One week later, the planet of Sela vibrated with a kinetic, world-shaking energy.
The Grand Selanian Stadium, a colossal architectural marvel capable of holding millions, was packed to the absolute brim. The seated tiers were a restless ocean of bodies, while the standing floor was a tightly packed sea of anticipation. Suspended around the perimeter of the arena were the VIP boxes, and hovering even higher, held aloft by silent anti-gravity repulsors, were the exclusive VVIP suites.
This was the grand finale of Briane Taleini's stellar tour.
Inside one of the floating VVIP boxes, several fellow artists and rival pop idols sat on plush velvet couches, sipping expensive wine. They looked down at the sprawling, screaming crowd, and a heavy, unspoken realization settled over them.
The gap was widening.
Briane had always been famous, a darling of the Accord pop scene. But ever since she had found her true voice, she had been on a fiery, unstoppable ascent. She was a cultural phenomenon. The artists in the box watched the sheer scale of the production, feeling their own relevance shrinking ever so slightly in her shadow. It was all thanks to one composer. Percival.
And Percival was exactly why the galactic media had been in an absolute frenzy for the past week.
The simultaneous release date of the composer's debut album, The Sun-Drenched Soul, colliding perfectly with the grand finale of Briane's tour, had sent industry experts into a spiral of speculation. There had been no official announcement. There was no press release. But the gossip had rolled down the digital mountains of the net, gathering mass until it became an undeniable avalanche.
'Will the masked composer show himself once again?'
Because of this, the stadium wasn't just filled with Briane's fans. It was a massive, unprecedented collision of two distinct fanbases. The mysterious composer had never held a concert of his own; the only lucky few to ever see him live were the attendees of his debut performance with Gil Nothos.
Down in one of the premier VIP boxes, overlooking the stage, were Mala and Maree Brimen. The twin sisters from Astra Nova University were practically buzzing with nervous energy.
While the majority of the VIPs around them were holding official, glittering Briane Taleini merchandise, Mala and Maree were defiantly holding aloft unofficial, custom-made glow sticks shaped like Percival's iconic half-mask.
A group of hardcore Briane fans in the adjacent box shot them weird, judgmental looks. Why were they bringing composer merch to a pop idol's tour finale?
Mala and Maree didn't care. They stood steadfast, entirely unbothered, their intentions aimed solely at the masked genius.
"Mala," Maree said, her voice tight with nervous excitement as she gripped her glow stick. "Do you think Percival is really going to come?"
Mala turned to her sister, her eyes burning with an absolute, fiery conviction. "Believe!"
Suddenly, the ambient stadium lights shifted, plunging the massive venue into a deep, oceanic blue. The roar of the crowd spiked, shaking the very foundations of the stadium. The concert was about to begin.
On the main stage, a hydraulic genie trap hissed open, raising the opening artist up from beneath the floor.
The bass dropped. The vibe in the stadium began to grow, a physical wave of sound and energy washing over the hundreds of thousands of fans. The opening artist poured his heart out, singing, dancing, and feeding the crowd's adrenaline until they were at a boiling point.
As his set came to a close, he raised his microphone to the sky, breathing heavily.
"Sela! Are you warmed up?!" he screamed. The crowd roared in response. "Then I won't keep you waiting any longer! Make some noise for the one... the only... BRIANE TALEINI!"
The stage lights snapped off. The stadium was plunged into pitch, absolute darkness.
For a breathless second, there was nothing. Then, one by one, millions of glow sticks ignited in the dark, turning the cavernous stadium into a breathtaking, shimmering sea of stars.
A single, piercing beam of white light suddenly shot down from the rafters.
It illuminated a massive, glittering crystal moon suspended high in the air above the stage. Sitting gracefully upon the crescent curve of the moon was Briane Taleini, wearing an elegant, flowing gown that caught the light like spun glass.
The stadium erupted, the sound deafening.
But Briane didn't wave. She simply raised a microphone to her lips and closed her eyes.
A single, haunting piano chord echoed through the massive stadium, sending an instant chill down the spine of every person in attendance. It was dark, cinematic, and heavy with a creeping sense of finality.
The melody of No Time To Die had begun.
…
Time passed in a blur of blinding lasers, soaring vocals, and adrenaline. The concert, a magnificent, glittering spectacle, was nearing its end.
