To travel faster than light by conventional fire was an act of violence against the vacuum. Traditional plasma drives tore a screaming scar through the dark, burning millions of tons of refined fuel just to outrun the clock.
The Singularity Keel did not burn. It simply invited space to step out of the way.
On the bridge of The Ascendant, the transition was heralded not by a roar of thrusters or the rattle of hull plates, but by a profound, cathedral-like stillness. The emerald-and-gold Ironwood dreadnought glided along an ancient, pre-war interstellar corridor—a dormant super-highway mapped out ten millennia ago by the Lightweavers' ancestors. Beneath the living wood of the floorboards, the newly integrated titanium-and-sapphire spine hummed with a low, baritone frequency that vibrated directly in the marrow of the crew's bones.
"We are entering the third fold," Zenith announced.
