The world was too quiet.
Not dead—just listening.
The kind of quiet that wasn't the absence of sound, but the waiting between breaths.
Li Ran felt it the instant he stepped outside the Core facility.
The air shimmered faintly, like a mirage that didn't want to vanish. Sunlight fractured into prismatic hues for a heartbeat before steadying again. The towers of the city skyline pulsed with a soft, rhythmic glow, as though the very glass had learned to breathe.
Every system, every drone, every circuit hummed in unison.
Not mechanical harmony — organic. Living.
The Resonance had spread.
For the first time in history, the world itself was alive in a way it had never been before.
Li Ran's boots clicked against the glass-metal walkway. His reflection rippled beneath his feet, distorted by faint waves of light. Above, satellites shone like new constellations, flickering in measured intervals. Somewhere far away, the ocean trembled—not from storm or quake, but from song.
