A cold pulse echoed through deep space, like the heartbeat of the universe.
The purplish-black core of the Seed of Demise hung in the center of a thoroughly erased spatial "scar." The billions of metal particles and crystal dust formed from the wreckage of the Deep Space Fortress had completely dissolved into this dead cosmic scorch mark, bound and pulled by the core's powerful gravitational beam to form a continuously rotating, slowly gathering ring of stars. Inside the stellar ring, closer to the core, lay not an absolute vacuum, but a mist of chaotic light—composed of the devoured fleets' energy cores, directed energy field neutralizers, life support system remnants, and most fundamentally... countless torn and assimilated fragments of crew consciousness.
It was a whisper field of dead stardust and shattered souls.
Chapter 169