Chapter 562: Tower III
The command was not spoken—it was enforced.
The Tower’s voice surged outward in a cataclysm of resonance, a tidal wave of annihilation that sought to sweep away not only their bodies but their very notes. The bridge of voices screamed as the white flood bore down, threads of memory unraveling, stars blinking out, fire guttersnapping in the glare.
Naval planted both fists into the ground, the bridge groaning beneath him. The glow around his arms blazed red-hot as he roared. "Over my dead body!" He struck, not to resist, but to split. His blows hammered the wave into fragments, drumbeats breaking silence into rhythm.
Roselia lifted her trembling hands, stars spilling from her veins. They curved into constellations, jagged and imperfect, but each one a light that refused to be swallowed. "Not erasure," she whispered fiercely, her voice cracking yet radiant. "Remembrance!" The constellations caught the onrushing tide, burning holes into the void-white.
Milim shrieked with laughter, wild and furious, her violet flames surging like a storm of meteors. "You think I’ll die quiet?!" she howled. "You’ll choke on my fire!" Her inferno smashed into the wave, exploding it into shrieking shards of resonance.
Liliana staggered forward, blood dripping down her arms as threads poured from her, snapping and reweaving in frantic rhythm. "If it wants to erase us," she rasped, "then I’ll bind us where it can’t reach!" Her threads lashed out, tethering flame to star, drum to marrow, weaving them into a single living net.
And at the heart of it stood Leon.
The marrow flame within him howled like a storm through broken glass, jagged, furious, alive. His chains rattled outward, catching fragments of the Tower’s annihilating flood, turning erasure into raw resonance. His voice tore free, ragged but unyielding:
"You call us noise. You call us broken. But noise is the birth of every song. And the broken sing louder than the whole!"
The white wave smashed into him. For a heartbeat, the bridge seemed to vanish, their bodies swallowed in light.
Then his chains sang. Not one note, not harmony, but a thousand jagged rhythms colliding, clashing, and refusing to die. Naval’s drums. Roselia’s stars. Milim’s fire. Liliana’s threads. And Leon’s marrow flame, jagged and defiant.
The annihilating flood buckled. It cracked. It shattered into fragments that did not vanish, but turned into sparks of a thousand voices, scattering into the aurora.
The Tower staggered. Its perfect silhouette warped, glass shivering, flames breaking into wild flares. Its faceless crown tilted back, and for the first time—its voice trembled.
"YOU... DEFY..."
Leon stepped forward, chest heaving, marrow flame burning like broken dawn. His chains blazed ragged across the sky, and his voice—hoarse, jagged, but undeniable—cut through the Tower’s breaking resonance.
"No. We answer."
The bridge beneath them blazed brighter than ever, not as one perfect path, but as countless strands knotted together, clashing and sparking, alive with impossible resonance.
And above them, the Tower’s vast form began to fracture—light bleeding, glass splitting, fire collapsing inward.
The duel of voices had forced the Tower to break.
But whether it would collapse into ruin—or reshape itself around their defiance—remained to be seen.
The Tower did not fall in silence.
Its collapse was a scream—glass shattering across eternity, flame unraveling into wild banners that lashed the void. The crown above its faceless head split apart, raining fragments of light that did not fade, but spiraled into the aurora as if reclaimed by the voices it had sought to erase.
The bridge trembled, threads straining to hold beneath the weight of the Tower’s unraveling form. Naval braced with his fists still pressed to the ground, muscles quaking, as Roselia cried out—her constellations flaring wildly to anchor the last strands of path.
"Hold!" Liliana gasped, weaving faster, her threads searing into her flesh as she lashed them across the cracking sky. Blood ran down her arms, but the web held.
Milim only laughed, violet flames roaring higher, eyes wide with manic triumph. "We broke it! We broke the damned thing!"
Leon’s marrow flame pulsed, steady, ragged but resolute. His chains dragged fragments of the Tower’s voice closer, twisting the shrapnel of resonance into something raw and alive. He felt it—within the fracture, the Tower was not simply breaking. It was listening.
The scream slowed. The shattering stilled. And from within the collapsing form, a pulse emerged—not annihilation, not judgment, but something older.
A low hum, fractured and many-voiced. The Tower’s presence shifted, no longer the faceless perfection of order, but something cracked open, vulnerable.
