The walls of Cadenza sang with tension.
Above, the Choir descended—not in squads or scouts, but as a force, sweeping across the spiral canyon in organized formation. Black banners of silence unfurled behind them, written in runes that consumed the light around them. At their center, a massive obelisk hovered—a Choirship, ancient and alive, shaped like a tuning fork driven through the spine of the sky.
Its voice was already vibrating through the stones.
"ASHBORN. RETURN WHAT YOU STOLE."
The voice came not from a throat, but from dozens—a fused chant, thousands of silenced voices stitched into one impossible harmony. It wasn't a message. It was a command. And it pressed down on every Ashborn like gravity gone wrong.
Yui gasped, gripping her chest. Lira's flame flickered out. Solen dropped to one knee, hands covering his ears.
But Kairo stood firm.
He clenched his fists, both Songmarks glowing hot.
"No," he said aloud.
His voice cracked the floor beneath him.
The man who waited—the First Verse—stepped forward.
"The Final Chorus is not a fight," he said. "It's an erase. They do not come to defeat you. They come to overwrite you."
"Then we fight like we're writing something louder," Kairo growled.
He turned to the others.
"This is it. We hold Cadenza. We protect the last two fragments—wherever they are—and we make sure this world never forgets us again."
Theren ignited, his arms sheathed in flame.
Lira stood, fingers crackling with storm.
Yui raised her staff, eyes blazing with pure light.
Solen—smallest but centered—began to hum a new melody, deep and ancient.
Even Aeska pulled back her cloak and revealed twin blades etched with old runes—her own part in this song finally revealed.
The man gave one final nod. "Then I give you what I never had."
He lifted his hand.
The seven Songmarks on Kairo's body flared at once.
Power surged into the earth.
The entire spiral mountain began to resonate.
Walls shimmered.
Statues awakened.
Stone mouths opened.
And the mountain began to sing.
Above, the Choirship cracked.
Its hum faltered.
A silence-agent—a Choirborn titan laced with soul-cages—plunged toward the center.
Kairo met it mid-air.
Their collision shook the sky.
Kairo's spear of flame and memory pierced the heart of the agent—not killing it, but disassembling it. Its soul unraveled mid-song, memories drifting free like feathers in a thunderstorm.
Yui caught them in threads of light and returned them to the stone.
Solen's melody locked in, stabilizing the chamber's resonance.
Lira and Theren became a storm and fire wall—tearing through wave after wave of invading binders and silence-forged constructs.
But it wasn't enough.
For every Choir-agent they unmade, another three took its place.
Then, the sky changed.
A voice—not from above, but from beyond—rang through the battlefield.
"We heard your Song."
Two pulses struck the canyon—one from the east, one from the north.
Twin streaks of light descended like comets.
And from them emerged the final two Ashborn.
One carried a harp made of glass and blood, her hair floating as if underwater. The other wore a blindfold of stars, his hands blazing with silver ink that moved like serpents.
Seven.
All Ashborn had now gathered.
The Song was complete.
Kairo's voice rose—louder than thunder, older than language.
The others joined.
The mountain shook.
And the Final Chorus—
broke.