The command center in Haven was a tomb dedicated to a living death. Myra stared at the holographic feed, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the console. The image of the scoured world, millions of hollowed-out souls shuffling through silent cities, was burned onto her retinas. This wasn't Roewi. This was the thing wearing him, and it was methodically sterilizing the galaxy. "He's gone, Myra," Kaira's voice was flat over the comm, the usual sharp edge dulled by horror. "The Roewi-Vextor synthesis is complete. It's an entity. We cannot reason with it." "He's NOT gone!" Myra snapped, whirling around to face Kaira's hologram. "He's in there! We have to pull him out!" "And how do you propose we do that?" Ereun's image flickered beside Kaira's, his face grim. "My chrono-lances cannot touch it. Kaira's code-breaches are useless. Its power rewrites the rules of engagement as we fight. We have no weapons that can reach it." "We don't need a weapon," Myra said, her mind racing,

The silence in the Starseed’s cockpit was no longer that of a tomb or a void. It was the quiet of a deep, still pool, its surface reflecting immense depths. Roewi sat in the pilot’s chair, not with the rigid tension of a god holding back chaos, nor the desperate grip of a boy clinging to control. He was relaxed, his posture one of effortless balance. The frantic energy that had once crackled around him was gone, replaced by a profound, humming stillness. He was the eye of the hurricane, and the hurricane was his to command. He became aware of the Starseed’s critical systems, not through displays or alarms, but as an extension of his own body. A power conduit was fraying here, a navigation buffer was corrupted there. With a thought that was part Vextor’s precision and part his own intent, he directed a trickle of the Foundation’s energy. The conduit knitted itself back together, the molecules realigning with perfect order. The corruption in the buffer was isolated and gently Transmute

The universe became a silent, screaming pressure. There was no sound in the vacuum, but inside Roewi, the roar was deafening. The Reality Engine’s beam of pure order was a tidal wave of solidified light, and he was the shore upon which it broke. He had opened every conduit, every psychic pathway, and let it flood in. The Crown’s harmony was a beautiful, terrible thing. It was the comfort of absolute certainty, the peace of no choices, the silence of a single, perfect note held for eternity. It promised an end to the struggle, the fear, the messy, aching pain of being an individual. For a fleeting moment, it was seductive. But then the Orbs within him rose to meet it. It was not the chaotic war of before. It was a fundamental, irreconcilable conflict of nature. The Crown’s order declared: ALL THINGS ARE ONE. The Foundation answered with the memory of a single,stubborn blade of grass breaking through permacrete: I AM HERE. The Crown’s order insisted:CHANGE IS DISORDER. The Trans

The moment the airlock sealed behind them, the world changed. The familiar, gritty reality of the Axiom was replaced by a space that defied physics and sanity. They stood in a corridor that was not a corridor, a hall of mirrors where the reflections were not of light, but of memory and data. The walls were a shifting mosaic of gold and silver, pulsing with a faint, residual energy. The air was cold and smelled of ozone and dried flowers.This was the heart of the Reality Engine, and it was a mind made manifest."Stay close," Kaira whispered, her technopathic senses recoiling from the oppressive order. "The architecture is... adaptive. It's reading us."As if summoned by her words, the corridor ahead shimmered. The golden tiles reconfigured, forming a perfect, life-sized tableau. It was Roewi’s memory of the Nexus Academy training arena, the day of his "0%" rejection. The figures were unnervingly real, their faces frozen in expressions of pity and scorn. The air hummed with the exact f

The first sensation was pain. A deep, cellular ache that had nothing to do with cosmic power and everything to do with a body pushed far beyond its limits. The second was weight. The terrible, crushing weight of gravity, of a single, fragile form lying on a cold, hard surface.Roewi Verdent opened his eyes.He was in a med-bay. The lights were low, the air clean and sterile. He could hear the faint, familiar hum of Haven’s life support, a sound so mundane it was almost shocking. He tried to sit up, and a wave of dizziness and weakness forced him back down. His muscles felt like water. He was… empty. The vast, humming reservoir of power was gone. The silent, guiding presence of the Orbs was a phantom limb. The synthesized consciousness of Vextor-Elara was a quiet, distant memory. He was just… Roewi.The door hissed open. Myra stood there, a datapad clutched in her hand. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face etched with a fatigue that mirrored his own. When she saw he was awake, she froze