The humming was wrong.
Not out of tune—out of existence.
Like it came from somewhere just past reality's edge.
Jung Min raised his pistol.
Azari gripped the shard like it could block sound.
The crucified man—eyes wide, throat vibrating beneath the sewn lips—swayed in rhythm.
Each hum vibrated the trees.
Each note peeled a layer off the silence.
Jung Min stepped closer.
"One warning."
The man stopped humming.
But the echo didn't.
Azari touched his arm.
"Listen."
Deep beneath the hum, buried in static—there was a voice.
A child's.
Crying.
Repeating the same phrase over and over:
"The hymn never ends. The hymn never ends. The hymn never ends…"
Azari's eyes narrowed.
"That's not his voice."
Jung Min shot the thread from the man's lips.
He gasped—blood bubbling from the seams—but didn't scream. Just whispered.
"You opened the Cathedral. You broke the relic. Now they're looking."
"Who?" Azari demanded.
He looked right at her.
Then through her.
"The voice without a mouth. The Choir's last instrument."
Jung Min's eyes darkened.
"The Seventh?"
The man nodded once—then seized violently.
His chest burned with glyphs.
And he erupted into flame.
Not fire. Light.
Pure, blinding light.
Azari shielded her eyes.
When it cleared, only dust remained.
No body. No bones.
Just a single object:
A needle.
Long. Black. Carved with scripture so thin it bled light.
Azari knelt beside it.
"This… this is a relic."
Jung Min picked it up with his scarf.
"A relic meant to close mouths."
She looked at him.
"But for who?"
He didn't answer.
Because something was watching them.
Far up the ridge, past a sea of charred trees—
a figure stood.
Hooded.
Tall.
No face.
Just a Choir halo—burning sideways.
It didn't speak.
But Jung Min heard it anyway.
"The verse was never yours to silence."
The wind roared.
Azari's relic shard screamed in her hands.
Jung Min turned to her, calm as ever.
"Looks like Volume Three has its first Saint."