In the center of the clearing, surrounded by a dozen armed members of the Children of the Bloom, is the Seeder.
It is a massive, brutalist machine of shifting, liquid metal, pulsing with a blinding, golden light. The genesis energy is flowing in a rapid, chaotic loop, feeding back into itself, creating more vines, more mass, more suffocating growth.
It’s beautiful, Elara whispers, her dual-voice echoing strangely in the quiet fog, carrying the vast, ancient clarity of the Blueprint. But it’s wrong. The math is looping. It’s creating without purpose.
Morgan steps up beside me, her face pale in the harsh light of her datapad. "The biological feedback loop is accelerating, Luna. The vines are drawing moisture from the soil, depleting the water table. The ancient trees are dying of thirst.
