Two days passed under the heavy canopy.
The light filtering through the leaves had shifted from pale green to deeper shadow and back again. The air on the high platform remained thick with humidity, yet around the two seated figures it had grown subtly thinner.
Faint distortions rippled near their skin. Microscopic amounts of surrounding matter—drifting leaf fragments, moisture beads, airborne dust, dead skin cells, and even the outermost layers of the tree bark—were continuously drawn toward them. The moment the matter touched their skin, it was broken down and rewritten into pure energy.
E=mc².
That single principle, applied with absolute precision, had become their primary furnace. Ambient heat and residual life force were no longer enough to feed their growth. Matter itself was being consumed, and the Bootstrap Circulation Method answered by accelerating without pause.
Runar sat at the center of the process.
