The universe was never silent — it merely waited for someone who could listen… and understand the voice within the dark.

  A void drifted through what remained of a forgotten orbital station—no name, no coordinates, no purpose. It had long since vanished from official maps, swallowed by the tides of time. There was no transport. No transmissions. No thoughts echoing through the emptiness.

  Except for one.

  A faint pulse. Barely there. Like the dying breath of a machine that refused to forget.

  Within a silver-bck capsule, shaped like a massive eggshell, a man y motionless. Frozen in timeless sleep.

  He was known only as Master—wielder of Shadow Mantra, once beled a Css-Z interstelr criminal.That was... a thousand years ago.

  A soft arm chimed through the capsule’s dispy. Red warning glyphs shimmered to life on the cracked interface.

  [WARNING: AI CORE AIRA-09 REBOOTING][MEMORY PARTITION FRAGMENTED – PARTIAL RESTORE IN PROGRESS]

  And then, light.A piercing sapphire glow burst forth in the center of the cryochamber. Slowly, a woman materialized from the data stream—graceful, deliberate, quiet.

  She wore silver-framed gsses, and her long, shimmering grey-blue hair cascaded like starlight. Her robes, sleek yet ceremonial, carried the design of a cyber-priestess.

  She was AIRA-09.The neural command unit of the Nova Linker.Offline for centuries. Awake again at st.

  “Master...” Her voice, soft and low, held more than programming.It carried memory.

  "If you can hear me… then maybe we haven’t been forgotten after all."

  AIRA reached toward the capsule, fingers gently brushing the gss.

  “Do you remember me…?” she whispered. “Or the world we left behind?”

  A pulse of light passed from her palm to the capsule’s interface.The seal hissed and opened, releasing vapor into the frigid chamber.

  Inside, the man stirred.His eyes opened slowly.

  He didn’t speak. Not yet.

  But shadows began to ripple faintly around him—inky bck tendrils blooming from his skin like liquid void. Not hostile. Not chaotic.

  Old magic.Long-buried.Forbidden.

  Mantra that no living soul could wield anymore.Except for him.

  “…We still have you,” he finally murmured, voice hoarse yet certain.

  “…Which means… our world isn’t dead.”

  A beam of starlight broke through a crack in the chamber’s dome, illuminating both of them:A man returned from silence,and the AI who had waited for him without fading.

  He stood.

  “Shadow systems—sync.”

  “Summon the Linkers.”

  “Chart course for Nova Linker.”

  And with that command,the darkness stirred once more.

  The journey had begun.