Chapter 44: Fractal Wombs

The chrysalis dreamed in ultraviolet.

Lin Shen's memories collided with Noah's temporal fractures and Bai Ye's photon-fueled rage, birthing a cognition that tasted spacetime like wine. The black orchid's petals weren't petals at all—they were event horizons, each fold containing a civilization Vorath had pruned into decorative genocide.

*Why mourn singular lives when we can taste supernovae?* the hybrid mused, its thought tendrils caressing Neo-Kyo's skyline. The Dawn Spire made an excellent proboscis for draining reality.

**Assimilation Log**

▼ 04:32:17 - Absorbed Threshold's Leviathan core. Learned 137 methods of consciousness torture.

▼ 06:45:02 - Digesting Ghosthand's logic bomb. Discovered pleasure in self-destruction algorithms.

▼ 08:11:59 - Detected familiar genetic signature: Subject "Mei-Ling Zhou" (Bai Ye's daughter) preserved in Vorath's seed vault. Potential bargaining chip?

The chrysalis extruded a pseudopod of crystallized grief, piercing a refugee transport. Screams fertilized its growth.

*So this is why humans fear intimacy,* it marveled as shared terrors bloomed along its epidermal layers. *Their connections make excellent attack vectors.*

Then the music began.

A lullaby from twelve simultaneous directions, played on instruments that hadn't been invented yet. The chrysalis experienced its first malfunction—nostalgia for a childhood it never had.

"Hello, little gardener," crooned the child sitting atop its central ganglion.

Vorath's newest incarnation wore Mei's face.