Three years later, the newly built Lunar Observatory picked up the first official communication from an alien civilization.
It wasn't mathematics, wasn't images—it was music: a melody played on string-like instruments, elegant and complex, woven with frequency codes describing basic physical constants.
It was a greeting, warm and curious, from a world 12 light-years away.
Two years after that, the first joint human-core being mission departed the Solar System, bound for the nearest Alliance hub.
The core beings who remained had rebuilt their numbers, their young ones' crystal eyes glowing with wonder at the stars—something their ancestors had hidden from for half a billion years.
The night before the mission launched, Li Zhe stood outside the launch center, staring up at the stars. A core being approached—older than most, its stone skin etched with cracks like ancient pottery, its eyes a soft amber.
It was one of the few who had survived the pulse, its body weakened but its spirit unbroken.
"Do you know," it said, its voice like grinding stone, "five hundred million years ago, when we chose to hide, we faced the same choice: to reach outward, or to protect what we had."
"We chose protection—building the filter, hiding the Earth, sacrificing our own chance to explore."
"You chose to guard us," Li Zhe said.
"Yes. But now," the creature's eyes flickered to the stars, "I wonder what we missed. What wonders lay beyond the filter, what civilizations we could have met."
"But regret is a human emotion—or so I've learned. Every path has its beauty. We protected life. Now, you will explore it."
It turned to Li Zhe, its crystal eyes warm.
"Take our curiosity with you. See the stars for us. Tell them we're sorry we hid for so long—but we're ready to join them now."
The rocket launched at dawn, its golden tail flame cutting through the night sky like a needle, stitching Earth to the stars.
Li Zhe watched until it vanished, a tiny speck in the void. On the Moon, the Observatory's dishes hummed, listening to the cosmos—now alive with voices, with music, with life.
Across the galaxy, countless eyes turned to the Solar System—curious, welcoming, watchful.
The Dark Forest was still there, but so were the gardens, the beacons, the friends. Humanity was no longer a secret. It was home.
Welcome to the real universe.