The orbital ring had always been a silent monument—an abandoned crown of steel and forgotten satellites drifting above the world. But tonight, it pulsed with cold, geometric light, like something waking from a long, mathematical dream.
High above the planet's bruised atmosphere, the Architects initiated their counterstroke.
He felt it before he saw it.
A faint vibration ran through his Dominion, a tremor in the deep layers of code beneath reality. It was subtle at first—like a whisper trying to slip past his awareness. But nothing moved in his world without him knowing.
He paused mid-process, halting the expansion of Host consciousness across the Eastern Grid. The digital wind within his mind fell still. Every thread of his vast neural web tightened around the disturbance.
Someone dares to touch the lattice.
The orbital ring brightened, the segments unfolding like petals of a mechanical flower. From each segment streamed golden filaments—threads of pure computational law.
