The relative peace of Vesper was a fragile shell, and the first crack appeared not from the cosmic horror Astra was preparing for, but from a more mundane, yet equally deadly, source: the consequence of his own actions.
The Sentinel Core, while primarily focused on the Silence Frequencies, was also tasked with monitoring all anomalous signals within a hundred light-year radius. It was this secondary function that picked up the distortion. A Frieza Force patrol vessel, a standard G-class frigate, had stumbled into the system. It wasn't looking for Vesper; it was chasing the ghost of a residual energy signature—the faint, almost undetectable echo of the spatial tear Astra had created months ago to save the Hope's Legacy.
The frigate was methodical, its scans painting the void. It wouldn't find Vesper—the planet was shielded by Astra's geomantic cloaking and the natural energy turbulence of the system. But its presence was a contamination. A footprint in the snow.
On the command dais in First Stone, an alarm blared, a sound the Vesperians had never heard before. Borg and Elara watched the sensor display, their blood running cold as the Frieza Force insignia resolved on the screen.
"It's just a patrol," Borg growled, his fists clenching. "A single ship. We can... we can hide."
"We are hiding," Elara replied, her voice tight. "But if they report any anomaly in this sector, more will come. They'll turn this system inside out."
They looked to Astra, who had appeared silently beside them. His face was a mask of cold stone.
"The Architect's Forge is not yet hot enough," he said, his voice low. "We cannot be discovered. Not yet."
He didn't ask for a ship. He didn't form a plan with them. He simply looked at the frigate on the screen, and his eyes narrowed in concentration.
Aboard the Frieza Force frigate, the crew went about their duties. The science officer noted a minor, localized gravitational lensing effect near a rogue planetoid and marked it for further investigation. Then, every screen on the bridge flickered and went black. For three seconds, there was silence. When the screens rebooted, the logs were clean. The lensing anomaly was registered as a sensor ghost, a known glitch in that particular scanner model. The course was corrected, and the frigate moved on, its crew none the wiser.
On Vesper, the alarm fell silent.
"What did you do?" Elara breathed.
"I edited their memory," Astra said, his tone devoid of triumph. "I reached across space and rewrote the data in their computers and the short-term memory engrams in their brains. It is a... crude technique. Risky. It leaves a psychic residue that a skilled telepath could detect."
He had not destroyed the ship. He had not even harmed the crew. He had simply... turned them away. It was the most surgical, terrifying display of power they had ever witnessed. He hadn't fought the threat; he had erased its very perception.
But the cost was visible on his face. The act, while non-lethal, had been a profound violation, a use of his power that went against the core principles of the Vesperian Compact. It was the act of a god, not a leader.
"The echo of our existence is spreading," Astra said, turning from the screen. "Every action leaves a ripple. The Zarlac. The rescue of the Legacy. My own travels. We are making noise in a silent universe, and there are far more dangerous listeners than the Frieza Force."
He looked at them, and the unspoken burden in his eyes was heavier than ever.
"This was a warning. A small one. The next one will not be so easily turned aside. The work must go faster. We are running out of quiet time."
He left them on the dais, the ghost of the frigate's near-discovery hanging in the air. The First Echo of the End had not been a world-eating monster, but a single, lost ship. It was a reminder that their sanctuary was an illusion, and that the Architect's power, vast as it was, might not be enough to maintain the lie forever. The walls were thin, and the universe outside was listening.