Supreme Hunter of Beautiful Souls

"No."

The word left Kael's mouth with difficulty.

Not because his throat was trapped, but because the Choir itself tried to prevent the intention from reaching it. The pressure crossed his channels the instant the refusal took shape, seeking to remove the link between thought and language.

Kael kept his body synchronized.

The word finished.

The monks stopped.

Not all at once. The first hesitated. Then the second. After that, a strange movement passed through the entire group, as though a single mind were trying to understand why that answer still existed.

Kael climbed another step.

"Stop," they repeated.

Another step.

"No."

The wall to his right cracked.

Umbra appeared through the stone, still carrying the clapper of the first bell inside the shadow.

"You're irritating the house."

"Good."

The monks advanced.

They did not draw weapons.

The first woman simply extended her hand.

"Give me your sword."

Kael's fingers relaxed.

He let them.

The sword began to fall.

Before it touched the step, Kael kicked the sheath upward, turned his body, and caught the weapon again with his left hand.

The woman blinked.

"I gave it to you."

Umbra laughed.

"He's unbearable when he finds loopholes."

Another monk tried to grab his arm.

"Come with us."

Kael took a step toward him.

The man smiled.

Kael continued the movement and struck his shoulder with the sword guard. The impact threw him against the wall.

"I came."

Umbra's smile widened.

Four more descended.

"Lie down."

Kael grabbed the handrail and slid beneath their hands, dropping two steps before jumping upward again.

"Does that count?" he asked.

"Probably not," Umbra replied.

"A shame."

The monks began speaking at the same time.

"Let go."

"Stop."

"Kneel."

"Sleep."

"Forget."

The last word struck Kael much harder.

His vision blurred.

For a fraction of a second, he did not know why he was on that staircase.

Then he felt Sylphie's connection.

Distant.

Green.

Firm.

One hundred and eighty-three bells below him.

Seraphine.

The village.

The old man saying "no."

Kael returned.

"That one was new."

He slapped his open hand against the wall.

"Umbra."

The shadow exploded across the steps.

It did not attack the monks.

It covered their mouths.

The words continued inside Kael's mind.

"So it doesn't depend on the voice," Umbra said.

"But it uses them as transmission points."

Kael felt each command arriving from a different direction.

Sixty-three.

He stopped.

"Umbra."

"Yes?"

"How many people are in the abbey?"

The shadow spread through the walls, crossing rooms, corridors, and floors.

"Counting these?"

"All of them."

A few seconds.

"Sixty-three."

Kael looked at the monks.

One hundred and twenty villagers.

Sixty-three members of the Vigil.

One hundred and eighty-three living identities.

"They're all victims."

Umbra tilted her head.

"Even the smiling ones?"

"Especially them."

One of the monks tried to grab him again.

Kael dodged, struck two fingers below his ear, and knocked him unconscious.

"Don't kill anyone."

"I wasn't planning to."

"You were thinking about it."

"Thinking is still allowed."

Kael advanced.

From that moment on, he stopped treating the monks as enemies.

Arms were redirected.

Legs knocked off balance.

Nerves struck with the sword hilt.

Umbra pinned bodies to walls and floors, using shadows like straps. None of the blows were fatal.

The higher Kael climbed, the stranger the orders became.

"Trust."

"Forgive."

"Forget your anger."

"You are at peace."

Kael felt his own heartbeat slow.

No.

He did not say the word.

He simply remembered why he was angry.

Children forced to return coins.

A woman crying because she could not ask for the questions to stop.

Seraphine saying she would rather die than forget her own name.

The anger returned.

"You turned peace into the inability to disagree," he murmured.

The final door appeared at the top of the stairs.

White wood.

No handle.

An inscription occupied the center.

He who enters agrees to listen.

Kael placed his palm against it.

The door opened.

"I didn't agree to anything."

He entered anyway.

The tower of the third bell was enormous inside. The main bell occupied almost the entire hall, suspended by silver chains as thick as arms. A crack ran down its side from top to bottom, caused by Seraphine's refusal.

Beneath it stood an elderly man.

He was not dressed like the others.

His robe was white.

Silver threads emerged from his throat, chest, and arms, connecting him directly to the bell.

He opened his eyes.

