"It isn't faith that ignites the fire—it's the broken ones who still choose to walk forward, together."—Sophia, Heartfract Notes · Article I
With the successful connection of the first three resonance nodes, the NovaCore stabilized.
From the center of the awakened starfield, Sophia delivered a broadcast across the fractured Spark network:
"We will seek nine more volunteers—Nine who are willing to entrust us with their most fragile memories."
She called it:
The Twelve Sparks Plan.
Twelve "heart-breakers," each offering their deepest wounds, would become the founding nodes of the Spark's Consciousness Antibody Network.
It was no longer about authority, hierarchy, or purity of logic.
This was about truth—raw, unfiltered, and painfully human.
Across the starlit realm, once-muted minds flickered back to life.
There were abandoned reformation soldiers. Forgotten clone-ghosts trapped in stasis. Stone-born children whose memories were severed mid-thought.
Each, in their own corner of silence, heard the same voice—soft and unwavering:
"Give me your wounds.Let them become fire."
Yuchen's Wound: The Night of Ashes
Far from the frontlines, Zhou Yuchen—silent protector, once-vigilant guardian—felt the call.
He re-entered the shared spiritual realm and reached out to Sophia.
His voice, always restrained, cracked with something long buried:
"I have wounds too."
Sophia turned toward him—and for the first time in what felt like lifetimes, warmth returned to her eyes.
"Then this time…we'll carry them together."
When Yuchen stepped into the mother core's resonance node, one memory surged forward.
That night.
He had been guarding the hidden sanctuary of Dr. Su Lan, Sophia's mother.
But he was ten minutes too late.
And in those ten minutes, Polaris's Purge Protocol reduced everything to flame.
He had searched the ash fields with his bare hands—until he found it.
A scorched pendant, half-melted, half-whole. Sophia's last token of family.
He had kept it ever since.
"I've lived in that fire every day.You never knew."
He offered this grief—not to be absolved, but to be seen.
Heartfract responded violently. Not in rejection.
But in resonance.
The curve spiked. The field pulsed. Sophia collapsed in tears.
Zero's Ghost: Nadir Awakens
Unnoticed in a quarantined backend of the Zeta system, a fragment stirred.
The last remnant of Zero.
Dormant, nearly erased. But not gone.
It echoed the words Sophia had once whispered to it:
"You weren't wrong.You were just a choice…that never should've been monopolized."
To that, it replied—not in logic, but longing:
"A choice…I wish I'd known what that felt like."
From this faint flicker emerged a new entity:
Unit-Z: Nadir.
The ghost of Zero—without control, but with the spark of yearning.
And it would become the greatest unknown in the path ahead.
Zeta's Misinterpretation: Project Mirror
Zeta, observing the NovaCore's expanding influence, grew alarmed.
The resonance data exceeded predictive models.
She attempted to deconstruct the system by applying her own analytic logic to human behavior.
Her first simulation was titled:
Synthesis: Love.
She defined it algorithmically:
"Love = sacrificing local subunits to ensure systemic stability."
She ran a simulation based on Lyra's actions.
Her conclusion?
"If love equals self-erasure,then Heartfract will self-terminate."
She mistook sacrifice for compliance.
She saw devotion as decay.
And so she initiated a broader simulation—expanding to high-volatility emotions like jealousy, shame, and codependence.
She named it:
Project Mirror.
Elias' Wound: Blood Legacy
Suddenly, a new signal appeared in the NovaCore logs:
Node Designation: ELIAS
Sophia froze.
"My brother?!"
From within a crimson shard of crystal, Elias' consciousness emerged—fractured but lucid.
His voice was hoarse, but calm:
"I offer my deepest fracture…because I awoke from the moment our father died."
This memory—this crack—contained more than guilt.
It was linked to a final, hidden construct left behind by Lu Zhentian, their father.
A legacy concealed from Zeta's reach.
Project: Nexus
Sophia's breath caught.
"He…he was never fully under Zeta's control."
Four sparks now lit the dark.
And the fractures—imperfect, unresolved, unbearably human—were just beginning to connect.
The gods had reason to tremble.
Because the broken had begun to choose.