Darkness X Sonata X Piano Solo

Qi Zhou clenched his fists as he watched the undead swarm toward him.

"...They were probably all musicians who were once invited here."

They had come at an invitation, died full of resentment, and become sacrifices offered to the Demon King by a greedy man seeking so-called "eternal life."

The undead reeked of blood and foul odors, their bodies covered in a filthy yellow liquid. Roaring silently, they swarmed Qi Zhou, the only person still awake, intent on tearing him apart and devouring him.

Qi Zhou's room to move was squeezed down to almost nothing. With a low shout, he grabbed a chair from the floor and hurled it into the crowd. It crashed into them, knocking them aside and even breaking the arms and legs of two undead whose bones had become brittle with age.

But they continued to charge at him, expressionless and feeling nothing. They were slow, but determined to have him.

At this point, the music entered its fifth movement.

The moment Qi Zhou heard the fifth movement, he spat out a mouthful of blood. As he raised his hand to wipe it away, he saw a small patch of livor mortis on his hand.

The undead came at him from every direction, using every means to get close. Even if he broke their limbs, they would crawl toward him and swallow him bite by bite. A young boy with Nen like him was the finest food for those who had exhausted their life force yet remained undead.

Foul-smelling drool dripped from the mouths of the undead.

"The Mouth of Calamity can only last through this measure at most, which means... one minute at most." Qi Zhou was already feeling dizzy. "The Mouth of Calamity made from a piano piece with a measure missing from every passage is still nowhere near the real thing."

He seemed to hear a voice as gentle as a heavenly mother's: "Stop fighting... just listen obediently to the end, and you can gain eternal life-"

"It's eternal damnation, plain and simple!" Qi Zhou raised his hand and bit it hard to bring himself back to his senses. "Who are you trying to fool?!"

He leaped onto a chair, poured as much Nen as he could into his feet, and kicked off its back, propelling himself into the air. Then he nimbly ran across the heads of the undead closing in on him, dashed toward the wall, planted a foot against it, and rapidly made his way along it toward the stage.

He leaped, stepped on the outstretched arm of an undead reaching for his trouser leg, and jumped onto the stage.

Hilt Wood was the only one left onstage. He smiled coldly as he watched Qi Zhou rapidly approach. "Young Mr. Barton, you've really surprised me."

Qi Zhou looked at him and shouted:

"Hilt Wood!"

At Qi Zhou's words, the pianist even missed a beat. He stared at Qi Zhou in surprise, a vicious glint in his eyes. "How do you kn-?!"

He had been waiting for an opportunity, and this was it-

When Hilt Wood heard his real name and faltered, Qi Zhou put all his Nen and strength into one punch, even gathering the Ten from the rest of his body and channeling it into his fist. He slammed it into Hilt Wood's face, but with a bang, a sudden surge of Aura sent Qi Zhou staggering and flying backward.

Qi Zhou struggled to his feet, feeling as though all his internal organs had been knocked out of place. "Cough, cough..."

Shrouded in a chilling Ten, Hilt Wood looked at him and smiled coldly, like a cat pitying a mouse. "It's no use. You can't hurt me."

But the next second, he froze.

His expression suddenly turned utterly terrifying. "What did you do to me-?!"

His hands were still flying over the piano, but his slender fingers and the skin that had once been as fair as a baby's withered and rotted in the blink of an eye. In the end, they became bare bones, unable to leave the piano.

Even reduced to bones, his fingertips continued to strike the keys.

The piercing scrape of fingertips against the keys intertwined with the clear notes of the piano, forming a movement that made the scalp crawl.

"Aaaaaah!!"

At the sight of his hands, Hilt Wood screamed hysterically in disbelief.

"Once this movement starts, it absolutely can't be stopped." Qi Zhou braced himself and stood up, speaking slowly.

The undead behind him kept starting and stopping as though they had been wound up. Their movements had slowed to those of puppets running low on power-their master no longer had the strength to control them.

A skull Badge was stuck to Hilt Wood's face.

Although his punch had been deflected, it had just barely opened a gap in the Ten surrounding Hilt Wood that lasted a little over a second. In that brief time, he had pressed another Mouth of Calamity he had made onto Hilt Wood's face.

Qi Zhou walked to his side and said quietly, "You call it 'eternal life,' but it's really a curse, isn't it?"

"Bullshit! You're disrespecting the Demon King! You'll go to hell! You definitely will-!" Hilt Wood no longer looked anything like the refined gentleman he had been. He roared hysterically, twisting as he tried to remove the Badge from his face. But once the Sonata of Darkness had begun, it could not be stopped.

His hands were no longer under his control. They had become the Demon King's slaves.

But what kept his body "young" was not the Demon King's blessing, but a "curse." The Mouth of Calamity could devour Nen, and although Qi Zhou still didn't know the full range of Nen it could devour, he knew it certainly included the black Nen of the Sonata of Darkness.

With the Nen belonging exclusively to the "performer" devoured, Hilt Wood had now become a listener at the Demon King's concert, just like everyone else, as well as a sacrifice.

His hands had sent his body and soul into the demonic realm.

As the sixth measure drew to a close, Qi Zhou was almost at his limit-but Hilt Wood was in even worse shape.

This man who had lived for centuries, who should have died centuries ago, was utterly unable to resist as Qi Zhou sent him to the floor with a light kick.

As he fell, it was as though bones growing out of the keys were being forcibly torn free. Those skeletal hands left the keys, full of unwillingness and venomous resentment.

The next second, everything fell silent.

Hilt Wood lay on the floor and silently crumbled into a pile of ashes.

The roomful of undead collapsed as though their power had been cut, falling into eternal rest.

Qi Zhou slumped onto the floor, breathing softly, utterly exhausted.

He raised his hand and looked at the spot where the livor mortis had appeared. Fortunately, he had stopped Hilt Wood before the sixth measure finished. As his Ten flowed, the discoloration slowly faded.

After an unknown length of time, screams rang out one after another.

The musicians who had come in with him and had not been killed by the undead in the chaos gradually woke up. A scene like hell greeted their eyes, and then they noticed that they themselves had one foot in hell.

While the others were waking in alarm, Qi Zhou crawled beneath the piano, curled up, and gently closed his eyes.

He couldn't bear to look, nor could he look, much less explain.

How could he explain why he alone had remained unchanged?

All he could do was... watch.

Those who screamed woke more people, and then more screams rang out.

Those who could still get up paid no attention to what had happened onstage. All they knew was that they had to get out, even if they had to crawl. Get out of here-!

A dozen minutes later, nothing remained in the music hall but a terrible mess.

Qi Zhou had recovered a little strength. He stood up and noticed the sheet music resting on the piano.

The dark red musical notation on the animal hide recorded the road to hell.

Qi Zhou picked up the sheet music. A moment later, he pressed his hands together and used Nen to reduce it to ashes.

The Sonata of Darkness-something like that should never have existed in the first place.

He smiled bitterly again. But what right did he have to say that when he had taken that power for his own use...?