The night came, and the city of Eschatopolis gleamed under the silver light of the moon.
Stars shimmered faintly above the old rooftops, some twinkling, some steady, like they too were whispering secrets to those who could listen.
After leaving the Band of the Eagle headquarters, I went straight home, locked my room, and sat quietly beside the desk.
The faint sound of wind slipping through the window filled the silence.
'What is the power of Aether?'
The question I never got around to asking Samantha.
That question had been echoing in my head all day.
Almost every other Soul Note revolved around manipulating the world's tangible elements, fire, water, wind, earth.
But Aether? It didn't belong among them.
It was different.
Elusive.
Philosophical.
Aether is Thought.
That's what the book and Samantha said.
And that it was the rarest of all resonances.
"Is it rare because it's powerful?"
I murmured to myself, tapping my chin.
I began drawing invisible shapes in the air, building a pyramid of logic in my mind.
1st principle: Aether is 'Thought'.
2nd principle: 'Thought' manifests through
mana.
3rd principle: Mana influences reality.
Then…
"What does that mean in practice?"
I muttered softly.
It couldn't be as simple as thinking of fire and making it appear.
No, this wasn't imagination. This was reason.
And reason demands understanding.
I leaned forward, eyes gleaming faintly under the moonlight
.
"If i can assumed ignorance is the limiter…"
I whispered,
"then knowledge must be the key."
I wrote down a word:
Fire.
Let's take fire for the example.
"What is fire?"
My old world's education kicked in instinctively.
Fire is the rapid chemical reaction of combustion that releases heat and light when fuel, oxygen, and heat coexist.
"So… if oxygen is always around,"
I reasoned,
"then I just need fuel and heat."
My eyes darted around the room, wooden furniture, a candle stub, faint smell of oil.
"Fuel… heat… sunlight?"
Even though it's night time, can i use heat from sunlight for my theory?.
Well if it doesn't work, i can just make another assumption and try it later.
It was absurd, yet my thoughts refused to stop.
With a deep breath, I focused my mana, weaving it around the concept of combustion.
Not fire, but why fire exists.
At first, nothing.
Then, the air flickered, faintly warping around my index finger.
A spark. A wisp. A whisper of orange light, blooming like a heartbeat.
A small flame the size of my pinky danced above my fingertip.
"It works…"
I laughed weakly, the sound breaking into disbelief.
"It actually works…"
The joy lasted only a few seconds before the dizziness hit, a sharp wave pounding behind my eyes.
My mana drained faster than I'd ever felt before. My head spun.
"Ugh…"
I stumbled toward the bed, collapsing with a shaky breath.
"Is this because this is not my Soul Note?,"
I realized.
The mana flow felt wrong, like forcing a violin to play a drumbeat.
But despite the nausea, I smiled.
It was real magic.
And I did it with thought alone.
Minutes passed.
The dizziness faded.
My breathing calmed.
"I wonder…"
I whispered, staring at the ceiling,
"can I use it differently?"
If I could reason the existence of fire through logic, then could I reason… perception?
Could I think my way into hearing more than what human ears could?
I sat up and grabbed my notebook again.
"Echolocation,"
I wrote.
The process where animals emit sounds and analyze the returning echoes to perceive their surroundings.
If bats and dolphins could "see" with sound, then theoretically, Aether could simulate the same pattern.
After all, Aether wasn't limited by the flesh, it dealt with perception, cognition, and logic.
"So… if I understand how it works, I might replicate it."
I closed my eyes.
Inhale. Exhale.
I imagined a pulse, not from my lungs, but from the space behind my mind.
A gentle vibration of mana leaving me, spreading in a sphere.
Invisible. Weightless.
The vibration touched walls, glass, air, and returned.
Not as sound, but as information.
My Aether interpreted it. Converted it. Built an image of space around me, not through eyes, but through logic.
The world bloomed in my head like a faint wireframe sketch.
Every object had a shape, a density, a rhythm.
The rats under the floorboards.
The distant hum of carriages.
The faint clang of metal from the mercenaries' district, kilometers away.
For a moment, I could "hear" the entire city breathe.
It wasn't just hearing, it was understanding sound.
The moment shattered with a sudden rush of pain.
"Argh—!"
My temples throbbed violently, as if my brain itself was trying to reject the overload of data.
I gasped and cut off the Aetheric flow.
Silence crashed back like a wave.
