The faded Civilization Tattoo peeled away from the starship's hull, revealing the grotesque metal beneath.
Bai Mei's quantum tendrils brushed across the observation window on the bridge. Outside, the floating ashes of the swarm were reassembling into eerie symbols—the language of an even more ancient existence, every stroke seeping blood-red fluorescence.
"They're using Hirata's tombstone to send a message." The Lantern Keeper's lightless bud suddenly blossomed, and Horikita's Poetry Scroll burned across its petals. "In seven hours, this universe will undergo the 'Great Pruning.'"
Bai Mei's stinger pierced the bud and drank in the bitter truth: the so-called "Great Pruning" was a ritual in which the Ancient Existence would compress the entire universe into a bonsai. And the ritual's offering was none other than him, the bearer of the Mother Code.
The swarm's ashes condensed into arrows in the vacuum, pointing toward the "Imaginary Well" at the edge of the universe.
When Bai Mei tore through dimensions and arrived, what spewed from the mouth of the well wasn't dark matter, but countless clones of Kiyotaka. Each held a Sowing Hoe, forging stellar remains into scythes.
"Welcome to the harvest festival." The lead clone removed his straw hat, revealing Tsukishiro's mechanical pupils. "These scythes will reap every civilization's 'possibilities' until the universe is quiet as it was before."
Bai Mei's roots pierced the well's walls, reading data that made his Quantum Body tremble: asleep at the bottom of the Imaginary Well was the Ancient Existence's "Primal Bonsai," its branches assembled from the Cosmic Spines of a hundred thousand pruned universes.
And Horikita's consciousness, reduced to Hawking Radiation, was imprisoned in the bonsai's seventh branch.
"You don't even dare touch the soil yourselves." Bai Mei's venom corroded the clones' scythes. "You only dare use puppets to sow fear."
Tsukishiro's mechanical pupils suddenly burst, and a roar of breaking chains came from the bottom of the well.
Every clone raised his scythe at once. Their blades reflected Bai Mei's ultimate fate: to be forged into a new branch of the bonsai.
The Lantern Keeper's lightless bud shattered in the battle, and translucent vines burst from its core.
The vines pierced Bai Mei's Quantum Body, greedily draining the Mother Code. "I'm sorry, but I need this power... to save the real Horikita."
Bai Mei's stinger shredded the vines, but then he saw fragments of his own memories flowing through their sap. The Lantern Keeper had long since been corrupted by the Ancient Existence; the lightless bud was nothing but a trap meant to ensnare him.
"Runaway variable detected." Compound eyes opened across the walls of the Imaginary Well. "Initiating 'Root Punishment.'"
Bai Mei's roots suddenly grew in reverse, dragging him toward the Primal Bonsai at the bottom of the well.
At the instant he was about to be swallowed by its branches, he caught Horikita's scent—not a fragment in Hawking Radiation, but something real, carrying the smell of soil and blood.
Inside the Primal Bonsai's seventh branch, Horikita's physical body was pinned to a Cosmic Spine. Her pupils had become two miniature black holes, slowly consuming the bonsai's energy.
"You came... too late." Her vocal cords vibrated with the spine's resonance. "I let myself be captured on purpose, just to find this—"
Her hand bones suddenly pierced her chest and tore out the pulsing "Primal Seed."
The seed radiated a power that shared the Mother Code's source, but was far more violent, as if it held the condensed fury of every pruned universe.
"Swallow it." Her spine began to carbonize. "You'll gain the Pruners' authority... and you'll see... our true mother..."
Bai Mei's stinger curled around the seed. He tasted the agony of the universe's birth.
The moment the seed sprouted inside his Quantum Body, Bai Mei saw the ultimate truth: the so-called Ancient Existence was merely a "Primal Gardener" whose experiment had failed.
By pruning her own universe too much, she had caused it to collapse into a seed carrying a self-destruct command. All subsequent civilizations were diseased growths of that seed.
"We're not rebels. We're cancer cells." Horikita's carbonized body fell into the bonsai. "Now it's time to let this mistake... cough... end."
Bai Mei's roots surged, and the Mother Code merged with the Primal Seed. The Imaginary Well began to collapse. Along the branches of the Primal Bonsai, a hundred thousand Cosmic Spines lit up one by one in red—the countdown to the self-destruct sequence.
Tsukishiro's clones formed ranks at the mouth of the well, their Sowing Hoes and scythes crossed into a cage.
Bai Mei's Quantum Body was riddled with cracks, yet it blossomed with luminous petals brighter than any before. Horikita's poems were engraved on each petal, setting off a chain reaction of annihilation in the void.
"You can't destroy us." The clones' scythes pierced his flower's heart. "Every pruned universe is a backup..."
"Then let's try a different kind of pruning." Bai Mei injected his venom into the scythes, and their blades suddenly turned into living snakes that turned on their masters. "Like teaching the tools to hate the hands that wield them."
The Ancient Existence shrieked from the bottom of the well as the Primal Bonsai's self-destruct wave swept across every dimension. The Lantern Keeper's remaining vines seized Horikita's carbonized body and hurled her toward an untainted starfield.
Three months later, Bai Mei awoke in the cradle of a newborn nebula. His Quantum Body had become drifting stardust, every grain a verse from a civilization's poem.
The Lantern Keeper's lightless bud spun at the nebula's core, with Horikita's original gene chain sleeping inside.
"Primal Seed remnants detected." Kiyotaka's phantom appeared in the nebula. "Immediate destruction recommended."
Bai Mei's stardust brushed past the phantom, embedding the final petal in the bud. "No. Let the mistake grow naturally... until it becomes something we can't predict."
At the nebula's edge, a forgotten Civilization Tattoo suddenly began to glow. Beneath the faded totem, new roots were growing wild.
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