Chapter 42: The Fifth Overture

The stars looked different.

Not because they had changed—but because Yun Xi had.

Standing on the ruined outskirts of the Echo Wall, wind ruffling his coat and the fourth fragment pulsing in his palm, Yun Xi felt a new weight pressing on his soul. The memory he'd just unlocked was more than a revelation—it was a fracture in everything he believed about the past.

"I erased her," he murmured, voice barely audible.

Yue Lan, standing beside him, watched him silently. She knew better than to offer comfort too soon. Some truths were best left to settle like ash.

He closed his fist around the fragment. It pulsed once, then vanished into his chest—absorbed like the others.

The change was immediate.

His heartbeat synced with something deeper, older. And beneath the thrum of blood and breath, he could hear the Fifth Overture playing—soft and haunting, like a lullaby sung to a sleeping city.

Yun Xi looked at Yue Lan. "It's leading me again."

She nodded. "Where?"

He closed his eyes. "North. The ruins of the Clockspire."

Yue Lan's jaw tightened. "That's where the Harvesters first appeared. It's ground zero."

"Exactly." Yun Xi turned toward the horizon. "And if Aria's still out there… the answers are waiting for us there."

---

The Journey North

The journey took three days through wild terrain, abandoned cities, and haunted roads littered with old battles. Survivors had long fled the north. Even the bravest mercenary groups wouldn't touch the Clockspire's shadow.

Yun Xi and Yue Lan traveled light, moving only at night, using Echo pulses to avoid attention. At one point, they passed a battlefield littered with metal masks—old Harvester units, rusting in silence.

"They've been inactive for years," Yue Lan said.

"They're not dead," Yun Xi replied. "They're dormant. Waiting."

"For what?"

"For the Fifth Fragment."

The night before they reached the ruins, Yue Lan finally spoke what had been on her mind for days.

"Why did you erase her?"

Yun Xi didn't answer at first. The fire crackled between them.

Finally, he said, "Because I thought if I loved her any more, she'd die."

Yue Lan looked at him, pained. "So you took her out of the fight."

He nodded. "It was supposed to keep her safe."

"And now?"

He looked up at the stars again. "Now I realize… she was never the one who needed protection. I was."

---

The Clockspire

The ruins were silent.

What once had been a towering timekeeper was now a jagged skeleton wrapped in black vines of corrupted Echo threads. The air pulsed with wrongness. Time here flowed sideways. Clocks melted on walls. Shadows moved before their owners.

Yun Xi stepped into the heart of it.

As soon as he crossed the threshold, the Fifth Overture blared in his mind. No longer a song, but a summons.

A massive door stood at the center—made of Echo steel, etched with symbols only Yun Xi could now read.

"It's a Vault," he whispered. "A memory lock. Only someone who's borne five fragments can open it."

He stepped forward, but Yue Lan grabbed his wrist.

"What's inside?"

"I don't know," he said. "But it's calling me."

He pressed his palm to the door.

And the world unraveled.

---

FLASH VISION – THE TRUTH OF THE SONG

A white room. No time. No space.

Aria stood alone, shackled in chains made of light. Her eyes met his—and this time, they were real.

"You found me," she said softly. "But not in time."

Behind her, a Harvester towered—its body not forged, but sung into existence. A being born from corrupted notes. Its voice was pure silence. Its mission: end all Echos. Erase all emotion. Revert the world to stillness.

"You sealed me to protect the Song," Aria said. "But now the dissonance has grown stronger."

Yun Xi stepped forward. "I'll unseal you. I'll fix this."

Her eyes filled with sorrow.

"You can't unseal what was born from your own fear."

---

END VISION

Yun Xi collapsed to his knees outside the Vault, gasping.

Yue Lan caught him. "What did you see?"

"The truth," he whispered. "Aria's alive… but not free. And the Harvester leading the others—was born from my silence."

The Vault door clicked open.

Inside was the Fifth Fragment.

But beside it… was something worse.

A cradle. Empty.

Once, it had held the Harvester King.

And it was no longer there.