Within the Mind-Sea Observation Hub, the alarm over "antimemetic erosion" spread like cold ink, staining the faint sense of relief born from their victory over the Ashen Eradicator.
"Target locked. Civilization designation: 'Echoing Epic.'" The Order's Dawn coordinator's voice carried unprecedented gravity. "This civilization uses 'emotional resonance waves' and 'Information-Structured Sculptures' as its media. Its history and existence are themselves a dynamic, three-dimensional epic. Seventeen standard hours ago, the signal of its deep connection to the network began to weaken. It was not severed, but... 'blurred.'"
A projection unfolded. The mind-image representing the Echoing Epic civilization had once resembled a brilliant nebula of ever-shifting colors and forms. Now its edges were growing faint and transparent. Stranger still, the associated records-even the observers' "descriptive language" for it-were simultaneously becoming impoverished and contradictory.
"Try reinforcing 'Concept Anchoring,'" Lin Ye ordered succinctly.
Across the network, resonant power that strengthened collective memory and definitions surged toward the dimming nebula. Yet the returning feedback was chilling-the anchoring power passed through it like mist, unable to find any solid purchase. The civilization's core "definition" was being stripped away at the cognitive level.
Radiant Stilllight tried projecting a gentle "existence confirmation" inquiry: "Echoing Epic, have you perceived any anomalies?"
After a long silence, an intensely distorted "reply," stripped of all artistic structure and emotional warmth, came through in fragments: "...We... are... what? Records... contradictory... definition invalid... meaning... lost..."
Then communications fell utterly silent. In the projection, the nebula neither exploded nor went dark. Instead, it collapsed into an extremely simple, featureless gray-white geometric point. Then even that point slowly vanished into the background "noise" of the Heart Sea.
It had not been "destroyed." Rather, the unique essence that made it a civilization had been "forgotten," reducing it to a "meaningless existence" that could neither be described nor