"Kael Scarlet."

"You know me."

"Everyone here does."

"Who are you?"

"Prior Alven."

Kael looked at the connections.

"You control the Choir?"

"I conduct it."

"Big difference."

"The Choir controls no one."

Kael looked at him.

Alven smiled serenely.

"No one in this valley does anything they truly wish to refuse."

Kael remained silent.

Then released a short laugh.

"That was a good one."

The prior's face did not change.

"Conflict is born from opposition. Violence is born from refusal. War begins when two wills refuse to coexist."

"And your solution was to remove one of them."

"My solution was to remove what prevents harmony."

Kael pointed downward.

"A child tried to keep his own coin and his body forced him to hand it over."

"A small gesture."

"A woman cried because she couldn't ask someone to leave her alone."

"Suffering diminishes when resistance ends."

"Then why was she crying?"

Alven did not answer.

Kael noticed something.

"You can't answer."

The prior remained still.

"You're in the Choir too."

No reaction.

Kael approached.

"Your bell is downstairs."

Alven's fingers closed.

Confirmation.

"You removed your own no."

"I was the first of the current Vigil to accept serenity."

"Voluntarily?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to remain this way?"

"Yes."

"Can you say no?"

Alven opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Kael stood in front of him.

"Then you can't tell me whether you still want it."

"My decision was made before."

"And you decided your old decision should control every future one."

"Commitment requires permanence."

"No. Prison does."

The bell vibrated.

Alven's voice crossed the hall.

"Kneel."

Kael felt his legs give way.

He planted the sword against the floor and remained standing.

"Do one thing for me."

Alven frowned.

Kael smiled.

"A request."

The system itself reacted to the word.

The silver chains vibrated.

"Return all the refusals."

Alven's face changed.

For the first time, real tension appeared.

"I can't."

Kael raised an eyebrow.

"You said no."

Alven froze.

The bell cracked a few more centimeters.

Kael understood immediately.

"Interesting."

The prior looked upward.

The chains began to tremble.

"You managed to refuse when the request threatened the Choir."

"Stop."

"No."

A second crack opened.

"Stop!"

"No."

The bell groaned.

Alven tried to stand, but the chains kept him in the center.

Kael approached.

"So your refusal was never completely removed."

"It was given to the Choir."

"Exactly."

Kael pointed toward the bell.

"You still have a no. You just put something else in charge of deciding when you're allowed to use it."

The entire structure trembled.

Below, Elion shouted something.

Kael did not hear.

He did not need to.

All one hundred and eighty-three small pieces began ringing again.

Alven lost his serenity.

"You don't know what you're doing."

"That phrase is getting popular."

"The Choir has kept this valley together for one hundred and sixty years."

"Then it'll survive a review."

Kael raised his hand.

"Return the refusals."

"No."

The third bell cracked again.

This time, a line of light crossed the bronze.

Kael smiled.

"Thank you."

Alven realized too late.

The request did not need to be accepted.

His refusal was enough.

If the conductor of the Choir could say no, then the claim that opposition had been eliminated was false.

If opposition still existed inside the primary authority, then the entire foundation of the structure was contradictory.

The bell began ringing on its own.

It did not produce an order.

It produced Alven's voice.

"No."

Then another.

Seraphine.

"No."

The old man from the village.

"No."

Hundreds of declarations overlapped.

"I don't want to."

"I don't accept."

"Stop."

"I refuse."

The chains connected to Alven detached from his chest.

He fell to his knees.

Kael caught him before he hit the floor.

The prior was breathing like someone who had just surfaced from underwater.

His eyes were wide.

"I…"

Kael waited.

Alven looked at his own hands.

"I want it to stop."

This time, there was no mana in the sentence.

No command.

Only will.

Kael nodded.

"Then help."

In the underground hall, Sylphie felt the change at the same moment.

Each small bell began searching for its corresponding identity.

Elion ran between the niches with her instruments.

"Don't let them connect automatically!"

Seraphine held her own bell.

"Why?"

"Because we need them to choose."

Sylphie closed her eyes.

Her roots already touched every villager.

One hundred and twenty presences.

Inside the abbey, Umbra touched another sixty-three shadows.

One hundred and eighty-three.

