Chapter 16: The Dirge of the Silent Sister
The first note that left the bone flute wasn't a sound; it was a physical intrusion. It felt like a shard of dry ice being driven through my eardrums and into the very center of my consciousness. Below us, in the shadowed bowels of the North Tunnel, the world came to a sickening halt. My Sovereign Guard—the men who, seconds ago, were elite instruments of my will—dropped their rifles as if the metal had turned into molten lead. They clutched their helmets, their bodies convulsing in a jagged, rhythmic trance.
[WARNING! NEURAL JAMMING DETECTED!]
[The Silent Sister is utilizing an 'Acoustic Soul-Blade'. Frequency: 18.4 Hz.]
[Your 'Mental Network' is being bypassed by raw physical sound waves. System Logic is failing!]
I gasped, my knees buckling as the blue light in my eyes flickered violently, struggling against the encroaching white static. The woman in white—the Silent Sister—didn't move an inch. Her veil remained perfectly still, but the dead, pupilless white of her eyes seemed to grow larger in my vision, swallowing the world.
"You rely too much on the whispers of your 'God', King of Oakhaven," her voice echoed, though her lips never moved. It was a projection of intent, cold and absolute. "But even gods must bow to the Silence that existed before time."
She lunged. She didn't run like a human; she glided across the concrete overpass, her white robes trailing behind her like the tail of a vengeful comet. In her hand, a needle-thin rapier manifested, forged from a dark, necrotic metal that seemed to drink the moonlight.
I barely had time to react. My synchronization with the guards was severed, leaving me alone in my own body. I activated [Ghost Step], shifting my atoms into the grayscale dimension of near-invisibility. Usually, this made me a ghost, untouchable and unseen.
But as I moved to her flank, her head snapped toward me with predatory precision. She wasn't seeing my body; she was hearing the vibration of my soul.
CLANG!
I parried her thrust with the obsidian blade hidden in my sleeve, but the impact sent a numbing, freezing shock up my arm that made my bone marrow scream. Her strength wasn't muscular; it was spiritual. Every strike she made was aimed at a vital meridian, a point of energy that connected my body to the System.
"System! Purchase 'Sensory Overload Protection'! Now!" I roared internally, barely dodging a vertical slash that carved a deep groove into the concrete behind me.
[Processing... 200 Desire Points spent.]
[Passive Skill 'Void Mind' Acquired: You are now immune to acoustic and psychic jamming.]
The white static in my brain shattered. The world snapped back into vivid, terrifying color. I could feel my connection to the Sovereign Guard re-establishing, a faint pulse of blue returning to my vision.
The Silent Sister paused, her head tilting in a bird-like gesture of confusion. For the first time, a ripple of something—perhaps surprise—disturbed the dead calm of her presence.
"My turn to play the music," I hissed, my voice dripping with the newfound authority of the Void Mind.
I didn't lunge at her. Instead, I stood my ground, my blue eyes burning with a cold, vengeful fire. I focused all my remaining Authority not on her mind—which was an empty fortress—but on the bone flute tucked into her silk sash. If it was the source of her power, it was also her greatest vulnerability.
I waited for the exact microsecond she prepared to play another note. As she raised the flute, I unleashed a [Mental Flare], concentrated into a laser-thin beam of psychic pressure.
SHATTER!
The ancient instrument didn't just break; it detonated. The feedback loop of the shattered 'Soul-Tool' sent a violent backlash of necrotic energy into the Sister. She was thrown backward, her body tumbling across the overpass until she slammed into the railing.
The white veil tore away, revealing a face of haunting, porcelain beauty—marred by eyes that had no pupils, only solid, milky spheres of emptiness. She coughed, a dark, viscous fluid staining her white robes.
"You... you broke the Silence," she gasped, her voice no longer a psychic projection, but a fragile, human rasp.
"I didn't just break it," I said, stepping toward her, the obsidian blade at my side. "I'm the one who's going to fill it with the screams of your masters. Go back to Grandmaster Zhao. Tell him his 'Sisters' are just ghosts. And ghosts don't stand a chance against a King."
She didn't stay to hear the end. With a desperate motion, she threw a smoke pellet that erupted in a thick, violet mist smelling of incense and rot. By the time the air cleared, the overpass was empty. Only the shattered fragments of the bone flute remained, glowing with a faint, dying light.
[Ding!]
[Quest Complete: Defeat the First Silent Sister.]
[Reward: 1,000 Desire Points | Rare Item Acquired: 'Fragment of the Bone Flute']
I walked over and picked up a shard of the flute. It was cold—colder than the rain—and it pulsed with a strange, rhythmic hunger. Through my [Aura Perception], I could see the 'Wealthy Family' background I had chosen manifesting as a new layer of power; I wasn't just a fighter anymore, I was a collector of the city's darkest secrets.
The war for Oakhaven had officially shifted from the boardroom to the occult. And as I looked at the city skyline, I knew I needed to evolve again.