I dropped to my knees, panting heavily.
"…That… was too much."
My hands trembled as I wiped the sweat from my forehead.
A trickle of blood ran down my nose.
Still, I smiled through the exhaustion.
"So that's how it works. It's not super hearing… it's super interpretation."
I leaned back, gazing out the window.
The stars above flickered softly, or maybe my vision was blurring.
Either way, I could still feel it.
The faint rhythm of the world. The pulse of mana. The heartbeat of reality itself.
"Aether… you don't change the world,"
I whispered, eyes half-lidded.
"You just understand it so completely… So the world obeys your logic."
The silence of the night shattered.
It started as a faint vibration, like thunder muffled beneath stone, and then, in an instant, the air boomed.
A deafening explosion erupted from somewhere far to the north.
The sound struck through the still air, shaking windows and rattling the candle flames in my room.
I gasped.
My body stiffened, my heartbeat pounding loud enough to echo in my own skull.
That was no lightning strike.
That was… an explosion.
"What the hell—"
The next moment, instinct, no,my curiosity overtook reason.
Without thinking, I placed both hands over my temples and forced myself to focus.
The pain from earlier still lingered, but I ignored it. I couldn't stop now.
"Super Interpretation,"
I whispered.
Mana surged through my body, cold and fluid like quicksilver.
The world dimmed around me. Sound stretched, fragmented, then bent to my will.
Every vibration. Every echo. Every whisper in the air began to align.
I directed my mind toward the north, toward where the sound had come from.
The Aether thrummed in my veins as I extended my perception, shaping my thoughts into waves.
And then…
I heard it.
The rhythm of running feet, dozens of them. The clash of metal against flesh. The roar of something… inhuman.
The echoes painted pictures in my mind, a chaotic map of tunnels, stone walls, and moving shadows beneath the city.
The Sewer Canal System.
That's where it came from.
I pushed the resonance further, threading my Aether deeper into the chaos, ignoring the sharp pain growing behind my eyes.
And slowly, faint shapes began to form in my mind's eye.
I saw it.
A group of soldiers, perhaps 20, maybe more standing knee-deep in filthy water, their torches flickering wildly.
Behind them, 5 monstrous figures writhed and roared, half-beast, half-human, dripping with black sludge. I assume it was the same type of Monster that Father and Sir. Alexander killed.
The soldiers fired spells, flames, lightning, even wind blades, but the monsters absorbed them, their skin bubbling with unnatural resilience.
The clang of steel, the screams of men, the sound of magic detonating against stone, it all merged into a hellish orchestra.
And then,
"MOVE! HOLD THE FRONTLINE!"
That voice.
Even through the distortion, through the chaos and the ringing in my ears… I recognized it instantly.
"...Father?"
Marcus.
My father's voice, echoing through the sewer tunnels, filled with fury and command.
My heart dropped.
I could see him now in my mind, swinging his longsword with a crimson glow, blocking a clawed strike that could have torn through armor.
His team, 'the Band of the Eagle', fought beside 'the Knight Guards', their mana flickering like dying stars.
Every clash of blade and spell tore through my senses like shards of glass.
The echoes grew unstable, overlapping, crashing, reverberating inside my skull.
My Aetheric focus faltered, the noise turning into a storm.
"Argh—!"
I clutched my head, falling to my knees as more blood dripped from my nose.
But even as pain seared through me, I couldn't stop listening.
There was something wrong.
Something deeply wrong.
The monsters weren't attacking like wild beasts, they moved with purpose, coordination.
They weren't just creatures.
And as the echoes kept replaying, another sound, faint, distant, yet chilling, slipped through the chaos.
A chant.
Dozens of voices, speaking in an ancient tongue.
Low. Repetitive. Hollow.
It came from deeper within the sewers.
"Vocem… Ascendat… Ad Turrim…"
"Let the voice ascend to the Tower."
My heart froze.
The Tower?
My breathing quickened. I released the Aether link immediately, the world collapsing back into silence with a painful snap.
The ringing in my ears was deafening, but not as loud as the thought now screaming in my mind.
"There's a war beneath the city…"
I muttered shakily.
"And the Tower… is behind it."
The candlelight flickered violently, as if reacting to the unease in my chest.
Outside, the moon hid behind clouds, and Eschatopolis, once serene, now felt like it was breathing wrong.
Something dark was moving beneath its streets.
And for the first time…
I realized this city was far from safe.