The celebration did not end.
It only lost its certainty.
Music still drifted across the open platforms of the cadet sector, distorted slightly by Eclipsera's low gravity. Lights pulsed in soft artificial colors. Someone laughed too loudly near the food dispensers. Someone else cried without trying to hide it.
But the sky had changed.
The white streak still lingered faintly across the upper atmosphere like a scar that hadn't decided whether it wanted to heal.
Tojo stood near the outer rail of the platform, one hand resting on cold metal, eyes fixed upward.
"It's just a comet, right?" Kaien said behind him, chewing on something neon-blue that was definitely not fruit. "I mean… space does space stuff."
Lira was already trying to replay her recording. "My camera glitched. It didn't even blur. It just… skipped."
"That's because it didn't burn," Dharel muttered from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, his Vexari markings dimmer than usual. "No ion trail. No heat scatter."
Nysa tilted her head, fingers pressed lightly to her temple.
"It passed through perception," she whispered. "Not around it."
Tojo didn't answer.
Inside his chest, Destruction had gone quiet.
Not dormant.
Not sleeping.
Cold.
Like a blade left in snow.
Ozaru stood a few meters away, hands resting against his thighs, breathing slower than necessary. His eyes were half-closed, jaw tight.
Creation was no longer expanding.
It was compressing.
Holding itself together.
Elara noticed.
She didn't ask.
Across the platform, Stryke Vahr stood alone, gaze fixed on the same point in the sky, expression unreadable.
Some cadets cheered again as fireworks erupted lower in the atmosphere.
None of the Genesis wielders joined them.
High above the celebration decks, in the glass corridor overlooking the Crucible sector, Nina leaned forward against the railing.
"That wasn't ice," she said quietly.
Ken Kuruzama did not answer immediately.
Holographic layers were already unfolding around his vision, data cascading silently—trajectory vectors, gravitational inconsistencies, light refraction failures.
"No thermal signature," he said at last.
"No deceleration."
"No measurable origin point."
Nina straightened.
"That means—"
"It wasn't traveling," Ken finished.
His eyes narrowed a fraction.
"It arrived."
Below them, cadets laughed.
Ken issued commands without raising his voice.
"Silent readiness. Genesis response units to standby. Crucible core warm, but dormant."
Nina's hand rested on the hilt of her blade.
"You think it's connected to the stones."
Ken didn't deny it.
Far from Eclipsera.
Far from celebration.
The transport drifted between dead stars like a surgical instrument sliding through black glass.
Alkhaz stood at the front viewport, coat loose around his shoulders, silver hair unmoving in artificial gravity. His expression was relaxed.
Vaelor stood beside him, adjusting the distortion field around his body. His form never quite settled into focus, edges flickering like corrupted data.
They were close.
The structure behind them—Genesis-era architecture embedded in ancient asteroid stone—glowed faintly with dormant pathways.
"This is one of Nexarius's anchor patterns," Vaelor said. "Old. Pre-riftfall design."
Alkhaz nodded.
"He doesn't travel randomly. He leaves footprints in reality."
Vaelor was about to reply—
Then stopped.
The distortion field around him rippled.
"…White-spectrum disturbance," he said slowly.
Alkhaz felt it instantly.
Equilibrium shifted beneath his skin.
Reality tightened.
Space lost its depth.
Stars blurred—not outward, but inward, folding like paper being pressed flat.
Then something stepped forward from the distortion.
The Whitespawn did not roar.
It did not announce itself.
It unfolded.
A towering structure of pale bone-light and translucent mass, layered with circular halos that rotated in opposite directions, not mechanically but conceptually, like ideas disagreeing about how to exist.
Its eyes were not eyes.
They were windows.
And something ancient was looking out.
Vaelor swore under his breath.
"Sentinel class… impossible. These went extinct before the CDC even existed."
"They didn't go extinct," Alkhaz said calmly.
"They were decommissioned."
The Whitespawn moved.
Space collapsed inward toward it.
Vaelor reacted instantly, slamming his palm forward.
"Null Script."
A ripple of invisible code tore through the void, erasing Genesis markings from existence itself.
The Whitespawn staggered.
Not from pain.
From confusion.
Alkhaz stepped forward.
Equilibrium ignited.
The battlefield stabilized as if someone had forced the universe to remember its shape.
The Whitespawn struck.
Not with claws.
With rewritten direction.
Up became sideways.
Distance inverted.
Vaelor was thrown backward without moving.
Alkhaz caught the distortion and folded it flat with a lazy flick of his wrist.
"Your timing is terrible," Alkhaz said mildly.
The Whitespawn's chest opened.
Not as a wound.
As a mechanism.
A circular gate formed inside its body, layers of impossible geometry locking into place.
Coordinates scrolled across Vaelor's vision.
His blood ran cold.
"It's not hunting us," he said.
"It's broadcasting."
Alkhaz's expression sharpened.
Two signals flared on the gate's surface.
One violent.
One infinite.
Destruction.
Creation.
"It's a carrier," Alkhaz said quietly.
"A targeting construct."
Vaelor stared.
"For Nexarius?"
Alkhaz's voice lowered.
"Or by him."
The gate completed.
Space folded inward.
And the Whitespawn jumped.
Not away.
Toward Eclipsera.
The second distortion appeared without sound.
It did not tear the sky.
It erased it.
Above the Crucible, the atmosphere bent into a perfect white circle.
Gravity stuttered.
Fireworks fell upward.
Cadets screamed.
Ken's voice cut through every channel at once.
"All units, combat readiness."
Nina drew her blade.
The Crucible activated.
Ancient defense pylons erupted from the planet's surface, energy veins igniting like blue arteries beneath black metal.
Tojo dropped to one knee as Destruction surged awake, roaring against its containment.
Ozaru gasped as Creation screamed inside his chest, no longer compressed—
Panicked.
Elara grabbed his arm.
"Stay with me."
The gate widened.
White light spilled out.
Something vast began to move through.
Ken whispered a single word.
"…Confirmed."
From the void, Alkhaz watched the same coordinates flare into existence.
"We're late," Vaelor said, blood running from his temple.
Alkhaz cracked his neck.
"Then we follow it."
The stars twisted.
Back on Eclipsera, the sky finished tearing itself open.
And something white began to step through.
The cadets who had survived the Crucible looked up.
They did not know its name.
They did not know its history.
They only knew that reality was bending around it like it was an argument gravity could not win.
Tojo rose, teeth clenched.
Ozaru forced himself upright, shaking.
Nina stepped forward, blade glowing crimson.
Ken's eyes burned azure.
The celebration died.
The selection ended.
And the universe finally asked its question.