Kisho watched the undead surging toward him and clenched his fists.
"...These are probably all musicians who were once invited."
Invited to come, dying with hatred, becoming sacrifices offered to the Demon King by the greedy in pursuit of so-called "immortality."
The undead were covered in a stench of blood and foul yellow fluids. They roared soundlessly, swarming toward the only one still awake—Kisho—intent on tearing him apart and devouring him.
The space Kisho could move in was compressed to an extremely small area. He let out a low shout, grabbed a chair from the ground, and hurled it viciously into the crowd—the chair crashed into them, knocking people aside, even smashing and snapping the brittle arms and legs of two undead whose bones had weakened with age.
But these people still wore blank expressions, utterly unaware, continuing to charge at Kisho—slow, but relentless.
The music entered its fifth chapter.
The instant Kisho heard the fifth chapter, he opened his mouth and spat out a huge mouthful of blood. When he raised his hand to wipe it away, he saw a small patch of livor mortis appear on his hand.
The overwhelming horde of undead used every possible means to get closer to him. Even if their limbs were broken, they would crawl toward Kisho, then devour him bite by bite—this kind of Nen-bearing, young boy was the best nourishment for them, who had exhausted their vitality yet still could not die.
Putrid saliva dripped from the undead's mouths.
"Calamity's Mouth can only last through this short passage—at most... one minute." Kisho was already feeling dizzy.
"Each musical movement of this piano piece is missing a measure. Compared to the original, the 'Calamity's Mouth' created this way is still far inferior."
He seemed to hear a voice as gentle as a heavenly mother's:
"Stop resisting... as long as you obediently listen to the end, you can obtain immortality—"
"Immortality my ass—this is eternal damnation!" Kisho raised his hand and bit down hard on himself to regain clarity.
"Who do you think you're fooling here?!"
He jumped onto a chair, poured the maximum amount of Nen into his legs, stepped hard on the chair back, and used the recoil to leap into the air. Then, deftly stepping on the heads of the undead closing in around him, he rushed toward the wall, planted a foot against it, and ran along it toward the stage.
He leaped forward, stepping on the unnaturally long arm of an undead that reached out to grab his pant leg, and landed on the stage.
At this moment, only Helt Wood remained on the stage. He smiled coldly as he watched Kisho rapidly approach.
"Young Mr. Barton, you really do surprise me."
Kisho looked at him, then shouted heavily:
"Helt Wood!"
Hearing Kisho's words, the pianist even missed a beat. He stared at Kisho in shock, murderous light flashing in his eyes.
"How do you know—?!"
He had been waiting for an opportunity—and this was it—
As Helt Wood froze for a moment upon hearing his true name, Kisho used all his Nen and all his strength, even withdrawing the "Ten" from the rest of his body and pouring it entirely into this punch, smashing it viciously into Helt Wood's face. But with a loud "bang," Kisho was pushed back by the sudden burst of aura, stumbling and flying backward.
Kisho struggled to climb back up, feeling as though his internal organs had all shifted.
"Cough, cough..."
Shrouded in a chilling layer of Ten, Helt Wood looked at him and smiled coldly, like a cat pitying a mouse.
"It's useless. You can't hurt me."
But the next second, his movements froze.
His expression suddenly became terrifying.
"What did you do to me—?!"
His hands were still flying across the piano keys, but his long fingers—skin once pale and smooth like a baby's—became withered and rotten in the blink of an eye, finally turning into bare white bones that could no longer leave the piano.
Yet even as white bones, the skeletal fingertips continued striking the keys.
On one side was the harsh, grating scrape of bone against keys; on the other, clear piano notes—interweaving into a composition that made one's scalp tingle.
"AAAAAAAH!!"
Seeing his own hands, Helt Wood screamed in disbelief, hysterical.
"Once this movement starts playing, it absolutely cannot be stopped." Kisho supported himself as he stood up and spoke slowly.
And behind him, the undead moved as if wound up by clockwork, repeatedly moving and stopping, their motions so sluggish they resembled underpowered wooden puppets—their master no longer had the strength to control them.
Because on Helt Wood's face was affixed a skull badge.
That punch of his had been deflected, but it still barely managed to create a hollow in the Ten surrounding Helt Wood that lasted just over a second. Using that brief window, Kisho pressed another "Calamity's Mouth" he had created onto Helt Wood's face.
Kisho walked to his side and said quietly:
"Talking about 'immortality'—this is basically a curse, isn't it?"
"Nonsense! You dare show disrespect to the Demon King! You'll go to hell! You definitely will—!" Helt Wood no longer had any trace of his former gentility. He roared hysterically, twisting as he tried to tear the badge from his face, but—
"Sonata of Darkness (Piano)"—once it starts, it cannot be stopped.
His hands were no longer under his control, becoming slaves to the Demon King.
But what kept his body "young" was not the Demon King's blessing, but a "curse"—"Calamity's Mouth" could devour Nen. Although Kisho still didn't fully understand the scope of what Nen it could consume, he knew that it certainly included the black Nen of the Sonata of Darkness.
Having lost the Nen unique to the "performer," Helt Wood at this moment had completely become just like the others—a listener at the Demon King's concert, and also a sacrifice.
His hands sent his body and soul into the demon realm.
As the sixth passage was about to end, Kisho was nearly at his limit—but Helt Wood was in even worse shape.
This man who had already lived for hundreds of years, who should have died hundreds of years ago, had no strength to resist at all, and was lightly kicked to the ground by Kisho.
As he fell, it was like forcibly ripping white bones that had grown into the piano keys away—the skeletal hands, filled with unwillingness and venomous resentment, left the keys.
The next second, everything fell silent.
Helt Wood lay on the ground, silently turning into a pile of bone ash.
An entire room of undead collapsed to the floor as if their power had been cut, entering eternal rest.
Kisho slumped onto the ground, breathing heavily, completely exhausted.
He raised his hand and looked at the spot where livor mortis had appeared earlier. Fortunately, he had stopped Helt Wood before the sixth passage finished playing. As the Ten circulated, the livor mortis slowly faded away.
After an unknown amount of time, screams rang out one after another.
The musicians who had entered with him and had not been killed by the undead during the chaos gradually woke up. What entered their eyes was a scene like hell—and then they realized that one foot of their own had already stepped into hell.
While the others were waking in shock, Kisho crawled under the piano, curled up, and gently closed his eyes.
He couldn't bear to look, shouldn't look, and couldn't explain.
How could he explain why only he had remained unchanged?
All he could do was... watch.
The screaming woke even more people, followed by even more screams.
Those who could still crawl wouldn't pay any attention to what had happened on the stage. They only knew that—even if they had to crawl—they had to leave this place, leave this place—!
More than ten minutes later, the concert hall was left in utter ruin.
Kisho recovered a bit of strength and stood up, noticing the sheet music placed on the piano.
The dark red score on beast hide recorded a road leading to hell.
Kisho picked up the score. After a moment, he brought his hands together and used Nen to turn the sheet music into ashes.
"Sonata of Darkness"—this kind of thing should never have existed in the first place.
He gave another bitter smile, but someone like him, who had taken such power for his own use, really had no right to say such words...