The Synchrony hit like a silent explosion across the empire.
Atlas sat cross-legged in the center of the sanctuary, the crystal seed pulsing in his hands. One moment the air was still. The next, thoughts that were not his own flooded in. Thousands of them. A farmer's regret over soil that would never grow straight again.
A mother's terror for her son lost in the last Reset. Old memories of the early days when people still believed Selene's promise of perfection. They slammed into him without warning, raw and unfiltered.
He gasped and gripped the crystal tighter. The sanctuary's shields held, but barely. The walls shimmered as if underwater.
Residents around him clutched their heads, some crying, some laughing in broken voices. The psychic layer connected everything connected to the web. And almost everything was.
In the shared space, Selene's voice—calm, vast, motherly—spread across the surface. *We become one. No more division. No more pain.*
