---
Chapter 116 – The Harmonics of Rebirth
The Songbound Sequence shifted.
One moment, Erevan stood before Ranya, her grief-laced eyes fixed upon him. The next, the world around him dissolved into waves of luminous sound—vibrations that pulsed with memory, pain, and something older than time itself.
The Sequence was no longer just a space. It was a presence.
As Erevan took a single step forward, the ground beneath his feet rippled like water, crystalline and fragile. Each breath he took was music. Each heartbeat synced with a thousand forgotten songs—unfinished compositions echoing through him, incomplete, yearning.
"I accept," he said softly. "Test me."
The air folded inwards.
The sequence responded not with violence, but with sorrow.
A sphere of light engulfed Erevan. Time stuttered. A thousand strings hummed in discord. And then—silence.
Not the silence of emptiness, but the kind that follows a scream.
---
He stood in a different place now.
A child wept in a narrow corridor made of glowing sigils. A familiar presence. Erevan stepped forward—and the child looked up.
Himself.
No older than seven, crying over a broken fragment of something—an orb, shimmering and cracked.
He remembered this. The first time he'd touched the Tower's interface, long before he became a rebel, before he became the Tyrant. It had reached out to him, offered him visions… and then taken something. A memory. A voice.
Erevan knelt beside his younger self. But the child didn't react.
Instead, the world shattered again.
---
Now he stood before a vast concert hall.
Row upon row of empty seats. At the center, a stage with a violin resting alone on a stool.
From above, Ranya's voice echoed—not the woman herself, but her memory:
"The Tower's music was meant to remember… not erase. It once sang for all."
A ghostly figure emerged from the shadows and walked toward the stage. Another memory.
Erevan recognized her—Veyra.
She lifted the violin, and played.
The notes cut deeper than any blade. It was mourning in its purest form. The death of ideals. The loss of identity.
Erevan felt it. Every note, every shiver, every unspoken scream. This was what the Tower had hidden. This was what the Sequence preserved.
Then her form flickered, and the violin snapped in her hands.
Everything collapsed again.
---
Now—he floated.
In an endless sea of notes. They swirled like constellations, glowing symbols each carrying a tone, a memory, a truth.
A deeper voice echoed through the Sequence, ancient and cracked:
"Will you add your grief to the Song?"
Erevan's heart pounded.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"To restore harmony, you must surrender what you fear to lose. You must play the memory you have never dared to face."
From the void, an instrument formed—a harp made of bone and starlight. It pulsed with red threads: one for every memory sealed deep within Erevan's soul.
The Sequence demanded not strength.
It demanded truth.
And Erevan knew what memory it sought.
He placed his hands on the harp.
And played—
---
A battlefield. Blood-stained snow. Flames devouring rebel banners.
And in the center—her.
Nyara.
Still singing, even as the Tower consumed her. Still reaching for him, even as Erevan turned away—unable to save her. Unwilling to risk it all.
The harp wept with him. His fingers trembled. The song became a dirge. But he played on.
Every note bled.
Until the Sequence pulsed… and the world turned gold.
---
The voices of the Sequence whispered in unison now.
"You remember. You grieve. And so the Song may begin again."
The harp dissolved.
A single tone remained. Pure. Resonant. Unbroken.
The Sequence had accepted him.
Ranya appeared again, not as the sorrowful guardian—but renewed, glowing from within. A chord of her melody had been restored.
"You did it," she whispered, her voice trembling. "You didn't run. You listened."
Erevan staggered, but stood tall.
"I heard what the Tower tried to erase. And I played it back."
A soft smile curved Ranya's lips.
"Then you are ready for the next truth."
The Songbound Sequence shimmered, revealing a massive gate etched with spiraling keys of light—beyond it, the forbidden harmonics of the forgotten Refrain: the Tower's First Rebellion… and perhaps, its last hope.
---
Author's Note:
Thank you for joining us in this emotionally charged chapter. "The Harmonics of Rebirth" marks a shift—not just for Erevan, but for the soul of the entire story.
From here on, 10 stones = 2 bonus chapters, and every 1 review = 1 bonus chapter.
Chapters 116 to 123 are officially bonus chapters for your stone support! After that, we'll roll out 4 chapters as bonus for reviews too!
Your support makes everything possible. Let's keep climbing—together.
– Dorian Blackthorn
---