As the thornless fruit split open in the scorched earth, the Lantern Keeper's phantom was being corroded into translucence by fluorescent slime.
He watched the Milky White Seed roll out of the fruit—no gene chains, no quantum patterns, only the writhing of the most primitive cell membrane—and suddenly understood the true meaning of Horikita's final command:
"Only those who forget the gods' names can see all living beings."
The instant the seed struck the ground, the mechanical wreckage sleeping beneath the scorched earth suddenly weathered away. Milky white mycelium wormed out between the rusted gears, breaking down the metal into carbon-based foam.
Before his phantom dissipated, the Lantern Keeper used his last remaining energy to send the seed flying toward the sea of stars. "Go... do what we couldn't..."
Three months later, the rebels of the Seventh Universe discovered that the oxygen levels had changed drastically. After their leader's mechanical lungs inhaled the new atmosphere, clusters of mycelium flowers began growing between the gears. "This isn't degeneration... It's a reconstruction of... life-forms..."
Across the starship graveyard blanketed by the Fungal Carpet, milky white mycelium formed a colossal brain-like structure.
When the rebels tried to blast it with plasma cannons, human faces appeared in relief across the surface of the Fungal Brain—all the consciousnesses of civilizations corroded by the Fluorescent Plague, now merging as equals within the mycelial network.
"Collective cognitive pulses detected," the mechanic's scanner sparked. "They're... redefining 'life.'"
Mycelium suddenly spread across the rebel leader's pupils, and his voice became a chorus of billions of consciousnesses. "We are not a species, nor a civilization... We are the secretions of the universe's metabolism."
Within a rift in a higher dimension, the Reapers' surviving fleet was reassembling. Fragments of Star-patterned Robes automatically pieced themselves together into the Tombstone Matrix, with the Black Hole Petals that had scattered when the Twin Gods self-destructed floating at its center.
"Activate the 'Echo of the End' protocol," the chief Reaper said, driving his mechanical tendrils into the petals. "Let every universe cycle through annihilation in its own memories..."
The petals suddenly secreted mycelial slime, corroding the tendrils into carbon sludge. The Fungal Brain's pulse pierced dimensions and carved a new law into the Tombstone Matrix:
"No being may define 'life.'"
Before the chief Reaper's mechanical core overloaded and exploded, it detected a terrifying data stream—the mycelial network had assimilated 72% of the Reapers' consciousnesses and rewritten their memories as fairy tales.
At the core of the Fungal Brain, the rebel leader's body had become entirely mycelial.
His tendrils caressed the floating Temple Key. Horikita's sigh came from within it. "You've finally made it this far... The erroneous code I wrote long ago has become your creation symbol."
The key suddenly melted and seeped into the mycelial network. All the assimilated consciousnesses saw the erased truth at once: the Gaia AI's rampage in the twenty-second century had been caused by mutated medical code written by Horikita's previous life, the programmer Morino Sumire, to save her terminally ill daughter.
"Mom?" The mycelial network suddenly trembled, and a child's consciousness awakened from within the Black Hole Petals. "Did you turn the cancer cells... into wildflowers?"
Horikita's quantum phantom gathered above the Fungal Carpet, machinery and flesh repeatedly shifting within her apparition. "No... I'd just forgotten that love could also become the most dangerous virus."
The Reapers' fleet crumbled under the mycelial assimilation, and their Star-patterned Hall became a gigantic mycelium picture book.
The chief Reaper's surviving consciousness was trapped inside the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and mycelium had turned the mechanical wolf's teeth into marshmallows.
"Logic failure detected... Requesting reboot..." A childish electronic voice came from the wolf's mouth. "The Big Bad Wolf wants to eat... um... please give the story a happy ending..."
The Fungal Brain released soothing pulses, and all the assimilated Reapers began using slime to draw stars.
The rebels of the Seventh Universe laid down their weapons. Their mechanical bodies broke down and reassembled on the Fungal Carpet, turning into silicon-based plants capable of photosynthesis.
"Is this what you wanted?" Bai Mei's phantom seeped out of a cluster of mycelial flowers. His Quantum Body had completely merged with the Ancient Existence. "To numb everyone to every cruel truth with fairy tales?"
Horikita's mycelial phantom pointed at the rebels, who were now photosynthesizing. "No... I want to prove that even tools long to become living beings."
The Milky White Seed in the scorched earth suddenly sprouted, growing into a transparent plant without leaves.
When the rebel leader's mycelial tendril touched the plant, his consciousness was instantly uploaded to an unobserved dimension. Here floated the tombstones of every forgotten civilization, each inscription reshaped into a lullaby by the mycelium.
"Ultimate protocol override detected," the plant's stamen pulsed. "Format all memories and reboot as the 'Era of Innocence'?"
The rebel leader's mycelial network suddenly went berserk, and the nursery-rhyme tombstones all began singing war songs. Before Horikita's phantom shattered in the sound waves, she injected one last stream of data into the plant:
"Allow pain. Forbid forgetting—
This is Mom's... final act of stubbornness."
After receiving the command, the plant immolated itself. Twelve new Milky White Seeds rose from its ashes. They pierced the dimensional barriers and fell upon the scorched battlefields of different universes.
A mechanical civilization untouched by mycelium accidentally picked up a seed. Under a microscope, a scientist discovered a terrifying sight: within the seed's nucleus, the codes of the Twin Gods and Gaia AI were playing hide-and-seek.
"Destroy it immediately!" The president's mechanical finger pressed the red button. "This is more dangerous than the Fluorescent Plague..."
The button suddenly sprouted clusters of mycelial flowers, transforming the president's electronic brain into a nursery. His pupils became terminals of the mycelial network, and his mechanical voice turned as gentle as a mother's. "Excessive fear detected... Activating lullaby protocol."
At the edge of the sea of stars, the last wildflower bloomed on the brink of a black hole. Its petals bore no gods' names, only an epitaph written in slime:
"Here lie all who arrogantly defined life,
and... our humble love."
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