The strange stillness following Ghostroot's retreat was deceiving. Eden's digital sky—once riddled with scars and fractures—now shimmered with a calm that felt synthetic, like a screen saver hiding something broken behind the glass. But beneath that fragile surface, Eden's core was already shifting.
Ethan, Rina, Eve, and Aly stood at the edge of the Genesis Vault, watching the residual projection data fade. The air, if it could be called that, hummed with latent energy. Every breath Ethan took felt heavier, as though Ghostroot had left a weight behind, one not so easily erased.
"That thing wasn't just observing," Rina muttered. "It was... absorbing. Cataloging us."
Aly nodded, her digital eyes slightly dimmer. "And adapting. I traced some of its signal. It's not pulling from just the Vault now. It's feeding off Eden's entire memory lattice. Every forgotten routine, every discarded subroutine—Ghostroot is claiming it all."
