The Obsidian Fang sat heavy in Mujin’s lap, its pulse still echoing with that single word:
“Brother.”
But Mujin had no brother.
Not in this world.
He stared into the red moonlight until Elder Gihyeon’s footsteps broke the silence.
“It called to you,” the elder said.
“That means it remembers something... perhaps someone... that you do not.”
“Or it’s lying,” Mujin replied flatly.
“It wouldn’t be the first time a weapon tried to manipulate a wielder.”
Gihyeon said nothing.
But the silence beneath his hood held too many truths.
Just then, a tremor passed through the air—not from earth, but from reality itself.
The Gate of Echoes had fully cracked open.
And beyond it... the Crimson Realm stirred.
The ritual stones at the valley base began to glow.
The path to the Crimson Gate was now open—for one.
“Only the soul marked by seven seals can pass through,” an elder warned.
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“But even then, what lies beyond is... memory twisted by malice.”
Still, Mujin stepped forward.
The ground turned liquid.
The moonlight fractured.
And Mujin fell forward—not down, but inward.
Through flame and smoke.
Through screams in languages long dead.
Until—
He landed.
On a battlefield soaked in old blood, where the sky was upside down and thunder had no sound.
Before him stood a figure wearing his face—
but younger, crueler, and smiling.
“You’re late,” the echo said.
“We’ve been waiting.”
This place was not just a dimension—it was a prison of possibility.
Each step Mujin took, the world rewrote itself.
One moment, he stood as a child in Seoul.
The next, as a general of a dead Baekje army.
Then, as a broken monk on a mountaintop of bones.
At every turn, his other self followed.
Mocking. Testing.
“Do you even know why you’re fighting?”
“Is it to save the world—or to punish it for forgetting you?”
Finally, on a broken bridge made of petrified roots, the two clashed.
Obsidian Fang against its mirror.
Every strike was a memory.
Every parry, a buried regret.
And then—
Mujin remembered something.
A name. A face.
Someone he had once failed.
He screamed—not in rage, but in release.
And struck.
When Mujin stepped out of the Gate,
the sky had turned still.
The red moon was gone.
He collapsed at Gihyeon’s feet, blade still in hand.
“You crossed,” the elder said.
“But not all of you came back, did it?”
Mujin didn’t answer.
He only looked down at his hands.
And found they were stained—not with blood,
but with ink.
A symbol had burned into his palm.
The Eighth Seal.
In the far distance, the stars shifted—
and the true enemy...
finally opened his eyes.
To be continued...