Piece 3: O Fortuna - Echoes of the Unforgiven Sky
The Imperial March had left an aftershock lingering in the air.
The musicians' fingers trembled with adrenaline and sweat beaded on their foreheads as they sat perfectly still.
Something had changed in them. Something had woken up.
Luther turned the page.
A new title stood out on the parchment, written in blackened ink that shone like oil in candlelight.
O Fortuna
He didn't need to say anything.
The room already felt heavier. Charged.
Just an invisible hand closing around every throat, daring them to play.
Luther turned to his orchestra slowly.
"This is not a song," he said. "This is… fate."
He walked to the center, sat at the obsidian piano as if at an altar, and pressed a single key.
A low chord, as deep and ancient as a mountain's groan, rumbled out across the studio floor. The lanterns flickered. The resonance stones whined like something buried beneath them had stirred.
He played the first measures.
And it began.
The voices were first—soft, breathy, spectral.
A quiet choir from the living and the long-dead. A chant barely above a whisper, threading through the columns like a warning on the wind.
Then came the strings.
They didn't enter with beauty—they entered with judgment.
A dissonant sweep like a guillotine's drop, slicing straight through the room. Violins wailed like mourning widows. Violas trembled like gallows ropes.
The drums returned. Not as a battle, but as a doom.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Every beat was a verdict. Every note is reckoning.
Qi started to spin violently in circles around the studio, collapsing inward. Lights flickered. Gravity bent.
And then the chant got louder.
O Fortuna, velut luna...
Their voices rose. Some musicians sang without thinking, and their mouths moved in perfect Latin pronunciation, even though they had never studied it.
...statu variabilis.
Luther's hands moved quickly across the keys, as if he were possessed. Every note sounded like a protest against fate, every arpeggio a plea for the gods to listen.
The Phantom Concerto Ensemble responded in kind.
One by one, they joined the funeral storm.
The brass section joined in, their sound tearing through the room like archangels with battered trumpets, making bold, almost indifferent declarations.
The cellos played with a heavy, relentless sound, pulling everyone down with each swell.
The flutes shrieked sharply, their notes layered over the melody like a final cry before silence.
The resonance stones under their feet began to break, and thin lines spread across the tiles like lightning. It seemed like every burst of music made the studio lose control a little more.
The chorus came next. Full-throated. Righteous. Damned.
"O FORTUNA...VELUT LUNAAAA!!"
The lyrics didn't just echo. They clawed across the hall and through every soul present.
Everyone in the room saw something within their own echoes.
The first violinist saw his childhood home on fire.
The oboist saw the brother she lost to the plague last winter.
The harpist saw herself aged and alone, surrounded by silence.
They played harder.
Faster with vengeance.
Because somehow, this song wasn't about glorifying fate.
It was about defying it.
It was like they were punching the gods in the teeth when they played it. It was like every crescendo was yelling, "You will not write my story for me."
The energy peaked.
Voices mixed with strings, brass, percussion, breath, qi, grief, and anger—
And the ceiling burst into colors.
The domed ceiling above seemed to be painted with music, as if whole lives were being remembered and mourned.
A battlefield of fallen kings, their regrets bleeding into the ground.
A desert where a girl once sang her mother back from the brink of death.
A stage lit by lanterns where a boy with trembling hands first played a single perfect note and changed the world.
The music held all their stories.
And as the final O Fortuna! roared out like a damnation made sound—like a spell cast against the very heavens—
The room went silent.
Not even a heartbeat could be heard. It felt like time had eaten itself in awe.
Then the colors started to fade. The ceiling calmed, the resonance stones cooled, and the lanterns dimmed.
And the musicians wept openly without shame.
No one spoke. They just held their instruments like lifelines, shaking and drying their tears.
Luther rose from the piano. "That," he said with a hoarse voice, "is why we play."
No one responded. No one needed to.
They understood. Not in their minds. Not even in their hearts.
But in their souls.
For the first time, Phantom Concerto had not played a piece.
They had become it. And the ensemble was reborn.
Adagio for Strings - The Piece of Ruin and Rebirth
here were no clocks in the studio. The sun had already slipped past the arches of the Scholar's Crescent, but no one paid attention. The Phantom Concerto kept playing, drawn by something deeper than rhythm, chasing ghosts and gods.
