They came at dusk.
No horns. No banners. No aura threads that could be detected by flame sense.
Only sound.
One note.
Sung in perfect silence.
---
The First Sign
Su Lian was the first to notice it.
She dropped a diagnostic thread glyph mid-sentence and turned her head.
"Do you hear that?" she whispered.
Jiang Han paused beside the forge altar. "Hear what?"
Then he heard it too.
Not a sound. A subtraction.
The ambient hum of flame threads… flickered.
Vanished.
For one heartbeat, the entire Nexus felt hollow.
---
The Black Cloaks
Yan Feng appeared beside Lin Suyin in the observatory.
"They've sent them," he said quietly.
She turned slowly. "The Choir?"
He nodded.
"They don't kill with force. They remove meaning. If a Sovereign army is the sword…"
"…the Choir is the silence after it's struck," Lin finished.
---
Preparation
Jiang gathered the central unit in the planning dome—Tian Xue, Su Lian, Suyin, Feng, the Shadowguard twins, and two of the older rescued sparkbearers who had shown exceptional control.
"We can't outrun them," Jiang said. "And I won't abandon Emberveil."
"What do they want?" Tian Xue asked.
"To erase the Echo Net," Su Lian said quietly. "And everyone who linked into it. Including… probably me."
Jiang turned to her.
"That's not going to happen."
---
The Descent
They appeared just beyond the flame wall—twelve figures in long black cloaks, faces hidden behind masks made of runed glass. Their hands did not glow. Their threads did not hum. And yet…
Everything around them withered.
Torches extinguished.
Spirit trees browned.
The air tasted like chalk.
And when the first voice rose—it wasn't a sound.
It was a command.
> "Unmake the root."
A line of flame glyphs blinked out across the outer tower wall. No heat. No force. Just absence.
---
The Stand
Jiang moved to the parapet, where he could be seen by the black-cloaked figures.
One of them raised a hand, palm etched with a spiraling song sigil.
> "Jiang Han," the voice called, and somehow it echoed inside him.
> "You are not permitted."
> "Your flame lacks canon."
> "Your existence fractures order."
Tian Xue stood beside him.
> "Then let it fracture."
Jiang unsheathed Echofang and stepped forward.
> "You want order?"
He stabbed the blade into the stone before him.
> "Then rewrite this."
The sword ignited.
Not with his flame.
But with the flame of everyone he'd ever touched.
Thousands of connections poured into it—Resonance, Echoes, Chaos, even Sorrow.
And for the first time…
The Choir staggered.
---
End Scene
Su Lian activated the full Echo Net core from the inner sanctum. Every person linked to the Nexus—awake or not—felt their spark rise in tandem.
Not control.
But choice.
And the Revision Choir—who had only ever known silence—heard rebellion for the first time.
A chorus not of command.
But of refusal.