The corridors of the fortress now moved like a giant gullet. Stone walls riddled with iron veins pulsed, emitting sulfurous steam. Harold carried Rainnes, sprinting through corridors that narrowed as if the fortress were trying to chew them alive.
"Harold, put me down!" Rainnes shouted amidst the thunderous roar. "He doesn't want you! He wants my voice to stabilize his form!"
"Shut up and hold on!" Harold shot back. He hacked through strands of metal cables attempting to entwine his legs. Every time his blade struck the walls, he felt an electric sting that whispered William's name.
At the mechanical heart of the fortress, Anne and Caine stood before a massive steam furnace that had now transfigured. Molten metal flowed across the floor, forming strange circuits that glowed with a violet light.
Caine opened an incredibly heavy silver chest, revealing a spherical device with a clear crystal core that appeared empty—the Zero-Point Generator.
"Anne, this is madness," Caine's hands shook as he connected the machine's cables to the fortress's power center. "If this sound-vacuum frequency activates, no sound waves will be able to travel. Our molecules will lose their vibration. We could crumble into dust in seconds."
"Just do it, Brother," Anne stood tall, though her amber spectacles were now cracked from the resonance pressure in the room. "William uses frequency to live. We are going to give him eternal silence."
Suddenly, the molten metal on the floor began to rise, forming a faceless human figure directly before them. The figure slowly molded into the features of William's face, wearing a sinister smirk.
"My dearest sister... always so obsessed with control," William's voice echoed directly inside their heads. "You wish to create silence? I was silence itself before light was created."
The metallic figure lunged, but Caine quickly threw a small resonance grenade that bought them a few seconds. "Anne! Activate the core now! I'll hold the circuits!"
At the outer gates, Harold managed to reach the snow-covered docks. Caine's steamship was already warming its engines. The Vaine-Castell soldiers looked terrified as the entire fortress behind them began to writhe like a living creature.
"Where is Anne?" asked Julian, who was waiting on the ship.
Harold looked back at the fortress, which was now emitting a dense violet light from its peak. He knew what Anne was doing. He knew that "Zero-Point" was not just a tool, but a sacrifice.
"Watch Rainnes," Harold commanded briefly. He handed the girl over to Julian.
"My Lord! Where are you going?"
Harold did not answer. He could not let Anne face that "silence" alone. As a de Croul, he was the one who brought this curse into Anne's life. And as a husband—even if only on paper—he would not let his wife become a martyr for his family's madness.
Back inside, Caine was hurled against the wall by a metallic lash. William's form was now nearly perfect, standing before the Zero-Point Generator.
"A fascinating little toy," William reached out with a hand made of molten iron toward the crystal sphere. "I shall use this to silence the entire kingdom."
Click.
The sound was tiny, yet it felt like a thud in everyone's ears. Anne had pressed the final trigger on her wrist.
A pure white light—not fire, not electricity, but an absolute absence of color—exploded from the crystal sphere.
Instantly, all sound vanished. There was no sound of steam, no sound of crumbling stone, not even the sound of breath. The world became a void. William's metallic form began to crack, not because it was breaking, but because it lost the frequency holding its shape together.
In that deadly silence, Anne felt her body begin to go numb. Just as she was about to fall into the calm darkness, a rough yet warm hand pulled her back.
Harold.
Wordlessly, for sound no longer existed, Harold pulled Anne into his embrace, using his own body as a flesh-shield against the waves of emptiness radiating from the machine. They stood at the center of the storm of silence, waiting to see if they would survive or become part of Isfellan's eternal hush.