Three months.
That's how long it took for Earth to stop feeling like a backwater and start humming like a heart.
From orbit, the change was impossible to miss. Where once there'd been only satellites and space junk, now bloomed the Sanctuary Ring—a chain of twelve crystalline healing stations, each the size of a small city, linked by shimmering energy bridges that pulsed with soft green light. They circled the planet like a crown made of living glass.
And at its center: Luna.
She stood on the observation deck of Station Theta—the largest node—watching a new ship descend through the atmosphere. Not human. Not even humanoid. It looked like a floating coral reef, veined with bioluminescent blue, trailing tendrils that curled gently as it slowed.
"Patient convoy from Xylos Prime," came Kael's voice over her comm. "Twelve thousand souls. All carrying neural despair from the Third Collapse."
