“W-What… what is this?!” the Phantom discovered in terror that his control over the stage was weakening.
Through the multicolored smoke, the terrifying monsters and traps revealed their true forms.
The “dark shadow audience” was actually just piles of old clothes and rotten wood.
The “note spears” were nothing more than broken sheet music and iron nails.
The “underground palace” was just a dilapidated sewer hall with leaking pipes and molding walls.
“It was all fake…” Vivian murmured to herself.
“Hahaha!” Bastian did a tap dance in the smoke. “See that? This is called deconstruction!”
He threw the remaining fireworks everywhere as he danced.
“Here’s a red one for you! That’s a passionate Salsa!”
*Whiz — bang!*
“Here’s a blue one! That’s a wild Bachata!”
*Whiz — bang!*
The Phantom was going insane.
His meticulously crafted tragic stage had turned into a low-quality circus!
Flying streamers were everywhere, accompanied by piercing *whiz* sounds.
“Stop it! STOP IT!!!”
The Phantom stood up from the pipe organ seat, clutching his head and screaming hysterically.
“I won’t allow… I won’t allow you to defile it like this!!”
His body began to swell, tearing his tailcoat as countless tendrils of black mist erupted from his back. The entire underground space began to twist violently, and stones started to fall from the ceiling.
“He’s tilting! He’s tilting!” Vivian shouted while dodging falling rocks. “Boss! He’s losing it!”
Cicero stood at the edge of the stage, holding the thick Bible and waiting for his moment.
Watching the Phantom lose control completely, a satisfied smile played across his lips.
“Now, it’s time for the final debate.”
The sound of Cicero turning the pages was actually quite light.
But amidst the collapsing world and flying rubble, that *rustle* was eerily clear.
The black tentacles flailing through the air stiffened.
“Regarding envy,” Cicero adjusted his monocle, “Thomas Aquinas provided a precise discourse in the second part of the second part, question thirty-six of the Summa Theologica.”
He looked up, his eyes showing no ripple of emotion, only boredom toward low-brow tastes.
“Envy is sorrow for another’s good. Because one views another’s good as a reduction of one’s own excellence.”
Cicero closed the brick-thick Bible, his fingertips tapping the black cover.
“ROAR — !!!”
The black mist expanded violently, condensing into a distorted giant face that opened its bloody maw to bite Cicero.
“I am a forsaken genius! The world failed me!!”
The foul-smelling wind pressure made Cicero’s trench coat flap loudly, but he didn’t even blink.
“James, Chapter 3, Verse 16,” Cicero spoke rapidly yet clearly, “For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.”
Just as the giant mouth was about to swallow him, Cicero suddenly pulled a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun from his coat and shoved it directly into the Phantom’s mouth.
“And where there is evil,” a hint of pity curled at the corners of Cicero’s mouth, “there is purification.”
*BANG — !!!*
It wasn’t bullets that erupted from the muzzle, but a burst of dazzling silver holy flame.
They were specialized buckshot engraved with Latin exorcism incantations.
“AAAGH — !!!”
The Phantom let out a shrill scream as half of his giant face was blown away. The black mist hissed as if doused in acid, retreating frantically.
“What is this light?! It burns!!”
“This is called the ‘Glory of the Lord’.” Cicero snapped the gun open with one hand, two piping hot shell casings flying out.
He leisurely loaded new shells, continuing his pedantic lecture.
“Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 3: And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
*Click.*
The chamber locked.
“God is busy today,” Cicero raised the gun, aiming at the Phantom’s healing face. “I’ll help him provide the lighting.”
“I am immortal!” the Phantom roared, as countless black musical notes turned into sharp daggers, raining down on Cicero. “In this opera house, I am God!”
“God?”
Cicero smiled. It was a mockery that saw through a clumsy magic trick.
“Augustine once said: Evil is nothing but the absence of good. Just as darkness is nothing but the absence of light.”
He didn’t dodge.
Those menacing note daggers suddenly seemed to have drunk too much cheap liquor, wobbling in the air. Some collided with each other, while others plunged straight into the ground and turned into scrap paper.
“T-This is impossible…” the Phantom panicked.
“Nothing is impossible!” Bastian popped out from somewhere, holding his brass horn with eyes shining in excitement.
“This is deconstruction! This is post-modernism! Mr. Phantom, your performance is too classical! Too outdated! We need a little… explosive tension!”
Bastian threw all the remaining fireworks into the center of the black mist.
“I don’t know the principle behind it, but art is an explosion!”
*Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Multicolored fireworks exploded inside the mist.
The Phantom’s black mist became a multicolored black.
“No… my tragedy… my aesthetics…”
The Phantom’s voice grew weaker, filled with heart-wrenching despair.
“It’s over.”
Cicero took a step forward, his leather shoes crunching on broken glass.
He wasn’t holding his gun anymore; instead, he raised the Bible again.
Only this time, his expression was unusually solemn.
“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.”
Cicero’s voice wasn’t loud, yet it echoed through the vast underground hall, drowning out the sounds of explosions and collapse.
“The spirit returns to the God who gave it.”
He looked at the dissipating multicolored black mist. His gaze pierced through the monster’s facade, seemingly seeing the deformed genius who had huddled shivering in the sewers 100 years ago.
“You weren’t abandoned by the world, Erik.”
Cicero closed the book, whispering as if to an old friend.
“You just… thought the world was too complicated.”
“So-called art was never a tool to prove anything. It’s just… a toy used to please oneself.”
In that moment, the black mist stopped churning.
In the center of the fading fog, Vivian thought she saw a translucent figure in a tailcoat. He was no longer a hideous monster, but a thin man.
He looked at Cicero, Bastian, and finally Vivian.
The shadow seemed to smile.
He took off the mask from his face and placed it gently on a non-existent piano.
*Ding —*
A crisp piano note rang out.
It wasn’t the roar of a pipe organ or the scream of a violin.
It was a simple, single note in C major.