?Nova’s vision was nothing more than a mosaic of shards and crimson mist. The world around her lost its sharpness, the edges of her perception shrinking under the weight of an agony that transcended flesh. It was not merely physical pain; it was a vibrational invasion. Every attempt to expand her lungs felt like an exercise in swallowing crushed glass and pure static.

  ?Vantus had transmuted the oxygen itself. The air, once light, was now a dense, hostile, and metallic substance that refused to sustain life.

  ?On the floor, Khalid was a shattered shadow. The once-impetuous warrior was now collapsing under the residual frequency that still hummed in his ears, turning his equilibrium into vertigo and his power into poison.

  ?Vantus, the Conqueror, walked back to his throne. His footsteps produced no sound on the black marble, his cloak rippling behind him like solid smoke—an extension of the very darkness he commanded.

  ?“What shall I do with you two?” Vantus’s voice emerged like dangerous velvet, sliding through the sonic vacuum of the hall. “Killing you feels like a waste of potential… a mercy your piffling efforts do not deserve. Torture? Perhaps that is too tedious for my refined tastes.”

  ?A roar of pure animal instinct tore through the monologue.

  ?Khalid would not accept the end as a footnote. Driven by a remnant of unstable Lumen—an energy that now burned in a destructive, erratic violet hue—he launched himself in a final attack. There was no strategy, no guard. It was the violent flare of a supernova before total collapse.

  ?Vrummm!?The air displaced by his advance created a small shockwave, cracking the already battered floor. His fists, charged with the essence of his soul, aimed for the tyrant’s chest.

  ?“Sofonai.”

  ?Vantus did not even blink. The word came out like a lethal sigh, a fundamental frequency that canceled the very existence of movement.

  ?CRA-ACK!?The sound of rupturing organs echoed sharply, almost crystal-clear, through the hall. The internal vibration was instantaneous. The capillaries in Khalid’s eyes burst simultaneously, staining his gaze a deep and absolute crimson. The violet Lumen flickered out like a candle beneath a gale.

  ?He fell before he could even touch Vantus’s robes. Blood ran from his lips in a constant thread, drawing a map of defeat on the marble floor.

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  ?The silence that followed was absolute. A sonic vacuum that hurt more than any scream.

  ?“No…” Nova’s whisper was a tear of pure pain. “Khalid… no…”

  ?She tried to stand, her fingers scratching the cold stone, her nails breaking as she sought traction. But Vantus merely snapped his fingers.

  ?BOOM!?A low-frequency sound wave hit her like a wall of invisible concrete. The impact threw her against the back pillars, the sound of her bones striking the structure echoing like an off-key note in a symphony of horror.

  ?“Train, little star,” Vantus said, sitting on the throne with predatory elegance. He rested his chin on his hand, observing her with clinical curiosity, like an entomologist studying a wounded insect. “Grow strong. Cultivate this hatred until it shines brighter than your Lumen. Perhaps, in a few years, you might manage to entertain me for more than five minutes.”

  ?Nova awoke hours later. The cold was the first thing she felt, followed by the smell of decay. She had been discarded like refuse in the outer galleries of the palace, where the sewers of Caelum emptied into the abyss. A fine rain fell upon her face, washing away the dried blood but unable to cleanse the filth from her soul.

  ?“Forgive me… Khalid… I failed…” She sobbed, her throat raw, making any scream of agony impossible.

  ?Suddenly, the rain seemed to freeze in mid-air. A pale, ethereal golden mist began to coalesce before her, defying the darkness of the duct.

  ?“Nova…” Khalid’s voice was a soft echo, coming from somewhere beyond the veil of reality.

  ?“Khalid?!” She reached out, her heart beating against her ribs like a bird in a cage. Her fingers, however, passed through nothing but cold light. There was no substance, only the luminous memory of who he had been.

  ?His spirit smiled. It was an expression of tragic peace, a calm that Nova could not conceive amidst her internal chaos.

  ?“Do not cry, my star. Use this pain as fuel. Transform every tear into a spark,” his spirit began to dissipate, turning translucent. “Promise… promise you will avenge me. That you will silence his voice forever.”

  ?“I promise,” Nova declared, and for the first time, the Lumen in her veins did not shine. It roared. The energy became dense, opaque, taking on a dark and heavy hue. “I will kill him. I swear it by the very stars he intends to extinguish.”

  ?“I always loved you, Nova…” His final whisper dissolved into the breeze, leaving only the rhythmic, melancholy sound of rain against metal.

  ?In the throne room, the shadows seemed to take on a life of their own, dancing as Vantus stood up. He ignored the bloodstains of Khalid, now dry on the floor, focusing his attention on the star maps floating in holograms of sound and light before him.

  ?“Prepare an immediate recruitment program,” Vantus ordered the shadows that inhabited the columns. Hidden generals and silent advisors bowed their heads. “I want the most powerful and dissonant beings in this galaxy. Those whose souls vibrate at the frequency of destruction.”

  ?He closed his right hand, and the projection of a nearby star was crushed between his fingers, turning into digital dust.

  ?“We shall call this elite group The Eight Symphonies.”

  ?From behind the throne, where the darkness was so thick it seemed to have physical mass, a voice laden with dark and ancient reverence added:

  ?“And with Kallos by your side, my lord… we shall be the Nine Symphonies.”

  ?The Conqueror smiled—a gesture that held no joy, only the promise of an absolute end. The concert of the universe was only just beginning, and he would be the only maestro.