Concert X Divine gift? X Curse?

The concert hall was on the floor beneath the exhibition hall-the third basement level.

After ushering everyone into the hall, Arens Wood told them he had preparations to make and asked them to wait.

There were plenty of seats in the spacious concert hall, so Qi Zhou chose the spot with the fewest people around it, all the way at the back.

He discreetly took out Imaginary Musician, removed Dipping Jade from its box, and pressed the flute against the book. The next second, the flute was swallowed up by its pages.

He could sense that something new had appeared inside the book, but the situation left him no room to examine it.

Qi Zhou looked toward the door to the left of the stage and saw servants standing guard on either side.

Three floors underground, with an entire corridor of guards who could use Nen-even if he realized something was wrong later, escaping would be difficult...

He gently squeezed the two badges in his pocket, took a slow breath, and quietly awaited the arrival of fate.

Now that things had reached this point, there was nothing he could do.

Before long, many people filed in through the main door, then went up to the center of the stage one after another and sat down behind the instruments arranged there. They all wore masks, but Qi Zhou could clearly see that their exposed skin looked even older than that of the people over ninety he remembered.

He closed his eyes slightly. Sitting in the last row, with no one within ten meters of him, he quietly concentrated his Nen in his eyes.

The people onstage also had Ten around them, but a single glance brought to mind candles about to be snuffed out by the wind, or the last rays of the setting sun about to be dragged into the abyss.

He didn't know why they were still alive, but... they clearly should have died long ago!

The people seemed to notice something, however. They turned their heads slightly and looked toward Qi Zhou.

Qi Zhou hurriedly lowered his head.

He pressed his hand against the Mouth of Calamity in his pocket. His hand trembled slightly with fear.

Once everyone onstage was in position, Arens Wood walked leisurely onto the stage and sat down beside the piano in the center. "Everyone, welcome to the demon king's palace, the gates of hell."

"Everyone, welcome this divine gift, and give thanks for the 'eternal life' you are about to receive-!"

His words filled the crowd with alarm, and panicked voices rose, but the next second, as the first note drifted out, it was already too late for anything.

Clear yet exceptionally eerie piano notes echoed through the spacious concert hall.

"Ding..."

No more clamor could be heard in the concert hall.

"Ding..."

The masked people onstage joined in, using their different instruments to draw out the echoes of the Sonata of Darkness forever.

"Ding..."

The prelude gave way to a rapid surge of music. Qi Zhou saw that, at some point, everyone who had been sitting apart for various reasons had risen to their feet and was staggering toward the stage like puppets being pulled along, paying no attention when they tripped over other people or chairs.

Their pupils had all turned a deep black, and their faces were full of rapture. They wanted to hear more, more!

Qi Zhou trembled as he watched them. But to avoid giving himself away, he had to brace himself and pretend he was under the same control, slowly moving forward behind the crowd.

He had seen all kinds of things in his life-but he really had never seen anything like this!

This was already far beyond what he could handle. He felt his sanity points starting to drop-but the next second, he thought they might have started dropping a little too early.

The people around him, completely devoid of reason, began to age rapidly. It was aging visible to the naked eye: wrinkles emerged densely across their skin, their hair turned withered white from the roots upward, and he could even hear the creaking of bones rubbing together as their joints aged.

And everyone... still had fanaticism in their eyes, refusing to stop until death.

The first section was nearing its end, its final measure echoing throughout the concert hall.

Qi Zhou's heart jolted. He raised a hand and took out his Mouth of Calamity. The black mist, which had originally formed a corner, dispersed completely as though it could no longer bear the strain. The skull inside... for some reason, even at this moment of life and death, Qi Zhou saw the skull rolling its eyes-as though it had eaten something highly poisonous.

He felt a warm stream running down his nose. He wiped it with his hand, and his hand came away covered in blood.

Qi Zhou: "..."

His gaze fell on Arens Wood in the center of the stage, playing with abandon, his eyes likewise full of madness.

His fingers flew across the piano, and he had eyes only for its black and white keys.

Qi Zhou used Gyo. At a time like this, if he didn't use it now, he wouldn't get another chance.

He saw countless Nen Threads extending from the rapidly aging people around him to Arens Wood in the center. The aura around him grew more and more solid, then swelled to a terrifying degree.

Qi Zhou: "..."

The next second, Qi Zhou felt every hair on his body stand on end.

His use of Gyo had been sensed. Everyone onstage except Arens Wood, who was playing the piano, noticed him, looked at him, then removed their masks and staggered toward him.

Their faces had almost completely rotted away. Some had eyes hanging outside their sockets; some had even developed the livor mortis found only on the dead; others had rotted noses and pitch-black teeth, and the breath that came from their open mouths carried the stench of rotting entrails...

At that moment, Arens Wood also raised his head and looked at him. His hands didn't stop playing, and after an abrupt pause, the music swept rapidly from the second section into the third.

"Ugh-!"

When Qi Zhou heard the final phrase of the second section, which he had never heard before, he felt as though his heart had been seized and crushed. The blood in his body reversed its flow in an instant, his soul was stuffed into an extremely cramped space, and the notes hammered directly against it. The pain was unbearable, yet he couldn't stop.

Another corner of the Mouth of Calamity in his pocket shattered.

Qi Zhou came to his senses, trembling all over. He clenched his teeth and fixed his gaze on the person playing.

"Absolutely-I absolutely can't let him keep playing!"

Qi Zhou jumped out of the way of a slow attack from one of the undead onstage, then immediately lunged at a person beside him, leaping over and striking the back of their neck hard with the edge of his hand.

This person's Nen had been siphoned away by Arens Wood, so the Ten around them had almost disappeared. They went down after one blow from Qi Zhou.

But Qi Zhou was delighted to discover that the person had stopped aging-although even without further aging, they had less than a year left at most.

"...I'll save whoever I can."

Qi Zhou pinned the Badge of the Four Seasons from his pocket onto himself and sprang forward, racing toward the stage while knocking down every musician within reach whose mind had been stolen by the music.

With two thuds, he knocked down two more.

The Nen Threads connecting those two to Arens Wood snapped. Arens Wood's body faltered slightly, and his face instantly twisted into a savage expression.

Qi Zhou watched in horror as half of the man's once jet-black hair turned withered white from the roots upward in an instant-just like the people around Qi Zhou who had listened to the music.

Arens Wood, onstage, sensed that two of the souls being sacrificed to him were gone. His eyes filled with hysterical madness and fury as the third movement slowly transitioned toward the fourth, pressing forward step by step, like a predator gradually eating away at the places its prey could hide before the impending slaughter.

Looking at him, Qi Zhou understood everything at that moment.

"The power of the Sonata of Darkness is to absorb the listeners' life force and transfer it to the player, but once that transfer is interrupted, the player suffers a backlash."

He had an extremely terrifying conjecture.

"Transferring life force... this person isn't Arens Wood! He's, he's..."

"What's your name, little one?"-"he" didn't know who Qi Zhou was.

"But that's how it is. Arens Wood looked exactly the same as Mr. Hilt Wood when he was young..."-he looked exactly the same as his "great-great-grandfather."

The earlier conversations flashed through Qi Zhou's mind, and endless terror welled up in his eyes.

"This person... he's actually Hilt Wood!"

With a boom, the wall at the back of the concert hall was smashed open and collapsed.

Over a hundred undead, all aged to the same terrifying degree, rushed in from behind the wall. On the orders of Arens Wood-no, Hilt Wood, as he should be called-they lunged at Qi Zhou.