"I can ask."

Elion looked at her.

"How?"

"Without ordering."

Sylphie opened the connection through the roots.

She did not send words.

She sent a possibility.

An emotional door.

Accept or refuse.

Each person felt their own bell waiting.

In the village, the old man began.

He placed a hand against his chest.

"I want it."

His bell responded.

A small silver light left the niche and crossed Sylphie's roots. The old man arched his body when his own refusal returned.

Then he cried.

Not from pain.

He laughed while crying.

"No."

A woman answered in another house.

"I want it back."

Another bell.

A child.

"Yes."

Another.

The return began.

Some people hesitated.

Sylphie did not force them.

Some said no.

And for the first time in years, that no was respected.

Their corresponding bells remained in the niches.

Elion watched.

"That's important."

Seraphine nodded.

"Maybe it's the most important part."

She looked at her own bell.

Sylphie approached.

"Do you want it?"

Seraphine held the metal.

Her face tightened.

That refusal belonged to the woman who had existed before the coffin.

Before the Cradle.

Before Kael.

"I don't know if I'm still that person."

"You don't have to be."

Seraphine looked at Sylphie.

"Then why should I accept it?"

"You shouldn't."

Silence.

Seraphine slowly smiled.

"Good answer."

She closed her fingers around the bell.

"I want it."

The silver entered her chest.

Seraphine screamed.

Memories crossed her mind.

A table.

Men asking questions.

An old name she could not reach.

A proposal.

Give up her own refusal in exchange for preserving someone.

She fell onto one knee.

Sylphie supported her.

"Seraphine?"

The woman breathed several times.

"I remember why I was here."

"Why?"

Seraphine raised her face.

"I came voluntarily."

Elion stopped.

"To give up your refusal?"

"No."

She pressed a hand against her chest.

"To find someone."

At the top of the tower, the third bell began losing its glow.

Kael helped Alven sit against the wall.

"Who manages the project now?"

Alven took a deep breath.

"I do."

"Who receives information outside the valley?"

"Once a year… we send records."

"To whom?"

The prior tried to answer.

The word would not come out because of some compulsion.

Kael noticed.

"Another removed declaration?"

Alven touched his throat.

"A vow."

"Yours?"

"Yes."

"Is it in a bell?"

"No."

"Then where?"

Alven looked toward the third bell.

Kael raised his eyes.

Inside the crack was something.

Not metal.

A small folded page.

Kael climbed the chain and pulled out the fragment.

The inscription was short.

The Vigil of Eiren will not reveal the destination of the records.

Below it was the symbol of the First Archive.

And another.

The divided crown.

Kael descended.

"Oren."

Alven nodded.

"He came here?"

"Fifty-eight years ago."

"For what?"

"To take declarations he considered important."

Kael became serious.

"Which ones?"

"Refusals from people capable of resisting authority."

"How many?"

Alven closed his eyes.

"Twelve."

Kael thought of Seraphine.

She had been there.

Her refusal had remained.

So she was not one of the twelve.

"For which project?"

Alven looked at the page that had been removed.

With the vow outside the bell, he managed to answer.

"Hollow Throne."

Kael became still.

Another of the nine projects.

The connection was direct.

The Choir did not exist in isolation.

It had served as a supplier.

Kael stored the page.

"First we finish here."

The third bell finally stopped.

It did not break.

It did not fall.

It simply stopped giving orders.

When Kael returned to the underground hall, he found several empty niches. Others still contained their bells, belonging to people who were not ready to receive them.

None were touched.

Seraphine sat on the floor, leaning against the wall.

Kael approached.

"Did it work?"

"Yes."

"Did you recover everything?"

"No."

"Anything useful?"

She raised her eyes.

"Maybe."

Kael waited.

"I knew one of the people taken to the Hollow Throne."

"Name?"

Seraphine opened her mouth.

This time, the memory came.

"King Aldren Vael."

Elion went still.

Sylphie frowned.

Kael did not recognize the name.

"Who?"

Seraphine looked at him.

"A king who died one hundred and ninety years ago."

Kael grimaced.

"Of course."

She continued:

"And who, from what I remember…"

Seraphine touched her now-empty bell.

"…was never allowed to die."

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