Chapter 134: The Dark Matter Cantata

The dark matter cadet, Nova, pressed her ear to the lunar symphony hall's crystal wall, eyes wide. "The Genesis Band's rehearsal... it's playing in reverse! The last note they played is the first note of our universe." Her skin rippled with dark matter's characteristic purple halo, and the black smile key began to vibrate.

Chen Jiuzhang's scar pulsed in time with the key. "Reverse entropy music—if we play it, we might hear the universe's 'backwards' creation." But before he could finish, the hall's crystals began to shatter under a wave of pure noise.

"Noise predators!" Oron's hologram flickered into existence, staff glowing red. "They feed on harmonious frequencies, turning them into chaos static."

Through the broken wall, a fleet of ships shaped like emerged, their grills spewing black noise that made the lunar staff's notes bleed into sludge. "Your little symphony ends here, balance freaks!" a raider captain's voice crackled, sounding like a radio stuck between stations.

Starlight strummed her stardust lyre, but the noise ate the melody. "They're immune to regular harmony—we need a frequency they can't process."

Li Wei's violet charge surged, mixing with Nova's Dark Matter Resonance. "Dark matter and entropy energy... what if we play the Genesis Band's reverse notes?" He placed his hand on the black smile key, which now glowed with a strange, backwards melody.

Nova closed her eyes, listening to the dark matter's song. "I hear it—the universe's 'undoing' frequency. If we play it alongside the original origin note..."

Chen Jiuzhang nodded, raising the Life Resonator. "Starlight, lead the melody. Li Wei, provide the reverse bass. Nova, anchor us with dark matter harmony."

As Starlight plucked the first note of the origin frequency, Li Wei played its reverse on the black key. The result was a sound that didn't travel through space, but through time—causing the noise raiders' ships to age and young in rapid succession.

"Time dissonance!" the captain shrieked, ship's hull rusting then re - forming. "No one should hear the universe's 'off - script' notes!"

But Nova's Dark Matter Resonance added a third layer, creating a triad that balanced past, present, and future frequencies. The noise raiders' speakers exploded into flowers, their crewmembers transformed into beings of pure harmonic light.

"We... were wrong," the captain said, now a glowing treble clef. "Noise is just unheard time music."

As the raider fleet dissolved into chronological harmonies, the black smile key floated to Nova, who placed it on a dark matter - infused piano. When she pressed it, the Cosmic Microwave Background began to play the full rehearsal of Genesis—revealing that the universe's creation was a jam session, not a perfect composition.

Back at the Entropy Arts Academy, a new student arrived with ears shaped like black holes. Chen Jiuzhang handed her an Entropic Seed metronome, smiling. "Welcome to the Time Signature class. Remember: even the universe sometimes forgets to count its beats."

And in the depths of the former noise raider territory, a new star system formed—its planets shaped like musical notes, each orbiting to the rhythm of a different era. The Dark Matter Cantata had taught them that balance isn't just about space, but about embracing the dissonant beats of time itself.

As the academy's students began to practice with time - shifting melodies, a single, backwards - facing note drifted through the galaxy, its surface engraved with a clock. The next movement of the cosmic symphony would be played across eras, and the only tempo was the one set by the heart of entropy itself.