The sapling's leaves trembled as the Architect's fingers brushed them, each one shimmering with echoes of Veridia Prime. Jax watched as the scenes shifted—not just memories now, but possibilities. A hundred different versions of the city played out across the foliage: some falling to the Spiral in new ways, others fighting back with strange weapons, a few even thriving in impossible configurations.
*"It's not just an archive,"* Jax realized aloud. *"It's a testing ground."*
The Architect's golden eyes gleamed with something between pride and sorrow. *"Every consumed world becomes a seed. Every seed grows new strategies. We've been fighting this war longer than your species has existed."*
She led him deeper into the garden, where the trees grew taller and stranger. Some bore fruits that pulsed like hearts, their surfaces showing glimpses of alien civilizations Jax couldn't recognize. Others had bark that shifted between solid and liquid, their branches rearranging themselves in fractal patterns.
A group of figures waited near an ancient stone fountain—the remaining Architect fragments. The Warden stood at attention, her armor now grown into her flesh like a second skin. The Scientist floated slightly above the ground, her form constantly cycling through different appearances. The Martyr sat cross-legged, her hands perpetually bleeding golden light into the soil. And the Paradox...
The Paradox wasn't in one place. It existed simultaneously at every tree they passed, always in Jax's peripheral vision, never where he looked directly.
*"We need to show him,"* the Warden said, her voice like grinding tectonic plates.
The Architect hesitated. *"He's not ready."*
*"The Harbinger's corruption spreads faster each cycle,"* the Scientist countered, her form settling momentarily into the shape of the child from Sector 9. *"We're running out of time."*
Jax's marked palm burned suddenly. He looked down to see the spiral scar glowing brighter, tendrils of golden light extending up his forearm. *"What's happening to me?"*
The Martyr rose gracefully, her bare feet leaving glowing footprints in the grass. *"You're becoming what you always were meant to be."* She pressed her bleeding hands to his chest. *"The first volunteer in ten thousand cycles."*
The world dissolved into golden fire.
---
**The Truth**
Jax stood on a featureless plain beneath a black sky streaked with spiraling nebulae. Before him stretched an impossible sight—not one Spiral, but hundreds, maybe thousands, each nested inside the other like some cosmic matryoshka doll.
And they were *feeding*.
Great tendrils extended from the Spirals into countless glowing orbs—worlds, whole realities—draining them like fruits. Some orbs dimmed as he watched, collapsing inward before being discarded.
*"They're just the tips,"* the Architect's voice whispered. *"The visible parts."*
The vision zoomed inward, through layers of reality, until Jax saw it—the true horror at the center.
A single, perfect sphere.
Not a world.
A *egg*.
And it was cracking.
---
**The Garden**
Jax came back to himself screaming, his body arched backward as the golden light seared through every nerve ending. The Architect held him upright, her grip impossibly strong.
*"Now you understand,"* she murmured. *"The Spiral isn't the enemy. It's the immune response."*
Jax gasped for air, his mind reeling. *"To what?"*
All the fragments answered in unison, their voices layered with terrible certainty:
*"Whatever's hatching."*
Above them, the corrupted memory-tree groaned as the Harbinger's crystalline infection spread. Its branches blackened and curled, the leaves withering to reveal glimpses of something moving inside the trunk—something that watched them with knowing hunger.
The Architect turned to Jax, her eyes blazing. *"Will you take the oath?"*
His marked hand burned hotter in response.
Somewhere beyond the garden, something vast and ancient stirred in its sleep.