Darkness.
That was all Rayon could feel — an endless black that stretched beyond even thought, as if time itself had taken a breath and forgotten to exhale.
He floated, weightless. No sound, no gravity, no storm. Just the void, whispering faintly.
Then… it appeared again.
The chair.
He had seen it once before — long ago, when he was just a hungry child in the slums, sleeping beside broken glass and rainwater. It had haunted his sleep for years, until the day he awakened the Hollow Strings… and it never came back.
But here it was again.
A black crystalline throne, jagged and regal, carved from something older than existence itself. Its edges shimmered like night condensed into form, and at the very top rested a skull — polished obsidian, cracks pulsing faintly with silver light.
And carved upon the spine of that throne, in symbols older than any language he knew, was the title:
"MONARCH OF THE ENDLESS ABYSS."
And upon it sat a man.
White hair, long and wild, falling like moonlight down his back.
Skin pale but radiant, as if reflecting the starlight of a dead cosmos.
His body — athletic, poised — carried the effortless bearing of someone born to rule everything beneath heaven.
Even seated, he radiated such presence that the very concept of hierarchy seemed rewritten.
Rayon tried to look up. But the moment his gaze neared the man's face, his vision wavered. His soul recoiled — instinct screaming that to stare directly was to risk unraveling.
The man's eyes were half-closed, but even that small sliver of silver burned through the void like the dawn through fog.
And then, impossibly, those eyes turned toward him.
Rayon froze.
The man smiled — faintly, almost warmly.
And the instant their eyes met fully—
—Rayon fell.
The throne vanished, the stars inverted, and his body was plunged into a chasm without end.
He didn't scream. He couldn't.
The fall wasn't physical — it was existential. It was his being collapsing inward, like every memory and emotion he'd ever had was being drawn into a vortex of nothingness.
Then—black.
And silence again.
Rayon shot awake.
His breath came ragged, his chest heaving. The sun filtered weakly through the forest canopy, scattering across the old wooden hut. Vorthalaxis was gone, Erethon faintly humming in the ether, and Azelar was sipping tea as if nothing in the world could bother him.
Rayon rose instantly. "Azelar," he said sharply, voice hoarse, "give me a mirror."
The old man looked mildly surprised but gestured toward a shard of metal propped on the wall. Rayon snatched it, tilted it toward his face—
And froze.
The reflection staring back at him wasn't the same man who'd fallen asleep under the willow. His hair — once dark with faint purple undertones — now shimmered with streaks of silver at the tips. His irises glowed faintly with pale luminescence, silver threaded through violet. Even his skin carried a slight ethereal sheen, like he'd swallowed starlight.
He whispered, "That's him…"
Erethon's projection materialized from the shadows, calm but watchful. "Who?"
Rayon turned, his voice almost trembling. "The man I saw. When I was a kid — I used to dream about him sitting on that black chair. I thought it was a nightmare. But he's me."
Azelar blinked. "You saw yourself?"
"No," Rayon said slowly. "I saw what I became."
For a long moment, the forest was silent except for the wind rustling through the trees. Then Erethon's expression darkened — not in fear, but in understanding.
"…That explains it," he murmured.
Rayon frowned. "Explains what?"
Erethon began pacing, his tone taking on the weight of ancient reflection. "There's an old law—older than even I remember—that states that certain beings, once they reach a state of infinite awareness, transcend linear existence. They cease being confined to the present. They exist simultaneously in all potentialities that could ever occur. That man you saw… that you… has already achieved that state. He's aware of every dream, every mind, every whisper across time and plane. He didn't appear to you by chance. He appeared because your awakening reconnected you to your own inevitable self."
Rayon went still. "I dreamed of him until I awakened the Hollow Strings," he said quietly. "Then it stopped."
"Of course it did," Erethon replied, his eyes glowing faintly now. "Because the Hollow Strings are fragments — diluted echoes — of something far older. Something that ties directly into what that throne represents."
Azelar tilted his head. "You mean the Hollow Strings aren't just an ability?"
"No," Erethon said softly, almost reverently. "They're the weakened, tangible form of what was once called Resonance."
Rayon raised a brow. "Resonance?"
Erethon's gaze turned upward, toward the distant horizon. "Long before gods, before creation, before even the first Primordials, there existed a song — a pulse. It wasn't energy or matter. It was intention made rhythm. The pulse of the universe's birth cry. That is Resonance. Every existence hums with it — but only those who can hear the hidden melody can use it."
He gestured at Rayon's chest. "Your Hollow Strings are fragments of that same melody. But diluted — stripped of the divine harmony that binds the cosmos. Resonance doesn't just manipulate energy; it manipulates meaning itself. It rewrites how reality interprets a being's existence. A true master of Resonance could make fire cold, make death sleep, make a word into a weapon."
Azelar exhaled, his usually stoic face serious. "And this throne—the Monarch of the Endless Abyss—he's one of those Resonants?"
Erethon shook his head slowly. "No. He is Resonance given will. The embodiment of the universe's final verse. The Monarchs were never rulers of worlds; they were rulers of the laws that defined them. The Endless Abyss wasn't a place — it was the realm beyond perception, where all Resonance returns to silence."
Rayon's eyes flickered, his mind racing. "Then… if that's me in the future—"
"—Then one day," Erethon finished, his tone grave but proud, "you'll not just wield the Hollow Strings. You'll become their origin. You'll be the Monarch who commands the Symphony of Nothingness — the one who rewrites the pulse of existence itself."
Rayon stared at his reflection again. The silver eyes. The cold, divine calm in their depths.
For a moment, he wasn't sure if he should be terrified… or exhilarated.
Azelar finally broke the silence, leaning back and muttering, "Heh. So the boy who could barely stand under twentyfold gravity will one day make the universe itself bow to his breath. Guess the world really is running out of surprises."
Rayon didn't smile. He looked at the horizon, his expression unreadable. "Then I guess I'll have to make a few new ones."
And as the wind swept through the forest, faint silver threads shimmered in the air around him — silent, delicate, and infinite — the quiet hum of a Resonance that was slowly, inexorably, beginning to remember itself.