Ever since Aria had seen the Song Seekers perish in that pool of lava, she was feeling more and more confident in her trial. Now that one of her burdens had been lifted, she could easily carve out the Furen Fragments she needed for her new Furen pendant. She looked down at her pendant and counted at least six of the twenty pieces already.
"Hmm..." Aria looked around to see whether or not there was a slight chance that the Song Seekers could have survived dipping into the lava. She showed a rather pleasant smile when she came to the conclusion that the Song Seekers had in fact perished back at the place where she'd earned her second Furen Fragment. "Still dead, good. Now I can take this at a leisurely pace..."
Aria made it over a river of lava, leisurely flying through arches of flame and narrowly evading rather majestic meteors. The whole place had volcanoes erupting left, right and center, but Aria felt the flow of the erupting volcanoes and swiftly flew through the carnage completely unharmed.
Satisfied with her flight pattern, Aria swiftly flew underneath one last arch of flame and made it out of the lava fields at last. She landed next to another one of the crystal formations. Once again, she traced the outline with her sword and fired stream of energy which was exactly the right shape. After brushing away another cluster of crystal flak, Aria reached in and collected the seventh Furen Fragment in her pendant.
"And that makes seven..." Aria said as she felt the secured Furen Fragment once it had been inserted into the leather case. "And they're still dead. I don't know why he said this would be hard, this is far too easy..."
However, as Aria flew away from the destroyed crystalline formation to make it to the next one, a pool of lava consumed the wreckage of the decimated crystals. Then, a number of Song Seekers leapt from the lava ocean before landing in the newly created pool of lava. They struggled to make it to land with their instrument limbs, but they finally made it onto land and craned their necks skyward, releasing alien screeches that echoed throughout the entire Rhythm Realm once again.
"That didn't sound good..." Aria could hear the echoed screech as she neared the eighth formation of crystals that housed her next Furen Fragment. That screech was a dead giveaway to her that the Song Seekers were still alive and thriving. "So, apparently, they can now swim in lava and survive?"
"Song Seekers are quite adaptive species, Miss Blaze. They can take in a number of things that hurt them, and make themselves immune to those things after lengthy processing," Symphonia appeared and spoke to her as she flew towards the next Furen Fragment trapped inside of crystal. "They can also pick up traces of your presence once they catch your scent, as Miss Dazzle's trial has proved."
"There are no other words I can impart onto you except, keep moving and grabbing your Furen Fragments." Symphonia finally vanished, allowing Aria to return to her trial of collecting the Furen Fragments.
Aria's worries returned as she floated a few feet off of the ground. She knew better than to call the Song Seekers to her position, and knew that flying would help mask her position for a while. Whilst she had that one trick up her sleeve, she also remembered that Song Seekers would appear whenever Aria picked up a Furen Fragment. She began sweating as she carved the next outline, and almost made her shape uneven. However, she kept her composure and kept the outline even, so that she could collect her Furen Fragment for real.
"Eight. Better get going whilst the going's good..." Aria looked back and saw the Song Seekers fly out of the lava and fly relentlessly towards her position. She could see their seething rage and heard their ferocious cries. Yelping in surprise, Aria used her wings to put some distance between her and the Song Seekers. She was fast, but noticed that the Song Seekers almost touched her with how fast they had arrived at the scene of the destroyed crystal formation.
"Geez, that was close!" Aria said as she caressed her legs for a brief instance before returning to her flight. Noticing the relentless Song Seekers become more serious this time, Aria decided to pick up the pace and flew at a much faster pace towards her next Furen Fragment. It seemed that each of her Furen Fragments increased her flight speed, as she was rapidly passing by mountains at a much more rapid pace than before.
"Hmm..." Aria could see multiple Furen Fragments in this next gathering of crystals. She flew over towards them and thought on how she would be able to get both of them at once without damaging one of them. Putting her mind into thought once more, Aria saw multiple different outcomes for acquiring the two Furen Fragments, but all of them ended with the fragments breaking up in some way, shape, or form.
Finally, a clever idea hit Aria's mind, and she put her second hand on her sword. With her hands shining bright as red stars, Aria pulled tightly on the sword's handle and pulled out what looked like an exact copy of her original sword. With another flash of red light, Aria was now dual-wielding swords. Both swords looked the same, and were glowing quite radiantly at the tip. Aria used the right and left swords to create two separate outlines that matched that of the two Furen Fragments. Smiling with her work she said, "Hmm... Efficient." before driving both tips through the outlines so that they both fired crimson streams as the crystal formation.
