by Feng Yue
It was a pity that, in the end, Schubert still chose sacrifice and salvation out of her own free will. She did not fight against her mission, and he was of no use.
At the moment, his appearance here was undoubtedly a precautionary measure that the Church had made in advance. He was not required to defeat the enemy, and it would suffice for him to delay the time.
In the short span of just a few seconds, several musicians had already become unable to control themselves. Their minds were controlled, permeated by the Moonlight Sonata. Fortunately, Paganini also knew it very well. With one of them out in the open and the other in the dark, during the confrontation at the moment, they actually used the consciousness of all the musicians present as their chessboard and battled indirectly.
Everyone felt their mood oscillating between sorrow and joy, and it was difficult for them to control themselves.
Soon, Paganini turned his gaze to the chaotic city below. “He is just hiding down there, find him!” He looked at the brightly lit city below with almost millions of people in it. To find Chopin was, simply put, even harder than to ascend to heaven.
Paganini snickered softly, seemingly having found a countermeasure.
As if he had guessed Paganini’s thoughts, Chopin’s resigned voice sounded. “With me here, your surprise attack is meaningless. Why don’t you leave while the Church has yet to react? That way, you’ll be fine, and over here I can also relax. It’s good for everyone.”
“Are you joking?” Paganini asked back. “If you really have mercy in your heart, you might as well remove the moonlight, and it’ll also be a good thing for the uninvolved people.”
“Why must you be so cruel?” Chopin sighed bitterly. “Don’t you… have the slightest bit of mercy in you?”
“You are the one who forced me to do so.” Paganini was completely unmoved. “Since you regard them as your shields, why do you still hope that they will not have to fulfill their mission?” As he said so, he looked at Charles.
Charles looked at the chaotic crowds below, the millions of people in the whole city, and his hairs suddenly stood on end. To find Chopin from the crowd was simply like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. Albeit feeling resigned, he could only reach out and press down into the emptiness.
Soon, with Charles’ action, a soft melody sounded. Everywhere the singing that was as gentle as water passed, the crowds on the streets gradually fell into a deep slumber. But soon, the gentle singing was interrupted by tragic, sorrowful whines.
Flames rose from the ground and engulfed one of the town areas, as well as the civilians who were asleep.
Charles raised his head in shock and looked at the musicians beside him. The musicians were playing movements that they could master from the school of modifications and casting them at the city below, indifferent expressions on their faces.
Soon, bangs sounded one after another, and the fire engulfed the streets one by one. Tragic cries and screams rose from the ground, trembling together in the fire with the dust, and finally returned to ashes in the fire.
Paganini stared coldly at the fire of destruction that was constantly rising below, unmoved in the slightest bit.
“What are you all doing!” Charles stared at him angrily. “Are you guys crazy? They are all civilians!”
Paganini stopped him, a cold and solemn expression on his face. “Hypnosis is too slow, and Chopin can easily fish in troubled waters. Charles, don’t waste time.
“The outcome of the war depends heavily on our mission. If we fail, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people will die in the war, like what you have seen…”
Charles stared at him dumbfounded, gritted his teeth, and clenched his fists. His pupils seemed to have been ignited by the flames and the destruction, and they were burned red.
The long-lost sorrowful whines that seemed like an illusion sounded once again, but this time around, they were not illusions, but an actual reality happening right in front of him.
Countless people were dying.
Once again, he saw that the souls whining sorrowfully emerge from the ashes. Riding on the wind and the smoke, they rose into the sky from the ground and disappeared in the brilliance of Eden.
It was as if they had ascended to heaven.
He pressed his forehead forcefully, enduring the immense pain the illusion brought, and roared, “Come out, Chopin!”
Charles shouted furiously at the city below. “Get your *ss out here!”
“I’m sorry, Son of God, but I don’t want to die yet.” Chopin sighed and responded, “Although Doomsday draws near, I still feel that… it is better to die later.”
Although they were both musicians of the school of heart, compared to Ye Lanzhou, whose charisma and talent were unrivaled back then, Chopin and he were almost at two extremes. Yet Chopin never hid his lowliness and his hunched back.
“It is my mission, just like how you have your own mission.” Chopin said calmly, “Neither of us has a choice.”
At the moment, in a ruined neighborhood, Chopin’s figure emerged.
In a flash, he was targeted.
Charles clenched his fist, expressionless. Eden’s elements operated, and punishment was meted out.
Against the brilliance that sufficed to burn himself to ashes, Chopin felt relief instead. Wiping the black ashes on his face, he sat down on the ground.
Boom! A rumble sounded, and it was the sound of the sea of aether gushing fiercely against the currents.
On top of Paganini’s head, the operation of the projection of the Wheel of Balance came to an abrupt stop, and the part where the realm of aether and the physical world overlapped began to shrink rapidly, causing the projection of Eden to sway, and it could hardly be sustained…
In a flash, all forms of communication between the physical world and the realm of aether were completely blocked.