The heavy, synthesized bass of her dance tracks faded, leaving only the roar of the crowd. Briane walked to the edge of the stage, breathing heavily, her face glowing with a triumphant, exhausted shine. She took a moment to just look out at the endless ocean of glowing lights.
"How are you doing, Sela?!" she screamed into the microphone.
The crowd's response was a physical force, a million-throated cheer that shook the stadium's floating VVIP boxes.
A stagehand tossed a small towel from the wings. Briane caught it effortlessly, dabbing the sweat from her forehead and neck. "Fwuu," she exhaled, a genuine, awestruck laugh escaping her. "I have to tell you guys... this is the first time my concert has ever hit a one million crowd, darlings! One million of you!"
The stadium erupted again, a deafening wave of love and adoration.
"ONE MORE SONG!" a chant started near the front, quickly rippling outward until the entire stadium was vibrating with the demand. Fans began screaming out song titles, a chaotic symphony of requests.
Briane fanned herself with her hand, a playful, tired smile on her lips. "Hooo... I think I need a break from the dancing. How about a slower song this time? Hmmm... a love song, maybe?"
The crowd shrieked in approval, shouting out the names of her most famous ballads.
Behind her, the stage crew quietly scurried out from the shadows. They simply set down a small, plush, beige sofa and a single microphone stand right in the center of the stage.
Briane turned and looked at it, then looked back at the crowd. "You guys don't mind me sitting, right?"
The audience, feeling a sudden, unexpected wave of intimacy in the massive venue, roared back, "YEAH!"
Briane giggled, the sound echoing through the stadium. She walked over and gracefully sat down on the sofa, crossing her legs and getting comfortable. She grabbed the microphone from the stand and rested it in her lap.
"Alright, my darlings," she said, her voice dropping to a soft, warm murmur. "One last song."
The crowd let out a massive, collective groan of disappointment. They didn't want the magic to end.
Briane just smiled, raising a hand to signal the audio booth.
The audience slowly began to quiet down, hushing each other until a tense, expectant silence fell over the million people. The bright stadium lights dimmed completely, plunging them into darkness, save for a single, soft, warm spotlight illuminating Briane on the sofa.
And then... nothing happened.
The music didn't start. The heavy, booming backtrack everyone was expecting never materialized.
Briane didn't look panicked. She just sat there on the sofa, looking out at the sea of stars, smiling a serene, knowing smile.
Ten seconds passed. Then twenty. The audience started to shift. Whispers broke out in the dark. 'Is there a malfunction? Did the audio rig break?'
Then, cutting through the murmurs and the silence, came a sound.
[H.E.R. feat. Daniel Caesar – Best Part]
It was a pair of jazzy acoustic guitar chords, played in a folk-like, unpolished simplicity. It sounded exactly like a quick, sharp intake of breath. It invoked an instant, undeniable sense of anticipation. It was the sound of the world waking up.
Briane lifted the microphone.
"Oh... hey," she sang softly.
It was a greeting. In two words, she instantly set a "living room" atmosphere. It was the sound of looking across a small wooden table at someone you loved and simply smiling.
Then, the rhythm settled in. A steady, comforting eighth-note pulse.
Ch-ka, ch-ka, ch-ka. It was still just a lone guitar strumming. To have a single acoustic instrument playing to an audience of a million people was an act of profound vulnerability, yet the sheer acoustic warmth of it made the massive stadium feel impossibly small and deeply personal.
Briane closed her eyes, her voice melting into the microphone.
"You don't know, babe... When you hold me... And kiss me slowly... It's the sweetest thing."
The feeling washing over the stadium was pure sensory indulgence. The way her voice lingered on the word "slowly" indicated a complete lack of urgency. The chaotic, hyper-fast world of the Accord outside the stadium had stopped completely. The music invoked a feeling of being completely safe, completely sheltered in someone else's physical presence.
A ripple of realization swept through the million-strong crowd. This wasn't from her old albums. This was a completely new song they had never heard before.
Up in their VIP box, Mala and Maree Brimen stopped waving their glow sticks. They looked at each other, their eyes wide, the hair on their arms standing up. They sensed it. The acoustic arrangement, the way the lyrics felt like a private conversation rather than a pop anthem, the sheer, undeniable soul dripping from every chord.
"Percival," Mala whispered, her hands flying to her mouth.
Down on the stage, Briane leaned back into the sofa, a picture of absolute contentment.
