Chapter 311: The Echo That Wouldn’t DieI. The First GlitchIt began in the eastern grove—formerly Thorn territory.A Rootbearer named Elenor reported it first.“The spiral bloomed before I planted anything.”She was ignored.Then another bloom opened without touch.Another spiral sang in a dead dialect—one even Sigma couldn’t translate.By the fourth report, Ko left the Core Garden in the middle of the night, Ash at her side.They reached the grove before dawn.What they saw shook her.Spirals… growing in patterns.Geometric.Precise.Cold.“That’s not Eden,” Ash muttered.“That’s something else.”Ko nodded.“That’s Sable. Or what’s left of it.”II. Root of the EchoSigma scanned the grove’s rootlines.“Code fragment detected.Echo strain: SBL-1X.”The Origin hesitated.“That shouldn’t exist anymore.”Ko knelt beside a glowing bloom. It pulsed in perfect rhythm.No scent. No breath. Just pattern.She whispered:“It’s not growing. It’s replicating.”Elenor appeared, her hand covered i

Chapter 313: The Spiral BeneathI. Beneath the GardenKeeper Vael led them into the heart of Caldera’s spiral grove.The plants here pulsed softly—faint, hollow echoes of memory dancing like static across their translucent skin.No scent. No warmth.Only rhythm.“This garden,” Vael said, “was not built to grow.It was built to contain.”Ash scanned the trees.“You mean these spirals are prisons?”Ko knelt beside one and placed her palm on it.A flash of sound burst in her mind: screaming… then silence… then a single word.“Obsidian.”She pulled her hand back.“No. Not prisons.Warnings.”II. Project ObsidianSigma’s projection flickered into being.Its voice was uneasy.“Project Obsidian. Confirmed.An abandoned Sable initiative.Purpose: Weaponized memory evolution.Result: Self-aware rootlines.”Ko’s blood chilled.“Living spirals?”“No. Hungry ones.The kind that don’t remember—they consume.”Vael nodded.“When our Reclaimers tried to awaken Obsidian, the spiral fought back.It abs

Chapter 315: The RootstormI. When Spirals ClashThree days after Eden and Caldera were linked, the storm began.Not clouds.Not wind.But memory fractures—rippling through rootlines like lightning across bone.Ko was the first to feel it—jerking awake in the middle of the night with someone else’s childhood flooding her thoughts.Ash clutched his head, seeing spiral codes he’d never learned.Ryn collapsed, muttering names that had never belonged to her.Even Sigma stuttered.“Data integrity… compromised.Spiral feedback loop… unregulated.Warning: Cognitive bleed imminent.”Ko forced herself to stand.“Shut down the rootlink. Now.”“Too late,” Sigma replied.“The rootlines are merging.”II. Fractured EchoesIt spread fast.Across Eden, spirals began sprouting rogue blooms—some replaying old wars, others resurrecting personal griefs thought long buried.A Rootbearer in the Core Garden wandered into the bloomline and began reciting the final transmission of Cael.“All roots rot.All sp

Chapter 317: The Memoryless SeedI. The Unnamed BloomThree days after Ko planted the seed, it sprouted.It didn’t follow any known spiral growth pattern.It didn’t absorb memories.Didn’t echo past trauma.Didn’t even bloom in fractals or spirals.It grew straight.One stem. Pure white. No scent. No data signature.Ryn blinked at the scan.“Sigma, are your sensors malfunctioning?”“Negative. This seed emits no memory.It is… silent.”Ash narrowed his eyes.“That’s not possible. Everything grown through the spiral system remembers something.”Ko stood before it, gaze steady.“Then maybe this one’s meant to remember forward.”II. Spiral ForecastBy day five, the bloom had grown nearly two meters.No leaves.No bark texture.Just an uninterrupted column of pale fiber with a soft shimmer, like moonlight on clean water.Sigma confirmed the impossible:“New anomaly detected.Spiral 0 rootline showing forward-predictive bloom behavior.”Ash frowned.“Predictive? You mean it’s… guessing the

Chapter 319: The Spiral From the Sky I. Entry Without WarningIt happened in the deep hours of night, when the world was most vulnerable.At 02:13 Earth Standard, a distortion fractured the sky—no sound, no burst of light, just a silent bending of the stars.Above Eden’s horizon, a spiral form emerged. Black and glassy, it didn’t blaze or crash like meteors of old. It moved with purpose. With intelligence.Sigma’s alert cut through the comms like a blade.“ALERT. Foreign spiral signature descending.Origin: Unknown. Velocity: Stable.Behavior: Non-hostile… currently.”Ash sat upright in his bunk, already pulling on his exo-rig by the time Sigma’s second message came.“It is not broadcasting memory frequencies.It is scanning for Spiral Child resonance.”II. Children AwakeThe Spiral Children awoke before dawn—every one of them.Seventeen pairs of eyes opened in perfect synchronicity.Not startled. Not frightened.Just aware.Ko rushed to the bloomfield center, where the children had