the beginning of your evolution, Muhan," she said softly, yet it thundered in my soul.
"From the boy who walked through dimensions… to the man who builds them from within."
---
New Abilities Gained:
Inner Aether Vault (Lv. 1): A dimension housed inside Muhan, capable of growing with him. At full maturity, it becomes a personal divine domain.
Aether Cultivation (Passive): Muhan can now absorb ambient Aether and store it daily within the vault.
Red Aether Ignition (Locked): Upon successfully combusting and refining stable Blue Aether, Muhan will unlock the devastating and sovereign force of Red Aether.