Silent Crown

At the moment of the collision, Sigmund’s raised his fingers slightly. The six sub-originators which had converged into a whole separated. The moon missed its target and bumped into the center of the battlefield and became brighter.

The moon took the upper hand in the battle.

Did he give up so easily? Ye Qingxuan was a little surprised.

The six sub-originators scattered around the moon, like six stars surrounding the moon. The music theories rubbed against each other, giving off fascinating rainbow-like lights. But Ye Qingxuan didn’t think it was beautiful at all. On the contrary, he felt like being trapped in a cage.

He was besieged.

Each of the six sub-originators was not comparable to the moon which had integrated with the Stone of the Sage. However, under the command of Sigmund, they supported each other in the battle and formed a whole. Their strength didn’t depend on themselves, but on the power field they created together.

The six sub-originators resonated with and supported each other, their music theories vibrated and clashed, and their reality-twisting pull overlapped. The concerted power was directed on the moon. It appeared that the six sub-originators revolved around the moon, yet their pull was always tearing the moon. The terrible force was inflicted directly on Ye Qingxuan’s Symphony of Predestination.

All music movements had their own intelligence, and a musician’s Symphony of Predestination was the crystallized intelligence of the musician. As Ye Qingxuan had entered the level of Aether Circulation, his Symphony of Predestination became the carrier of his spiritual power. The pressure on his consciousness was causing him great pain due to the swaying of his will power. From just one bad move, he was checked.

Since he started the pursuit of his dream, Ye Qingxuan had fought many enemies stronger than him. He defeated those enemies by depressing their power with his skills and fighting rhythm and avoiding direct confrontation to find his chance to strike the fatal blow.

Ye Qingxuan now began to know the pain caused by being trapped by superior fighting skills. This disadvantage was unavoidable as Sigmund was the creator of the School of Stone Heart. No one understood the music theories of the School of Stone Heart better than Sigmund. Even though the theories were outdated and sub-originators were proved with a dead end which seemed promising, no one could beat Sigmund in terms of understanding of this school. It was like the fact that no human musician could defeat the King of Back—Bach.

Sigmund was the very representative of the School and the music theory system and he knew every skill there was. Each and every slight change in the music theory was powerful enough to greatly impact Ye Qingxuan, who had never known that those basic music theories could be used in ways like that.

In the moonlight, Ye Qingxuan raised his hand and pressed his forehead to relieve the pain. He should not have taken Sigmund lightly. He had to admit that he was not comparable to Sigmund in the field of sub-originators. Luckily, his Symphony of Predestination was much more than this and his sub-originator was improved to a new level that was quite beyond the limit of the sub-originator theory.

Ye Qingxuan took a deep breath. The cold air, with a slight rotten scent, entered his lung and suppressed the anxiety and sick feeling caused by the circulation of aether, lighting up the moonlight in his eyes.

The Seal of Moonlight was initialized.

Boom! The music theory changed suddenly and the pure white moon vibrated, giving off ripple-like light. The ripples contained some invisible power. At the moment of the collision, the locking among the six sub-originators vibrated violently.

The originators were pushed away from the moon and the locking music theories went further apart. The locking was almost broken under the first round of attack! The “pull” of the moon was greatly increased at that moment.

Affected by the tearing caused by the pull of the music theories, the physical world was also twisted and seemed to be whining, cracks forming all over it. In a split second, Ye Qingxuan’s Symphony of Predestination broke the limits and boomed incredibly. Although its power had not reached the level of Scepter, the increasing pull was thrilling.

Now the battle became a draw between Ye Qingxuan and Sigmund.

No. The situation was totally in Ye Qingxuan’s control.

When Sigmund gave up actively attacking and chose the “bush-fighting” strategy, he inflicted upon Ye Qingxuan great pressure. While at the same time, he also put himself in a dangerous situation. When the system of his six sub-originators could not suppress and block Ye Qingxuan’s power, he couldn’t do anything but watch Ye Qingxuan take control step-by-step and defeat him. It was destined when he chose to fight Ye Qingxuan in this area in which he was the master.

Ye Qingxuan’s Symphony of Predestination was just too big, of which the sub-originator theory represented by the Stone of the Sage took up only one third.

This was quite beyond reason. Each and every one of the Seal of Moonlight, the Stone of Sage, and Catastrophe Resonation was very difficult to master and included massive superior elements. Not to mention the combination of the three. The pressure generated during the integration and collision of the three movements could crush any musician. It was even harder to coordinate them into a concerted whole and direct them to work in harmony.

Even if Ye Qingxuan was best at the music theory construction of the School of Abstinence, without the compatibility across the seven systems of the Heaven Ladder, the accurate operation of the Jiu Xiao Huan Pei and the once-in-a-lifetime conditions in the Holy City, he would have exploded at the very beginning. Now, no one of the Master level, even those former scepter musicians, could match Ye Qingxuan at the skills and profoundness of knowledge. The music theories of the Stone of Sage could distort reality. With the help of the Seal of Moonlight, its power could multiply instantly!

Sigmund’s six sub-originators, however sophisticated and concerted, relied on the skills of the musician who were merely using the theories of the School of Abstinence to empower the music theories of other schools. He might have a lot of methods and skills and make the six sub-originators resonate with each other, but he could never integrate the six sub-originators into one real system. Otherwise, why should Sigmund separate them instead of integrating them into one? What’s more, his sub-originator was inferior in terms of material and was not a match for Ye Qingxuan’s.

