Descending felt like falling through memory. The further they went, the more the world dissolved into sound. Steps became chords; air became rhythm.
At the heart's threshold stood a door of pure tone, visible only by distortion. Liora reached out and felt warmth, like skin.
"It's alive," she murmured. "It's listening."
When the door opened, they stepped into a cavern of suspended light. In the center floated a crystal heart, beating in uneven rhythm. Every pulse released waves that remade the air turning cracks in the floor into blooming shapes of glass, reshaping decay into fragile beauty.
The Disciples knelt.
"Behold the Hymn Unfinished. The Apostate's final breath. The Lament's source."
Arin approached the heart. For a moment, he saw through it visions of the old world, of Thomas standing before the Guild, betrayed, broken, burning with purpose. Then the vision twisted: Thomas's face became his own.
He stumbled back. "It's rewriting identity."
"All who touch it are rewritten," the leader said. "The world no longer accepts what it cannot harmonize."
Liora's voice shook. "That means"
"Dissonance is erased."
The revelation settled like ash. The Lament wasn't punishment; it was a filter. Anything that did not fit its new pattern simply ceased.
A distant tremor ran through the floor.
Above them, the cathedral's spires began to glow crimson the signal of awakening.