The post-graduation festivities had begun to dwindle. Laughter echoed from the main plaza, and lanterns floated into the night sky like glowing prayers. Yet beneath the school, in a forgotten wing below the Arcane Archives, a door pulsed with golden seals… and it had just unlocked.
A figure stepped into the dust-laden hallway — Muhan.
His footsteps were calm, but inside, his mind buzzed with tension.
A memory had returned. A suppressed one. A whisper during Null's appearance. It had said:
> "Find Vault Zero. The answers lie in the past your parents never told you."
Muhan passed broken pillars and defunct magical devices, descending until he reached a curved stone gate.
The center glowed as his presence approached. Without touching it, the seal dissolved — as if the vault had recognized him.
Inside, an expansive chamber unfolded. Giant gears floated in suspension, rotating silently. Walls were etched with forbidden runes and outerversal star charts. In the middle, a large crystal sphere hovered over a pedestal, glowing with data threads.
But what caught Muhan off guard was the person standing before it.
A woman in an obsidian lab coat, her silver hair cascading like starlight, turned to him. She wore hexagonal spectacles and her Iris gleamed with prismatic fractals.
"Muhan Lockhart," she said softly. "You've grown."
He paused. "…Who are you?"
She gave a faint smile. "I am Professor Nayla Zephyr. Former head of Project Riftheart. And… I once taught your mother."
Muhan's heart skipped a beat. "You knew Chae-min?"
Nayla nodded. "I helped her seal the unstable embryo you were becoming. You… weren't supposed to survive."
The words hit like thunder.
"What do you mean—'unstable embryo'?"
Professor Nayla stepped aside and tapped the central sphere. Holograms erupted — recordings of Muhan's infancy. His birth wasn't in a hospital. It happened in a rune-circled glyph containment chamber, surrounded by Wysteria's highest-ranked mages.
> "Subject 01: Etherborn – fusion between mortal blood and Fifth-Dimensional Aether."
> "If the subject reaches maturity, the Rift Vein could rupture. Project cancellation is advised—unless containment succeeds."
Muhan backed away, breath caught in his throat. "They… experimented on me?"
Nayla shook her head solemnly. "Not you. You were the outcome. Your father, Han, wasn't always a simple adventurer or a wandering swordsman. He was the test vessel. And your mother? She sacrificed her own life force to stabilize your form."
Muhan staggered.
"All this time… they acted like everything was normal."
"Because they loved you," Nayla said. "They chose you over the project. That's why we buried everything here. But now… Null has reawakened the tether between your existence and the Rift."
She extended her hand.
"You have the right to choose your path now, Muhan. As one of the Etherborns a lineage of God's that had complete controls over realms, you are both key and lock to realms edge."
Muhan clenched his fists, trying to breathe through the storm raging in his soul.
"…If I am the key," he whispered, "then I decide what doors stay closed."
Nayla smiled faintly.
"Just like your mother."
Suddenly, the vault shook. A fracture burst through the far wall. Nayla turned sharply. "We're out of time."
From the broken wall… Null stepped through.
His voice echoed like glitching code. "So this is where you buried the truth."
Muhan stepped forward, Iris blazing neon-blue.
"Enough games. If you want me—come through me."
Null tilted his head. "Not yet. I came… to leave you a memory."
He flicked a finger. A data crystal flew into Muhan's chest and absorbed into him.
> [Memory Core Unlocked: "The One Who Burned the Fifth Sky"]
Muhan collapsed to one knee, vision spinning. In his mind… he saw a glimpse of a woman who looked exactly like Mi-cha—only older, draped in battle robes, standing before an army of Eldritch gods.
And behind her… Muhan. But he was no longer himself. He was something else. Red Hair, Red eyes and a Red formless sword.
Null vanished before Nayla could react, leaving silence in his wake.
As Muhan panted, Nayla knelt beside him. "What did you see?"
"…A future that shouldn't exist," Muhan said, trembling. "And Mi-cha… She's not just important to me. She's… connected to it all."