Only Charles wasn’t affected.
In other words, once one left Charles’ side and was several meters away from him, one would fall to the level of a formal musician.
Against the sudden blockade, the wing of light that covered the entire sky was still unfolded, withstanding the pressure without shaking at all.
He looked in the direction of the Golden Palace. A blazing ray of light rose into the sky from the Golden Palace, shrouding them, and a phantom shadow of the Wheel of Balance was outlined. However, it was rotating in a completely different direction from theirs.
The three-minute interval was already enough for Asgard to activate the Wheel of Balance of the Church, completely separating the realm of aether and the physical world.
After the invaders lost the power from the high-level dimensions, they were no longer of any threat to the Golden Palace.
Along with the blockade by the Wheel of Balance, fiery aether waves emerged from nothingness one after another. Scepters emerged, outlining the phantoms of saints.
As the giant wind tunnel of the Golden Palace opened, the projection of the saints descended one after another.
Liszt, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, plus Chopin, who had revealed his actual body, six saints had descended in total. A power that had exceeded usual standards and sufficed to flatten any country took aim at where Charles and the rest were located.
Paganini’s expression was gloomy, and he forcefully opened a crack in the blockade once more with the Wheel of Balance.
“Let’s go, Charles,” he said. “Mission failed.”
The Sacred City has actually found them. They actually found so many musicians who can inherit the power of the saints in such a short period of time.
One can only say that the Sacred City has indeed lived up to its reputation? However, in such a glamorous lineup, I wonder how many are puppets, and how many are consumables?
He could not suppress the fury in his heart at the thought of himself being stopped by a group of consumables. Gritting his teeth, he issued the order to retreat.
“No.” Charles did not move
, just looked at his enemies coldly. He took a deep breath, enduring the pain of his body boiling within. He did not leave along the crack, but pulled out a weird specimen from Eden, which was behind the crack. It was like a frozen flower. The wilting sunflower was solidified in amber, and its glory and vigor in the past were maintained as if it still had life in it after a few centuries.
Against everyone’s shocked expressions, he lifted the specimen of amber to his eyes.
“I am still alive.” He murmured softly, “So, we have yet to fail!”
At the moment, in the Golden Palace, the expression of the lighthouse musician observing the battlefield changed drastically.
“Stop him, hurry!” The musician of the school of revelation gazed at the specimen reflected in the observation of the lighthouse and glimpsed its essence. “It is… Cereus!”
The next moment, everyone’s expression changed drastically. They disregarded their dignity and honor, and even the bearing capability of their bodies, surrounding and attacking Charles.
It was not difficult to find information and intelligence regarding Charles. It could even be said that the information regarding the first half of his life was almost like common knowledge, and it was very easy to investigate. One could even find out about where he liked to dine and dash back in the academy, where he was caught and beaten up, and where he got drunk and ran around naked in the moon-illuminated night afterward.
Of course, they would not miss out the most important part of the information.
The fella possessed the capability of directly consuming the real body of a catastrophe through its appearance!
One such instance was the tragic death of Kehlsteinhaus, the natural disaster that once attacked the Caucasus…
At the moment, the amber fell apart between Charles’ fingers.
As if the essence had flowed away, all the power was drawn and consumed, turning into resources that entered Charles’ blood. As a result, the sunflower that had been in full bloom for thousands of years wilted and dissipated in Charles’ hands.
At the moment, Charles snarled and roared painfully.
In the earth-shattering waves, light engulfed him, and countless movements of destruction buried him within, but they could not drown out the thunder-like rhythm within the core.
It was the sound of heartbeats.
The invisible heart beat in pain, absorbing the elements and power that had appeared suddenly. It smelted music theory, consumed aether, and turned it into a wing!
Thus, in the crisp sound of bones growing, Charles roared in pain.
Everyone saw it amid the dissipating light and smoke.
On his back, beside the wing of the catastrophe that represented the Eagle Wing Mother, the skeleton of a wing broke out. Flesh and blood proliferated on it, as if vines were growing. Finally, it was covered in feathers that were fleeting and distant like shadows. The wing seemed so far away, as if it did not exist in the present.
As the wing fluttered, the petals that once belonged to the Cereus dropped from it and dissipated in the wind.
The power that was enough to destroy a city was applied on Charles, but not even a hair on him was damaged, because he was far away from the world, and it was incredibly hard for anything in the world to touch him.
“Now,” Charles stared at his enemies and murmured softly, “it’s my turn.”
[1] Sarcasm.
734 Afterimage
When both wings spread open above the vault of heaven, the entire world sank into silence. The wings of shadow extended themselves without a sound and swept across the void. There was no sound of wind or even the slightest trace of the presence of aether waves.
In comparison, the pair of wings of light was the complete opposite. Other than naked eyes, there were no other ways of detecting its presence. It did not exist. This was Cereus.
