Ren had faced many things since arriving in Cindale: talking flowers, floating tea sets, musical duels with ego-driven artists… but nothing quite prepared him for this round.
He stood inside a spiraling arena suspended in the clouds, where every platform rotated in lazy circles. Some floated sideways. Others hovered upside down. A few moved to a beat Ren couldn't quite hear yet.
The announcer's voice returned, laced with a mischievous glee.
"Welcome to Round Two: The Rhythm of Gravity. Here, every note bends the rules of the world. Balance your music, and you stay grounded. Fail… and you fall."
He pointed a thumb toward the edge.
Ren peeked over.
Below them was… nothing. Not just sky, not even void. Just a blank silence that felt like the end of thought.
Okay, he thought. Let's not fall today.
Beside him, the obsidian cellist—his fellow finalist from the last round—stood still as stone. She didn't even acknowledge him. Her cello whispered a low hum, already resonating with the strange tempo of the world.
The announcer's final declaration boomed.
"This round is not about sound. It is about control. Make your music move the world."
And the countdown began.
◇
3… 2… 1…
Ren played the first note—and immediately fell sideways.
Woop!
He flailed as the platform he stood on shifted with a rebellious lurch. His flute's note had unintentionally inverted the local gravity, tossing him into a slow tumble toward an orbiting slab of marble. With a panicked puff, he tried another tune, more stable this time—an even breath, a clean pitch.
The platform stopped spinning.
Okay. Not a total disaster.
Across from him, the cellist glided like a leaf on water. Each bow stroke curled her platform into gentle pirouettes. Her melody was control incarnate: gravity as dance, balance as art.
Ren, meanwhile, felt like he was riding a musical unicycle on a tilting boat during an earthquake.
He grinned.
"I love this place."
He took a deep breath and played into the chaos.
His tune wasn't elegant—it was alive. The wind spun him in circles, launched him toward a midair platform, then dipped him down to just skim the edge before rebounding into the air again. Every mistake, he turned into a beat. Every fall, into a rhythm. He wasn't taming gravity.
He was grooving with it.
The crowd—far above, floating in crystalline booths—began to sway in time. A few judges tapped their ghostly fingers on their armrests.
The cello's melody was winning in technique.
Ren's?
It was winning in energy.
The round climaxed as the two platforms collided midair, cellist and wanderer face to face. Her eyes narrowed, her bow drawn back like a blade. His flute gleamed, charged with notes unsung.
One final note each.
She struck her strings. The platform beneath her anchored itself like stone, unshakable.
Ren smiled.
And whistled.
The last sound was light and foolish. Barely a puff of mana. It triggered nothing at first.
Then the wind laughed.
And every platform in the arena shifted an inch—just enough to slide hers slightly off-angle.
Her cello shrieked, slipping into a dissonant key.
The world reacted.
She began to fall.
But before the void claimed her, a soft breeze—Ren's breeze—caught her and nudged her onto the edge of a secondary platform. She stumbled, breathless.
He'd won.
But he'd caught her.
◇
Later, in the Conservatory's echo chamber, Ren sat with a bowl of mana-infused noodles and a grin as wide as his appetite.
"That," he said, slurping, "was the dumbest, coolest concert I've ever played."
Cadencia handed him a small scroll. "You impressed someone important."
He unrolled it.
Maestro Imber of the Second Verse requests an audience.
Cadencia's eyes narrowed. "Careful. She's from the Chromatic Tier. That's… high."
"How high?"
"High enough that her music can rewrite your name."
Ren blinked. "That's allowed?"
"Only if you make a bad impression."