Twenty-four hours passed in an atmosphere of extreme tension on the Trash-Dragon. All trading and livelihood activities ceased. The silence was eerie, broken only by the whistle of cosmic wind through decaying structures and the slow, rhythmic, almost death-rattle-like rotation of the A.G.R.A. discs. They had been activated at maximum capacity, yet looked pitifully small and fragile against the horrific forecasts.
Ember, Teron, Celeste, and Echo stood on a high observation deck, looking out into the void where Kael'than was predicted to appear. Teron had done his utmost to reinforce the area's defenses with reality-"hacking" code, but his face screen constantly flashed red warnings: EFFICIENCY_GAIN: 0.001%. It was a drop in the ocean.
"It's coming," Ember whispered.
There was no tear, no explosion, not even a ripple of energy disturbance. Simply and ruthlessly, space began to flatten.
A vast area of space in front of A.G.R.A., which contained microscopic ripples and quantum chaos, suddenly became completely smooth and featureless, like an endless sheet of white paper. All color, all light in that area was sucked away, leaving only a blindingly pure white.
Then, from that white canvas, an Archetype Body began to appear.
It didn't "appear" in the conventional sense. It was being drawn. Line by line, angle by angle, the outline of a giant humanoid figure was sketched onto the white background with strokes of blazing golden light. Each line was not merely a shape, but a complex mathematical structure, a living geometric theorem.
And it was vast. So vast it was difficult to observe its entirety. When the image of a single finger was completed, it was larger than the entire A.G.R.A. sector. When the face was finished, it blotted out the view of the Garbage-Dragon's artificial horizon. This was not an entity a few kilometers tall; this was something of astronomical scale, a giant god squatting outside the tiny petri dish of the space station.
The pressure from it wasn't physical weight, but a coercion of logic. In the presence of this Archetype Body, all the chaos, all the randomness, all the irregularity of the Garbage-Dragon became absurd and wrong. It was the embodiment of absolute order.
Inside the chest of the Archetype Body, a small point of light appeared. That was Kael'than. At his level, he didn't even need a distinct physical body. He was pure consciousness, a focal point of will, piloting this colossal creative engine.
A gentle, warm light emanated from the Archetype Body, enveloping the entire Garbage-Dragon. It didn't burn; on the contrary, it made everything... perfect. Rust stains vanished. Crude welds became smooth. Malfunctioning chips auto-repaired. Some injured people found their wounds healing. But simultaneously, unique creations, quirky personal touches were eroded. A graffiti painting suddenly became perfectly symmetrical and boring. An improvised jazz piece fell into a rigid, monotonous rhythm.
Kael'than didn't move; he simply stood still. But the space and time around him automatically "renovated" themselves to adapt to him.
Then a voice sounded in everyone's mind, not in language, but a stream of pure, clear, and cold information:
Unit: Mobile Space Station "Trash-Dragon".
Status: Chaos Level 9. Energy Inefficient. Structure Non-Optimal.
Action: Comprehensive Redesign and Optimization.
Target: Achieve 99.9% Efficiency.
"No..." Ember choked out, understanding immediately. He wasn't here to destroy. He was here to "fix" them, to turn the Trash-Dragon and all its inhabitants into something "perfect" by his standards, erasing all individuality, all difference, all memory and flaw—everything that made them them.
Teron emitted a pained beep. The spider-boy curled up, his face screen flickering wildly. CORE_DATA_CORRUPTION_DETECTED. PERSONALITY_MATRIX_BEING_REWRITTEN. Stable, cold lines of code were invading his very being, trying to "fix" the glitches that made him who he was.
Celeste let out a small cry, clutching her chest. Her skin grew translucent, revealing the stars inside slowing down and rearranging into perfect, soulless geometric orbits. "He... is putting the star friends inside me to sleep..." she murmured.
Echo, an entity that was fundamentally an existential error, grew so faint he nearly vanished, as if his very existence was a primary bug to be deleted.
The giant energy hand of the Archetype Body slowly descended, not towards them, but towards the Stone Wanderer—the unfinished masterpiece of the previous, lower-level Carver. With just a light touch, the great stone mountain shuddered. Its structure was rearranged in an instant, becoming perfectly symmetrical, emitting a uniform, warm golden light. It had become an ideal energy battery, but its wild, primordial soul had been utterly erased.
Then Kael'than's invisible gaze turned towards the Black Storm group. Another stream of information arrived:
Anomalous entities detected.
Meteorological Entity (Ember) - Flaw: Tainted by Destructive Element. Proposal: Separation and Purification.
Cosmic Disaster(Celeste) - Flaw: Unstable Morphology. Proposal: Stabilization and Optimization.
Existential Error (Echo) - Flaw: Redundant. Proposal: Deletion.
Reality Glitch (Teron) - Flaw: Infinite Query Loop. Proposal: Format and Rewrite.
The brutal truth crashed down. In the eyes of this supreme Carver, they were not individuals, but merely "flaws" to be corrected or deleted.
Ember clenched her fists, the fire in her left eye blazing fiercely behind her protective lens, resisting the order trying to impose itself upon her. She looked at her friends: Teron struggling to maintain consciousness, Celeste trying to keep the stars within her from being rigidly defined, Echo almost dissolved.
"NO!" Ember roared, her voice, though small, echoing in the terrifying, perfect silence. "We are not flaws for you to fix!"
Kael'than's gaze—or rather, his attention—paused on her. There was a cold curiosity, like a programmer seeing a line of rebellious code.
Resistance. Emotional Flaw. Processing Priority: Elevated.
The giant energy hand changed direction, slowly descending, heading straight for them.
The most lopsided confrontation had begun. On one side, beings struggling to hold onto their selves; on the other, a creator intent on imposing his order upon the entire universe.