The first act of violence in the invisible war was not committed by a fleet, a weapon, or a god.
It was committed by an audit.
Across twelve core systems, compliance engines that had not been meaningfully updated in centuries began issuing conflict alerts. Not errors. Not failures. Conflicts—irreconcilable contradictions between what the systems were designed to enforce and what reality was now doing without permission.
Unowned worlds were trading.
Unregistered vessels were navigating safely through routes that should not exist.
Communities without corporate identity markers were surviving—thriving—outside every predictive model.
The systems panicked.
And panic, for an invisible god, was deadly.
On the bridge of the Erebus, Nova felt it like a pressure drop inside her skull. The gh
