The heart split.
Light erupted upward, piercing the roof, joining with the storm above. Every fragment of the cathedral began to sing the statues, the walls, even the air between breaths.
The Disciples raised their arms. "The world is tuning itself!"
Arin felt the resonance surge through his blade, threatening to dissolve him into music. Liora grabbed his hand, grounding him.
"We can't let it finish," she shouted. "If the Hymn completes, free will dies!"
Together they forced their powers into opposition his raw frequency against her controlled aether. The clash built pressure that cracked the Heart of Correction. Sound bent inward, imploding into silence.
The Disciples screamed. not from pain but from loss, their connection severed. The cathedral began to collapse, folding into itself like a dying note.
Arin and Liora ran as the corridors twisted around them. Each turn showed a different world a glimpse of possibilities the Hymn had tried to impose. Oceans of glass. Forests made of whispering bones. Skies that never ended.
They burst into daylight as the entire structure folded into a single beam of red light and vanished, leaving a crater of humming dust.
For a moment, the world was still.
Then, faintly, the wind carried a new sound: children laughing somewhere far away. Life, imperfect and uncorrected, still breathing