The library alcove felt smaller now, the air thicker with the residue of the Echo Pulse. Lin Feng remained on the floor, back against the shelf, Yue Li sitting cross-legged in front of him so their knees touched. Xiao Qing had pushed the hidden panel open just enough to see their faces—her small features pale but resolute.
The lullaby she had hummed still lingered in the space between them, fragile threads of sound refusing to fully fade.
Lin Feng closed his eyes again.
Not to shut out the world.
To **listen**.
The Spirit Song fragment no longer waited for permission. It rose like tidewater—slow at first, then inevitable.
And with it came the origin.
Not a vision forced by the system.
A memory older than blood.
He spoke—voice low, almost reverent, as though afraid to break the thread.
"It didn't begin with Cloudveil Valley."
Yue Li leaned closer. Xiao Qing pressed her cheek to the edge of the panel.
"It began before the first gate ever tore open. Before sects. Before clans claimed the heavens as their birthright."
He exhaled slowly.
"In the Age of Shattering—when the primordial chaos first cracked and the laws of existence bled—there were no cultivators. Only singers."
The fragment unfolded the scene inside him like petals of silver mist.
A vast, starless void. No earth. No sky. Just endless churning potential.
And in its center: the First Chorus.
Not people. Not yet.
Beings of pure resonance—formless, luminous, woven from the first vibrations that gave pattern to nothingness. They did not speak. They **sang**.
Their song was the act of naming.
They sang "stone" and islands rose from the void.
They sang "water" and oceans poured into being.
They sang "life" and the first fragile sparks of consciousness flickered awake.
But the song was fragile.
Every note required perfect unity. A single discord—and reality frayed.
When the first true discord appeared—a jealous resonance that wanted to sing alone, to claim creation as its solo—the Chorus shattered.
Most of the singers dissolved back into the void.
A few clung to existence by binding their essence into the newborn world.
They became the **Ancestral Keepers**.
Scattered across forming continents, hidden in mist-shrouded valleys, deep caves, forgotten peaks.
They taught their children not cultivation techniques, but **refrains**.
Simple melodies that could recall the original naming.
A child's lullaby that mended a cracked meridian.
A battle hymn that wove protective veils stronger than any array.
A dirge that forced forgotten truths to surface—even truths the heavens had tried to erase.
Cloudveil Valley was only one of many refuges.
But it became the last.
Because the jealous resonance—the one that wanted solo dominion—survived.
It did not die in the Shattering.
It **evolved**.
It learned to devour harmony instead of create it.
It became the seed of every future apocalypse cycle: gates that opened not by accident, but by design. Waves of monsters to cull singers before they could remember how to sing the world back into balance.
The Council of Heaven's Oversight was born from its first human vessels—those who heard the discordant note and chose power over unity.
"They hunted the Keepers," Lin Feng whispered, voice cracking. "One valley at a time. One bloodline at a time. Until only Cloudveil remained."
He opened his eyes.
Tears tracked silently down his cheeks—not from pain this time.
From recognition.
"My mother… she was never just a healer. She was the last direct descendant of the First Chorus. The lullaby she sang to me wasn't comfort. It was the original naming song—fragmented, weakened, but still carrying the power to **remember** what was supposed to be forgotten."
Xiao Qing's breath hitched.
"Then… the Eternal Dominion System…"
Lin Feng nodded slowly.
"Is the jealous resonance itself. Trapped. Broken into fragments after the last great culling. It needs a vessel to regain wholeness. It chose me because my mother's blood already carried a piece of the original harmony. It thought it could devour the song from within."
Yue Li's hand tightened on his.
"But you're turning it inside out. Instead of the system devouring the song… the song is starting to remember the system."
A faint silver glow appeared between them—thin motes drifting from Lin Feng's open palm, forming the ghost of a melody in the air.
The notes did not attack.
They **listened**.
And in that listening, Lin Feng felt the truth settle deeper than any vision the system could force upon him.
"The Spirit Song isn't a power to be wielded," he said, voice raw with wonder and grief. "It's a responsibility. To keep remembering. To keep naming what the heavens want erased. Every time I sing—even broken, even weeping—I'm denying the discord its final victory."
Xiao Qing reached through the gap in the panel—small fingers finding his.
"Then teach me," she whispered. "Even if it's just one note. Let me help carry it."
Yue Li pressed her forehead to Lin Feng's.
"And I'll guard the silence between the notes. So you can breathe."
The silver motes brightened—just for a heartbeat—then settled back into his skin.
But the lullaby no longer felt like mourning.
It felt like defiance.
A quiet, unbreakable promise that harmony would not be devoured.
Not while three broken souls still chose to sing together.
Outside the library, the morning patrols marched closer.
Inside, the First Note stirred once more—not as punishment, not as weapon.
As memory.
And the system—watching, silent, seething—understood for the first time that its chosen vessel might not be a devourer after all.
He might be the last singer capable of naming it back into oblivion.