They breathed heavily. Fingers cramped. Bows began to splinter. Only willpower, adrenaline, and the last bits of qi kept them playing. Musicians, who once played for money or noble praise, now played each note as a prayer. They feared what silence might bring.
Even lunch had been forgotten.
The music had become sacred.
Until—
Clap.
A single, deliberate clap echoed from the entry arch of the Harmonic Bloom Studio.
Clap.
Then another.
Boots tapped rhythmically in tandem with the slow, measured applause.
Clap.
A shadow crossed the threshold.
And then he appeared.
Charlemagne Ziglar.
He wore a dark, elegant coat shimmering with thunder-threaded fabric. Silver hair framed unreadable sapphire eyes.
"…Not bad," Charles remarked as he stepped forward.
He stopped just shy of the center.
"You only missed six micro-temporal syncs, over-pushed two crescendo arcs, and one of your bass clarinets almost self-combusted from emotional overload."
The oboist blinked. "Wait..you were listening?"
Charles's lips curled into an expression that was part smirk, part warning.
"Always."
He strolled forward in silence, not a single rune on the floor daring to chime beneath his steps. His presence alone seemed to steady the room.
He stopped before Luther Vahn.
"Well?" he asked simply, voice soft but laden with weight.
Luther Vahn stared at him. His usually fierce, flamboyant expression was replaced by a reverent one. Something unshakably certain.
"…There's room for improvement," Charles continued, tilting his head. "But I like what I hear."
Luther stepped forward.
Then he bowed low, his tired frame trembling with the effort, a gesture of reverence and exhaustion.
"Lord Charlemagne Ziglar," he declared, voice hoarse from strain and wonder alike. "We are yours."
Behind him, twenty-nine musicians stood together—drained, pale, slightly bloodstained.
A few swayed unsteadily in place. One violist stared off with unfocused eyes, her bow hand twitching, as if following invisible birds. Yet, every musician remained upright, gripping their instruments for balance.
They believed.
Charles reached into his coat and withdrew a scroll of black silk threaded with silver-gold embroidery. The wax seal bore his family crest.
He handed it to Luther.
"Welcome," he said, his voice low and precise, "to the future apex of music."
Luther opened the scroll and let his eyes scan over the written terms. His expression first showed surprise as his brows shot up, and then narrowed with a trace of disbelief as he reread the offer.
"A five-year exclusive, renewable every half-decade," Charles announced aloud, nodding.
"After five years, members may choose a lifetime oath. You'll have full creative freedom, prestige, protection, priority Ziglar resources, and a salary covering endless enchanted champagne and imported duck liver."
"I don't even like duck," the cellist muttered, eyes wide.
"You'll get used to it," Charles said, shrugging. "Or just give it to your pet basilisk. It doesn't matter to me."
Diana stepped forward gracefully, her lilac coat trailing behind her as she opened her apothecary case with practiced hands. Geo followed in her wake, clutching his portable sigil engraver with hands that fidgeted nervously.
Micah and Danica trailed behind, both wide-eyed, and for different reasons.
Micah blinked in open disbelief, her head turning sharply to focus on one member of the ensemble—the lead soprano, Soraya Alphen, her long-lost academy friend.
They hadn't spoken in years. Now they stood just a few feet apart. One was a noblewoman in heels, looking polished. The other looked exhausted and fragile, as if she'd barely survived a storm of despair and qi withdrawal.
"Diana," Charles directed coolly, "please provide full healing buffs. I'm afraid our orchestra has become the Choir of the Apocalypse."
"On it," Diana replied, snapping open her apothecary case.
White light surged as healing mists and qi-reinforcement elixirs filled the room. Musicians groaned, spines straightened, noses stopped bleeding.
Geo activated the reinforcement sigils, layering the building's foundation with magical shields.
"You might wanna brace the dome," Charles warned. "That crescendo nearly ripped the resonance ceiling off. Again."
Then, with a small flick of his wrist, Charles casually summoned a stream of glowing gems from his spatial ring.
One thousand mid-tier mana stones fell in a precise circular array around the ensemble, humming in resonance like ancient stars realigning. They floated and embedded themselves into the floor one by one, forming a radiant geometric pattern that crackled with qi and ancient arraycraft.
The moment the first stone hit the ground, the room gasped.
By the tenth stone, mouths were open.
By the hundredth, someone whispered, "He's bluffing. That can't be…"
But no—they were real.