This was the limitation of the School of Stone Heart. In the view of the later generations, the School of Stone Heart, though powerful, was born with many disadvantages.

The first was that the potential of a sub-originator was determined by the material it was made of. The special materials needed to make a sub-originator cost huge amount of money and a lot of precious ingredients. Otherwise, the sub-originator would be no good than an aether stove transplanted into the human body.

Sigmund’s theory, based upon the core philosophy of “abandoning oneself,” was to make aether organs named “sub-originator” to undertake the pressure of music theories in the musician’s place, or even abandon one’s body and put one’s Symphony of Predestination in the sub-originator, so that the musician could reach closer to the essence of aether. This, however, determined its super-high requirement on the materials.

Ye Qingxuan made his sub-originator with “the blood of deva,” which was absolutely luxurious. And then, he integrated the Stone of Sage, which was powerful beyond reason, into it.

Sigmund was the deputy head of the royal musician division and lived in the best time of Anglo under the reign of Arthur. He exhausted all his resources yet only made six supreme originators. How could that be comparable to the Stone of Sage, which was made by Hermes through painstaking effort?

This characteristic of the School of Stone Heart determined that ordinary musicians could never benefit from it as most musicians were not rich enough to afford the sub-originators. As time went on and the improvement of the music theories, the economy of sub-originators was ever decreasing. With the same amount of time and money, it would be better to try other things than to make sub-originators. With no followers, the study on sub-originators was abandoned after Sigmund died. The School of Stone Heart finally ceased to exist in the course of time.

At his time, Sigmund, sticking to his own theory, left the “Sons of the Oak” and established the School of Stone Heart and spent his whole life studying in that area. Had he anticipated the miserable fate of the school? His whole life’s work was treated like rubbish by the whole world, cared for by no one. There was nothing more painful than this for a musician.

Sigmund was destined to fail in the level of the Masters.

Out of Ye Qingxuan’s expectation, Sigmund didn’t use the scepter. Ye Qingxuan had planned that once the battle reaches the level of Scepter, he would start the third part of his Symphony of Predestination, the Catastrophe Resonance, which would increase his power by four folds. After that, he would deploy the Wyrmrest Enchantment with the music theory of Quiet Moon.

In that way, he would eliminate all the aether in this area. He didn’t know how those resurrected musicians would be affected and if he could fight against their scepter and resonance. But he would gain enough time for Christine to get Mary out of this place.

But Sigmund did nothing to summon his greatest power from the aether world. Since Ye Qingxuan took the upper hand in the fight, Sigmund didn’t strike back at all. What he did was only command the six sub-originators with his fingers to integrate them with himself. He was fully devoted to playing his Symphony of Predestination, taking care of nothing else.

Numerous music theories were revealed in his realm of Holiness to Ye Qingxuan. As Ye Qingxuan’s nature interference invaded Sigmund’s realm, the changes of the music theories of Sigmund’s were totally revealed to Ye Qingxuan.

The changes of the notes, the combinations of the tones, the creation of music theories, the combination and application, the secret skills of the School of Stone Heart, the evolution and ways of utilization of the sub-originator techniques, and even the core elements of his Symphony of Predestination and his road to the scepter level, were all revealed to Ye Qingxuan.

This was the origin of the School of Stone Heart, the work of Sigmund’s life’s work, the precious knowledge he gained by burning his soul in his pursuit of the Originator. In his resurrected body, his everlasting wish was urging him to show Ye Qingxuan the profound wisdom he had gained, even if it will burned his life out, again.

Finally, the last note was played.

The realm of Holy collapsed. Surrounded by the moonlight, the six sub-originators were all covered with cobweb-like cracks and would break at any moment.

The battle was over.

Sigmund raised his head, revealing his face which was like chinaware that had cracked. Despite the horrible face, his hollow eyes were shining with hope. He looked at Ye Qingxuan, as if expecting a reply.

Have you learned what I showed you just now?

In silence, Ye Qingxuan lowered his head and bowed to Sigmund. “Please rest assured that the School of Stone Heart will not die out. It will be passed down and last a long time. There will be a day when our souls will meet again in the Originator.”

Hearing what Ye Qingxuan said, Sigmund’s lips curved up a little as if he was smiling. The smile disappeared instantly, but his hollow eyes were shining more brightly.

In the last hours of his life, he was burning all his power.

Impassioned melody played again. The six sub-originators submerged into his body and burst out huge aether fluctuations, increasing his power to an ever-high level. Then, he struck back at Ye Qingxuan and the realm of Holy with all his might.

In that instant, light and shadow mingled together.

Ye Qingxuan closed his eyes and waved his hand.

The moonlight turned into swords.

Everything became quiet.

Under the moon, Sigmund stood still, bathing in the moonlight. The cracked body shattered and turned into ashes and dust, falling onto the ground. The smile on his face disappeared.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Sigmund, the founder of the School of Stone Heart, went back to the embrace of death for the second time.

Looking at the ashes, Ye Qingxuan couldn’t help but heave a sigh. Then, he unleashed another round of attack with his sword of moonlight, shouting, “Until when do you want to hide?”