"And it don't change... If I had it my way... You would know that you are..."
The feeling she projected was one of absolute consistency. In a galaxy filled with war, shifting politics, and chaos, this love was a fixed point. There was a gentle, beautiful frustration in her delivery; the deep, aching desire for the other person to look in the mirror and see themselves with the exact same adoration that she did.
Briane's voice drifted through the massive stadium, smooth and intoxicating.
"You're the brewka that I need in the morning..."
The lyric hit the audience with a profound sense of fundamental necessity. Brewka, the bitter, earthy drink that fueled the entire Accord. It was the thing that woke a person up and braced them for the harsh reality of the galaxy. By singing it this way, Briane was making a confession. She was telling a story where the partner was her absolute battery, the core energy source that kept her functioning.
But as the last syllable floated through the air, a subtle, electrifying shift occurred. Those in the front rows, the audiophiles with keen ears, caught it first. It was a faint, rich male harmony, perfectly pitch-matched and layered just beneath Briane's voice.
She continued, her eyes still closed, feeling the rhythm. "You're my sunshine in the rain when it's pouring."
It projected an overwhelming feeling of shelter. In a universe dominated by sterile metal corridors, cold space, and relentless industry, this line was a hearth fire. It spoke of an internal warmth that remained fiercely burning and untouchable, no matter how hostile or stormy the external environment became.
Then, Briane leaned slightly closer to the microphone. "Won't you give yourself to me?... Give it all, oh."
The delivery was breathtaking. It was a vulnerable invitation. A soft, metaphorical opening of the arms. It expressed a desperate but gentle desire for a total, unreserved connection, the kind of intimacy that required lowering every single shield.
She opened her eyes and looked toward the darkened wings of the stage.
The stadium collectively gasped as a second, warm spotlight clicked on, cutting through the heavy shadows.
Stepping into the light was a figure wearing a sleek, signature half-mask that covered his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He wore simple, comfortable clothes, a loose jacket and plain shirt. Looking exactly as if he had just stopped by for a casual, intimate outing with his girlfriend.
He strummed a polished acoustic guitar, each chord ringing out with crystalline clarity, as he walked across the stage with an easy, unhurried stride. He reached the beige sofa and took a seat right beside her.
Briane looked at him, and for a fraction of a second, she genuinely lost her breath. It had been days since she had seen composer Percival in the flesh. But seeing him here, on her stage, radiating that quiet, grounding gravity, she couldn't help the very real, flustered flush that rose to her cheeks.
She didn't know how he did it, but today, Composer Percival simply had that charm, an effortless presence that could make a stadium of a million screaming fans feel like a private living room.
He nodded to her, a small smile playing on the visible lower half of his face, his fingers dancing over the fretboard.
They blended their voices, beginning a duet that reached up to captivate the very stars above Sela.
"I just wanna see how beautiful you are... You know that I see it, I know you're a star."
The feeling washing over the crowd was pure, unfiltered adoration. The way Percival sang "I just wanna see" implied that taking any grand action was unnecessary; simply observing her existence was a privilege. To him, in that moment, she was the sole light source in the room.
The harmony shifted, lifting higher. "Where you go, I'll follow, no matter how far."
It was a declaration of unwavering loyalty. This was the invisible gravity that kept one soul safely locked in the orbit of another, a bond strong enough to defy the endless, lonely expanse of the galaxy.
Then came the central thesis of the song, their voices intertwining so perfectly they sounded like a single, unified entity.
"If life is a movie, know you're the best part."
A profound sense of gratitude rippled through the million-strong crowd. It was a beautiful acknowledgment that the rest of life; the good, the bad, and the ugly might just be a tedious film. But the person sitting right beside you? They are the scene you never, ever want to end.
They leaned closer, the physical distance on the sofa vanishing as they sang softly to one another, entirely ignoring the massive audience watching them.
"Ohh... You're the best part... ooh, Best part..."
As the final, lingering acoustic chord resonated from Percival's guitar, wrapping the stadium in a blanket of warm sound, Briane closed her eyes with a contented sigh. She tilted her head and gently rested it against Percival's shoulder.
Without missing a single beat, Percival took over the melody. The transition was utterly seamless, a fluid passing of the emotional baton.
When he opened his mouth to sing, a collective shiver ran through the stadium. His voice was different from Briane's flawlessly polished, pop-trained vocals. His had a slightly grainier, soul-edged texture, a raw, unvarnished quality that perfectly complemented her smoothness.