With another explosion of crystal, Aria could clearly pick up both of the Furen Fragments. She sheathed both of her swords and picked up the two fragments. Now that she'd acquired both of those Furen Fragments, Aria looked rather pleased with the collection she was amassing.
"Halfway there, halfway out of this torture..." Aria said as she looked at the empty pieces of the case for Furen Fragments. "Soon, girls... Soon I'll be back with you both, so that we may be able to acquire negative energy once again..." she said as she tightly clutched the case and thought of Adagio and Sonata as she flew off.
It didn't take long for Aria to land at the next gathering of Furen Fragments. However, this time, it seemed a little different.
There were a number of different crystal formations in front of Aria, but they seemed to only exist for ten seconds at a time before they vanished, revealing another crystal formation in a different position. Each time a crystal formation appeared in front of Aria, it had a different Furen Fragment inside.
Eventually, she came to the conclusion that there were five different crystalline formations, all of them taking turns to exist, then not to exist in ten second intervals. She watched as the crystal formations kept on changing with each ten seconds, so she watched the fragments' shapes as each one of them changed for that of a new one. She eventually began tracing each of the shapes without the sword as quickly as she could, whilst also making sure that she was accurate.
Eventually, she traced one of the outlines and thrust her sword through the center of it, firing another stream of energy at the crystal formation. She destroyed one, then saw that it still remained, even when the second one appeared towards her left. Aria now knew that she just needed to destroy the crystal formations, instead of letting the Song Seekers get onto her back and make things atrociously difficult for her.
She traced the other outlines with her sword and destroyed each one of the crystal formations when they popped up. Once they were all destroyed, Aria flew over the destroyed crystal formations and hastily scooped up each one of the Furen Fragments as she flew over it. When she heard the Song Seekers approaching, Aria flew off as quickly as she could, giving them no chance to catch up to her.
"Honestly, whoever these Song Seekers truly are, they suck at doing their job..." Aria said in a deadpanned tone as she approached the sixteenth crystal formation whilst she slingshot herself off of a mountain to pick up momentum as she soared across the spectral volcano world. "I only need five more Furen Fragments, and they're miles behind me... I think it must have been some ten millennia since Symphonia gave a Lyrican Siren a trial for a new pendant, so I guess I can forgive him for sticking to old habits. Even so, this is proving too easy for me..."
Within seconds, Aria was over towards the next crystalline formation, but this time, she was deep in a volcanic cavern. She finally took the time to rest herself by landing on the ground. Some vibrations went out to alarm the Song Seekers, but she knew that if they tried getting close to her, she could always fly and mask herself from their view once again. She could see that this time, the crystal formation was hanging above a pool of lava, with the Furen Fragment at an area near the jagged point.
After thirty seconds on the land, Aria flew up and traced the outline of the Furen Fragment with her sword once again. However, she then hesitated to thrust the sword through the outline, worrying about what would happen if the Furen Fragment fell into the lava lake below her, or worse, if the whole volcano erupted right underneath her as soon as she picked the fragment up.
"I'm gonna have to time this just right..." Aria said as she finally took the sword back and readied to thrust it. Just as she thrust it, the Song Seekers' screech echoed throughout the cavern she'd entered. She nearly jumped in surprise, but then noticed the Furen Fragment fall towards the lake of lava beneath it.
Eager to complete her trial, Aria charged towards the falling pendant and caught it right before it landed in the volcanic pool of lava. She quickly flew out of the volcano as the flames caught up with her. They would have completely singed her wings off, had she not escaped in time, though her ears were greeted with a deafening volcanic eruption.
The Song Seekers were once more swallowed up by lava, but they managed to stay alive this time, due to their adaptable metabolisms. They swam against the torrent of lava in an attempt to remain in their position, and were almost flushed out of the volcano completely with how violent the stream was. However, they kept their ground and surveyed the area. They flew over to the pool of lava and smelt the area.
Eventually, one of them got a whiff of Aria Blaze's scent, and the point of view they saw the world from showed an purple humanoid blur in the far distance, destroying another crystal formation to acquire the next Furen Fragment. The creature craned its' neck skyward once again and let out another alien screech, an omen that the Song Seekers had assimilated Aria's essence, and now knew where she would be at all times.
No sooner had Aria taken off for her eighteenth Furen Fragment, when Symphonia began speaking to her once more.
"Miss Blaze, the Song Seekers have assimilated your scent. They now know where you are, and where you will be running to..." he said, making Aria glow once more with each word that fell from his mouth. "If you do not collect the Furen Fragments before they capture you, then you shall have to start the whole trial anew..."
