The factories of Aryavrat roared back to life.
Ashoka stood atop the observation tower, watching molten steel pour into gigantic crucibles. Sparks shot into the air as automated assembly lines crafted new armored plating, engine cores, and weapon housings.
"All reactors running at 130% efficiency, my lord," Priya reported, approaching from behind.
"We've recruited over two hundred top-level engineers and shipwrights from across the galaxy. Many were… eager to work, once they heard you were personally funding the revival."
Ashoka allowed himself a rare, thin smile.
"Good. Let them dream big. I want weapons that can outthink a machine. Ships that can outfly a hybrid."
He turned to face her.
"And spies — how goes the recruitment?"
Priya smirked.
"We've pulled ex-smugglers, pirate turncoats, even a few nobles' discarded agents. By next month, we'll have a full intelligence network in place."
Down in the research labs, Mira oversaw the first analysis of the hybrid neural shard.
"This thing is alive," she whispered, watching as faint pulses of light rippled across the alien-metal fragment.
"It's learning from us even now. Trying to break containment."
Ashoka entered silently.
"Can you use it?"
Mira looked up sharply.
"We can't control it, my lord — but we can learn from it. Build counter-AI systems, disruptor tech, maybe even weapons that sever their network links."
Ashoka nodded.
"Do it. And no matter what, keep it contained. If even a whisper of its code leaks…"
His voice darkened.
"…we lose everything."
But while Ashoka focused on industry and science, the political realm was stirring.
In the great noble houses of the Eastern Galaxy, rumors spread like wildfire:
— That House Aryavrat had recovered forbidden Earth relics.
— That Ashoka Suryaansh was secretly building weapons of mass destruction.
— That a new empire might rise from the ashes of a broken family.
House Zaildar sent emissaries demanding answers.
House Raykara quietly hired assassins to test Ashoka's defenses.
Even the decaying remnants of the old Earth military, now scattered mercenary clans, began watching Aryavrat with sharp interest.
Ashoka gathered his inner circle.
"We're running out of time. If the nobles unite against us before we're ready…"
Priya spoke up.
"We divide them. Leak hints to one, false threats to another. Make them fight each other."
Mira added,
"And if we finish the hybrid disruptor before they realize what we've built — we'll hold the greatest military advantage in the galaxy."
Ashoka's eyes gleamed.
For the first time, he could see it:
A future where Aryavrat wasn't just a struggling house on the edge of collapse — but the core of a reborn human empire.
That night, under the cold starlight, Ashoka donned his armor and stepped onto the central balcony. Below, thousands of workers cheered as the first new battleship — the Shakti — slid from its drydock, gleaming blue and silver, a symbol of rebirth.
Ashoka raised his fist high.
"To Aryavrat!" he shouted, voice echoing through the night.
And the crowd roared back:
"To Aryavrat! To the rise of a new star!"
But deep in the shadows, far beyond his city, eyes watched from ruined worlds and darkened voids — machine eyes, waiting, calculating.
The revival had begun.
And so had the countdown.