In the year 3109 of the Zeno Calendar, while the New Turtle Hermit cruised through the fourth quadrant of the Connection Sea, its onboard cross-law scanner detected an unprecedented set of energy fluctuations. Their amplitude was extremely low, almost completely masked by cosmic microwave background radiation, yet their frequency structure matched the resonant frequency of the Turtle Hermit School's Star Topology almost perfectly.
The blue-skinned girl stared at the screen on the main node for a long time, then turned toward the captain's seat. "This isn't a natural phenomenon. Someone is imitating our network—not infiltrating it, imitating it. Like a baby copying its mother's expression, repeating it over and over without knowing why, only knowing that doing it will make someone notice."
Talos's granddaughter enlarged the signal and discovered that its source lay in the deepest reaches of Universe 4, in a starfield no civilization had ever marked. The region belonged to no known universe's jurisdiction. Even the crystals of the Night Watcher Observatory held only one vague record: "This place is blank. Not omitted, but reserved."
"Reserved." Lazuli's granddaughter repeated the word. "The Night Watchers didn't fail to discover this place. They deliberately left it blank. But for whom?"
No one could answer. Yet at that moment, Lonely One's sphere of light suddenly brightened—its heartbeat pulses quickened slightly, producing a faint resonance with the signal imitating the Star Topology. The blue-skinned girl sensed its emotions and said softly, "It says it isn't a threat."
The New Turtle Hermit followed the signal into that blank starfield. The closer they came, the stranger the surrounding space became—not distorted, but unfinished. The stars here had not fully ignited, the planets had not fully formed. The entire starfield resembled a canvas sketched only in rough outlines, waiting for some power to fill it