The "Universal Union" had reached its zenith, or so the historians of the First Hearth believed. The Aethel-Concordance now breathed through the lungs of twelve star systems, a tapestry of light that made the darkness of space feel like a warm, shared room. But the universe is an infinite thing, and as Valerius had once noted, "The larger the light, the longer the shadow it casts."
While the galaxy celebrated the "Great Thaw" of the Remnant, a new frequency began to bleed through the Loom. It wasn't the rhythmic heartbeat of the Kalyth or the chaotic, beautiful mess of human emotion. It was a **Pulse of Zero**.
In the deep-space observatory of **New Ouroboros**, a station tethered to the very edge of the Jovian Threshold, an Alchemist named Kaelen and her Feral partner, a massive white-f
