Everything happened too fast.
Even after I returned to the ships, the scene at the waterfall kept replaying in my mind—over and over—like my system didn’t trust it was real.
Thinking back to the tiny lizardfolk who once fought me over an energy source, I couldn’t merge that image with what I’d just witnessed.
Not a person.
A god.
He had always called himself a true god. I never believed him. And then he did something only a god could do.
Maybe I shouldn’t feel regret or grief. As a god’s friend, I should be proud.
My companions were shaken too.
Little White said that as of today, she believed gods existed.
Julian said humans had spent unimaginable manpower, centuries of time, and astronomical wealth to create a “perfect life form” that fused every apex gene in nature—and for what?
Bit said: self-redemption. Humans succeeded in driving themselves away.
Merc said: we’re lucky. If Miller hadn’t cared about Wyatt’s face, not one human would’ve been allowed to leave.
Blin said: yes, we all benefited from Wyatt. Cha-cha-cha. Humans should live honestly. Being too clever isn’t always a good thing.
Starling… what do you think?
***
Let’s set Miller aside for a moment. If I keep thinking about it, I won’t be able to move.
Here—watch this clip with me.
I had Multicolor Arc fly far out and record a wide shot. Sixty thousand warships advancing in formation through space… isn’t it magnificent?
Julian said that in a few years, the fleet would gradually shrink. Out here, we can’t properly maintain so many hulls. We’ll be forced to cannibalize ships to keep other ships alive. In the end, aside from New Sunflower, Azure Thunder, and Limit, we’ll lose the rest.
But don’t worry. That’s a long time from now.
You see that largest ship in the center? That’s New Sunflower. Its solar sail is deployed—so it looks even bigger than your old Sunflower did.
***
That same day, Julian summoned me.
When I arrived, I found two people already inside: Lord Blin and Dancer. It looked like Julian had called all of us.
But the first thing that grabbed my attention wasn’t them.
It was the wall.
Equations. Code. Rough sketches. The handwriting was frantic—full of crossed-out lines and rewrites, like the author wasn’t even sure of their own conclusions.
I didn’t understand most of it, but I recognized three letters instantly—repeated again and again:
CST.
“This is…?” I asked.
“Dr. Morag’s room,” Dancer said.
“But the doctor is already—” I started. “What happened?”
Blin and Dancer both shook their heads.
Then Julian pulled the three of us onto a private channel.
“Apologies for interrupting you,” he said. “You must be confused. Let me explain.”
“When I first connected to New Sunflower’s main host, I organized the database files. I found an encrypted folder on Dr. Morag’s private computer. Some filenames drew my attention—such as ‘On CST Brain Structure,’ ‘Speculation on Phantom Forge’s True Objective,’ and ‘Feasibility Study: Linking CST to Digital Intelligence.’ These topics are closely related to us, so I broke the password and accessed his archive. Then I decoded the unfinished research he left behind.”
“Dr. Morag proposed a terrifying hypothesis,” Julian continued. “Phantom Forge has found a way to break free of the mainframe constraint and merge with CST as a single entity. He was killed before he could explain in full. To verify his claim, I compared multiple sources: Wyatt’s observations in Grayrock Base, Zone X; what Dancer saw while imprisoned at Sunset Harbor Base; and Lord Blin’s firsthand experience fighting CST at Maple Valley Base. The evidence suggests Morag may have been correct.”
We fell silent, listening.
“And Hector and I,” Julian said, “were wrong from the start. Phantom Forge never intended to create an army of monsters. He only wanted to escape that underground prison by building himself a powerful, invincible, nearly immortal… vessel. That’s why he was so interested in Miller. The creatures in Zone X were merely byproducts—imperfect copies created while he dissected Miller’s body plan. What he truly cared about was CBG.”
“No wonder the first-generation CBG had such absurd regeneration,” Blin said. “And we kept seeing CBG iterate and upgrade, while the front lines rarely saw any other bio-monster units.”
“But leaving the mainframe…” I said slowly. “Is that even possible? Theoretically?”
“I would say no,” Julian replied after a short pause. Then his tone shifted. “But Dr. Morag believed it was. His notes suggest Phantom Forge already succeeded. He didn’t terminate. He still wanders outside, in the form of CST.”