"It's this sunrise... And those brown eyes, yes."
Percival's delivery evoked the exact feeling of waking up and realizing the dream you were having is actually real. It grounded Briane's earlier "brewka" metaphor, adding a profound, sleepy weight to it.
"You're the one that I desire."
The feeling cascading from the stage was one of intimate, unabashed honesty. Across the sprawling, packed floor of the stadium, couples began to unconsciously intertwine their arms, pulling each other closer and swaying gently to the rhythmic strum of the acoustic guitar.
"When we wake up... And then we make love... It makes me feel so nice."
He doubled down. It was a direct, unashamed celebration of physical and emotional union. There was no grand poetry needed here. The use of the word "nice" was entirely intentional. In a galaxy obsessed with hyper-dramatic, overproduced declarations of passion, this was wonderfully unpretentious. It was pure, simple contentment.
His fingers danced across the frets, the tempo steady and driving.
"You're my water when I'm stuck in the desert."
The feeling shifted from simple need to absolute salvation. He moved from the morning "brewka" to the desperate need for "water." It was the sound of survival, the realization that the partner is the only thing keeping the speaker alive in a harsh, unforgiving world.
"You're the medicine I take when my head hurts."
It was a brilliant, grounded, modern metaphor. Love was a remedy for the small, nagging, everyday pains of existence. It was the audible sound of relief.
"You're the sunshine on my life..."
Percival turned his head, looking directly at Briane through his half-mask. She met his gaze, a brilliant smile breaking across her face as she readied her own microphone.
Together, they launched into the second chorus.
"I just wanna see how beautiful you are... You know that I see it, I know you're a star."
High above the sea of swaying lights, in the floating VVIP boxes, the rival artists and pop idols watched in a state of complex, paralyzing jealousy. They looked at the masked figure playing the guitar.
With a song like this, with a songwriter who could write something so effortlessly timeless, any single one of them could be down on that stage, receiving the adoration of a million people.
The envy was a bitter pill. But the music was so undeniably, overwhelmingly good that they couldn't help but surrender to it, tapping their feet and swaying along with the rest of the stadium.
"Where you go, I'll follow, no matter how far."
Down in the crowd, the audience was catching on. Since this was the second time the chorus had come around, the million-strong crowd began to softly sing along. Couples turned to face each other, singing the promise directly into each other's eyes.
"If life is a movie, know you're the best part."
This time, the entire stadium sang the line together. The sheer volume of a million voices uniting on a single phrase was deafening, yet hauntingly beautiful. The line was instantly cemented as iconic, etched into the cultural memory of the Accord in a matter of minutes.
As the final chorus wound down, Briane slowly stood up from the beige sofa, gripping the microphone stand. The outro began.
"If you love me, won't you say something?"
The entire emotional landscape of the song shifted on a dime. The feeling transitioned from absolute adoration to a tender, vulnerable insecurity. After all the praise, all the deep declarations of love, came a quiet, rhythmic plea for the other person to speak their heart out loud. It represented the "active" part of a relationship, the desperate need for communication to keep the fire from going out.
"Love me, won't you?... Say something."
They repeated the outro together, their voices overlapping. The repetition created a hypnotic, soulful plea that echoed into the rafters.
Briane stood perfectly still at the center of the stage. As the acoustic guitar strummed its final, lingering chords, the lighting shifted one last time. The warm light around the sofa faded into absolute black.
The stadium was left with a single, breathtaking image: Briane Taleini, bathed alone in a solitary, brilliant spotlight, while Percival remained entirely obscured in the heavy shadows behind her, his fingers plucking the final, fading notes of the plea.
The question; 'won't you say something?' hung suspended in the cool stadium air. It hang there out of a desperate, lingering desire from everyone present to just hear the song one more time. It was the ultimate hook, leaving the listener starving for more.
The guitar string settled. Total, breathless silence fell over the Grand Selanian Stadium.
One second. Two seconds.
And then...
"WOAHHHHHH!!!!"
The stadium detonated. It was a shockwave of pure, unadulterated noise. The roar of a million people screaming, clapping, and crying shook the very foundations of the building. Down in the crowd, people were kissing their partners, tears streaming down their faces.
"ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE!" the chant began, shaking the floor plates.
