Vorlenn, the city that stopped crying
Vorlenn had always been a pragmatic city. Commerce was its god, profit its only law. But in recent weeks, something else had taken hold, something subtle and sickening: emotional dismantling.
Signs hung on every corner:
"Fear holds you back. Love corrupts you. Pain limits you.
Live clean. Live clear. Live without excess."
What began as an advertising campaign was institutionalized by decree:
"Certain intense emotions, if not clinically justified, will be considered subversive."
The streets were quiet. Too quiet.
And behind that artificial order was Malith , the seventh Lethal, master of voiceless interrogation.
His face was never shown. His voice was never heard.
Her presence alone was enough for the leaders to spill the beans.
And little by little, the people stopped trusting their own tears.
The Infiltrator – Marek among the deaf
Marek was the first to enter.
He posed as an "emotional therapist," a newly created figure by the system to regulate excessive emotions.
From his new identity, he began to gather information:
Schools taught children to hide their crying. Couples were required to report any emotional outbursts between them. Songs with minor keys were banned in public places.
—"They are anesthetizing our souls," Marek said in his first report.
Akihiko, from Elytrum, felt the urgency. "We're going to face the most dangerous Lethal of all:
the one who convinces the world it shouldn't feel. "
III. Preparation – emotions as resistance
Riva developed a new protocol: Affective Resonance. An encrypted network of real emotional communication between team members, capable of amplifying authentic feelings to counteract the waves of suppression induced by Malith.
—"We're going to counterattack with the one thing they can't clone:
genuine emotion. "
Akihiko, Juno, Lirea, and a group of empathic duplicates joined Marek by infiltrating in layers.
Among them, Sael. Still small. Still undefined. But Akihiko refused to leave him behind.
—"If this is about destroying the soul of the world,
my duty is to teach at least one of you how to resist it."
The encounter with emptiness
In the center of Vorlenn, beneath the Emotional Hygiene Council building, was the Chamber of Deep Silence.
There, Malith received his "patients." He didn't speak. He didn't touch them. He just looked at them. And after a few minutes... they began to talk to themselves. To confess. To betray. To apologize for things they didn't know hurt them.
When Akihiko entered the chamber, nothing happened at first. But then he felt his deepest memories becoming uncomfortable. Not because of trauma.
But because he could no longer find the words to describe them.
Malith was there. Faceless. No clear form. A shadowy figure.
Akihiko took out a photograph of Sael. And held it up.
—"This child doesn't exist, according to you. But he cried when I went missing for a night.
And that... isn't made up."
The shadow seemed to stir.
Riva, from the outside, activated the Resonance.
Juno sang. Just one note. Sael, outside, drew.
And those waves… interfered with the silence.
The collapse of the emotional wall
The walls of the Chamber began to shake. The nearby citizens began to cry without knowing why. Forgotten songs were suddenly recalled. Love letters that had never been sent were pulled from drawers.
And in the midst of the chaos… Malith manifested.
A humanoid figure, composed of hundreds of floating faces.
Each one expressed someone's repressed emotion.
—"You think pain makes you human. But it turns you into beasts. Silence is purity."
Akihiko stepped forward. "You don't want peace.
You want emptiness. And that… isn't cleansing. It's extinction."
He activated the Maximum Resonance core. The emotions of all the duplicates, the exiles, the children, the elders of Vorlenn…
were channeled into a single wave.
A wave that broke Malith.
The faces melted. The shadow fell.
And for the first time, a Lethal screamed.
The New Dawn
In Vorlenn, emotional censorship was abolished. Songs returned. Psychologists became heroes. Poetry was legalized again.
Sael ran across the plaza, laughing.
And Akihiko, speechless, cried for the first time in years.
Lirea wrote a letter to the scattered duplicates:
"We are not mistakes.
We are born from an attempt at emptiness. But where they wanted silence… we will sing."
END OF CHAPTER 150