The sky above Harmonica Heights had never been this quiet.
No wind song. No ambient hum. No melodic breeze tickling the crystal towers.
Only the strange, gut-deep pressure of a world that had lost its pulse.
Ren stood at the edge of the shattered platform, staring into the aftermath. The Core Conductor—once the very heart of the city's harmonic mana—was gone. Not destroyed. Not shattered.
Muted.
He didn't know silence could be so loud.
Cadencia arrived moments later, her long cloak now dull, its enchanted threads unraveling in the soundless void. Her eyes locked with Ren's. "You saw something."
Ren nodded slowly. "Someone, actually."
"Describe her."
"Silver eyes. A coat made of broken runes. She said I 'shouldn't be here yet.' Then she disappeared into thin air. Or sound. Or… anti-sound?"
Cadencia's face was unreadable. "A Harrower."
Ren blinked. "You're going to have to unpack that."
She did not.
Instead, she snapped her fingers, summoning a trio of soundweavers. Their instruments crackled with static as they tried to stabilize the city's leylines, but it was like tuning a broken violin—no matter how they twisted the strings, everything came out wrong.
"The Soundfall Festival was more than just tradition," Cadencia said, her voice strained. "It reinforced the Aural Lattice. A global ley network rooted in resonance. Without it, we are…" She paused, searching for a metaphor. "…like a drum with a cracked shell. Pretty, but useless."
"Then we fix it," Ren said.
She stared at him. "You speak as if it's that simple."
"Hey, I don't know how, but I've fixed worse. I once unclogged a sentient lava pipe using only a sandwich and some jazz."
One of the soundweavers turned toward him. "The Lattice can't be fixed with sandwiches, traveler."
"Not with that attitude," Ren muttered.
◇
But deep down, he was worried.
His loop pedal—a magical artifact that had bonded with him back in the previous chapter—was still pulsing. And now, it was picking up signals.
Faint ones. Buried in the static.
He pressed his palm against it—and a ripple of echoed time spilled across his vision.
A vision.
A forgotten past… or an approaching future?
He saw:
—A city singing in unison.
—A lone figure with silver eyes, standing atop a floating cathedral.
—A fractured world sealed by a symphony.
—And himself, standing at the center of a massive tuning circle, surrounded by people, monsters, even machines… all following his lead.
When he came to, the soundweavers were gone.
And Cadencia was staring at the cracked moon again.
"It's beginning," she whispered.
Ren followed her gaze.
From one of the cracks in the moon… something was falling.
No—descending.
A black note. A single, corrupted musical glyph, burned into the sky like an angry ink stain.
It was headed straight for Harmonica Heights.
And it was singing a disharmony.