The Correction didn't sweep through the cosmos like a storm. Storms were chaotic. This was a scalpel.
Kael'thar moved with terrifying, surgical precision. They didn't waste energy on random slaughter; they targeted the pillars of the new world—hybrid zones, sanctuaries, and the densest clusters of bridge-tier evolution.
The message etched into the cosmic substrate was unmistakable: The cage is being rebuilt. Get back in your cells.
Lord felt every agonizing cut. The bridge-tier network wasn't merely a communication relay; it was the nervous system of a free cosmos. Whenever Kael'thar's forces "corrected" a settlement, the inhabitants weren't just killed. They were overwritten. Lord felt their connections violently snap, their vibrant, evolving signatures crushed down into rigid, pre-ordained boxes until their presence on the network vanished entirely.
