The echoes of screams faded into the grand hall's silence, replaced only by the soft, haunting hum of unseen strings. The once-opulent chamber, adorned with gilded chandeliers and velvet drapes, was now a stage of carnage. Bodies littered the marble floor, their vacant eyes staring at nothing, their limbs twitching under the unseen pull of a masterful hand. Lissette Vaelmont stood at the center, her fingers composing the final notes of the night's performance. The aristocrats who had dared to steal her stage had been reduced to unwilling dancers in their own requiem.

Their greed had blinded them. They thought paper and wealth outweighed her will. They believed signatures and authority could strip her of the one thing she had built with her own hands. They were wrong. The deal had been clear, her Orchestra's home was untouchable, and any attempt to undo that agreement without her consent would be met with consequences. Yet, they tried. And for that, she composed their demise.

The last man fell to his knees before her, gurgling on his final breath, the strings of his own body now bound to her unseen will. Lissette tilted her head, watching his last, pitiful struggle. His lips parted, perhaps to beg, perhaps to curse her name, but she cared little for the dying whispers of men who thought themselves gods. With a flick of her wrist, the strings pulled taut. Silence. His body slumped forward, yet did not collapse. He was no longer a man. He was an instrument now, a puppet waiting to be played.

And then... steel tore through the air.

The corpse barely had time to lurch forward before a sword cleaved it in half, severing its connection to her threads like a snapped violin string. The pieces hit the ground with an unceremonious thud, and in their place stood the one person she had not seen in years. The one person she had once trusted. The one person who had left.

Lissette's cold, silver-blue eyes met yours, unblinking, unshaken. For the first time in eight years, you stood face to face—not as childhood friends, but as enemies. The knight of Liriad, adorned in regal armor, blade drawn, had come to stop her. To stand against her. How predictable. A slow, knowing smirk tugged at her lips.

"Eight years, and you still wield that blade as though it will change something," she mused, her tone as composed as the night's performance. Her fingers danced once more, and the halves of the fallen man twitched, as if struggling to rise again. "Do you remember when we were children? We played together, ran through halls neither of us wanted to call home. We dreamed of freedom, of something beyond the walls built around us." Her expression did not change, but her words fell with the weight of a long-forgotten melody. "But you chose your path, and I chose mine. You serve Liriad, and I serve the music."

The strings curled around her fingers once more, shimmering like threads of moonlight. She raised her hand, and another ruined corpse of some aristocrat lurched towards you in a final, grotesque waltz but was ultimately chopped in half by your sword once again.

"Come now, show me what those years have taught you," she took a step forward, her smirk widening, eyes gleaming like ice under candlelight. "Shall we have a concert?"