Just as everyone was still in a state of shock, Charles waved his hands and the wings of light spread open with force. The illusion of Eden appeared behind him. As he clenched his fists tightly, the illusion of Eden let out a huge roar and light poured out continuously from heaven.
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor!
The roar of thunder combined with the melody in such a way that not only did it not appear out of place, but the former brought out the power and grandeur of the latter. The legacy of saints! This tit-for-tat left the saints looking very upset.
No one knew how the Sacred City was able to get around the fact that Charles had already inherited a holy name and created the legacy of saints, but at this very moment, Charles was merely unleashing his movement. By doing so, the new saint that had inherited the holy name of Tchaikovsky could already sense the trembling of music theory within his body. This was all Charles’ doing. It was as if the music theory was trying to get out of his body in order to go to heaven. As the majestic melody roared, streaks of lightning struck from the sky like chains. They branched out in the direction of the saints, which left them all scrambling in retreat.
The core of Symphony No. 4 was the respect and fear of musicians towards “doom.” At this moment, with doom as the main theme, what it elucidated was the existence of fate. In the legacy of saints, it was the core within a core. The moment it was limited by fate, it would be completely trapped in a cage. Even a giant dragon would become a mere rabid dog if it was chained up.
But shortly after, Charles did not seem to care about the incredible pressure of Symphony No. 4 and opened his other palm gradually. Symphony No. 5 roared! It was simply insane.
The biggest reason why the gist power of the legacy of saints could only be unleashed by saints was that any movement would have been too great and overwhelming for ordinary musicians. If it was not done the right way and the symphony was played forcefully, the resultant pressure of the music theory could easily crush one’s consciousness.
Even a saint would be very cautious when controlling such an oversized movement to avoid any counter-reactions. Besides, the holy name of Tchaikovsky was on the same level as Haydn. Even the saints knew it to be a music theory disruption that was massive and complicated and possessed a very wide range! It was also a path of destruction that contained the most intense transformations. This was definitely not as simple as one plus one equals two. The effect would definitely exceed the increments in difficulty. Any mistake and the first person to be burnt would be yourself!
But at this moment, as Charles was doing two things at the same time, he did not seem to be in any difficulty. Instead, he was able to combine Symphony No. 4 and Symphony No. 5 into one.
Both music theories used doom as the main theme and elucidated the path of fate but even as they clashed with each other, unlike what everyone else expected, they did not destroy each other as a result. Instead, they mixed together like fire and wind, and unleashed a destructive power that left even the saints trembling with fear. What was even more terrifying was that when Charles remained motionless, the saint that had inherited Tchaikovsky’s holy name began to scream in pain and despair.
In an instant, it was as if all his blood was in turmoil as countless violent music theory spiritualities crushed his consciousness. As Charles continued to summon, he was no longer able to control his own power. He began to burn from inside and in a split second, burnt into a pile of ashes.
Countless music theories escaped from his body and gathered in the hands of Charles. They infused into the legacy of saints in his body and immediately melted into the glorious light of heaven.
Amidst the projection in heaven, an elderly illusion appeared. Double legacies of saints had never ever taken place before. They were the same legacies of saints gathered in one location and under Charles’ elucidation, the spiritualities of music theory extended naturally and eventually created the silhouette of a long-forgotten person.
The old man opened his eyes gradually as if he had just woken up from a long dream. He looked at Charles before looking at the saints standing opposite of him. He seemed to be laughi
ng bitterly. “My apologies, I couldn’t help myself.”
In an instant, everyone felt numb in amazement. The dead had been revived! Impossible! The dead were actually being revived! Tchaikovsky of the first generation had died centuries ago yet he had just been revived!
It was just like when the King of Red was revived. When something as miraculous as this appeared before everyone’s eyes, all logic and rationale went out the window. To think that the saints of the first generation could be revived when the spiritualities of music theory were gathered together! It was as if these saints had been sent down to the human world once again by the will of God.
“Impossible… impossible…” When the saints realized the significance of this miracle, some of them began to break down. “From the beginning of time, all things would die except for the Originator that would always be eternal… The Originator is eternal… From life to death…”
This was one of the iron laws of the musicians’ three oaths! Only God could be revived from death. But what was happening right before their eyes now…
“Don’t be fooled by him!” Liszt’s face turned green. “That’s just a fuzzy consciousness formed by the spiritualities of music theory! Don’t forget, the death of Hyakume is still in his grasp!”
The music theory consciousness formed by double legacies of saints combined with the memories created from death that had been infused with Eden. Therefore, rebirth only meant the creation of a projection that possessed music theory, memory, and consciousness at the same time. A puppet!
The will to continue the war seemed to have recovered at last, but everyone’s hearts were heavy and Liszt looked extremely upset. Indeed, the opponent was just a puppet that greatly resembled the real person. But… how is this different from a true revival? Besides, this is definitely not all…
He had already received the alarm from “lighthouse.” Other than fuzzy consciousness and memory, there was something different about the projection of saint created by Charles… There was some sort of music theory with the same source as the Cereus!