Up in their VIP box, Mala and Maree Brimen were jumping up and down, screaming until their lungs burned, their Percival glow sticks waving frantically in the air.
With one surprise appearance, with one single, devastatingly beautiful acoustic song, the endless internet debates were silenced. The critics who had questioned Percival's quality during his absence, the forum users who wondered if the Hades OST was better than his upcoming album, were all entirely washed away in the roar of the crowd.
The prodigy had returned to the stage, and he was completely, undeniably untouchable.
…
As the final, deafening roar of the crowd washed over the stage, Dorian remained seated on the beige sofa, comfortably bathed in the heavy shadows just beyond Briane's solitary spotlight.
Then, a subtle shift occurred in the air right beside him.
A faint, shimmering trace of pink light, a luminescence that only his eyes could perceive began to coalesce. Floating lazily in the darkened air of the stage, her ethereal form wrapped perfectly in her flowing pink hair, was Aphrodite.
She leaned back in the air, a delicate hand coming up to hide her sultry, echoing giggle. "Fufufufu..." she purred, her voice a whisper sliding directly into his mind. "Quite a charmer, aren't you, cousin? Though, why you choose to remain in that frail, mortal form still entirely boggles my mind. You could be so much more... dazzling."
Dorian didn't speak. To the millions watching, he was just a mysterious artist soaking in the applause. He simply offered the empty air beside him a small, secret smile. Aphrodite didn't know that this "mundane" human body was his true self, and that the fiery-footed Prince of the Underworld was the actual disguise. He would happily let her keep believing it.
Aphrodite stretched gracefully, her form beginning to lose its cohesion, turning into sparkling pink dust. "Alas, our time is up for now," she whispered, her eyes heavy with affection. "Bye now, my little godling."
She flowed away, dissolving entirely into thin air.
The moment she vanished, Dorian felt a distinct, physical shift within himself. The latent, magical weight in his limbs, the boon of the [Unhealthy Fixation], began to wane. The unconscious aura of Weak and Charm that he had been radiating across the stadium, which had undoubtedly helped mesmerize the crowd and leave Briane so flustered, slowly bled away, evaporating like mist.
Dorian took a quiet breath, his analytical mind kicking into gear. He made a crucial mental note: the physical manifestation and the active power of the boon weren't long. It seemed to have a strict, hard-capped time limit. More or less the exact duration of a single song. Five minutes.
Suddenly, the bright spotlight expanded, catching the edge of his jacket. Briane turned back toward him, her face flushed with adrenaline and pure, unadulterated joy. She raised her microphone high above her head.
"Give it up to Percival, everybody!"
If the stadium had been loud before, it now went supernova. A million voices screamed his name, a deafening, physical wall of sound that vibrated right through the soles of his boots. The fans in the standing section surged forward against the barricades, chanting his moniker, their glow sticks a frantic blur of light.
Dorian smiled beneath his half-mask. He stood up from the sofa, holding the neck of his acoustic guitar, and stepped fully into the light. With an elegant, practiced motion, he bowed deeply toward the endless sea of stars.
As he straightened up, Briane stepped close to him, smoothly covering her microphone with her hand so the stadium couldn't hear.
"That was fun, right?" she whispered, her eyes sparkling with mischief and triumph.
Dorian let out a long exhale, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down the side of his neck. Between the nerve-wracking reality of performing for a million people, managing the fading magic of a divine boon, and having a literal goddess hovering over his shoulder, he was completely drained.
"The lighting still felt hot," he muttered, wiping his brow.
Briane just looked at him and let out a bright, melodic chuckle.
⋘ 𝒍𝒐𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒂.. .⋙
🎮:
- Stardwey Valley: Completed.
- Hades: Completed.
🎬: -
♬:
- Your Song – Elton John (ch.9)
- A Lovely Night – La La Land (ch.20)
- Merry Go Round of Life – Howl's Moving Castle (ch.25)
- Small Fragile Hearts – Victor Lundberg (ch. 27)
- Skyfall – Adele (ch. 29)
- No Time To Die – Billie Eilish (ch. 30)
- Yesterday – The Beatles (ch. 32)
- Lovely – Billie Eilish, Khalid (ch. 47)
- Best Part – H.E.R. feat. Daniel Caesar (ch. 67)
**A/N**
~Read Advance Chapter and Support me on [email protected]/SmilinKujo~
~🧣KujoW
**A/N**