Part I: Beneath the Sixth Seal
Mujin didn't dream that night.
He remembered.
A battlefield—smoke rising from charred banners.A voice like thunder screaming his name.A sword made of bone and starlight piercing his chest.And then… silence.
He woke with the taste of blood in his mouth.
"You saw it, didn't you?" Elder Gihyeon asked.
"I saw myself die," Mujin whispered.
Gihyeon nodded grimly. "Then the tomb showed you what it shows only to the chosen."
"Not what will happen… but what already has."
Mujin's breath caught.
"What already… has?"
Gihyeon: "You're not the first to bear the Seal, Mujin. You're just the first to survive it."
Part II: The Oracle in the Bone Fields
By midday, they arrived at the White Bone Steppes,a cursed stretch of land where wind never blows, but bones whisper beneath the sand.
There, beneath a crumbling obelisk, sat an old woman.
Eyes covered in bone-white cloth.Teeth stained red.She spoke without moving her mouth.
"You… you smell of betrayal."
"You've touched what should remain sealed."
"You've walked where your shadow cannot follow."
Gihyeon bowed. "We seek the location of the Seventh Relic."
The woman did not reply.
Instead, her hands traced patterns in the air—runes that burned red and gold.
Then she turned to Mujin.
"You want to return home," she whispered.
"But every step forward severs a path back."
"Are you prepared to lose everything?"
Mujin didn't answer.
He looked at his hand, where the sixth sigil glowed beneath the skin.
And he said—
"No. But I'll walk anyway."
Part III: Trial by Names
The Oracle hissed.
"Then let the Trial begin."
Bones rose from the sand, forming a circle of thrones.Each throne bore a single word—names Mujin didn't recognize… but felt.
One glowed with heat. One dripped with sorrow. One pulsed like a heartbeat.
And one was his own name, split in half.
The Oracle stood between them and said,
"Sit on the wrong name… and you die."
"Sit on the right name… and you remember."
Mujin closed his eyes.
He listened.
To his pulse. To the wind that didn't blow. To the ground that almost breathed.
Then he stepped forward—and chose.
The moment he sat, his body convulsed.
Visions.
He saw the face of the Skybone Emperor, no mask this time—just pain.He saw a child placed in a sarcophagus.He saw a modern Seoul apartment, shattered, burning.
And finally—
He saw his own eyes, full of fire.
Epilogue: The Seventh Fragment
Mujin awoke lying in the sand.
A seventh symbol burned on his arm.The Oracle was gone.
Only her voice remained:
"Seven lights unlock the Gate. But what lies behind it… is not light."
From the distance, the sky cracked.
Something had awakened.
Not far off, a tower not marked on any map began to tremble—And within it, someone whispered:
"He's coming."
🔥 To be continued.