“Ashen Council…”Lilith mouthed the unfamiliar name, her pulse tightening like a drawn wire.Gaia’s last whisper still echoed through the bridge—its ancient presence fading, leaving behind a silence vast enough to drown a galaxy.“Thank you.”The words came not through speakers but directly into their minds, faint as dying starlight. Gaia’s final thought watched the quiet void now freed of the swarm’s madness, where only the distant suns still burned in mute witness.Veridian did not answer. A promise was a promise. The transaction was complete.He lifted his hand. At his fingertip coiled a wisp of purest Termination—not energy, not light, but the embodied concept of an ending, the point where even “protection” itself ceased to exist.He touched the void.The power leapt forth, silent as breath, striking the fading core of Gaia’s consciousne