Ren wasn't sure what to expect from the Great Soundfall Festival.
Maybe something like an interdimensional concert mixed with a street fair and a magic talent show?
What he got… was that—and more.
The skies above Harmonica Heights shimmered like a thousand vinyl records spinning in slow motion. Floating stage platforms moved through the air in perfect rhythm. Choirs of wind elementals sang in spiral harmonies. Instruments of impossible design—guitar-flutes, thunder drums, even a harp made of spider silk—were played by musicians of all shapes, species, and mana affinities.
It was overwhelming. Glorious. Loud.
And in the center of it all stood the Core Conductor, a glowing, enchanted baton that regulated the city's ambient rhythm.
Ren leaned on a railing and whistled low. "They're really going all out."
Beside him, the chime-coated man from before—now wearing a tuxedo made of actual tuning pegs—nodded. "The Conductor keeps the festival's beat stable. Without it, well…" He glanced at the sky. "Let's just say we don't want things going off-tempo."
"Off-tempo sounds… metaphorically ominous," Ren muttered.
◇
As the festival roared to life, Ren noticed something strange.
A low distortion buzz. Barely noticeable. But it was there. Like a radio between stations.
At first, he assumed it was just an echo. Or maybe mana feedback from so many musicians in one place.
But then came the slip-ups.
First, a quartet of sound mages suddenly detuned mid-performance—their mana harmonics collapsing into static. They looked dazed, as if their minds had briefly drifted elsewhere.
Next, the festival's central rhythm platform skipped. Not just the music—reality around it flickered, as if someone had hit rewind, then fast-forward on the surrounding space.
By the time the third glitch happened—an entire floating stage unraveling into glowing staff lines and discordant shrieks—Ren knew something was wrong.
He wasn't the only one.
Cadencia, draped in a cloak of woven sheet music, descended onto the plaza with authority.
"Someone is tampering with the Aural Lattice," she said, voice thunderous. "This is no accident. It is sabotage."
◇
The city went into emergency harmony mode.
Every performer was scanned with harmonic prisms. Every spell was tuned. Every leyline measured.
Ren, meanwhile, snuck backstage.
Why? Because something about that first glitch—it didn't feel like sabotage from outside.
It felt… familiar.
His loop pedal pulsed slightly against his hip. As if reacting to something nearby.
He turned a corner and froze.
There, crouched by the Core Conductor's pedestal, was a girl. Maybe his age. Maybe older. Wrapped in a patchwork coat of broken musical glyphs, tuning forks strapped to her sleeves, eyes glowing with a strange, silver mana.
She was humming. But not a song—more like a frequency. One that set the very stones beneath her vibrating wrong.
The loop pedal burned hot. The sound around her distorted.
And for just a second, she looked at him.
"You shouldn't be here yet," she said.
Then she vanished.
Not like teleportation. No flare, no puff of smoke.
Just—a ripple of silence.
◇
Ren stood there, stunned.
The platform beneath him groaned.
Then came the explosion.
Not fire. Not wind.
Pure dissonance.
The Core Conductor erupted into a burst of reversed sound—a sonic implosion that shredded the platform and sent waves of disharmonic mana crashing across Harmonica Heights.
Music died.
Silence screamed.
And the festival collapsed into chaos.