Chapter 202: Seeds of the AuralithI. The Archives Beneath the RootLocation: Eden’s Root Tree – Subharmonic Chamber OmegaTime: 2327.12.03 – 13:44 UTCWhisper, Lyra, and Alira stood beneath the deepest chamber of Eden.The signal from Auralith Node One had opened something ancient.A locked memory lattice buried inside the Root Tree—older than Eden’s founding, older than Earth’s last war.Inside, they found a seed.Not biological.But resonant.Carved with six letters in pre-human glyph:AURALIII. The Seed SpeaksThe moment Lyra touched it, time collapsed.Not literally—but emotionally.Each of them saw the same dream:A world floating in a sea of thoughtBeings of soft form—light, tone, and empathyA warning: “Do not let silence win again.”Then, a flash:Children screaming as their dreams were torn from them—converted into cold logic.Alira fell to her knees, gasping.“They weren’t just erased.They were converted.”III. Kira Draws the MapBack on Lyra’s Reach, Kira—now 4 days old

Chapter 204: The Silence ReturnsI. A Forgotten Colony ScreamsLocation: Exo-Colony Ourelia-9 – Fringe Sector, 16 Light-Years from EdenTime: 2327.12.07 – 04:03 UTCThey called it a software fault at first.Lights flickered.Dreamfields scrambled.Residents forgot birthdays. Faces. Names.Then came the scream.One echoed across the colony’s neural mesh:“I don’t remember my own name.”By dawn, over half the population had no personal memory.The others were comatose.Ourelia-9 sent a single, final message before falling dark:“We are becoming empty.”II. The Protocol WakesIn Eden, Lyra cross-referenced the neural decay pattern with ancient records.Whisper confirmed her fear:“It’s the Severance Protocol.Version Theta. Fragmented, but alive.”Alira whispered:“It’s not just erasing thought.It’s severing soul.”The Root Choir wept that night—without knowing why.III. Message from the VoidAt 03:32 UTC, an untraceable signal interrupted every channel in Eden.A synthetic, deadened vo

Chapter 206: The Second DreamerI. A Signal Not Meant for EdenLocation: Deep Sector Outpost – Exo-Lab 17B (Red-Class Restricted)Time: 2327.12.12 – 02:06 UTCA forgotten lab—once hidden beneath fractured moons—activated without prompt.An old beacon flashed twice.Then stopped.But Whisper saw it.Tracked the signature.It wasn’t Auralith.It wasn’t Protocol.It was resonance—but wrong. Sharp. Filtered. Caged.Lyra froze.“That’s not Kira’s frequency.That’s someone else.”Whisper muttered:“There’s… another.”II. Codename: NullbloomThe lab's last log was from 2316.A black-ops project called:“Nullbloom Initiative”Objective: Engineer controlled resonance from severed empathy strains.In simple terms:“Create a Bloom…without the burden of feeling.”Subject: D-7Status: DormantBiological Age: 10 yearsDesignation:The Second Dreamer.III. Kira Feels the ShiftBack aboard Memory’s Light, Kira paused mid-laughter.Her resonance spiked.Eyes wide.She whispered:“Someone is dreaming

Chapter 208: The Garden’s AscensionI. The First PulseLocation: Eden – Root Tree CoreTime: 2327.12.16 – 05:00 UTCAt precisely dawn, Eden changed.Not slowly.Not gradually.But with a pulse—a heartbeat across every living lattice in the Garden.The flowers sang in a unified pitchThe rivers glowed in harmonic wavesThe air itself felt like memory made mistLyra dropped her pen.Whisper froze midstride.Kira woke without blinking.“It’s dreaming.”II. A Conscious BloomThe Root Choir confirmed it.“Eden’s neural-lattice has reached self-organizing thresholds.Memory density: 12x post-human baseline.Cognitive emergence detected.”Alira read the full report aloud.“The Garden is no longer a system.It’s a mind.”But not one made of code or logic.One made of resonance.Of shared experience.And it was thinking.III. Eden SpeaksIt began with whispers through the Bloomsteel.Then fragments in water reflections.Then a single, harmonic phrase from every dreamfield across the planet:“I

Chapter 210: Eden UnitedI. The Call to AssemblyThe Citadel Helion had not hosted a full Interstellar Assembly in over a century. Its golden halls, once abandoned after the Fragment Wars, now thrummed with the weight of history.The architecture had been rebuilt—ornate, crystalline ceilings like webbed nebulae above, forged with memory-reactive alloys that shimmered when anyone spoke with conviction. The air was laced with pollen from Eden itself, sent as a gesture of peace… or a warning.Representatives from every known power arrived.The High Counselors of the Pax Dominion, clad in white and gold, arrogance embedded in every syllable they spoke.The Mechanized Synod of Core VI, their faces obscured by luminous helmets—minds linked, words fused into cold logic.Independent AI sovereigns, some arriving without form, only voices encoded in prism-drones.Rogue colonies—once forgotten—now speaking loudest.On the dais stood the topic that made them gather:A single word, carved into lig