"You... would not be erased," it said, voice split across countless tones. Not command, not decree. A question.
Leon staggered forward, his marrow flame guttering, yet he kept his chains alive. His chest heaved as he rasped, "Because erasure is silence. And silence is death. We... are not silence."
Naval slammed a fist against the bridge. "We’re the beat that keeps going!"
Roselia lifted her hands, bloodied constellations trembling. "The memory that refuses to fade."
Milim bared her teeth in a grin, violet fire licking high. "The spark that burns even when the world chokes it out."
Liliana’s threads flared, anchoring them all as she whispered through clenched teeth, "The bond that can’t be cut."
The Tower’s broken flame shuddered. Glass cracked further, but instead of collapsing, the shards spiraled upward. The aurora brightened, each fragment burning into a new light. The silhouette reformed, not whole, but fractured, alive with sparks of many voices instead of one faceless resonance.
It did not collapse.
It reshaped.
The bridge blazed as new strands wove outward, no longer the sterile perfection of a single path but a living weave of fire, star, drum, thread, and marrow.
And as Leon’s marrow flame steadied, a pulse echoed back to him from the Tower’s heart—a resonance he recognized not as command, but as answer.
"You... are the Tower now."
The aurora roared. The bridge flared. The Tower bent, not as master, but as mirror.
Their defiance had not destroyed it.
It had remade it.
The roar of the aurora faded into a trembling hush, as if the world itself held its breath.
Leon’s marrow flame flickered low, no longer fighting, but resonating. The chains that once rattled with jagged defiance now stretched outward, threading into the fractured sky, binding with the reformed silhouette. For the first time, the Tower did not loom above them—it pulsed with them.
Naval straightened slowly, sweat dripping from his brow. His fists still smoldered from the force he had unleashed, but his grin carried something quieter now. "So... we didn’t just win." He tilted his head back, watching the aurora shift with new colors. "We changed it."
Roselia sank to her knees, stars orbiting her weakly, as if exhausted from the strain. Her voice was thin, but steady. "No. We remembered it. The Tower isn’t a cage anymore—it’s... a chorus." She pressed a hand against the glowing bridge, her eyes widening as constellations spread beneath her palm, weaving into the living weave. "And it’s singing with us."
Milim cracked her neck, violet fire sputtering down into embers. For once, her manic grin softened. "Tch. If it thinks it’s gonna steal my voice now, I’ll punch it again." But her flames curled toward the aurora, blending instead of burning. Her eyes darted skyward. "...Hah. Guess it doesn’t want to steal anymore."
Liliana’s threads trembled in her bloodied hands, but when she let them fall, they did not vanish—they were absorbed into the bridge, stitched into the Tower itself. She exhaled shakily. "It’s... holding them. Every voice. Every memory we refused to give up." She looked at Leon, her tired eyes searching. "It’s holding us."
Leon’s marrow flame flared faintly at her words. He felt it now—the Tower’s heartbeat layered over his own, not replacing, not consuming, but echoing. His chest tightened. The marrow flame was no longer a solitary defiance—it was part of a greater weave, a resonance that carried every broken rhythm, every jagged note, every voice they had saved.
The Tower’s fractured form pulsed once more, its many-voiced hum settling into something steady, something vast.
"You are fracture," it said. "You are chorus. You are not silence."
Leon lifted his head, chains still burning, marrow flame steady though faint. His voice was hoarse, but unwavering:
"Then we’ll carry it. Not as judgment. Not as dominion. But as memory."
The aurora roared again, not with command, not with erasure, but with a thousand voices answering in kind.
The Tower had been remade—
and so had they.
The light did not fade this time.
It lingered—woven, breathing, alive. The aurora no longer stretched as a distant veil but flowed downward, threads of color brushing their faces, curling into their wounds, their marrow, their very voices. The bridge, once trembling under collapse, steadied into a living weave of resonance, glowing with fragments of every soul it carried.
Naval flexed his fists, watching sparks of light flicker between his knuckles. He let out a low whistle. "Feels... different. Like the ground itself’s keeping time with me." He struck the bridge once, softly—and the light pulsed back, answering him like a drum. His grin widened. "Yeah. That’s new."