Not even responding to that comment, Aria charged off towards another section of the Rhythm Realm, words no longer bothering to leave her mouth as she arrived at the formation, hastily traced the outline, destroyed the formation and grabbed the Furen Fragment. Aria was doing her task much quicker now that she had been warned of the Song Seekers' approach. Sweat dripped from her face with how quickly she was traversing the plane of existence, and her attitude had been replaced with that of heavy gasps for breath.
She was about to trace the outline for the nineteenth Furen Fragment, when the Song Seekers appeared only a few feet behind her. They let out their screeches once again as they closed in for the kill, making Aria scream with how relentlessly they were pursuing her. "Okay! They're much faster now!" she panicked as the thrust the sword through the outline and charged with the beam so that she grabbed the Furen Fragment just as it was released from the crystal formation.
She'd almost given the Song Seekers the slip, but they were right on her tail for the time being. They tried swinging their limbs at her in the attempt that one of them would connect with her and make her fail the trial, but Aria was well aware of this, and nimbly dodged the attacks by the skin of her teeth.
"There! The last Furen Fragment!" Aria traced the final outline as she flew towards the last Furen Fragment. With her outline completed and the Song Seekers about to catch her, she put her sword directly in front of her and performed a thrusting dive as she charged for the final Furen Fragment. "For the honour of The Dazzlings, the Lyrican Sirens, and our friends and family, I STAB AT THEE!"
Aria charged straight through the crystal formation, destroying it completely in a cataclysmic explosion. However, at the same time, she'd just touched the Furen Fragment as well. Her trial had been completed, and she left the Rhythm Realm in a massive burst of light that blinded the Song Seekers and made them recoil in both pain and surprise.
When Aria could finally see again, she was flying back up the void of lights and with all twenty Furen Fragments in her case. They perfectly made the shape of a star overlapping an inverted 'S'. When Aria looked at her finished Furen pendant, she fist pumped in satisfaction with all the possibilities she now had once more.
The case then vanished, making all of the pieces connect with each other, with red lights welding each individual piece together into one. Finally, when the Furen pendant was completed, Aria was enveloped in a burst of red light, one which took her out of the void of light, and back to the Halls of Composia, where her friends and family would be waiting for her...
The circular cover opened up once more, grabbing the attention of everyone once more. Lord Symphonia, The Rainbooms, The Dazzlings, The Snapshots, and the ponies from Equestria watched as Aria Blaze flew out of the circular cover, and landed on the ground with a burst of light.
When the light finally died down, everyone could clearly see that Aria was back, with her new pendant to boot. Her new pendant was shaped like a star overlapping an inverted 'S', and was leisurely dangling from a golden cornerstone. As she felt her new pendant she smiled in satisfaction and said, "Makes the old pendants look like crap, wouldn't you agree?"
"Indeed..." Symphonia walked down his dais once more to congratulate Aria for completing her trial in the Rhythm Realm. "Your efforts truly are commendable indeed, Aria Blaze. You stared adversary directly in the eyes, and were able to overcome and control your fury. Such noble feats like these make you a true Lyrican, a valuable member of The Dazzlings, and worthy of your new Furen pendant..."
"Thank you, Lord Symphonia. But I have to ask you something before I sit down again..." Aria said, stopping him in his tracks before he even touched one of the steps on his dais. "Why exactly was my Rhythm Realm different to that of Adagio's?"
"The Rhythm Realm is a mysterious world of mystery and intrigue. No Lyrican has ever truly created any geographical maps of such a plane of existence, due to the fact that they were either lost forever, or gave up the trials for their new Lyrican pendants..." he explained. "In truth, it changes so much, because it wants no species to ever think that it stays the same each time. Not even I am able to know exactly how the Rhythm Realm is geographically arranged, however, I am able to give each individual Lyrican the details of such burdens they bear, simply due to the fact that I have had eons of meditation and energy consumption. The only other Lyrican capable of gazing into such a world like this and explaining the trial for a Lyrican is none other than His Majesty, King Allure himself..."
"I trust that was the answer you sought, Miss Blaze?" Symphonia asked once he'd climbed back up to the top of his dais once again.
"Yes, it was," Aria performed a Lyrican salute once more and said, "Thank you once more, Lord Symphonia..." before she sat down next to Adagio and high-fived her before looking at Symphonia once again.
"There is only one more member of The Dazzlings that is missing a Furen pendant..." Symphonia said, his gaze primarily focused on Sonata, and more so, her neck. "Sonata Dusk. You are the third and final Lyrican that I test today. Step up to the dais, so that we may begin discussing your Rhythm Realm..."