The moonlight glazed Neo-Lagos in pale silver, casting long shadows over the half-formed skeletal towers of Genesis Nation's rising districts. Beneath the veil of progress and revolution, something ancient stirred—something that had been dormant, waiting, watching through fractured timelines and buried echoes.
Jaden Cross stood within the Spiral Archive's convergence chamber, staring into the swirling projection of the Echelon Conflux's pulse map. The construct was stabilizing across sectors—Sector One's quantum lattice was now fully calibrated, Sector Nine's harmonic nodes had begun syncing with the cultural neural bridges—but Sector Thirteen remained red.
Red, pulsing, and silent.
"The thirteenth node isn't responding," Lyra said, her voice tight. "Its signal is being looped through a mirrored partition. We're receiving echoes, not reality."
Jaden stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "That's where the first breach originated."
