Rise of the Zillionaire Star

Chapter 54: Sonic Warfare

The bass hit in a precise strike. The chandeliers trembled under the dramatic sound, strobe lights went across the Zenith Gala stage, and the crowd of moguls, actors, and chart-toppers moved like puppets to the strings.

 Madrix Noir stood at the center stage. His head was bent over his deck and his silver lenses reflected neon. 

Every movement of his wrist summoned another surge of sweet rhythm. Celebrities screamed, executives clapped in unison as they chanted the name of Madrix’s chosen client as though their minds weren’t their own.

Jaylen stood among them. The song pull clawed at his senses. His heart raced against the relentless beat.

Just as he watched what was going on, the system pulsed. 

“Sub-Quest Activated: Expose Audio Tactics in Real-Time. Reward: +7 Credibility, +5 Z-Credits. Penalty for failure: Mind Corruption (temporary stat lock).”

Zee’s voice cut into his ear like a lifeline.

“Jaylen, do not surrender to the rhythm. Those aren’t just beats, you’re being rewritten.”

He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to breathe through the waves of influence. His legs wanted to move, to join the people chanting, but he dug his nails into his palm and grounded himself in the pain enough for him not to succumb to it. 

“Stay with me,” Zee urged him. “Counter-frequency uploading.”

A soft vibration started in his earpiece. The trance loosened its grip just enough for Jaylen to think.

He glanced through the stage. The subliminal hooks weren’t in the lyrics. There weren’t any. 

Madrix’s weapon was the sub-bass strings which were invisible to casual ears but devastating to the subconscious. Jaylen recognized the technique instantly. This was the actual control he was using. 

Zee pulled up a stream of spectral data in his vision. They were in colored lines showing waveforms overlapping.

“Look at the spikes under thirty hertz,” Zee explained quickly. “Hidden commands surfaced beneath the beat. They are literally telling the crowd what to do.”

Jaylen’s stomach turned as the analysis revealed commands scrolling in jagged lines across the bottom of the spectrum. It was words no one was supposed to see.

“BUY. WORSHIP. OBEY.”

“This is slavery,” Jaylen muttered in annoyance. 

He lifted his wrist, activating the projector Zee had embedded in the system pass.

 In an instant, the gala’s giant display screens that were meant to showcase Madrix’s visuals glitched.

 A new feed took over instantly.  It showed a glowing spectral graph exposing the subliminal code in real time.

Gasps rippled through the crowd. Executives in tailored suits stared up at the evidence blinking above their heads. Madrix’s sponsors shifted nervously.

“What the hell is this?” one cried out. 

“Those are commands, he’s brainwashing us!” shouted another.

The energy people were using to support the song became twisted. Confusion began to eat at the trance.

Madrix looked up sharply from his booth. He snarled into his mic, his voice distorted in fury even though he tried to control it. 

“You dare?”

His hands slammed the console. The bass dropped into a new pattern. This time, the sound became more heavy and sharper. Frequencies are designed not to seduce but to break. 

A wave of sound rippled outward. It was so powerful Jaylen staggered back, clutching his head. Migraines stabbed behind his eyes. The room warped in hallucinatory bends, like reality itself was melting away. 

Celebrities screamed, covering their ears. A few collapsed onto the red carpet.

Zee shouted over the interference, “He’s redirecting his entire signal at you! Stay grounded. ’ll recalibrate!”

Jaylen dropped to one knee, fighting dizziness. The beats clawed through his skull like drills, tearing his focus apart. But he grit his teeth, forcing himself upright.

“No,” he growled. “He’s not running this stage… I am.”

He grabbed the mic from its stand. Zee overclocked, rerouting the gala’s audio feed.

“Counter-signal ready,” Zee said. “Just… rap. Let me map your flow to the frequencies. Together, we can flip his assault back on him.”

Jaylen wiped the sweat trickling from his face, raised the mic, and opened his mouth.

His voice cut through the atmosphere, calling the people's attention to himself.

He didn’t rap for the people to clap. He rapped like his life depended on it. Each bar, each rhyme, Zee translated them into waves that rewrote Madrix’s hooks. The stage went into a frenzy with a new song frequency.

“Truth in the bassline… no chains in the sound,

You've been sleepwalking… now wake up, look around!”

The crowd blinked, as though surfacing from a drowning dream. The spectral graph flickered and the commands scrambled.

Celebrities looked horrified, realizing they had been chanting on command. Executives scrambled for their phones, already imagining lawsuits and scandals.

“Obey who?!” one woman shouted. “I didn’t come here to worship, i came to network!”

Madrix roared, slamming every button on his console. Sparks crackled. His silver lenses reflected the unraveling chaos.

“You think you can undo years of my architecture with a freestyle?”

Jaylen fired back with his voice raised. 

“Your empire was a lie. It was built on hypnosis. Tonight, I will take it down!”

The duel escalated into a sonic war. Madrix unleashed piercing song frequencies that made glasses shatter, chandeliers rattle, and weaker guests collapse. Jaylen’s eardrums threatened to rupture, but Zee buffered every wave, weaving them into Jaylen’s flow.

Every rhyme hit back like a counterpunch.

Every verse destroyed Madrix’s program further.

The crowd erupted in outrage.

“Shut him down!” someone screamed from the audience.

“No, stream it! The world needs to see this!” shouted Marcus Redd, who had slipped backstage and seized the control booth, locking Vale’s team out of the broadcast feed.

On social media, hashtags started going through the comments, #MadrixExposed #SoundSlave #BreakTheBeat.

Madrix’s console sparked violently, smoke filled the stage. His silver lenses cracked down the middle.

“NOOO!” he howled.

The final wave backfired. Screens around the gala showed static image. The words flashed across every display,

“SIGNAL ERROR.”

The hypnotic grip shattered. The audience became free at last.

 Madrix recoiled like a cornered animal.

Jaylen dropped the mic. His chest heaving really hard.

The system chimed in,  “Sub-Quest Complete: Audio Tactics Exposed. Rewards: +7 Credibility, +5 Z-Credits.”

The notification glowed like victory, but Jaylen barely registered it. He looked out at the sea of furious moguls and artists, people who had been slaves to sound only moments before.

For the first time, they looked at Jaylen not as a nuisance, not as an intruder, but as a liberator.

“He saved us…” someone whispered.

“He just took down Madrix Noir.”

Delilah Knox walked out in fury, Roman Vale followed close behind. Their carefully built narrative had just been dismantled in minutes. 

Jaylen’s name was spreading like wildfire across every feed. The outsider had hijacked the crown jewel of the industry and survived.

 Jaylen turned toward the exit. Zee’s voice buzzed in his ear, but it wasn’t right. 

“Jay… len… wa… warning… interference…”

His HUD glitched. Lines of red code spilled across his vision.

“Signal breach detected,” Zee stuttered. “Unknown… hack… active.”

Jaylen froze.

Somewhere beyond the gala, someone else had noticed him. He is a bigger player. One who had just tapped into his system.

His stomach dropped.