Each mid-tier mana stone was a rare treasure, worth enough to fund a small sect for a year. Most cultivators were lucky to ever touch one, usually after dangerous missions or as rewards from elite auctions.
Now?
A thousand of them, scattered for a simple rehearsal as if they were nothing.
The oboist dropped her reed. The percussionist blinked twice and forgot how to count to four.
"Is this... a hallucination?" one violinist murmured, eyes wide and watering.
"Do you smell incense?" asked the flutist. "I smell divine incense. Is this what death feels like?"
"It's not death," Luther said hoarsely. "It's Ziglar."
Charles stepped into the center of the glowing ring of fortune like a conductor arriving at the throne of fate.
"Drink the mana," he said calmly, not even looking at the stones. "And keep playing."
The mana stones shimmered brighter, syncing with the qi cores of every musician present.
The room swelled with energy. Breaths deepened. Muscles relaxed. Minds cleared.
Power filled the room. Not in a rush, but gently. Like warm rain after a long drought.
And none of them would ever forget that moment.
Only someone truly bold or powerful would spend a kingdom's fortune just to keep the music going.
But then, his tone changed. His eyes sharpened. His voice turned to ice.
"…I warned you not to touch the ninth piece yet."
The room went still.
Absolute silence.
"You murdered it," Charles pronounced, his tone flat as a sword's edge.
No one breathed.
He walked slowly toward the lead violinist, whose hands started to tremble. Then softly, he reached for her violin with grace.
He tucked the instrument under his chin. His stance was perfect. Every move is smooth, steady, and divine.
And then he played.
Adagio for Strings.
But not like they had played it.
No.
This was a whole different level. This wasn't just a song.
This was grief.
Each stroke of the bow pulled raw emotion from the strings, like threads from a shattered soul. His vibrato didn't waver. It bled. His dynamics weren't controlled. They were possessed.
The notes rose like a prayer, ruptured like a broken heart, and fell like the end of the world.
Diana stopped mid-scan. Geo's jaw dropped.
Wendy, who had always known Charlemagne had talent with the piano, stood frozen, eyes wide with revelation.
"…He never played the violin like that before," she whispered.
"No," Diana said softly. "No one does."
From the instant Charles raised the violin to his shoulder, Micah's world froze. She stood rooted to the ground, not from shock, but from something far more terrifying...recognition.
Her heart skipped, then stumbled into a wild staccato. This... this sound…
These waves of grief, sculpted into sound. This raw, unfiltered sorrow, bleeding from every bowstroke… She had felt it last night.
Just for a moment. A flicker behind his mask. A shadow that passed through his sapphire eyes like a storm.
But now, it was laid bare.
The one he dared not speak. The one that slipped out when he thought no one could see.
This wasn't just a performance. This was his music.
And gods help her. She knew, without him saying a word, this was for her, the one he mourns for.
A requiem and a confession woven into melody. Tears ran down her cheeks because each note felt painfully honest.
Every pause was a breath she couldn't take. Every crescendo—a heartbeat ripped from a chest that hadn't finished loving.
The others in the room watched in awe.
Micah felt it as a curse, a revelation, and a promise all at once. Her throat tightened.
When the final note dissolved into silence, it felt like the entire world held its breath.
Charles lowered the violin slowly, the final trembling note hanging in the air like a ghost that refused to fade.
Not a soul in the room dared breathe.
Then—
Thunderous applause roared.
Gasps.
Staggered sobs followed by stunned cheers.
One musician knelt.
Another began chanting the old bard's oath of loyalty.
Luther just whispered, "We don't deserve this man."
Charles set down the violin, handed it back to the lead, and turned without ceremony.
"Now then," he challenged the team, "let's see if you can accompany my solo without butchering the tempo."
This time, they were more than just musicians. They were conduits. Every bar they played was a promise to their art. Every harmony was a link between pain and love.
And Charles?
He didn't just lead them. He elevated them.
He called out cues with deadly accuracy.
"Second violins, a half-breath late. Watch my left wrist."
"Brass, lower your war ego. You're not storming a palace; you're just breaking hearts."
"Flute, feel the pain. Don't just perform. Confess."
He shaped them. Made them sharper. Not into another orchestra, but into a rising legend.
And when they finished, as the last note faded, the Studio seemed to come alive. Stones hummed, lanterns spun, and old echoes filled the air.